In the end, it seems the only real winner after a hybrid purchase is the environment.
There are other, more efficient technologies out there. A petrol econobox can get equivalent or better gas mileage over any hybrid...and this is real-world milage, not some EPA numbers that real drivers never actually see. Diesel cars can trump even this. Biodiesel (and grease-powered) cars take envorinmental friendliness even further, since the net greenhouse emissions from these vehicles is zero.
Hybrids are great for making a statement. However, if better fuel economy can be obtained with a better equipped, cheaper car, which doesn't have any extra batteries to dispose of -- why not skip the statement and go with the vehicle that actually does better?
Excepting children unfortunate enough to have HIV passed on to them from birth, the virus is largely spread through irresponsible behavior.
Right, like all of those young girls in South Africa who were raped by men with AIDS. Those little irresponsible bitches -- ruining it for the rest of us!
Perhaps, just for a second, you should step off of your high horse. Maybe some day you'll appreciate someone not looking down their nose at you when you're in a very bad position. It's always someone else's mess until someone you love is affected. It's clear that you've never seen someone close to you wither away and die from this horrible disease. Perhaps when it does happen, you should mention to that person that you're not going to waste any tears for them, since it was (most likely) a result of their irresponsible behavior.
but why can't people go to jail for these kinds of things? Why isn't this thousands of counts of unauthorized use of a computer?
Perhaps we should consider the actual damage done. Is the damage so severe and widespread that someone needs to (essentially) pay with their life? I believe that many of the felons convicted for computer crimes probably shouldn't have been felony convictions in the first place. Most of these (in the early days, especially) were just kids trying to prove a point (or proof of concept). When caught, they were usually to make an example of by a DA or judge. However, just because it happened to one group of people, making the same thing happen to another group doesn't make it right.
Do you really believe that it's fair to interpret these new laws so broadly and liberally hand out prison sentences?
Is this really a terrible abuse of power? It didn't take long for the information about the rootkit to become publicly available, and those who care decided not to buy any of the Sony CD's. In this case, I don't think that there is some executive sitting in his huge leather chair manicly laughing about owning another PC every time that a user inserts a CD. This sounds more like a company (Sony) made an uninformed decision to purchase a bad technology. Microsoft is just as culpible for their administrator-rights-for-everyone and allowing autorun by default. Further, the end users should know better and turn autorun off, as well as not using superuser level rights for day-to-day use. Should Steve Ballmer be thrown into jail, or the users for making the 'net a less safe place? These could all be constrewed as negligent acts, especially by the standards that you're holding these businesses to.
Before we get into this any further, I'll suggest reading up on Sarbanes Oxley. It was put in place to hold senior management responsible for their financial indiscretions...mostly for financial record keeping, but really -- it was set up so that company officers couldn't claim igorance of their company's misdoings. So to answer your question, what you've asked for has been done. Perhaps you could give the law a chance to work. It does take a while. There will also be class action suits filed against the company. This will hurt management, as well as the shareholders.
Actually, there is no X Windows. There is, however, the X Window System. It's a pretty common mistake. It's usually an insignificant difference and hardly worthy of correction, but in this case, the distinction is important since we're talking about trademark.
If you find it impossible to believe that the universe didn't have a creator, why don't you find it impossible that your creator didn't have one either?
You've got my vote for best quote of the day right there.
It's pretty clear that Witacre doesn't understand his own business model. His customers pay for their internet service. If he isn't seeing sufficient returns on his capital investment from his customers, it's SBC's fault. Time to get a new CFO. Screwing valued customers by attaching additional costs to services that those customers pay to access is not the answer.
Yes, SBC owns some infrastructure. Furtunately, there is still competition in this arena. If SBC ever figures out how to extort fees from content providers, there will be plenty of competition who won't do this. It won't take long for SBC customers to figure out that they're being double billed for their service (google, ebay, vonage, et al will pass that cost back to their customers rather than eating those costs) and split. The bandwidth-to-the-curb industry is beginning to get crowded...especially with high speed wireless solutions like Verizon's springing up.
In reading the interview, his comments about broadband and internet start-ups sounded like chest-thumping remarks about which he knew absolutely nothing. Without services like google, ebay, vonage, etc, he will not (and never would) have a product to market (and I hope that he knows this). This kind of ass-talking makes him look like a real blow-hard. My advice to him is that he take his moronic chest-thumping nonsense and cramp it up his pipe.
