What you may be talking about is free speech. If one is going to restrict free speech, one has to have an overriding reason. The classic example is yelling fire in a movie theatre.
This logic, however, has no application in a public performance. In such a venue a person can be removed for any reason. Often, if that person is disruptive a refund is not even needed. Most patrons are quite happy when a disruptive person is removed.
Furthermore, The State can pass laws that promote the cooperation of it's citizens and prevent the tyranny of the few that would take advantage of the courtesy of the many. In the U.S. this could mean one person one vote, or limiting financial donations to public campaigns. It can be argued that the people who abuse their cell phones is a tyranny of the few.
I generally do not reply to myself, but I realize that I lost my train of thought about halfway through.
The main thing I was trying to point out is this fight is only partially about the out dated business model of television and the need for TV to adapt or die. The case is also only partially about copyrights and the ability of the view to time and space shift programming.
A very large component, IMHO, is the use of TV by the American Corporation. Although non-advertising TV may be possible, it isn't just a matter of everyone saying they will pay $100 a month to support the medium. TV is just to valuable an advertising stream. The corporation is not going let that stream go without a big fight.
There are two examples. One is the desire of hard liquor to get back on the air. Even though print advertising and sponsorship is very effective, and very cheap, it does not allow those companies to create the unified image of TV advertising.
Second is the defunding of PBS. This allowed advertisers to reach a very difficult demographic. PBS cost the government very little money. However, the existence of such an unreachable demographic was a serious thorn in the US Corporation business model. Therefore a great deal of money was spent to remove the funding.
Although many have whined about how television can't support itself without ads, and what will happen to all those unemployed people if there was no television, and the predictable response that the purpose of legislation is not to prop up failed business models, all these miss the point.
The purpose of television is the advertising. If there was no advertising, there would be no commercial need for TV in the US, not even PBS.
American Corporations depends upon broadcast television to market their product and brand their trade and service marks. TV has been very kind to the U.S. corporation, allowing mega corporations such as McDonalds, WalMart, and Coca Cola to create a unified vision of their corporation in the public mind, one that often has little to do with reality. Broadcast television has, in effect, given the corporation a means to brainwash entire generations.
To the U.S. Corporation an end of television commercials means an end of a powerful marketing technique. If McDonalds is not allowed to brainwash the kids to annoy their parent for a Kids' Meal, what is to stop the consumer from just going to the restaurant next door, or, god forbid, actually cook a nutritious meal? If WalMart is not allowed to push the fallacy that they provide the best value, what is to stop the consumer from going to a store where the workers are actually paid for the hours worked? If Coca-Cola did not constantly equate itself with the American Way, would there be any reason for us not buy Shasta?
Some may think I am exaggerating, but I am not. TV has been critical in the evolution of the American Corporation and the mass adoption of new products. For instance, when instant coffee first came out, it was not widely accepted. Most women at the time were homemakers, and making real coffee for their husbands was considered part of their duty. Instant Coffee producers launched a large scale campaign to equate instant coffee to loving one's husband, by way of having more time to be with him. We see the same thing in recent paper plate commercial aimed at the single mom. By using paper plates, the single mom has more time to spend with her kids, and therefore only a mom who did not love her kids would not use paper plates. Every few minutes on kids' shows, McDonalds equates going to their restaurants with loving your kids.
So, now perhaps we can stop all this silly talk about the quality of TV, or that maybe we can just start paying for TV. The sole purpose of a television program is to deliver a large number of a certain demographic to an advertiser. Nothing less, nothing more. Advertisers know how important this is, and will often pay inflated prices to insure their influences. This is particularly true for certain groups such as young men. This, by the way, explains why male professional sports do so well.. Such sports are also a vehicle to deliver a demographic to the advertiser. The value of such entertainment to us as consumers is far less than the value to the advertiser. We would unlikely to be willing to directly pay that kind of money.
The effect of price wars really depends on the industry. It the case of LCD display panels, I can only see it as good.
In my limited experience, I have never seen the sale price go below the base cost to manufacture that product, that is, the cost to run it through the assembly line, package it, and ship it out. What will happen, however, is that the market may not support the inclusion of research, management, and other ancillary costs. Now, if the company is well run, there will be other, generally more advance products, that can be sold to support the ancillary costs, and of course profits.
I believe this relates directly to the LCD market. It should be possible for companies to aggressively price smaller LCD monitor (less that 17"), while shifting the other cost to the bigger sizes. In fact, by keeping price of the smaller sizes unnecessarily high they limit the number of consumer who are going to shift from CRT to LCD technology, thus limiting the growth of future demand.
The LCD manufacturers are further shooting themselves in the foot by allowing the CRT manufacturer to rapidly increases the minimum acceptable monitor size, right now about 19" for about $200. The CRT manufacturers clearly understand how to use aggressive prices to keep a market. I hope the LCD manufacturers, which is rapidly becoming a very mature market, have a price war so they can learn how use such pricing to take market share.
Ok,seriously, so what. I think devices such as this need to be looked at beyond the fear marketing.
First, let's look at the lock. From the FAQ ...lock the Locator on the wearer's wrist to ensure that it won't get lost. Simply press the middle button on the Locator. The subscriber can also request that the device be unlocked remotely, either on the Internet or over any phone. If unlocked, the unit will automatically lock during an emergency (either wearer or subscriber initiated).
This implies that not only can the child unlock it, but also anyone with the code can unlock it. Once unlocked, the unit can be removed and lost. Kids fidgit. Kids remove clothes and jewelry from thier body, even without thinking about it. Kids take off cool stuff to show to thier mates. The device will be misplaced.
