Most of the voting issues in the U.S. stem from very low(less than 50%) voter turn out. A instant run-off system might help in that voters would be able to vote for third part candidates and still hedge their bets with a vote for a main two party candidate.
The question arises who will those third party candidates be? In a world where a third party candidate might win, will the same interesting third party candidates be allowed to run? In such a world, would we not have the same drab candidates in the third parties as in the two parties? When the status quo is really challenges, do we think that the parties will not be given donations to induce a move towards the tradition corporate values?
scary speculation onWe also must ask about bogus third parties. Right now, the two party system keeps the main parties somewhat in check. The third parties can help form issues in the two main parties, but aren't often going to win a major race. This system keeps certain extremely wealthy individuals from directly buying an election. However, if a third party can win, then what is to stop a very rich consortium of corporation from buying a house seat. Set up a party, fund it, advertise and pay people to vote for you candidate. We are talking like 0.5 million for the primary and a few million for the actual election.scary speculation off
I am certainly not saying this does not happen now, but the party system keeps it in check.
If the Founders felt the common man or woman was too stupid to pick the President, they wouldn't have permitted a popular vote at all. The Founders did think the electorate was ill-equipped to select Senators, and made special provisions in the Constitution for Senators to be elected by State legislatures as opposed to the people.
The founding fathers were concerned with creating a country of thirteen colonies that did not trust each other, did not communicate with each other, and were most of the time attempting to jockey for unequal representation. See the debates over the resulting house/senate compromise. The founding fathers, in fact, creating a system in which the president was specifically not chosen in a popular election.
There is nothing in original constitution that says the election of the president requires a popular vote. The relevant text, Article II, Section 1, Clause 2, is Clause 2: Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.
In other words, the state can pretty much choose electors as they wish, and further text indicates that electors can vote as they wish. Furthermore, it is argued that the populous would not even have to be aware of a presidential candidate. The electors would choose the best man for the job.
This system rapidly evolved to a system of somewhat popular vote, in which most of the electors were chosen by the people, and the electors would probably vote for a specific candidate. By the mid 19th century the few people who were allowed to vote in general were also allowed to vote on the president.
That is an interesting point. In many cities, music and movie promoters litter sides of buildings with handbills. This is not to mention the 'work at home' signs. These signs are often posted by contracters several levels away from the corporate office.
I think the differnce is, in this case, is that microsoft was directly linked to the trash. If they would have gone through the traditional subversion, they may have gotten away with it.
Obscurity is always a part security. When most speak of 'security through obscurity' they are generally speaking of obscurity being the primary part of security. The mantra you speak of does not deny obscurity, it merely states that the number of required secrets should be kept to a minimum. Which makes sense because secrets are very hard to keep.
The number of casual secrets, on the other hand, can be as many as one wants. One does not need to publish the algorithm, routers, OS, or directory structure one uses on one's network, and often it is a good idea to keep these 'secret'. The issue that 'security through obscurity' addreses is whether these secrets will compromise security. Ideally they should not.
Not sure what the comparison is. The teachers unions spend 40% more that MS. Did the union start spending money in response to specific criminal charge. Did the union increase lobby money when it found guilty of anti-competitive behavior. While the union certainly lobbies to change the laws, I do not know of any case where the union lobbied to change the laws for crimes it had already been convicted of.
If your point is that the workers of American might have as much power as the corporations and other firms that employ them, you may be correct. However, I do not see how this is a bad thing, especially when we consider that nearly every firm benefits from having an educated populous.
Some form of headsets are a good idea. They require less attention to the phone and allow the driver to simply talk without worrying about holding the phone up. However, even those cheap $20 ones work just fine for this purpose.
There have been several posts indicating that headsets do not significantly increase the safety of using cell phones while driving. So as not to get into an argument about a particular study funded by the cell phone companies, lets us just say that the preponderance of evidence suggests that talking on the phone is the danger, and not holding the cell phone.
I would further say that the 'safe' headset myth is propagated by companies that wish to sell headsets. I have seen advertisements in several media that specifically reference this myth in an effort to lure the unwary customer into purchasing a headset. While I believe that headsets are useful, for all phones in fact, I also believe that such sales tactics are deceitful.
