I have traveled internationally. Automobiles in Germany have a keyless ignition with push button start. If your fob is within proximity of the control panel, the button starts the engine. They have it in Ford, Mercedes, and BMW autos that I have rented. I liked the system.
Color me reluctant, but I have no interest because Sony is notorious for proprietary formats that lock you into their product and I still despise their hostile disposition for customers when they gave us the rootkit scandal.
I pulled the plug on broadcast and cable television back in 2000. Nothing worthwhile to watch and too many ads. My brother brought DVDs of newer shows and I've no interest in them either. I've lost any desire to waste time watching television, and these legal battles do more to drive me away from it all. The content owners don't want to play nice and I refuse to patronize such villiany.
Hate to be playing devil's advocate but a common tactic to shield assets from the taxman has been to transfer them to children.
While this may be a good tool to combat such tactics, it does have unintended consequences in harming those who can least afford it.
It's a well known fact that the IRS doesn't have the resources to resolve debts against the rich armed with a loaded legal and financial warchest. So they go after those who are least able to resist. This isn't a fair law at all.
My work cell phone is provided by my employer. I have my own personal cell phone, which is 100% separate from my employer. I will not provide that cell number to my employer. Period. When I get home from work, I turn off the work cell phone. If they contact me during off-duty hours, I won't get the message until I am on duty. If my employer demands my personal cell number, then in return I demand that they reimburse my cell phone bill 100%. It is not an unreasonable demand and they never follow through. Why do we need a law for this?
No-fly lists simply shouldn't exist, regardless of whether or not they can work. The idea that you can be considered too dangerous (Without a trial!) to fly and yet not dangerous enough to arrest is absurd. As others have said, this is just used for oppression.
There was one case of the no-fly list being used against US Sen Edward Kennedy, proof that it is a tool that can be exploited for political retaliation and oppression.
This doesn't work as an explanation because corporations in countries other than the U.S. (with faster speeds) are also greedy. So corporate greed isn't the cause per se. It may be necessary, but its not sufficient.
Other countries don't have lobbying loopholes where corporations can buy their own laws or have the issues with regulatory capture that the US does.
Why not laptops? Why not cars? Why not any of a thousand things that are stolen all the time.
I wouldn't mind this as much in cars or laptops. I'm pretty sure I could disable it if I wanted. But in a smartphone? How?
This whole thing gives me the creeps
Smartphones are a tool of civil protest. The government can selectively "kill" Smartphones and effectively crush any rebellion. Ukraine and Iran have already demonstrated that power.
This is just another flawed redistribution of wealth scheme that will ultimately fail.
It takes away the incentive to progress up the ranks because the tax progressively reduces any gain in income.
When does this tax "expire"? After the New York State Thruway was opened in the 1950s they put a toll on vehicles to pay for its construction. The construction costs have long been paid for yet the toll remains. This "tax" is just another revenue generator for the state treasury to fund projects with no relevance to the Thruway.
After the tax, the take home income will be driven down to the income level of uneducated workers. Why put all that effort going through college when you don't gain a better income? Students will see this disparity and turn down higher education. This starts a cycle of collapse in the system. Fewer graduates, loss of tax revenue, loss of distribution to colleges, reduction of professors and staff, reduction of tuition enrollment, reduced opportunities to citizens, followed by even fewer graduates...
Government has already raided Social Security and other social programs. What is to stop them from raiding my tax dollars targetted for college tuition to prop up increasing welfare rolls when more able-bodied workers drop out of the labor market?
The tax punishes a self-sustained independent lifestyle and marriage. You can only live with your parents long enough to evade the tax, but if you marry or have to move away to find a job you have to get your own dwelling. Then your income drops due to the tax. Need to apply for a mortgage for a house? Your drop in income lowers your credit score which means higher interest rate. Home sales will drop because college graduates will have trouble getting approved for a mortgage.
Political abuse. Obama has already used government to punish political enemies and has proposed education reform that is vulnerable to institutions being refused federal assistance if they oppose or criticize the agenda of the POTUS. This is a very good reason why government should stay out of higher education.