Next, from the article (ad copy?), here is the intended application "Let's say you have a seven-year-old who walks to school alone and they felt in danger. They could push one button on the watch and lock the device," said Wherify President Timothy Neher.
So this device is to let your 7 year old kid walk alone? I don't know about the rest of you, but I was not allowed more than a couple yards from my house until I was way more than 7. You see, I had a family who cared about me and was willing to be personally inconvenienced to protect me.
If this is to be used to prevent abductions, it may work by making the intended abductee less attractive. However, there are often not too many kids who go unsupervised, or who accidentally wander off, so I suspect the principle of the easier target may not apply. Once abducted, it is a simple matter of removing the watch and throwing it out the window. And not to get too gruesome, but if the abductor is just going to molest and kill the kid anyway, I do not see a limit to what might be done to get the watch off.
This is kind of like those collars you put on dogs and cats to keep them from leaving the yard. It may be a technically good idea, but it is a matter of minutes before the animal will have the collar off and eat it. The same thing should be expected with kids. I am pretty sure the expectation value of the time between the kid leaving the house and the device leaving the kid would be measured in nanoseconds. Likewise, reasonably intelligent employees will just leave the tracking phone in the office while he or she goes out for the afternoon affair. Although there are some security reasons for both technologies, I think either group, in most cases, would resist.
Never fear, though, a solution exists and it come from the vet. We must all be implanted with microtransmitters. The sales of receivers will strictly limited to parents and employers. The receivers will be set so they can only track the intended parties, and the settings will be protected with the latest quantum crypto chaos based advanced pseudo mathematical encryption that will keep all hackers at bay. The DCMA will be used to prosecute receiver hackers and surgeons that remove the transmitter.
Diamonds seem like one of the greatest marketing scams of all time. Here is a rock that is not all that rare, and through cleaver marketing targeting the need for people to prove their love to each other and world monopoly status backed up by significant fire power, is considered the most precious and rare stone.
However, the marketing gimmick is the key. If the person you want wants a diamond, then you pretty much have to buy one. This is an issue just like any other in a relationship. If the money is not they're to buy one, and the person is willing to break off the relationship, I think that would be a harbinger of things to come.
Although I wonder what the market will be for this product, it is an interesting piece of engineering. People who go to radio shack looking for a way to copy thier cassetes may buy it. On the other hand, I know poeple who can't even copy tapes on thier dual tape players, so there may be little hope. Nevertheless, it does have a cool factor.
I am much more concerned about the amount of paid advertising for Visual Studio.net. What is there to say about M$ funding/.?
I don't know what the media giants really fear, or how insightful they really are. They do tend to make mistakes in choosing their battles and weapons, which has cost them dearly.
However, they do not realize that if the industry didn't push CDs, and were still selling tapes and vinyl to the masses, people would take that content and compress it and pirate it instead.
While this may be true to some extent, the issue with music is that, in the RIAA vision, every user is now a pirate. Every computer is capable of quickly pirating music, and, in a further RIAA fantasy, effortlessly transmitting that music to every consumer on earth.
On the other hand, a person must generally acquire equipment, and have some knowledge, to pirate a tape, vinyl album, and, for the time being video. This is the difference between casual coping, which may or may hurt an industry, and active pirating, which is often specifically outlawed. While it is technically simple to copy VHS onto a computer and transmit the content, it is not something that the average user is currently going to have the skill, hard disk space, or bandwidth to do.
So, we assume that the video content manufacturers are concerned about the future when digital content is delivered to the home, users can save that content and transmit it at will. They may have legitimate reason to be afraid, and, as we see with DVD, they can be successful at minimizing copying to a tolerable level.
Re:Reality Television takes on Corporate America
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Shake-up At SonicBlue
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It has already been done by Michael Moore. It was called TV nation. It lasted about 6 episodes on NBC, and then about that many again on FOX.
It was quite a bit more in your face and honest that other so-called 'reality' or 'news magazine' shows. It featured Cracker the Corporate Crime Chicken who investigated questionable tax breaks for businesses, banks, and such. This, of course, was too much for the mega media conglomerates. One of the first shows asked the CEOs of major corporations to use the products they made and justify the very large salaries.
The show was, admittedly, at times silly, but always interesting. My favorite was a story about this African American guy who was stopped by the DC police over 20 times because they thought he was a criminal. He was not, and TV nation ran radio ads and installed billboards to inform the police of this fact.
First, I admit I am old. I admit that my learning was with paper textbooks, the CRC Handbook for mathematical tables, and class notes full of examples to copy from for homework problems. Although I understand many of these can be replaced, in the same way that electronic calculators replace numerical tables, I fail to see how one can access information quickly enough, or read enough on current low resolution screens, to do real work using only a PDA and a portable.
I am not talking about the physical presence of the book, or the convenience of flipping the pages, or the romance of the printed page. Though I grew up with the miles of indexes at the library, and the rows of computer manuals at the computer lab, I transitioned quite happily to central searchable databases and online help. What I am talking about is the sheer quantity of information a student is required to assimilate and fact that all the information needed is never in one place. My desk was generally littered with books to read and resources needed to complete assignments. While having all of this on computer would have been nice, I can't imagine having to read 100 pages a day at screen resolution, or have to flip from screen to screen to find the right information.
On the other hand, I would have killed to have all the classic English, math, and science texts at my fingertips. If all the resources were remotely and wirelessly accessible, that would be way cool. I can see the benefit of not having to search for that one table needed to finish the problem. Manually searching for table is no longer a needed skill. But still, no books at all? I fear for the students eyesight.