IBM also helped develop Hollerith card systems used to round up the Jews during the Holocaust. Too bad they didn't hang the IBM Germany execs and their U.S. puppet masters at Nuremburg--today, Cisco, Yahoo, and Google might have thought twice.
I was going to cite these examples as well. The fact is that this is not a new practice. The idea is that if a company don't provide those services, their competitors will. In an arena of international competition, it becomes even scarier for companies. Does it make it right? I think that it depends on the situation. In the case of the NYT article, I don't have much of a problem with it.
As far as the idea of fines against American companies who sell software to foreign governments who censor content, this is laughable. The idea is equivalent to stifling free speech where it is a guaranteed right in order to protect free speech where it is not guaranteed.
While I completely agree with your assessment of ID not belonging in a science classroom, the concept of the intellectual elite is still disturbing to me. I'll try to explain.
The concept of the morally elite is also extremely disturbing to me. What bothers me is the people who think that they know better than I, who try to ram their morals down my throat for my own good. I don't necessarily share their morality and worldview. I neither subscribe to their god/gods nor most of their ideals, therefore, much of their dogmatic morality does not, and should not apply to me.
How does this relate to the intellectual elite? Well, IMO, it comes down to the term elite. The objectional part is that the intellectual elite, (similar to the morally elite) tend to think that they know what is best for the rest of us. Further (and also like the moral elite), these people tend to be self-appointed experts in what they preach. (I think I'm smarter than you, so I must be. Do as I say!) Are they actually smarter? Talking quickly and lacking a southern drawl does not make one more intelligent than those who speak slowly with a southern drawl. The problem with the ideal of the intellectual elite is that it tends to be a farce.
So where does this put me? I do not want the conservative moral elite telling me and my family how to live, and what our values should be. I also do not want the progressive intellectual elite telling me and my family how to live, what to spend money on, and what economic system that we should participate in.
I should add, however, that the people who are pushing for Intelligent Design in our science classrooms are pushing us way back. They consistently and knowingly distort the definition of a scientific theory, choosing to intermingle the popular definition of 'theory' with the scientific definition. In the end, we all pay for it with a watered down science curriculum.
I did have the V710, and I got my letter in the mail yesterday about it. However, I also canceled early - and paid the early termination fee. I don't know if I get anything back.
You can get your early termination fee back. Please see the settlement claim form under section C:
If you are not currently a Verizon Wireless customer, please indicate whether you paid an early termination fee to cancel your Verizon Wireless cellular service.
I suggest that you send that in as soon as you can. VZW will likely drag their feet on your refund for as long as possible.
I don't think Verisign could be responsible for the downfall of a company if such a place couldn't survive a domain name change.
I'm not the original poster, but let's think about the scenatio for a second. The poster described a startup Internet company, likely recgonizable to its customers only by a domain name. Presumably, the business is only able to generate revenue by customers visiting the site (generating sales and/or ad revenue). The poster said that Verisign refused to cooperate with their legal team or the California Computer Crimes Task Force. Given the parties involved, this appears to be a long and drawn out process. Perhaps we can assume that it went on for a month -- maybe two?
To a small startup, the loss of 1-2 months of revenue is significant. Remember that since they were a startup, marketing another domain name is probably out of the question. Perhaps it wasn't Verisign's fault entirely, but their customer service issues led to the downfall of a company. Lesson learned: Verisign doesn't care about customer service, and it costs customers. Don't do business with Verisign.
You're making the common mistake of assuming that the purpose of the military is to kill people. It's not. The purpose of the military is primarily to defend your country, and secondarily to defend other people where this is deemed beneficial to your country's interests.
I think that I can clarify this one:
The purpose of the military is primarily to defend your country ...by killing people or intimidating people by threat of death.
and secondarily to defend other people where this is deemed beneficial to your country's interests. ...by killing people or intimidating people by threat of death.
I'm not necessarily anti-military, and understand that the military both helps and harms people. However, your rosy picture of our happy military is a gross oversimplification, and dare I say, bullshit. Here is a link to Wikipedia's definition. An excerpt:
As an adjective, "military" is a descriptive property of things related to soldiers and warfare. It also refers to such context dependent terms such as military reserves which may indicate an actual unit deployable on command or the general sense, of a Nation States reserve troops available to or eligible for duty in its armed forces.