Such sales tactics are irresponsible. If a cell phone is used sparingly while driving, it probably makes no difference if a head set is used or not. The cell phone will not be used in excessively dangerous situations, and not for excessively long periods of time. However, if a headset is used, one or two things will happen. First, the headset will be worn at all times. In this case it is much easier to answer a call , hold long conversations and fall into the distracted state that is the major danger. In the second case, the head set will be put on when the driver answers a call. Putting on a head is not a zero-attention task. In is arguable more complicated than just answering a phone without a headset. As such, putting on a head set while driving is likely less desirable than just using the phone without a headset.
First, one wonders why this article did not link to real, albeit limited, information on the Tablet PC.
Even from this page we learn amazingly little about this device. We see that the tablet runs Windows XP with certain enhancements. However, the page also tells us that [b]ecause of the special hardware features of a Tablet PC, the operating system cannot be purchased separately for installation on any PC. Why can't we buy the OS. Is it that MS sees the wisdom of Apple's business model of selling sexy mostly closed boxes. Is MS upset that some evil people no longer pay a tribute on every processor, and is introducing this new model to make sure that major vendors can no longer sell naked PCs. More importantly, will we be able to purchase a major upgrade for XP on the tablet PC or will we need buy a new Tablet PC.
As far as I can tell, this is just a large screen portable with some handwriting recognition hacked on top of XP. They say it will run all XP programs, but they also say that it requires as special development kit. One wonders if applications will in fact run on the device, or will we need to wait a year for developers to write application that will take advantage of this "powerful platform."
In any case, a content free post for a content free press release.
Hey, Corporate Manager, want to increase employee productivity by at least 35% across the board? Ensure that everyone's computer monitor is viewable from the hallway outside his/her office or cube.
Most of the advertisements for employees I have seen lately ask for self-starters who can work without supervision. I suspect hiring managers are asking for these qualifications because they are looking for proffesionals who know how to get work done. Likewise, if I am hired in a position where I am to mostly supervise myself, i expect enough trust to actually allow me to supervise myself. If I fail, fire me, but don't treat me like a child when you hired an adult. BTW, I have been out of college for almost 10 years, and have set up and programmed computer for almost 20.
The point is that if you have employees that, as you say, would increase productivity 35% if everyone could see their monitors, fire them. They are not proffesional. They are children and need to have jobs suitable for children. Hire proffesional that understand the work and can develop efficient methods to complete the work. On the other hand, as i have noticed as late, companies tend to budget for children rather than proffesionals.
The other point is that some people simply cannot work with someone looking over their shoulder. I can work with all sorts of distractions, but not someone staring at me. For instance, I can do write and develop in coffee houses, but often I do better work in a corner. To the point, a professional knows how he or she works best, and should be allowed to do it.
This is probably the most fair thing the RIAA has done. As has been said many times already, if you want to share music, look at porn, or run you own business, buy your own high speed connection. The connection is not all that expensive. By attacking the RIAA on this, we are allowing ourselves to be distracted from the larger fight.
Why I believe this is true. There is much ranting in press and/., ranting that I believe is fair, about executives treating company resources as their personal possessions. So I pose this question. Why is it wrong for an executive to borrow a plane to take his family on a trip and right for an employee to use the broadband connection to share music. Before you answer that questions think of the opportunities cost s in both situations and the relative compensations of the people in question.
In this post dot-com, post Enron world, accountability rules. If half a companies broadband is used for non-business related activity, it is valid to ask why. Music and porn sharing is also raises liability issue of a safe workplace. And, though downloading music on your personal account may not be stealing, downloading music on an account primarily used for profit is much more likely to be stealing.
So, lets not send letter to the RIAA about this. Lets concentrate on the characterizing the RIAA as overgrown script kiddies and general all around mal-contents. Again, if you want to share music, buy the connection. It seems we have much more power when we pit the financial interests of the telcos, who want to sell us broadband, against the financial interests of the music pushers, who want us sell up plastic disks. Both know on which side their bread is buttered.
I largely agreee with you , but No more wondering if your resume is going to display correctly in Microsoft Word
Perhaps this is true with Office X, but I have nothing but trouble with people who cannot read my Word 98 files. Often, if I save it as word 6.0/95 people can read it, but not always.