Ultimately the long term problems will outweigh the short term gains. "Share my work ethic not my wealth" rings so true.
Actually, for the employees, IBM also stood for "I've Been Moved", as in, "transferred".
Now I guess they have changed that to "IBS", as in, "I've Been Sold".
"I Bought a Mac"
That REALLY ruffled some feathers in the halls at IBM:)
This bill proposes to put the kill switch under the control of law enforcement officials. That's asking for abuse from an oppressive government. Look how Obama has used IRS, ATF, OSHA, and other agencies as political weapons to intimidate political enemies.
If the government were REALLY concerned for the public good, they would put the kill switch under the control of the CONSUMER. We already have it for credit cards - we call up a phone number, report it stolen, and wala credit card becomes an instant brick. There is no reason this couldn't be done for mobile devices.
Two things often cause loss of control on slippery roads - brakes and improper gear ratio in the transmission. Using low gear on your transmission (not "D" position) to maintain slow speed or to slow down instead of using brakes gives you better control of a 2WD vehicle on slippery roads. The lower gear ratio combined with higher engine RPM keeps your tires from spinning because the RPM is easier to maintain in higher ranges. Especially on any hill. Downshifting works much better to slow the vehicle down than brakes. I learned this from years of driving standard transmission in snowy weather, you can do this with automatic transmissions. Some vehicles with automatic transmission have an engine that idles too high and you have to use the brakes to prevent the car from going too fast. Nine times out of ten, brakes will cause you to lose control of the vehicle. Using low gear and downshifting is a much better option.
New cars have to be lightweight to meet federal fuel efficiency standards and that is a catch-22 on slippery roads. Extra weight over the axles - a couple of cinderblocks is often enough - will increase the traction of your tires. It even works in my compact Saturn.
But ice is very dangerous. Even as a hardened winter driver from the northeast, I will not drive on ice. Most states no longer allow snow tires with spikes, which was the only tool that worked on ice.
Not to steer this into a Windows-vs-Mac discussion, but I gave up on the garbage products that are being made by Microsoft. I'm no slouch with computers and have built most of the ones I have owned. Having been a Microsoft user since DOS 6.22, the frustrations with Microsoft products over declining reliability, increasing malware attacks, and re-learning where MS has moved common utilities along with re-learning new keystrokes has pushed me to the Mac world. My WIN2K system mysteriously ceased to recognize my CD drive, and HP no longer makes the ink cartridges for my printer which isn't even ten years old! We use WIN7 at work and Microsoft went the wrong direction with the new IE8 and Windows Explorer (I HATE the mouse-over features, VERY annoying).
Since upgrading would had required replacing my entire system, I opted for a Mac Pro. You pay more but you get what you pay for. It is more reliable than MS, HP, or Dell can ever dream. The learning curve to OSX was easier than I imagined and OSX is far more intuitive. I had been eyeing the Mac for ten years and purposely stayed away from Windows-centric file formats, thus when I jumped ship all of my file formats translated seamlessly. Apple has inexpensive word processor and spreadsheet software on iTunes that will import Word/Excel files with few compatibility problems. OSX is not immune to viruses but I have yet to suffer from an infection. I don't regret the move one iota. I have upgraded OSX from Lion to Mountain Lion to Mavericks without replacing any hardware or paying any 'apple tax'.
What was Target collecting credit card numbers AND PIN numbers for? What business purpose did they need that data for? Why has no one raised this question? They have just created a huge credit theft problem for their customers. This is a shining example why businesses should not maintain any database of sensitive customer information.
I already suffered identity theft and credit card theft in the past and I'm not at all anxious to go through that again. I'm taking my business elsewhere. In fact I may avoid large national chains for this very reason.
There are better solutions than legislation outright banning cell phone usage on flights.
Simply designate a certain area of seats for people who wish to use cell phones. Preferrably as close to the engines as possible. The engine noise will be so loud that habitual cell users will be cured of their habit.