The soldiers and warfare part stands out for me. Those equate to killing people. You can call it whatever you want, but the reality is that it is what it is.
The problem is the fear that the "I'm testing it for my own benefit" defense could be too easily used by people who are trying to hack the system for nefarious purposes -- these people would be unprosecutable unless they actually succeed, and even then, it would be difficult to get a conviction.
This reasoning has provoked some questions.
First: Is the problem of cracking for nefarious purposes so rampant that a legitimate defense must be ignored due to potential for abuse?
Second: Is paranoia about nefarious cracking so rampant that legitimate use in an out-of-the-ordinary fashion by people 'in the know' a threat to us all?
That's why I welcome the interpretation that convictions would require analysis of prior actions and intent.
Hmm, I didn't realize that they weren't all in the contentinal US (although I understand how root servers are distributed). What is the UN moaning about then? Is this just anti-American posturing for the sake of itself?
b.) They (the UN) has the RIGHT to control those dns servers in the first place NOT the USA?
First of all, the UN doesn't have a right to a damn thing. Neither does the American government. Here's the thing that you're missing: DNS is controlled not by the American government, but by ICANN, an international organization serving all countries (supposedly). The UN does not even serve all countries, just its member nations. In this case, doesn't an organization like NATO have as much right to it as the UN? (By that I mean that neither has any "right" to it.) Second, the root nameservers are simply hosted in the US. The UN has no business asking the American government to hand over the DNS root servers, because the American government has no business handing it over to anyone. They don't own or run it.
TCP/IP, as well as all the original IMP's (and related copper) were an American DARPA project, funded by American taxpayer dollars. Does it entitle Americans to anything? No. However, in light of your politicaly motivated downplaying of history; the fact that the original Internet was a DARPA/ARPA project, originally finded by taxpayer dollars (and those dollars paid for the original infrastructure too, which includes the cable) is quite noteworthy.
The whole point is that no country "owns" the Internet. It would, however, be very wise to have a secondary root level DNS framework outside of the United States.
We have scanned Spread Firefox servers and at this time do not believe
any sensitive data was taken, but as a precautionary measure we have
shutdown the site and will be rebuilding the web site from scratch. We
also recommend that you change your Spread Firefox password and the
password of any accounts where you use the same password as your Spread
Firefox account.
It seems safe to assume that personal information is a subset of sensitive data, no?
Yeah, I saw your reply shortly after running my mouth. I posted a reply to that. I see your point, however. I'm just being a typical knee-jerk 'wait...that example sort of applies to me!' slashdotter:)
I just meant that the Otto-cycle internal combustion engines we use in cars today aren't the end-all be-all of motive power. Given the amount of attention they've been given over the past hundred years or so, any other type of engine could easily be as efficient, or even more so.
And the blame for this falls onto the auto racing community how? Are those who partake in racing expected to carry the torch for all transportation propulsion advances? (Because this is what you seem to be suggesting in your post). Maybe it's the vintage racers who are to blame for their clinging to the old sights, smells, sounds, and feel of vintage races.
While auto racing can claim credit for many innovations in autos, I'm not sure that this entitles them responsbility for lack of progress in any specific area.
Perhaps you should put your engineering cap on and make the world a better place. If you provide me with one of your widgets, support me financially, and perhaps host a competitive road racing series featuring your widget, I'll even run your widget for ya:)
All joking aside, isn't a free market(ish) economy that is keeping these propulsion technologies down? We tend to be slow to accept new automotive propulsion technologies. Things like the Wankel and Miller Cycle engine have seen the open market with limited success. The Diesel engine has been on the market for decades, and is torquier and more efficient than gasoline 4-strokers. However (at least in the American market), these have yet to catch on. Instead, those who want a more efficient motor go with the hybrid motors, which are arguably less efficient (and definitely less cost efficient). The problem seems more market based than anything else. Perhaps increasing fuel costs will drive us to more efficient propulsion technologies.
...Because of the idiotic nonsense about forcing the engine on enough to keep the catalytic converter at operating temperature, in the winter the engine runs all the way to work...
I wonder why Ford wouldn't include a warmup catalytic converter (also known as a pre-cat, required for California emissions). These sit in place of the downpipe and work to reduce emissions during startup before the rest of the exhaust system has warmed up.