I am not sure how an automatic fine billed to a credit card would be effective. After all, the customer could always contest the charge, and if the ISP cannot prove the charge is valid, which is actually more difficult than it sounds, the charge can be revoked. The ISP will then have lost the time and money needed to prove the charge, as well as have to pay any fees that the credit card company may charge to vendors in such circumstances. This could easily cause a negative cash flow at the ISP.
I would suggest an alternative. I would think a large deposit from any bulk emailers would be in order. For customer who will only send out say 20 emails an hour with at most 10 addresses on each email, a no deposit account would be available. Software will enforce limits. If the customer wants to send more emails to more addresses, then the ISP can have a sliding scale deposit, which will be forfeited if the emails violate the terms of service. Again, I don't know if implementing such a scheme would cost more than makes, but it might stop some spammers. Of course, most ISPs would have to have such a policy for this to be effective.
Many in congress, particularly those of a conservative bent, complain about the costly litigation against the saintly American companies, allegedly brought by greedy and evil consumers and lawyers. They want to pass legislation that will limit rewards and otherwise protect companies from the liabilities of their products. In fact, few consumers actually bring lawsuits against companies due to the inherent expense and risk of such litigation.
The real reason to limit consumer is exactly these types of laws. Companies have been spamming consumers and ISPs to death. We have tried to establish voluntary laws to solve the problem. We have tried opt-in list and verified opt-in lists. We have begged web hosting companies to make sure commercial email sent from domains they host have real headers with valid email addresses, and clearly identify the source of the product and emailer. All has been to no avail.
So we are at a point where the only recourse is litigation. Is this the fault of greedy consumers or lawyers? Or is the fault of an industry that does not have the integrity to define and enforce rules that insure consumers and agents are treated with respect.
I am sure that conservatives have and are going to complain that this law and litigation are indicative of a decline in the basic moral fiber of the American consumer. At the same time, they will be raking in profits from the backs of those same consumers.
It is probably partially an IP issue and partially export issues.
First, I am not so sure about the issue of exporting. The world bank [google cache of PDF file], indicates that Zimbabwe mostly exports Tabacco, gold and manufactured products. Manufactured products are about 50%, and I do not know if any these are food products. They, of course, must export to pay off debts, even if it is only theoretical payments. They therefore have every right to protect their products from contamination that their customers find distasteful. As always, it is the customer, and not the supplier, who is correct. Cross contamination is not a hypothetical situation. It happens. Of course, the GM seed suppliers want this to happen so that all these pesky GM bans can be dropped and they can extract payment from every farmer in the world.
It would seem then that for cash strapped countries GM crops are dangerous. Companies that manufacture the seed do not allow the seed to be planted without payment. Furthermore, these companies have been known to send private investigators to check fields. Since these investigators are often limited to checking the edge of fields, and since the edge of fields are the most likely to be contaminated by cross pollination, quite a bit of trouble can ensue even the planter has not ever seen a GM seed. If a significant amount of GM seed were to find it's way into a country, that country could be, over time, liable for significant amounts of money. These issues are litigated seriously.
My understanding is that such a situation would threaten a nations food supply. I have read that many farmers survive only because they can replant seeds from the last harvest. Although the economics of GM seeds might make sense in countries where planting in a technology intensive process, it might not make sense elsewhere.
Here he tries to associate himself with civil rights protesters from the past, as if to say, "What we did is right because what they did was right." The association is horribly inapt, and in very poor taste. You're not a martyr, Richard... Nobody is dying for The Cause here, and I for one would appreciate it if you'd tone down your language a bit.
I am not sure what you are saying. Is freedom of speech and freedom to control your own possessions not a right? Do we have to picket the White House and have the DC police beat us up and rape us before we can compare our cause to past causes? The great civil rights leaders of the past did not try to create the world you now enjoy because people were dying. They did it because it was the right thing to do.
Stallman used the same propaganda technique-- and some others-- in his writings on "free" software. I put the word free in quotes there because what he means by "free software" and what the word "free" actually means are two very different things.
And these criticisms are essentially the same used against Dr. King. He was in it to make himself famous. He said one thing, like the blacks must be free, and meant another thing. Like be free to live next door. Or be free to take my job. Or be free to have a better car than I do. Or be free to rape my daughter (because of course, consensual sex would be unthinkable between a good white girl and an evil black man). Some of these things Dr. King did mean, and it was just a matter of perspective.
Just to sum up, I think Stallman's politics are misguided and wrong, but that's not what really bothers me. What really bothers me-- what really leads me to think that he might actually be dangerous, subversive in the bad sense of the word-- is the way he presents his ideas so carefully. His message is so clearly meant to appeal to emotion at the expense of reason that it makes me wonder what it is he's trying to slip past me.
Which of course was the situation in Selma in the spring of 65(?) and April 4, 1968. At that time everyone, at least in principle, thought black people were human, but we couldn't have them living and shopping with us good white people. But you know, the so-called 'Dr.' King's ideas go just too far and are subversive to the integrity of this one America under god. He gives those great sermons and gets all those other uppity colored folks all riled up, like they might actually believe they have a right to a seat on the bus, or have a right to drink at our water fountains. It is clearly just the emotional response of the inferior race who has no capacity for understanding the importance of a reasonable, logical, common sense discussion. If they would just sit down and talk sensibly, we could all get along. They could live in their ghetto, and take the bus in to clean our toilets and wipe our babies asses.