I think that Mac OS x rocks, and having MS office for it is important, but claiming that Office for Mac and Office for Windows has totally compatible file formats is, in practice, untrue. Such statements give MS defense that it is not a Monopoly, as well as sets unreasonable standards for openoffice.org.
Actually, the small ISPs had a hard time keeping up service because their down stream providers, often a telco, would 'accidently' cut the cable, and then take a couple weeks to fix it. The fact that the small ISP was ''stealing customers from the telco had nothing to do with the delay in repair. (circa 1996)
So we have mid size ISPs that had enough customers so they could afford multiple feeds, uptime agreements, and, in the worst case, customers could be enticed to complain to the telco. However, it was hard to find enough customer who wanted quality reliable internet access, so the mid-size ISP was not doing so well and had to cut prices to compete with AOL. Service suffers and the quality is now equivelent to the telco(circa 1999).
At least with DSL the national span of good ISPs gives then some power to fight the cable and telco, but few people are willing to pay the 50% extra for an independent ISP, even though this is the best way for us, as customers, to protect our rights.
First, I think this advertising reeks of lame attempt of mainstream corporation attempts to be edgy. The result is uninteresting, derivative, and insulting.
Speaking of derivative, is Ben Edlund getting paid for this, or do you think he will sue. The 'butterfly' is so clearly a fusion of the The Tick and Arthur.
Land Line telephone companies are really shooting themselves in the foot, at least for residential customers. It is really getting to the point where having a land line for voice communications is actually more expensive and complicated than a cell phone. The kicker of course is the secret 'long distance' toll that the telephone company charges without any warning. No one really knows where the intrastate long distance border is, the telephone company does not warn you that it is a long distance call, and now they want to charge toll on cell phones that may be next door!
For instance, in Texas basic phone service is around $20 a month. That gets you local calls in a local metropolitan area(not the greater metropolitan area), or, if you are in a rural area, perhaps a 10-15 mile radius. If you call outside that small area, you are charged a long distance toll that can easily be twice the interstate long distance toll. You can avoid this toll for the small fee of around $30 a month. If you want the other services, like caller ID, voice mail, etc, that will cost $40. The total, with taxes, is well over $100.
Why again do we have a residential land line? For less than $100 I can get plenty minutes, all the services, plus free long national long distance on my cell phone. I like having a land line so I can have a place that telemarketers and other annoying persons can call, not to mention the DSL. That is sort of worth $25 a month. But $30 more a month to avoid a toll for calling next door. That is crazy.
I was not refuting the article. I was refuting argument made against the article in other posts. If you read the previous paragraph to the one you quoted, you will notice is stated two argument made against the articles, one of which I used real data to refute.
As I stated, I have not looked at the article enough to know whether it is good research. On the other hand, I know that many of the post are knee jerk reactions by Truth knowers rather than objective seekers of physical law.
In sales, it is deceptive to imply a specific product and then deliver a similar but different product. That is why we get so upset at copy protected CDs.
Beyond that, for the foreseeable future, if you are selling music on CDR or CDRW, you pretty much have to make clear that it is a CDR. I have seen a couple cases of local artists selling a CDR disk as a CD. The potential fan then takes the disk home, finds it won't play on his or her CD, and, quite reasonable, get very upset. The band has now potentially lost a fan.
The are a lot of CD players out there that won't play CDR disks. For instance, my 1999 stock car stereo often will not play CDR perfectly. I would not buy a CDR recording, and not just because of CD player issue. The disks are also much less durable. If I got a CDR on an order that stated the disk was a CD, I would demand a refund for the product and shipping, and probably report the seller to the appropriate authorities.
I would also expect sellers that are encoding thier must as MP3 on the CDR to mention that as well.
I think we should give credit where credit is due. The DMA working with congress on anti-spam legislation is a good thing. While verified opt-in lists would be best, and, for the most part legitimate companies already do this, we know that many DMA members are not really legitimate and therefore such a list is would be against the business model. Nevertheless a national rule would at least set a baseline that will facilitate future discussion.