I suppose that even a pre-cat requires some heat to work, but this problem can be solved by heating it electrically, similar to how modern 4-wire o2 sensors are heated. Then again, perhaps this is only a minor issue in the grand scheme of things.
Your commends appear misinformed and seem politically charged.
Corporations are nothing more than a legal structure (laws passed using the influence of wealth) that protects the owners from responsibility for criminal actions undertaken to make them even more rich.
I'm sure that you've heard heard of The Sarbanes-Oxley Act? If not, please read up on it. Among other things, it makes senior executives criminally accountable for the actions of their company. However, I agree that the idea of a corporation does limit liability to the stockholders, but I think that I may have a contrary position to yours in that this is actually a good thing. If I buy stock in some publicly traded company, why should I be criminally and financially liable for what they do beyond financial risk of the value of the stock certificate itself? This is much of the basis for our stockmarket. Check this link out for more information. Without these protections, I (or any other American) would have a difficult time investing in any companies.
They have also been used as ways to avoid taxes (which those who are not rich have to pay) and to legally bind individuals into doing unethical things in order to make more profit for the shareholders.
As far as the rich not paying taxes, I find it to largely be a mistruth. The wealthy pay higher taxes as a percentage, and their total taxes paid are higher than anyone else. I know that you assume that wealthy folk are able to write everything off, but high salary individuals are subject to the AMT, or Alternative Minimum Tax. If you're complaining about companies being able to write off past losses against future earnings, this is in place in order to allow both startup companies to get off of the ground and struggling companies to recover and reorganize. Outside of this, who do you think really pays corporate tax? The company? This idea is laughable, since any smart business will pass the cost of their taxes onto the consumer. Maybe you're upset that individuals are allowed to pay themselves in company stock and defer it by waiting for the capital gains period to end. Anyway, I digress -- perhaps I'm misunderstanding you, and I can spend all day speculating on what you mean. What, specifically, are you upset about? Tell me what you mean.
I have to say, however, that I'm not sure that I agree with any of your points. As a person without extravagent income, I'm not about to rise up and take over the country, and remain unconvinced that the rich are eating my lunch. Further, I don't want the government running all industries which require large infrastructure -- which you seem to allude to, since without private investment, I'm at a loss for ideas on how private individuals and businesses can possibly raise capital to start or grow large businesses.
The most credible argument I've ever heard (relatively speaking) is, "Who would cheat anyway? You're just being paranoid."
My guess (and this is a total assumption) is that the real explanation comes down to dollars:
A paper trail that is either counted manually or audited manually against machine-counted results would likely eliminate the cost-advantages of electronic voting and still add overhead for the cost of the machines themselves. The purpose of these machines is presumable to save money for the election boards in each state. I suppose that the potential for more accurate vote-tallying is another reason that they're attractive, but we all know that it is not going to happen. If these systems don't save the state money, there is hardly any point to them.
Furthermore, just having a paper trail means that Diebold will have to redesign and retest the machines that they've already sold in the marketplace. I'm sure that they could do this, but their customers don't want to buy new machines (and Diebold is unlikely to offer a module for existing systems). None of this would be free to the customer.
Finally, if they did offer a system with a paper trail, it's likely that customers (state election boards) would see this as an acknowledgement of selling a substandard product. Then, they could use this to show that Diebold willingly sold weak machines and demand that Diebold make it right (either by refund or replacement).
This really makes me wonder about the security in their cash cow (no pun intended), the ATM business.
Slashdot Mirror
Thank you. This is where I was going.
There are other, more efficient technologies out there. A petrol econobox can get equivalent or better gas mileage over any hybrid...and this is real-world milage, not some EPA numbers that real drivers never actually see. Diesel cars can trump even this. Biodiesel (and grease-powered) cars take envorinmental friendliness even further, since the net greenhouse emissions from these vehicles is zero.
Hybrids are great for making a statement. However, if better fuel economy can be obtained with a better equipped, cheaper car, which doesn't have any extra batteries to dispose of -- why not skip the statement and go with the vehicle that actually does better?
Right, like all of those young girls in South Africa who were raped by men with AIDS. Those little irresponsible bitches -- ruining it for the rest of us!