Which of course was the thinking that lead to murder of protestor in Marion, Alabama by a state trooper, which lead to the march in Selma where more protestors were killed. After the march, a Unitarian minister, James Reeb, who marched along side about 20% of his colleagues in this historic march, was brutally beaten and murdered by the good Christian citizens of these United States, presumably for supporting the subversive message of peace and equality spouted by Dr. King.
Finally, let me say that the DRM issue may or may not be a civil rights issue. But if you are going to attack it, at least try to use some new arguments.
It is fascinating to me that so many people on/., people who probably regularly flaunt the law by downloading MP3's, using a single license of Windows on multiple machines, or driving down the highway at higher than posted speeds, are decrying Richard M. Stallman's behavior. Are these people children, or just naive?
The rules of any process, meeting, or presentation, are generally tilted to give the advantage to the incumbents. I am sure no one is surprised to hear this, and no one doubts that the Commerce Departments DRM Workshop was likely tilted to insure the implementation of some recording and movie industry friendly protection. Therefore, if we all sit back like nice sheep, act appropriately, and follow the rules, what we will get is an industry friendly DRM system.
I am sure that some of you feel that downloading MP3s while hiding behind your firewalls and anonymous hotmail accounts is all it will take to stop DRM from coming, and maybe that will be enough. But maybe some direct action is needed. Maybe the token Free Software person needs not to sit back and smile, grateful for the opportunity to be in the presence of such great people that he is not even worthy to shine their shoes, but to stand up and declare himself not a patsy, but an equal.
The reference to the US suffrage movement may or may not be accurate. Our ability to copy and download music may not be as important as a women's right to participate in our democracy. On the other hand, I do not see any DRM protesters picketing the white house, being beaten, sent to jail, and force fed because they feel that their children's right to be considered full citizens was greater than any discomfort they themselves might incur.
What Stallman and a few other brave folks did was minor. It is being blown out of proportion by a media fearful for the demisof the only livelihood they know. It being propagated in populist forums like/. by persons uncomfortable with democratic process and the messiness that is occasionally necessary to keep that process afloat. If the opposition to the DRM is not important enough to justify such messiness, we should allow it to pass, and live in whatever world is the result.
Hello, did we already forget that MS audits schools, even to the point of insisting that they buy full licensing, including windows, word, etc, for every box, including Macs. The above argument only applies in a healthy marketplace, in which the various agents are actually free to make choices.
M$ might have not cared a few years ago when MS was flush with money and sales from companies also flush with money. However this is no longer the case, and MS has been doing everything to get cash from strapped companies. In particular M$ is trying to extorts as much money from schools as possible with only the Linux counter threat saving taxpayers from a multi-million dollar theft.
For Complete non-MS perverted C++: The C++ Programming Language by Stroustrup(Addison)
A quick introduction to Fundamental Design: Composite/Structured Design by Myers (ReinHold)
For on-time software projects: Debugging the Development Process by MacGuire (MS Press)
For TCP/IP protocols and issues TCP/IP Illustrated by Stevens (Addison)
For numerical programming: Numerical Recipes in C/Fortan/etc by Press, et al (Cambridge)
For what a computer might be like: The Humane Interface by Raskin (Addison)
For advance C: C Traps and Pitfalls by Koenig (Addison)
For object-oriented design Design Patterns by Gamma, et al (Addison)
For general reference: The CRC handbook by the editors at the Chemical Rubber Company
Now, I have a question. Who is the most reliable publisher of computer books. It seems that O'Reilly is all the craze, but I have been disappointed with their accuracy and editing of late, though I buy their books if they are on discount or the only good text. For example, I bought their PHP book and I saw several mistakes in the programming examples, mistakes which would totally confuse an inexperienced coder. IMHO, the most consistently good books are published by Addison-Wesley. I would like to hear what other people think.
If your statement is to imply the lasers will advance, I will agree with you.
However, this has little to do with the originals poster point that these lasers must be used in the modern battlefield, with modern counter measures.
IIRC, by the time of the US civil war, when rifles were reliable and reasonably accurate, a lot of people died because they did not change battlefield tactics to suite the new reality.
I guess that would depend on your interpretation of architecture. Vaulted ceilings, large windows, trees, etc are all the expression of certain practicalities and tastes of a certain time. These things seem pretty because we tend to romanticise the past. Whether these practicalities, which were necessary in a time when people were sweaty flea infested creatures, are any better or worse than the practicalities in a time when we have nary an unwanted insect in the house, is a question I will leave to those more intelligent than I.
Nevertheless, many of your issues are caused not by air conditioning per se, but by economics. It is very reasonable, and indeed I know many people who have, to build houses with 10-foot ceilings. It is also possible to have a house with lots of trees. And large windows are often a matter of pure economics.
People do not have these things because they are not in fashion. High ceilings are, and always have been, hard to clean. Yards are a bit of a luxury when piece of land large enough to have one is selling for nearly $100K, and then one has to hire someone to maintain it. Windows must be cleaned, and are kind of useless when you have a 15-foot wall surrounding the house.
On the other hand, current architecture is kind of ugly, and maybe air conditioning facilitates it. But around here, it is much more a symptom of price. On the other hand, I don't know if it is any worse than in the past.
Air conditioning makes things colder inside. Lower temperature is an indication of lower entropy(ds=dq/t). Entropy always increases, therefore the entropy of the outside must increase more than the entropy of the inside. This outside is much bigger, so the temperature is not affected in the same way. This is a similar concept to gravitational boots to spacecraft. The planetary velocity is slowed, but the planet is much larger than the spacecraft.