Newegg lost the trial but has prevailed on appeal with past cases against patent trolls. Newegg had budgeted its legal warchest to include appeal, so the fight ain't over yet.
Anything that interferes with base system functions gets the banhammer immediately.
AOL was notorious for this years ago when the install process would replace most Windows DLLs with AOL-flavored ones. IT departments at work were pretty busy fixing computers.
Today you can't install anything on work computers unless you are an engineer involved in software development. As of WIN7 they have locked down the computers. You can't even save data to the c: drive, you have to use a thumbdrive.
I have a WinXP Netbook at home that I installed iTunes on. Over time the browsers stopped opening at all. IE, Mozilla, Firefox, Safari, none of them worked. I traced it to some iPod apps running in the background even though iTunes wasn't open. After I removed iTunes it worked a lot better.
Why don't the copyright-holders publish lyrics for everything on the web themselves? Then they'd kill demand for other lyrics sites and get ad revenues.
Because if the Sony rootkit fiasco is any indication, you'd probably get a drive-by virus if you land on their lyric site. Sony has already demonstrated that major labels are hostile to P2P consumers and I would never trust any lyric website hosted by a major label.
The Obama administration is paranoid obsessive about controlling the press and spouting half-truths, and career journalists have branded Obama as the least accessable president they have ever encountered.
Sure they like to flout that Obama has conducted more interviews than any president before him. But Obama intentionally selects outlets where he can evade scrutiny. His "interviews" have largely been on entertainment shows. When preparing for the precious few press interviews, Obama selects journalists who are least likely to challenge him. The administration exploits social media and prepared videos/press releases to evade scrutiny. At his "press conferences" in the WH he abruptly leaves the podium after delivering his prepared statements to ignore journalists trying to confront him with questions. WH spokesman Jay Carney shows an evasive disposition that has resulted in increasing confrontation from an increasingly skeptical and frustrated press.
Obama has admitted that he intends to punish his political enemies. Intimidation, harassment, and retaliation are tools frequently deployed, witness the IRS singling out conservative groups and other federal agencies targetting businesses and individuals who have either criticized the administration or contributed funding to opposition movements. Dr. Ben Carson was endured his first ever IRS audit less than four months after delivering a speech critical of the administration, with a visibly steaming Obama sitting two seats away from him. The Rev Billy Graham was audited after he endorsed Mitt Romney during the 2012 campaign.
Obama had the mainstream press in his pocket until they learned of his betrayal when the DoJ ordered the search of phone records of Associated Press organizations. Their eyes were finally opened to the manipulations of the administration and they have turned on him. Not all of the news outlets have followed suit but they are changing their stripes one by one.
Obama (and Hillary) were disciples of Saul Alinsky, whose "Rules for Radicals" book encourages ad hominem tactics, deception, harassment, any means necessary to accomplish an agenda. Indeed, Saul Alinsky dedicated his book to Satan.
For those of you who voted for a new hope, you have no idea of the deception that was handed to you.
Slashdot Mirror
I have traveled internationally. Automobiles in Germany have a keyless ignition with push button start. If your fob is within proximity of the control panel, the button starts the engine. They have it in Ford, Mercedes, and BMW autos that I have rented. I liked the system.
Color me reluctant, but I have no interest because Sony is notorious for proprietary formats that lock you into their product and I still despise their hostile disposition for customers when they gave us the rootkit scandal.
I pulled the plug on broadcast and cable television back in 2000. Nothing worthwhile to watch and too many ads. My brother brought DVDs of newer shows and I've no interest in them either. I've lost any desire to waste time watching television, and these legal battles do more to drive me away from it all. The content owners don't want to play nice and I refuse to patronize such villiany.
Just who is the devil here?
Hate to be playing devil's advocate but a common tactic to shield assets from the taxman has been to transfer them to children.
While this may be a good tool to combat such tactics, it does have unintended consequences in harming those who can least afford it.
It's a well known fact that the IRS doesn't have the resources to resolve debts against the rich armed with a loaded legal and financial warchest. So they go after those who are least able to resist. This isn't a fair law at all.