Perhaps, just for a second, you should step off of your high horse. Maybe some day you'll appreciate someone not looking down their nose at you when you're in a very bad position. It's always someone else's mess until someone you love is affected. It's clear that you've never seen someone close to you wither away and die from this horrible disease. Perhaps when it does happen, you should mention to that person that you're not going to waste any tears for them, since it was (most likely) a result of their irresponsible behavior.
Perhaps we should consider the actual damage done. Is the damage so severe and widespread that someone needs to (essentially) pay with their life? I believe that many of the felons convicted for computer crimes probably shouldn't have been felony convictions in the first place. Most of these (in the early days, especially) were just kids trying to prove a point (or proof of concept). When caught, they were usually to make an example of by a DA or judge. However, just because it happened to one group of people, making the same thing happen to another group doesn't make it right.
Do you really believe that it's fair to interpret these new laws so broadly and liberally hand out prison sentences?
Is this really a terrible abuse of power? It didn't take long for the information about the rootkit to become publicly available, and those who care decided not to buy any of the Sony CD's. In this case, I don't think that there is some executive sitting in his huge leather chair manicly laughing about owning another PC every time that a user inserts a CD. This sounds more like a company (Sony) made an uninformed decision to purchase a bad technology. Microsoft is just as culpible for their administrator-rights-for-everyone and allowing autorun by default. Further, the end users should know better and turn autorun off, as well as not using superuser level rights for day-to-day use. Should Steve Ballmer be thrown into jail, or the users for making the 'net a less safe place? These could all be constrewed as negligent acts, especially by the standards that you're holding these businesses to.
Before we get into this any further, I'll suggest reading up on Sarbanes Oxley. It was put in place to hold senior management responsible for their financial indiscretions...mostly for financial record keeping, but really -- it was set up so that company officers couldn't claim igorance of their company's misdoings. So to answer your question, what you've asked for has been done. Perhaps you could give the law a chance to work. It does take a while. There will also be class action suits filed against the company. This will hurt management, as well as the shareholders.
Actually, there is no X Windows. There is, however, the X Window System. It's a pretty common mistake. It's usually an insignificant difference and hardly worthy of correction, but in this case, the distinction is important since we're talking about trademark.
Yeah, but that's because all the Orthodox lady-rabbits are totally easy.
You've got my vote for best quote of the day right there.
It's pretty clear that Witacre doesn't understand his own business model. His customers pay for their internet service. If he isn't seeing sufficient returns on his capital investment from his customers, it's SBC's fault. Time to get a new CFO. Screwing valued customers by attaching additional costs to services that those customers pay to access is not the answer.
Yes, SBC owns some infrastructure. Furtunately, there is still competition in this arena. If SBC ever figures out how to extort fees from content providers, there will be plenty of competition who won't do this. It won't take long for SBC customers to figure out that they're being double billed for their service (google, ebay, vonage, et al will pass that cost back to their customers rather than eating those costs) and split. The bandwidth-to-the-curb industry is beginning to get crowded...especially with high speed wireless solutions like Verizon's springing up.
In reading the interview, his comments about broadband and internet start-ups sounded like chest-thumping remarks about which he knew absolutely nothing. Without services like google, ebay, vonage, etc, he will not (and never would) have a product to market (and I hope that he knows this). This kind of ass-talking makes him look like a real blow-hard. My advice to him is that he take his moronic chest-thumping nonsense and cramp it up his pipe.
I was going to cite these examples as well. The fact is that this is not a new practice. The idea is that if a company don't provide those services, their competitors will. In an arena of international competition, it becomes even scarier for companies. Does it make it right? I think that it depends on the situation. In the case of the NYT article, I don't have much of a problem with it.
As far as the idea of fines against American companies who sell software to foreign governments who censor content, this is laughable. The idea is equivalent to stifling free speech where it is a guaranteed right in order to protect free speech where it is not guaranteed.
I think that our tax dollars should be spent on drawing real lines. Therefore, there would be less objection to killing people on the other side ;)
While I completely agree with your assessment of ID not belonging in a science classroom, the concept of the intellectual elite is still disturbing to me. I'll try to explain.
The concept of the morally elite is also extremely disturbing to me. What bothers me is the people who think that they know better than I, who try to ram their morals down my throat for my own good. I don't necessarily share their morality and worldview. I neither subscribe to their god/gods nor most of their ideals, therefore, much of their dogmatic morality does not, and should not apply to me.