What is good news, though falls under 'I will believe it when I see it' is headers that are not forged. To be effective, this will have to go beyond a valid from and return address. It will have include all headers, including all routing information. Such information will be critical if a user is not promptly removed from a list after a request. We have to be able to notify the upstream provider that the company is not following the rules.
The next question to ask is if forged headers are bad, then why is anonymous telephone numbers for telemarketers good. Mind you, I think it is a good thing because I ignore all anonymous phone calls(none of my friends or contacts are so cowardly as to hide from me), but I wonder why anyone would think a business that needs to hide behind an anonymous phone number would be slightly legitimate?
I would second this. It seems to me that a TiVo type system to routinely record shows works well for short term storage. If something needs to be archieved, the show could be quickly and reliable written to a CDR. I haver seen 32X CDR around the net for as low as $15/hundred. Reusing a CD-RW might be cheaper, but it also probably slower.
I would also be concerned about reliability if something were written to CD-R or RW. It seems like the media, unlike a hard disk, does not fail gracefully if a bit of the disk is bad.
The was an reprint of an essay a while back in the Aps News[ob. grat. link, members only] speaking of arguments between science and pseudoscience, and how the science will always lose because pseudo-science is trying to show that a belief cannot be disproven while the scientist is trying to prove that one particular side of an argument has more repeatably testable research, both of which, in many cases, is true. However, the scientist will always be at a disadvatage due to his or her training. The article concentrates on evolution and UFOs, neither of which are really 'proven' one way or another, even though there is a general scientific consensus on both.
The issue, of course, boils down to the fact that the logic methodology used in science pretty much precludes anything from being proven, in the sense that one can prove the pythagorean theory. Therefore, if one starts with truth, there is no hope that the relative facts of physical law will change your view. The current classic example is smoking. Reputable scientists say that the preponderance of evidence says that smoking is very dangerous, and at least significantly contributes to an increase in cancer, where the pseudo-scientist says nothing is proven and based on the research no action can be taken. Once again, all science can do is try find a very likely theory to match physical observable to within an acceptable degree of uncertainty.
The situations gets more complicated when science hits the popular press. Mistakes are made in quotes, ideas, statements of theory, and perhaps even in the original logic. Respectable scientists admit the flaws, and investigate to see if the problems are fundamental enough to damage the theory or just miscommunications. Pseudo-scientist, who already know the truth, grab on to these inconsistent data as proof that not only the researcher, but his family, university, sponsors, and anyone else who might come to his or her support is incompetent and should be flogged.
So not to be offtopic, this report has top level problems. A statistical error is not reported. The exact definitions of terms and methodology is not known. Does it make the research invalid? Is it in fact a 'bullshit report.. that make absolutely no sense and assume a static technology level.' With the infomation availablem, it is hard to say. People also site local examples to refute the paper, but the land area of the earth is over 57 million square miles, while the size of Nevada 100 thousand square mile. One could have 100 completely empty areas the size of Nevada and still not invalidate. And remember, those roads you drive on in Nevada, and the desert you walk on to take a leak, as well as much other 'undeveloped' land is affected by human habitation.
Notice how I refute an argument with observables instead of insults and circular arguments? The fact that a lazy worker want a year to be shorter, or a fascist manager wants a year to be longer, would not mean a whit to the observable that it take right about 365 days for the eartg to orbit the sun.
People who believe that they can cut costs in half without any reduction in quality are, in general, foolish. Such coincidences can happen with changes in technology, but not purely as a matter of process or location. However, that is not, as a rule, the what is expected. The expectation is that costs are cut 50% and quality is still acceptable.
For instance, I have a couple halogen lamps. They are cheap, are falling apart, but they still light my rooms.I could have spent more, but I didn't have the extra income to pay for quality. I would not, as some people, claim that I got a good deal on a quality product, or laugh at people who wasted money on the quality product, but merely say I bought at an appropriate quality level for my needs.
I wish people had money to purchase excessively quality products. I might still have a fun job. However, the reality is that if something is 75% cheaper, it may make a lot of sense to set up a process to routinely RMA defective products every 9-12 months.
In 1975, how many people would rather take a sturdy, well-engineered Chevrolet than a quickly-slapped-together Honda?