I think a bigger problem would be powering of the air conditioner. The efficiency for converting energy to useful work, or even biomass to useful electricity, are generally much less than 50%, usually more around 25%. Therefore, cooling a house requires quite a bit of electricity, electricity that is normally converted in a pollution intensive manner. This gets even more hairy when on thinks of having computer that produce a lot of heat. The electricity was generated a less than half efficiency, the computer is converting that energy to work at much less than half efficiency(heat is a sign of an inherently inefficient system), and fans are used to push the heat out into the surrounding environment. The air conditioner then trades entropy between the outside and inside to cool the room containing the computer.
So how is this any better?
The question is traffic-control on my Windows XP box... not, as you say, linux box, or even the windows 2000 box in this KB article.
There has been an extremely large number of trolls lately, and, as these answers suggest, very little useful information. This may in fact be a hard question, but must we compensate ignorance with stupidity?
I certainly never thought about mentioning that fraternities, in general, are more concerned with appearances and grades , and the money that they hope will come from the looks and grades, than learning, but, since, the gauntlet has been thrown, and I can integrate my way out of a paper bag, even to the point of doing QM the hard way, and I have only seen bright management majors use DE to cook books to steal millions of dollars from the working stiffs, and since this is an article about lying with statistics, I think I will take the challenge.
First, trying to prove something with a single statistic is meaningless. A person using a single number to attempt to prove a point generally has either had a lapse of judgment or has no understanding of statistics, math, or the logical process. As an aside, using the GPA to justify the existence of the fraternity indicates either a lack of respect for the process of learning, or the misconception that GPA and learning are equivalent.
Furthermore, using a double step statistics, i.e. the ranking of the fraternity within fraternities, and the ranking of fraternities in the general population, instead of the single step of the rankine the fraternity within the general population, is a classic tricks used to lie with statistics.
Finally, the statics, even at face value, is quite ambiguous. Were there a few people allowed in the fraternity merely because they were smart, and the rest of the fraternity cheated off these poor saps? Did the members of the fraternity have lots of money to hire tutors to do homework and take home tests? Did the fraternity know of the lazy professors who did not change their tests every semester , and, with copies of past tests, have training sessions to let the otherwise uneducated brothers pass the test?
It is really not my intention to be mean or disparage frat boys. I just find it incredible ironic that in an article that is largely about lying with statistics, the author, who claims to be an intelligent educated man of letters, would justify his existence by doling the same.
Is either of these really secure? A checksum is to be used to make sure the download worked, not to make sure the file has not been replaced my malicious code. And can't a secure page and DNS can be forged? A certificate can be checked, but who does?
Slashdot Mirror
This logic, however, has no application in a public performance. In such a venue a person can be removed for any reason. Often, if that person is disruptive a refund is not even needed. Most patrons are quite happy when a disruptive person is removed.
Furthermore, The State can pass laws that promote the cooperation of it's citizens and prevent the tyranny of the few that would take advantage of the courtesy of the many. In the U.S. this could mean one person one vote, or limiting financial donations to public campaigns. It can be argued that the people who abuse their cell phones is a tyranny of the few.
The main thing I was trying to point out is this fight is only partially about the out dated business model of television and the need for TV to adapt or die. The case is also only partially about copyrights and the ability of the view to time and space shift programming.
A very large component, IMHO, is the use of TV by the American Corporation. Although non-advertising TV may be possible, it isn't just a matter of everyone saying they will pay $100 a month to support the medium. TV is just to valuable an advertising stream. The corporation is not going let that stream go without a big fight.
There are two examples. One is the desire of hard liquor to get back on the air. Even though print advertising and sponsorship is very effective, and very cheap, it does not allow those companies to create the unified image of TV advertising.
Second is the defunding of PBS. This allowed advertisers to reach a very difficult demographic. PBS cost the government very little money. However, the existence of such an unreachable demographic was a serious thorn in the US Corporation business model. Therefore a great deal of money was spent to remove the funding.
The purpose of television is the advertising. If there was no advertising, there would be no commercial need for TV in the US, not even PBS.
American Corporations depends upon broadcast television to market their product and brand their trade and service marks. TV has been very kind to the U.S. corporation, allowing mega corporations such as McDonalds, WalMart, and Coca Cola to create a unified vision of their corporation in the public mind, one that often has little to do with reality. Broadcast television has, in effect, given the corporation a means to brainwash entire generations.
To the U.S. Corporation an end of television commercials means an end of a powerful marketing technique. If McDonalds is not allowed to brainwash the kids to annoy their parent for a Kids' Meal, what is to stop the consumer from just going to the restaurant next door, or, god forbid, actually cook a nutritious meal? If WalMart is not allowed to push the fallacy that they provide the best value, what is to stop the consumer from going to a store where the workers are actually paid for the hours worked? If Coca-Cola did not constantly equate itself with the American Way, would there be any reason for us not buy Shasta?
Some may think I am exaggerating, but I am not. TV has been critical in the evolution of the American Corporation and the mass adoption of new products. For instance, when instant coffee first came out, it was not widely accepted. Most women at the time were homemakers, and making real coffee for their husbands was considered part of their duty. Instant Coffee producers launched a large scale campaign to equate instant coffee to loving one's husband, by way of having more time to be with him. We see the same thing in recent paper plate commercial aimed at the single mom. By using paper plates, the single mom has more time to spend with her kids, and therefore only a mom who did not love her kids would not use paper plates. Every few minutes on kids' shows, McDonalds equates going to their restaurants with loving your kids.