My work cell phone is provided by my employer. I have my own personal cell phone, which is 100% separate from my employer. I will not provide that cell number to my employer. Period. When I get home from work, I turn off the work cell phone. If they contact me during off-duty hours, I won't get the message until I am on duty. If my employer demands my personal cell number, then in return I demand that they reimburse my cell phone bill 100%. It is not an unreasonable demand and they never follow through. Why do we need a law for this?
Why do I need a camera to see my rear view? They make my ass look big.
There was one case of the no-fly list being used against US Sen Edward Kennedy, proof that it is a tool that can be exploited for political retaliation and oppression.
Other countries don't have lobbying loopholes where corporations can buy their own laws or have the issues with regulatory capture that the US does.
Smartphones are a tool of civil protest. The government can selectively "kill" Smartphones and effectively crush any rebellion. Ukraine and Iran have already demonstrated that power.
The same can't be said about cars or laptops.
This is just another flawed redistribution of wealth scheme that will ultimately fail.
It takes away the incentive to progress up the ranks because the tax progressively reduces any gain in income.
When does this tax "expire"? After the New York State Thruway was opened in the 1950s they put a toll on vehicles to pay for its construction. The construction costs have long been paid for yet the toll remains. This "tax" is just another revenue generator for the state treasury to fund projects with no relevance to the Thruway.
After the tax, the take home income will be driven down to the income level of uneducated workers. Why put all that effort going through college when you don't gain a better income? Students will see this disparity and turn down higher education. This starts a cycle of collapse in the system. Fewer graduates, loss of tax revenue, loss of distribution to colleges, reduction of professors and staff, reduction of tuition enrollment, reduced opportunities to citizens, followed by even fewer graduates...
Government has already raided Social Security and other social programs. What is to stop them from raiding my tax dollars targetted for college tuition to prop up increasing welfare rolls when more able-bodied workers drop out of the labor market?
The tax punishes a self-sustained independent lifestyle and marriage. You can only live with your parents long enough to evade the tax, but if you marry or have to move away to find a job you have to get your own dwelling. Then your income drops due to the tax. Need to apply for a mortgage for a house? Your drop in income lowers your credit score which means higher interest rate. Home sales will drop because college graduates will have trouble getting approved for a mortgage.
Political abuse. Obama has already used government to punish political enemies and has proposed education reform that is vulnerable to institutions being refused federal assistance if they oppose or criticize the agenda of the POTUS. This is a very good reason why government should stay out of higher education.
Ultimately the long term problems will outweigh the short term gains. "Share my work ethic not my wealth" rings so true.
"I Bought a Mac"
That REALLY ruffled some feathers in the halls at IBM :)
This bill proposes to put the kill switch under the control of law enforcement officials. That's asking for abuse from an oppressive government. Look how Obama has used IRS, ATF, OSHA, and other agencies as political weapons to intimidate political enemies.
If the government were REALLY concerned for the public good, they would put the kill switch under the control of the CONSUMER. We already have it for credit cards - we call up a phone number, report it stolen, and wala credit card becomes an instant brick. There is no reason this couldn't be done for mobile devices.
My brain is full
Two things often cause loss of control on slippery roads - brakes and improper gear ratio in the transmission. Using low gear on your transmission (not "D" position) to maintain slow speed or to slow down instead of using brakes gives you better control of a 2WD vehicle on slippery roads. The lower gear ratio combined with higher engine RPM keeps your tires from spinning because the RPM is easier to maintain in higher ranges. Especially on any hill. Downshifting works much better to slow the vehicle down than brakes. I learned this from years of driving standard transmission in snowy weather, you can do this with automatic transmissions. Some vehicles with automatic transmission have an engine that idles too high and you have to use the brakes to prevent the car from going too fast. Nine times out of ten, brakes will cause you to lose control of the vehicle. Using low gear and downshifting is a much better option.