I don't know about 1975, but in 1992 my 1979 honda was just reaching the end of it's life. People who were buying U.S. cars over japanese cars in the late 70's were doing it soley out of habit or dedication, not objective prinicples like quality. A Chevrolet made have been sturdy, but the warrenty and objective reliability show a distinct lack of engineering.
I am disappointed that this program expires in December. If I were a teacher and wanted to buy a Mac, it would make the purchase much more attractive if I were given free upgrades for the life of the machine.
As many people note, Macintoshes are not cheap machines, and may be out of the price range of the average teacher(and do not tell me it is out the price range of all or most teachers, because I know that that statement is false). Apple is also losing market share in the education market mostly due to better marketing by Dell. By offering teachers free OS, they reduce future uncertainty over cost, give then a reliable simple OS, and free them from the MS licensing nightmare.
If Apple were to give away the OS to teachers, that would help a lot, and would not cost them a lot. An apple will generally last through 2 to 3 major upgrade cycles, which may be a couple hundred dollars lost to Apple. That seems a small price to help convince millions of teachers to make their next computer a Mac.
BTW, one issue sometimes brought up but not often fully discussed is the licensing of software to schools by MS. For many people the cost of the computer is only a small part of the total IT cost. Buying software can easily get to be 2/3 of the cost over the life of the machine. Part of the reason that MS is gung ho to force schools to license MS software is so that the software will appear free to the end user, thus artificially reducing the cost of the wintel machine, and increasing the number of student who will buy wintel machines. Although MS also licenses software it makes for the Mac, there is far more 'free' software available for the PC. I have known several people who would have and should have bought Macs, but bought Wintel machines because of the 'free' software.
As far as I know, there is not 'upgrade' to jaq. Everyone has to foot the $130 bill for the OS. It does not appear that Appled is asking for any money from the schools. They only want proof you are a teacher and a school delivery address.
I do not think you got WinXP and extras for free. Your school likely paid a very significant licensing fee for the right to distrubute the software to all faculty, staff, and students. This fee was in turn paid by you through fees, and, if a public institution, through public taxes. I would say you got an incredible deal, but it was far from free.
Or, as has been mentioned here before, the school was forced to license the software for everyone to avoid the dreaded BSA audit.
Slashdot Mirror
The question arises who will those third party candidates be? In a world where a third party candidate might win, will the same interesting third party candidates be allowed to run? In such a world, would we not have the same drab candidates in the third parties as in the two parties? When the status quo is really challenges, do we think that the parties will not be given donations to induce a move towards the tradition corporate values?
scary speculation onWe also must ask about bogus third parties. Right now, the two party system keeps the main parties somewhat in check. The third parties can help form issues in the two main parties, but aren't often going to win a major race. This system keeps certain extremely wealthy individuals from directly buying an election. However, if a third party can win, then what is to stop a very rich consortium of corporation from buying a house seat. Set up a party, fund it, advertise and pay people to vote for you candidate. We are talking like 0.5 million for the primary and a few million for the actual election.scary speculation off
I am certainly not saying this does not happen now, but the party system keeps it in check.
The founding fathers were concerned with creating a country of thirteen colonies that did not trust each other, did not communicate with each other, and were most of the time attempting to jockey for unequal representation. See the debates over the resulting house/senate compromise. The founding fathers, in fact, creating a system in which the president was specifically not chosen in a popular election.
There is nothing in original constitution that says the election of the president requires a popular vote. The relevant text, Article II, Section 1, Clause 2, is
Clause 2: Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.
In other words, the state can pretty much choose electors as they wish, and further text indicates that electors can vote as they wish. Furthermore, it is argued that the populous would not even have to be aware of a presidential candidate. The electors would choose the best man for the job.
This system rapidly evolved to a system of somewhat popular vote, in which most of the electors were chosen by the people, and the electors would probably vote for a specific candidate. By the mid 19th century the few people who were allowed to vote in general were also allowed to vote on the president.
Jusy my two cents.
So, did ebay make this reimbursement as a donation or refund? In other words, did they admit guilt, or make a tax deductable gifte?
I think the differnce is, in this case, is that microsoft was directly linked to the trash. If they would have gone through the traditional subversion, they may have gotten away with it.