So, now perhaps we can stop all this silly talk about the quality of TV, or that maybe we can just start paying for TV. The sole purpose of a television program is to deliver a large number of a certain demographic to an advertiser. Nothing less, nothing more. Advertisers know how important this is, and will often pay inflated prices to insure their influences. This is particularly true for certain groups such as young men. This, by the way, explains why male professional sports do so well.. Such sports are also a vehicle to deliver a demographic to the advertiser. The value of such entertainment to us as consumers is far less than the value to the advertiser. We would unlikely to be willing to directly pay that kind of money.
In my limited experience, I have never seen the sale price go below the base cost to manufacture that product, that is, the cost to run it through the assembly line, package it, and ship it out. What will happen, however, is that the market may not support the inclusion of research, management, and other ancillary costs. Now, if the company is well run, there will be other, generally more advance products, that can be sold to support the ancillary costs, and of course profits.
I believe this relates directly to the LCD market. It should be possible for companies to aggressively price smaller LCD monitor (less that 17"), while shifting the other cost to the bigger sizes. In fact, by keeping price of the smaller sizes unnecessarily high they limit the number of consumer who are going to shift from CRT to LCD technology, thus limiting the growth of future demand.
The LCD manufacturers are further shooting themselves in the foot by allowing the CRT manufacturer to rapidly increases the minimum acceptable monitor size, right now about 19" for about $200. The CRT manufacturers clearly understand how to use aggressive prices to keep a market. I hope the LCD manufacturers, which is rapidly becoming a very mature market, have a price war so they can learn how use such pricing to take market share.
First, let's look at the lock. From the FAQ
...lock the Locator on the wearer's wrist to ensure that it won't get lost. Simply press the middle button on the Locator. The subscriber can also request that the device be unlocked remotely, either on the Internet or over any phone. If unlocked, the unit will automatically lock during an emergency (either wearer or subscriber initiated).
This implies that not only can the child unlock it, but also anyone with the code can unlock it. Once unlocked, the unit can be removed and lost. Kids fidgit. Kids remove clothes and jewelry from thier body, even without thinking about it. Kids take off cool stuff to show to thier mates. The device will be misplaced.
Next, from the article (ad copy?), here is the intended application
"Let's say you have a seven-year-old who walks to school alone and they felt in danger. They could push one button on the watch and lock the device," said Wherify President Timothy Neher.
So this device is to let your 7 year old kid walk alone? I don't know about the rest of you, but I was not allowed more than a couple yards from my house until I was way more than 7. You see, I had a family who cared about me and was willing to be personally inconvenienced to protect me.
If this is to be used to prevent abductions, it may work by making the intended abductee less attractive. However, there are often not too many kids who go unsupervised, or who accidentally wander off, so I suspect the principle of the easier target may not apply. Once abducted, it is a simple matter of removing the watch and throwing it out the window. And not to get too gruesome, but if the abductor is just going to molest and kill the kid anyway, I do not see a limit to what might be done to get the watch off.
Never fear, though, a solution exists and it come from the vet. We must all be implanted with microtransmitters. The sales of receivers will strictly limited to parents and employers. The receivers will be set so they can only track the intended parties, and the settings will be protected with the latest quantum crypto chaos based advanced pseudo mathematical encryption that will keep all hackers at bay. The DCMA will be used to prosecute receiver hackers and surgeons that remove the transmitter.
Oh, how safe the world will be.
However, the marketing gimmick is the key. If the person you want wants a diamond, then you pretty much have to buy one. This is an issue just like any other in a relationship. If the money is not they're to buy one, and the person is willing to break off the relationship, I think that would be a harbinger of things to come.
I am much more concerned about the amount of paid advertising for Visual Studio .net. What is there to say about M$ funding /.?
Microsoft® Windows® 98SE, ME, 2000, XP Operating System, or Macintosh OS9.X or OS-X and iTunes 1.X or higher
Pentium (or compatible) 166MHz or higher PC
Also, is $200 a bit high for an MP3 player/recorder that only has room for like an album and a half. Afer all, a 5gig ipod is only $299.
However, they do not realize that if the industry didn't push CDs, and were still selling tapes and vinyl to the masses, people would take that content and compress it and pirate it instead.
While this may be true to some extent, the issue with music is that, in the RIAA vision, every user is now a pirate. Every computer is capable of quickly pirating music, and, in a further RIAA fantasy, effortlessly transmitting that music to every consumer on earth.
On the other hand, a person must generally acquire equipment, and have some knowledge, to pirate a tape, vinyl album, and, for the time being video. This is the difference between casual coping, which may or may hurt an industry, and active pirating, which is often specifically outlawed. While it is technically simple to copy VHS onto a computer and transmit the content, it is not something that the average user is currently going to have the skill, hard disk space, or bandwidth to do.
So, we assume that the video content manufacturers are concerned about the future when digital content is delivered to the home, users can save that content and transmit it at will. They may have legitimate reason to be afraid, and, as we see with DVD, they can be successful at minimizing copying to a tolerable level.
It was quite a bit more in your face and honest that other so-called 'reality' or 'news magazine' shows. It featured Cracker the Corporate Crime Chicken who investigated questionable tax breaks for businesses, banks, and such. This, of course, was too much for the mega media conglomerates. One of the first shows asked the CEOs of major corporations to use the products they made and justify the very large salaries.
The show was, admittedly, at times silly, but always interesting. My favorite was a story about this African American guy who was stopped by the DC police over 20 times because they thought he was a criminal. He was not, and TV nation ran radio ads and installed billboards to inform the police of this fact.