How does this relate to the intellectual elite? Well, IMO, it comes down to the term elite. The objectional part is that the intellectual elite, (similar to the morally elite) tend to think that they know what is best for the rest of us. Further (and also like the moral elite), these people tend to be self-appointed experts in what they preach. (I think I'm smarter than you, so I must be. Do as I say!) Are they actually smarter? Talking quickly and lacking a southern drawl does not make one more intelligent than those who speak slowly with a southern drawl. The problem with the ideal of the intellectual elite is that it tends to be a farce.
So where does this put me? I do not want the conservative moral elite telling me and my family how to live, and what our values should be. I also do not want the progressive intellectual elite telling me and my family how to live, what to spend money on, and what economic system that we should participate in.
I should add, however, that the people who are pushing for Intelligent Design in our science classrooms are pushing us way back. They consistently and knowingly distort the definition of a scientific theory, choosing to intermingle the popular definition of 'theory' with the scientific definition. In the end, we all pay for it with a watered down science curriculum.
You can get your early termination fee back. Please see the settlement claim form under section C:
I suggest that you send that in as soon as you can. VZW will likely drag their feet on your refund for as long as possible.
I'm not the original poster, but let's think about the scenatio for a second. The poster described a startup Internet company, likely recgonizable to its customers only by a domain name. Presumably, the business is only able to generate revenue by customers visiting the site (generating sales and/or ad revenue). The poster said that Verisign refused to cooperate with their legal team or the California Computer Crimes Task Force. Given the parties involved, this appears to be a long and drawn out process. Perhaps we can assume that it went on for a month -- maybe two?
To a small startup, the loss of 1-2 months of revenue is significant. Remember that since they were a startup, marketing another domain name is probably out of the question. Perhaps it wasn't Verisign's fault entirely, but their customer service issues led to the downfall of a company. Lesson learned: Verisign doesn't care about customer service, and it costs customers. Don't do business with Verisign.
The purpose of the military is primarily to defend your country
and secondarily to defend other people where this is deemed beneficial to your country's interests.
I'm not necessarily anti-military, and understand that the military both helps and harms people. However, your rosy picture of our happy military is a gross oversimplification, and dare I say, bullshit. Here is a link to Wikipedia's definition. An excerpt:
The soldiers and warfare part stands out for me. Those equate to killing people. You can call it whatever you want, but the reality is that it is what it is.
This reasoning has provoked some questions.
First: Is the problem of cracking for nefarious purposes so rampant that a legitimate defense must be ignored due to potential for abuse?
Second: Is paranoia about nefarious cracking so rampant that legitimate use in an out-of-the-ordinary fashion by people 'in the know' a threat to us all?
This would be wise.
Hmm, I didn't realize that they weren't all in the contentinal US (although I understand how root servers are distributed). What is the UN moaning about then? Is this just anti-American posturing for the sake of itself?
First of all, the UN doesn't have a right to a damn thing. Neither does the American government. Here's the thing that you're missing: DNS is controlled not by the American government, but by ICANN, an international organization serving all countries (supposedly). The UN does not even serve all countries, just its member nations. In this case, doesn't an organization like NATO have as much right to it as the UN? (By that I mean that neither has any "right" to it.) Second, the root nameservers are simply hosted in the US. The UN has no business asking the American government to hand over the DNS root servers, because the American government has no business handing it over to anyone. They don't own or run it.
TCP/IP, as well as all the original IMP's (and related copper) were an American DARPA project, funded by American taxpayer dollars. Does it entitle Americans to anything? No. However, in light of your politicaly motivated downplaying of history; the fact that the original Internet was a DARPA/ARPA project, originally finded by taxpayer dollars (and those dollars paid for the original infrastructure too, which includes the cable) is quite noteworthy.
The whole point is that no country "owns" the Internet. It would, however, be very wise to have a secondary root level DNS framework outside of the United States.
From the email sent out, it says that:
It seems safe to assume that personal information is a subset of sensitive data, no?
Yeah, I saw your reply shortly after running my mouth. I posted a reply to that. I see your point, however. I'm just being a typical knee-jerk 'wait...that example sort of applies to me!' slashdotter :)
And the blame for this falls onto the auto racing community how? Are those who partake in racing expected to carry the torch for all transportation propulsion advances? (Because this is what you seem to be suggesting in your post). Maybe it's the vintage racers who are to blame for their clinging to the old sights, smells, sounds, and feel of vintage races.