The number of casual secrets, on the other hand, can be as many as one wants. One does not need to publish the algorithm, routers, OS, or directory structure one uses on one's network, and often it is a good idea to keep these 'secret'. The issue that 'security through obscurity' addreses is whether these secrets will compromise security. Ideally they should not.
If your point is that the workers of American might have as much power as the corporations and other firms that employ them, you may be correct. However, I do not see how this is a bad thing, especially when we consider that nearly every firm benefits from having an educated populous.
There have been several posts indicating that headsets do not significantly increase the safety of using cell phones while driving. So as not to get into an argument about a particular study funded by the cell phone companies, lets us just say that the preponderance of evidence suggests that talking on the phone is the danger, and not holding the cell phone.
I would further say that the 'safe' headset myth is propagated by companies that wish to sell headsets. I have seen advertisements in several media that specifically reference this myth in an effort to lure the unwary customer into purchasing a headset. While I believe that headsets are useful, for all phones in fact, I also believe that such sales tactics are deceitful.
Such sales tactics are irresponsible. If a cell phone is used sparingly while driving, it probably makes no difference if a head set is used or not. The cell phone will not be used in excessively dangerous situations, and not for excessively long periods of time. However, if a headset is used, one or two things will happen. First, the headset will be worn at all times. In this case it is much easier to answer a call , hold long conversations and fall into the distracted state that is the major danger. In the second case, the head set will be put on when the driver answers a call. Putting on a head is not a zero-attention task. In is arguable more complicated than just answering a phone without a headset. As such, putting on a head set while driving is likely less desirable than just using the phone without a headset.
Even from this page we learn amazingly little about this device. We see that the tablet runs Windows XP with certain enhancements. However, the page also tells us that [b]ecause of the special hardware features of a Tablet PC, the operating system cannot be purchased separately for installation on any PC. Why can't we buy the OS. Is it that MS sees the wisdom of Apple's business model of selling sexy mostly closed boxes. Is MS upset that some evil people no longer pay a tribute on every processor, and is introducing this new model to make sure that major vendors can no longer sell naked PCs. More importantly, will we be able to purchase a major upgrade for XP on the tablet PC or will we need buy a new Tablet PC.
As far as I can tell, this is just a large screen portable with some handwriting recognition hacked on top of XP. They say it will run all XP programs, but they also say that it requires as special development kit. One wonders if applications will in fact run on the device, or will we need to wait a year for developers to write application that will take advantage of this "powerful platform."
In any case, a content free post for a content free press release.
Most of the advertisements for employees I have seen lately ask for self-starters who can work without supervision. I suspect hiring managers are asking for these qualifications because they are looking for proffesionals who know how to get work done. Likewise, if I am hired in a position where I am to mostly supervise myself, i expect enough trust to actually allow me to supervise myself. If I fail, fire me, but don't treat me like a child when you hired an adult. BTW, I have been out of college for almost 10 years, and have set up and programmed computer for almost 20.
The point is that if you have employees that, as you say, would increase productivity 35% if everyone could see their monitors, fire them. They are not proffesional. They are children and need to have jobs suitable for children. Hire proffesional that understand the work and can develop efficient methods to complete the work. On the other hand, as i have noticed as late, companies tend to budget for children rather than proffesionals.
The other point is that some people simply cannot work with someone looking over their shoulder. I can work with all sorts of distractions, but not someone staring at me. For instance, I can do write and develop in coffee houses, but often I do better work in a corner. To the point, a professional knows how he or she works best, and should be allowed to do it.
Why I believe this is true. There is much ranting in press and /., ranting that I believe is fair, about executives treating company resources as their personal possessions. So I pose this question. Why is it wrong for an executive to borrow a plane to take his family on a trip and right for an employee to use the broadband connection to share music. Before you answer that questions think of the opportunities cost s in both situations and the relative compensations of the people in question.
In this post dot-com, post Enron world, accountability rules. If half a companies broadband is used for non-business related activity, it is valid to ask why. Music and porn sharing is also raises liability issue of a safe workplace. And, though downloading music on your personal account may not be stealing, downloading music on an account primarily used for profit is much more likely to be stealing.