I am not talking about the physical presence of the book, or the convenience of flipping the pages, or the romance of the printed page. Though I grew up with the miles of indexes at the library, and the rows of computer manuals at the computer lab, I transitioned quite happily to central searchable databases and online help. What I am talking about is the sheer quantity of information a student is required to assimilate and fact that all the information needed is never in one place. My desk was generally littered with books to read and resources needed to complete assignments. While having all of this on computer would have been nice, I can't imagine having to read 100 pages a day at screen resolution, or have to flip from screen to screen to find the right information.
On the other hand, I would have killed to have all the classic English, math, and science texts at my fingertips. If all the resources were remotely and wirelessly accessible, that would be way cool. I can see the benefit of not having to search for that one table needed to finish the problem. Manually searching for table is no longer a needed skill. But still, no books at all? I fear for the students eyesight.
I would suggest an alternative. I would think a large deposit from any bulk emailers would be in order. For customer who will only send out say 20 emails an hour with at most 10 addresses on each email, a no deposit account would be available. Software will enforce limits. If the customer wants to send more emails to more addresses, then the ISP can have a sliding scale deposit, which will be forfeited if the emails violate the terms of service. Again, I don't know if implementing such a scheme would cost more than makes, but it might stop some spammers. Of course, most ISPs would have to have such a policy for this to be effective.
The real reason to limit consumer is exactly these types of laws. Companies have been spamming consumers and ISPs to death. We have tried to establish voluntary laws to solve the problem. We have tried opt-in list and verified opt-in lists. We have begged web hosting companies to make sure commercial email sent from domains they host have real headers with valid email addresses, and clearly identify the source of the product and emailer. All has been to no avail.
So we are at a point where the only recourse is litigation. Is this the fault of greedy consumers or lawyers? Or is the fault of an industry that does not have the integrity to define and enforce rules that insure consumers and agents are treated with respect.
I am sure that conservatives have and are going to complain that this law and litigation are indicative of a decline in the basic moral fiber of the American consumer. At the same time, they will be raking in profits from the backs of those same consumers.
First, I am not so sure about the issue of exporting. The world bank [google cache of PDF file], indicates that Zimbabwe mostly exports Tabacco, gold and manufactured products. Manufactured products are about 50%, and I do not know if any these are food products. They, of course, must export to pay off debts, even if it is only theoretical payments. They therefore have every right to protect their products from contamination that their customers find distasteful. As always, it is the customer, and not the supplier, who is correct. Cross contamination is not a hypothetical situation. It happens. Of course, the GM seed suppliers want this to happen so that all these pesky GM bans can be dropped and they can extract payment from every farmer in the world.
It would seem then that for cash strapped countries GM crops are dangerous. Companies that manufacture the seed do not allow the seed to be planted without payment. Furthermore, these companies have been known to send private investigators to check fields. Since these investigators are often limited to checking the edge of fields, and since the edge of fields are the most likely to be contaminated by cross pollination, quite a bit of trouble can ensue even the planter has not ever seen a GM seed. If a significant amount of GM seed were to find it's way into a country, that country could be, over time, liable for significant amounts of money. These issues are litigated seriously.
My understanding is that such a situation would threaten a nations food supply. I have read that many farmers survive only because they can replant seeds from the last harvest. Although the economics of GM seeds might make sense in countries where planting in a technology intensive process, it might not make sense elsewhere.
I am not sure what you are saying. Is freedom of speech and freedom to control your own possessions not a right? Do we have to picket the White House and have the DC police beat us up and rape us before we can compare our cause to past causes? The great civil rights leaders of the past did not try to create the world you now enjoy because people were dying. They did it because it was the right thing to do.
Stallman used the same propaganda technique-- and some others-- in his writings on "free" software. I put the word free in quotes there because what he means by "free software" and what the word "free" actually means are two very different things.
And these criticisms are essentially the same used against Dr. King. He was in it to make himself famous. He said one thing, like the blacks must be free, and meant another thing. Like be free to live next door. Or be free to take my job. Or be free to have a better car than I do. Or be free to rape my daughter (because of course, consensual sex would be unthinkable between a good white girl and an evil black man). Some of these things Dr. King did mean, and it was just a matter of perspective.
Just to sum up, I think Stallman's politics are misguided and wrong, but that's not what really bothers me. What really bothers me-- what really leads me to think that he might actually be dangerous, subversive in the bad sense of the word-- is the way he presents his ideas so carefully. His message is so clearly meant to appeal to emotion at the expense of reason that it makes me wonder what it is he's trying to slip past me.
Which of course was the situation in Selma in the spring of 65(?) and April 4, 1968. At that time everyone, at least in principle, thought black people were human, but we couldn't have them living and shopping with us good white people. But you know, the so-called 'Dr.' King's ideas go just too far and are subversive to the integrity of this one America under god. He gives those great sermons and gets all those other uppity colored folks all riled up, like they might actually believe they have a right to a seat on the bus, or have a right to drink at our water fountains. It is clearly just the emotional response of the inferior race who has no capacity for understanding the importance of a reasonable, logical, common sense discussion. If they would just sit down and talk sensibly, we could all get along. They could live in their ghetto, and take the bus in to clean our toilets and wipe our babies asses.
Which of course was the thinking that lead to murder of protestor in Marion, Alabama by a state trooper, which lead to the march in Selma where more protestors were killed. After the march, a Unitarian minister, James Reeb, who marched along side about 20% of his colleagues in this historic march, was brutally beaten and murdered by the good Christian citizens of these United States, presumably for supporting the subversive message of peace and equality spouted by Dr. King.
Finally, let me say that the DRM issue may or may not be a civil rights issue. But if you are going to attack it, at least try to use some new arguments.