While auto racing can claim credit for many innovations in autos, I'm not sure that this entitles them responsbility for lack of progress in any specific area.
Perhaps you should put your engineering cap on and make the world a better place. If you provide me with one of your widgets, support me financially, and perhaps host a competitive road racing series featuring your widget, I'll even run your widget for ya :)
All joking aside, isn't a free market(ish) economy that is keeping these propulsion technologies down? We tend to be slow to accept new automotive propulsion technologies. Things like the Wankel and Miller Cycle engine have seen the open market with limited success. The Diesel engine has been on the market for decades, and is torquier and more efficient than gasoline 4-strokers. However (at least in the American market), these have yet to catch on. Instead, those who want a more efficient motor go with the hybrid motors, which are arguably less efficient (and definitely less cost efficient). The problem seems more market based than anything else. Perhaps increasing fuel costs will drive us to more efficient propulsion technologies.
I'm not sure how you came to the conclusion that auto racing is to blame as to why we're 'stuck' with internal combustion engines. Care to elaborate?
I wonder why Ford wouldn't include a warmup catalytic converter (also known as a pre-cat, required for California emissions). These sit in place of the downpipe and work to reduce emissions during startup before the rest of the exhaust system has warmed up.
I suppose that even a pre-cat requires some heat to work, but this problem can be solved by heating it electrically, similar to how modern 4-wire o2 sensors are heated. Then again, perhaps this is only a minor issue in the grand scheme of things.
. o O (note to self...further justification for keeping the carbureted motorcycle)
I'm sure that you've heard heard of The Sarbanes-Oxley Act? If not, please read up on it. Among other things, it makes senior executives criminally accountable for the actions of their company. However, I agree that the idea of a corporation does limit liability to the stockholders, but I think that I may have a contrary position to yours in that this is actually a good thing. If I buy stock in some publicly traded company, why should I be criminally and financially liable for what they do beyond financial risk of the value of the stock certificate itself? This is much of the basis for our stockmarket. Check this link out for more information. Without these protections, I (or any other American) would have a difficult time investing in any companies.
As far as the rich not paying taxes, I find it to largely be a mistruth. The wealthy pay higher taxes as a percentage, and their total taxes paid are higher than anyone else. I know that you assume that wealthy folk are able to write everything off, but high salary individuals are subject to the AMT, or Alternative Minimum Tax. If you're complaining about companies being able to write off past losses against future earnings, this is in place in order to allow both startup companies to get off of the ground and struggling companies to recover and reorganize. Outside of this, who do you think really pays corporate tax? The company? This idea is laughable, since any smart business will pass the cost of their taxes onto the consumer. Maybe you're upset that individuals are allowed to pay themselves in company stock and defer it by waiting for the capital gains period to end. Anyway, I digress -- perhaps I'm misunderstanding you, and I can spend all day speculating on what you mean. What, specifically, are you upset about? Tell me what you mean.
I have to say, however, that I'm not sure that I agree with any of your points. As a person without extravagent income, I'm not about to rise up and take over the country, and remain unconvinced that the rich are eating my lunch. Further, I don't want the government running all industries which require large infrastructure -- which you seem to allude to, since without private investment, I'm at a loss for ideas on how private individuals and businesses can possibly raise capital to start or grow large businesses.
My guess (and this is a total assumption) is that the real explanation comes down to dollars:
A paper trail that is either counted manually or audited manually against machine-counted results would likely eliminate the cost-advantages of electronic voting and still add overhead for the cost of the machines themselves. The purpose of these machines is presumable to save money for the election boards in each state. I suppose that the potential for more accurate vote-tallying is another reason that they're attractive, but we all know that it is not going to happen. If these systems don't save the state money, there is hardly any point to them.
Furthermore, just having a paper trail means that Diebold will have to redesign and retest the machines that they've already sold in the marketplace. I'm sure that they could do this, but their customers don't want to buy new machines (and Diebold is unlikely to offer a module for existing systems). None of this would be free to the customer.
Finally, if they did offer a system with a paper trail, it's likely that customers (state election boards) would see this as an acknowledgement of selling a substandard product. Then, they could use this to show that Diebold willingly sold weak machines and demand that Diebold make it right (either by refund or replacement).
This really makes me wonder about the security in their cash cow (no pun intended), the ATM business.