So, lets not send letter to the RIAA about this. Lets concentrate on the characterizing the RIAA as overgrown script kiddies and general all around mal-contents. Again, if you want to share music, buy the connection. It seems we have much more power when we pit the financial interests of the telcos, who want to sell us broadband, against the financial interests of the music pushers, who want us sell up plastic disks. Both know on which side their bread is buttered.
No more wondering if your resume is going to display correctly in Microsoft Word
Perhaps this is true with Office X, but I have nothing but trouble with people who cannot read my Word 98 files. Often, if I save it as word 6.0/95 people can read it, but not always.
I think that Mac OS x rocks, and having MS office for it is important, but claiming that Office for Mac and Office for Windows has totally compatible file formats is, in practice, untrue. Such statements give MS defense that it is not a Monopoly, as well as sets unreasonable standards for openoffice.org.
So we have mid size ISPs that had enough customers so they could afford multiple feeds, uptime agreements, and, in the worst case, customers could be enticed to complain to the telco. However, it was hard to find enough customer who wanted quality reliable internet access, so the mid-size ISP was not doing so well and had to cut prices to compete with AOL. Service suffers and the quality is now equivelent to the telco(circa 1999).
At least with DSL the national span of good ISPs gives then some power to fight the cable and telco, but few people are willing to pay the 50% extra for an independent ISP, even though this is the best way for us, as customers, to protect our rights.
-Red Dwarf
But then this is mostly because most of us cannot reach our own genetalia and must find a kind person to do it for us.
Speaking of derivative, is Ben Edlund getting paid for this, or do you think he will sue. The 'butterfly' is so clearly a fusion of the The Tick and Arthur.
For instance, in Texas basic phone service is around $20 a month. That gets you local calls in a local metropolitan area(not the greater metropolitan area), or, if you are in a rural area, perhaps a 10-15 mile radius. If you call outside that small area, you are charged a long distance toll that can easily be twice the interstate long distance toll. You can avoid this toll for the small fee of around $30 a month. If you want the other services, like caller ID, voice mail, etc, that will cost $40. The total, with taxes, is well over $100.
Why again do we have a residential land line? For less than $100 I can get plenty minutes, all the services, plus free long national long distance on my cell phone. I like having a land line so I can have a place that telemarketers and other annoying persons can call, not to mention the DSL. That is sort of worth $25 a month. But $30 more a month to avoid a toll for calling next door. That is crazy.
As I stated, I have not looked at the article enough to know whether it is good research. On the other hand, I know that many of the post are knee jerk reactions by Truth knowers rather than objective seekers of physical law.
I apologize if the point of the post was unclear.
Beyond that, for the foreseeable future, if you are selling music on CDR or CDRW, you pretty much have to make clear that it is a CDR. I have seen a couple cases of local artists selling a CDR disk as a CD. The potential fan then takes the disk home, finds it won't play on his or her CD, and, quite reasonable, get very upset. The band has now potentially lost a fan.
The are a lot of CD players out there that won't play CDR disks. For instance, my 1999 stock car stereo often will not play CDR perfectly. I would not buy a CDR recording, and not just because of CD player issue. The disks are also much less durable. If I got a CDR on an order that stated the disk was a CD, I would demand a refund for the product and shipping, and probably report the seller to the appropriate authorities.
I would also expect sellers that are encoding thier must as MP3 on the CDR to mention that as well.
Since when did the doctor find anything easily in the Tardis. It seems that every time we see him actually out of the control room, he gets lost.
What is good news, though falls under 'I will believe it when I see it' is headers that are not forged. To be effective, this will have to go beyond a valid from and return address. It will have include all headers, including all routing information. Such information will be critical if a user is not promptly removed from a list after a request. We have to be able to notify the upstream provider that the company is not following the rules.
The next question to ask is if forged headers are bad, then why is anonymous telephone numbers for telemarketers good. Mind you, I think it is a good thing because I ignore all anonymous phone calls(none of my friends or contacts are so cowardly as to hide from me), but I wonder why anyone would think a business that needs to hide behind an anonymous phone number would be slightly legitimate?
I would also be concerned about reliability if something were written to CD-R or RW. It seems like the media, unlike a hard disk, does not fail gracefully if a bit of the disk is bad.