The rules of any process, meeting, or presentation, are generally tilted to give the advantage to the incumbents. I am sure no one is surprised to hear this, and no one doubts that the Commerce Departments DRM Workshop was likely tilted to insure the implementation of some recording and movie industry friendly protection. Therefore, if we all sit back like nice sheep, act appropriately, and follow the rules, what we will get is an industry friendly DRM system.
I am sure that some of you feel that downloading MP3s while hiding behind your firewalls and anonymous hotmail accounts is all it will take to stop DRM from coming, and maybe that will be enough. But maybe some direct action is needed. Maybe the token Free Software person needs not to sit back and smile, grateful for the opportunity to be in the presence of such great people that he is not even worthy to shine their shoes, but to stand up and declare himself not a patsy, but an equal.
The reference to the US suffrage movement may or may not be accurate. Our ability to copy and download music may not be as important as a women's right to participate in our democracy. On the other hand, I do not see any DRM protesters picketing the white house, being beaten, sent to jail, and force fed because they feel that their children's right to be considered full citizens was greater than any discomfort they themselves might incur.
What Stallman and a few other brave folks did was minor. It is being blown out of proportion by a media fearful for the demisof the only livelihood they know. It being propagated in populist forums like /. by persons uncomfortable with democratic process and the messiness that is occasionally necessary to keep that process afloat. If the opposition to the DRM is not important enough to justify such messiness, we should allow it to pass, and live in whatever world is the result.
M$ might have not cared a few years ago when MS was flush with money and sales from companies also flush with money. However this is no longer the case, and MS has been doing everything to get cash from strapped companies. In particular M$ is trying to extorts as much money from schools as possible with only the Linux counter threat saving taxpayers from a multi-million dollar theft.
The C++ Programming Language by Stroustrup(Addison)
A quick introduction to Fundamental Design:
Composite/Structured Design by Myers (ReinHold)
For on-time software projects:
Debugging the Development Process by MacGuire (MS Press)
For TCP/IP protocols and issues
TCP/IP Illustrated by Stevens (Addison)
For numerical programming:
Numerical Recipes in C/Fortan/etc by Press, et al (Cambridge)
For what a computer might be like:
The Humane Interface by Raskin (Addison)
For advance C:
C Traps and Pitfalls by Koenig (Addison)
For object-oriented design
Design Patterns by Gamma, et al (Addison)
For general reference:
The CRC handbook by the editors at the Chemical Rubber Company
Now, I have a question. Who is the most reliable publisher of computer books. It seems that O'Reilly is all the craze, but I have been disappointed with their accuracy and editing of late, though I buy their books if they are on discount or the only good text. For example, I bought their PHP book and I saw several mistakes in the programming examples, mistakes which would totally confuse an inexperienced coder. IMHO, the most consistently good books are published by Addison-Wesley. I would like to hear what other people think.
However, this has little to do with the originals poster point that these lasers must be used in the modern battlefield, with modern counter measures.
IIRC, by the time of the US civil war, when rifles were reliable and reasonably accurate, a lot of people died because they did not change battlefield tactics to suite the new reality.
Nevertheless, many of your issues are caused not by air conditioning per se, but by economics. It is very reasonable, and indeed I know many people who have, to build houses with 10-foot ceilings. It is also possible to have a house with lots of trees. And large windows are often a matter of pure economics.
People do not have these things because they are not in fashion. High ceilings are, and always have been, hard to clean. Yards are a bit of a luxury when piece of land large enough to have one is selling for nearly $100K, and then one has to hire someone to maintain it. Windows must be cleaned, and are kind of useless when you have a 15-foot wall surrounding the house.
On the other hand, current architecture is kind of ugly, and maybe air conditioning facilitates it. But around here, it is much more a symptom of price. On the other hand, I don't know if it is any worse than in the past.
I think a bigger problem would be powering of the air conditioner. The efficiency for converting energy to useful work, or even biomass to useful electricity, are generally much less than 50%, usually more around 25%. Therefore, cooling a house requires quite a bit of electricity, electricity that is normally converted in a pollution intensive manner. This gets even more hairy when on thinks of having computer that produce a lot of heat. The electricity was generated a less than half efficiency, the computer is converting that energy to work at much less than half efficiency(heat is a sign of an inherently inefficient system), and fans are used to push the heat out into the surrounding environment. The air conditioner then trades entropy between the outside and inside to cool the room containing the computer.
There has been an extremely large number of trolls lately, and, as these answers suggest, very little useful information. This may in fact be a hard question, but must we compensate ignorance with stupidity?
First, trying to prove something with a single statistic is meaningless. A person using a single number to attempt to prove a point generally has either had a lapse of judgment or has no understanding of statistics, math, or the logical process. As an aside, using the GPA to justify the existence of the fraternity indicates either a lack of respect for the process of learning, or the misconception that GPA and learning are equivalent.
Furthermore, using a double step statistics, i.e. the ranking of the fraternity within fraternities, and the ranking of fraternities in the general population, instead of the single step of the rankine the fraternity within the general population, is a classic tricks used to lie with statistics.
Finally, the statics, even at face value, is quite ambiguous. Were there a few people allowed in the fraternity merely because they were smart, and the rest of the fraternity cheated off these poor saps? Did the members of the fraternity have lots of money to hire tutors to do homework and take home tests? Did the fraternity know of the lazy professors who did not change their tests every semester , and, with copies of past tests, have training sessions to let the otherwise uneducated brothers pass the test?
It is really not my intention to be mean or disparage frat boys. I just find it incredible ironic that in an article that is largely about lying with statistics, the author, who claims to be an intelligent educated man of letters, would justify his existence by doling the same.
Am I wrong?