The issue, of course, boils down to the fact that the logic methodology used in science pretty much precludes anything from being proven, in the sense that one can prove the pythagorean theory. Therefore, if one starts with truth, there is no hope that the relative facts of physical law will change your view. The current classic example is smoking. Reputable scientists say that the preponderance of evidence says that smoking is very dangerous, and at least significantly contributes to an increase in cancer, where the pseudo-scientist says nothing is proven and based on the research no action can be taken. Once again, all science can do is try find a very likely theory to match physical observable to within an acceptable degree of uncertainty.
The situations gets more complicated when science hits the popular press. Mistakes are made in quotes, ideas, statements of theory, and perhaps even in the original logic. Respectable scientists admit the flaws, and investigate to see if the problems are fundamental enough to damage the theory or just miscommunications. Pseudo-scientist, who already know the truth, grab on to these inconsistent data as proof that not only the researcher, but his family, university, sponsors, and anyone else who might come to his or her support is incompetent and should be flogged.
So not to be offtopic, this report has top level problems. A statistical error is not reported. The exact definitions of terms and methodology is not known. Does it make the research invalid? Is it in fact a 'bullshit report.. that make absolutely no sense and assume a static technology level.' With the infomation availablem, it is hard to say. People also site local examples to refute the paper, but the land area of the earth is over 57 million square miles, while the size of Nevada 100 thousand square mile. One could have 100 completely empty areas the size of Nevada and still not invalidate. And remember, those roads you drive on in Nevada, and the desert you walk on to take a leak, as well as much other 'undeveloped' land is affected by human habitation.
Notice how I refute an argument with observables instead of insults and circular arguments? The fact that a lazy worker want a year to be shorter, or a fascist manager wants a year to be longer, would not mean a whit to the observable that it take right about 365 days for the eartg to orbit the sun.
For instance, I have a couple halogen lamps. They are cheap, are falling apart, but they still light my rooms.I could have spent more, but I didn't have the extra income to pay for quality. I would not, as some people, claim that I got a good deal on a quality product, or laugh at people who wasted money on the quality product, but merely say I bought at an appropriate quality level for my needs.
I wish people had money to purchase excessively quality products. I might still have a fun job. However, the reality is that if something is 75% cheaper, it may make a lot of sense to set up a process to routinely RMA defective products every 9-12 months.
I don't know about 1975, but in 1992 my 1979 honda was just reaching the end of it's life. People who were buying U.S. cars over japanese cars in the late 70's were doing it soley out of habit or dedication, not objective prinicples like quality. A Chevrolet made have been sturdy, but the warrenty and objective reliability show a distinct lack of engineering.
As many people note, Macintoshes are not cheap machines, and may be out of the price range of the average teacher(and do not tell me it is out the price range of all or most teachers, because I know that that statement is false). Apple is also losing market share in the education market mostly due to better marketing by Dell. By offering teachers free OS, they reduce future uncertainty over cost, give then a reliable simple OS, and free them from the MS licensing nightmare.
If Apple were to give away the OS to teachers, that would help a lot, and would not cost them a lot. An apple will generally last through 2 to 3 major upgrade cycles, which may be a couple hundred dollars lost to Apple. That seems a small price to help convince millions of teachers to make their next computer a Mac.
BTW, one issue sometimes brought up but not often fully discussed is the licensing of software to schools by MS. For many people the cost of the computer is only a small part of the total IT cost. Buying software can easily get to be 2/3 of the cost over the life of the machine. Part of the reason that MS is gung ho to force schools to license MS software is so that the software will appear free to the end user, thus artificially reducing the cost of the wintel machine, and increasing the number of student who will buy wintel machines. Although MS also licenses software it makes for the Mac, there is far more 'free' software available for the PC. I have known several people who would have and should have bought Macs, but bought Wintel machines because of the 'free' software.
I do not think you got WinXP and extras for free. Your school likely paid a very significant licensing fee for the right to distrubute the software to all faculty, staff, and students. This fee was in turn paid by you through fees, and, if a public institution, through public taxes. I would say you got an incredible deal, but it was far from free.
Or, as has been mentioned here before, the school was forced to license the software for everyone to avoid the dreaded BSA audit.