New cars have to be lightweight to meet federal fuel efficiency standards and that is a catch-22 on slippery roads. Extra weight over the axles - a couple of cinderblocks is often enough - will increase the traction of your tires. It even works in my compact Saturn.
But ice is very dangerous. Even as a hardened winter driver from the northeast, I will not drive on ice. Most states no longer allow snow tires with spikes, which was the only tool that worked on ice.
Not to steer this into a Windows-vs-Mac discussion, but I gave up on the garbage products that are being made by Microsoft. I'm no slouch with computers and have built most of the ones I have owned. Having been a Microsoft user since DOS 6.22, the frustrations with Microsoft products over declining reliability, increasing malware attacks, and re-learning where MS has moved common utilities along with re-learning new keystrokes has pushed me to the Mac world. My WIN2K system mysteriously ceased to recognize my CD drive, and HP no longer makes the ink cartridges for my printer which isn't even ten years old! We use WIN7 at work and Microsoft went the wrong direction with the new IE8 and Windows Explorer (I HATE the mouse-over features, VERY annoying).
Since upgrading would had required replacing my entire system, I opted for a Mac Pro. You pay more but you get what you pay for. It is more reliable than MS, HP, or Dell can ever dream. The learning curve to OSX was easier than I imagined and OSX is far more intuitive. I had been eyeing the Mac for ten years and purposely stayed away from Windows-centric file formats, thus when I jumped ship all of my file formats translated seamlessly. Apple has inexpensive word processor and spreadsheet software on iTunes that will import Word/Excel files with few compatibility problems. OSX is not immune to viruses but I have yet to suffer from an infection. I don't regret the move one iota. I have upgraded OSX from Lion to Mountain Lion to Mavericks without replacing any hardware or paying any 'apple tax'.
What was Target collecting credit card numbers AND PIN numbers for? What business purpose did they need that data for? Why has no one raised this question? They have just created a huge credit theft problem for their customers. This is a shining example why businesses should not maintain any database of sensitive customer information.
I already suffered identity theft and credit card theft in the past and I'm not at all anxious to go through that again. I'm taking my business elsewhere. In fact I may avoid large national chains for this very reason.
There are better solutions than legislation outright banning cell phone usage on flights.
Simply designate a certain area of seats for people who wish to use cell phones. Preferrably as close to the engines as possible. The engine noise will be so loud that habitual cell users will be cured of their habit.
Newegg lost the trial but has prevailed on appeal with past cases against patent trolls. Newegg had budgeted its legal warchest to include appeal, so the fight ain't over yet.
People STILL use Yahoo?!?
Anything that interferes with base system functions gets the banhammer immediately.
AOL was notorious for this years ago when the install process would replace most Windows DLLs with AOL-flavored ones. IT departments at work were pretty busy fixing computers.
Today you can't install anything on work computers unless you are an engineer involved in software development. As of WIN7 they have locked down the computers. You can't even save data to the c: drive, you have to use a thumbdrive.
I have a WinXP Netbook at home that I installed iTunes on. Over time the browsers stopped opening at all. IE, Mozilla, Firefox, Safari, none of them worked. I traced it to some iPod apps running in the background even though iTunes wasn't open. After I removed iTunes it worked a lot better.
I know of at least one lyric website that downloads a virus (metrolyrics dot com). That one was a PITA to remove and I never went there again.
Because if the Sony rootkit fiasco is any indication, you'd probably get a drive-by virus if you land on their lyric site. Sony has already demonstrated that major labels are hostile to P2P consumers and I would never trust any lyric website hosted by a major label.
There's a new system on the way called BORE - Back Orifice Recognition Engine. They claim no two are alike. A seat is included with the system.
Once again, I learned about and downloaded a great utility thanks to the Streisand Effect. Thanks, Facebook!
The Obama administration is paranoid obsessive about controlling the press and spouting half-truths, and career journalists have branded Obama as the least accessable president they have ever encountered.
Sure they like to flout that Obama has conducted more interviews than any president before him. But Obama intentionally selects outlets where he can evade scrutiny. His "interviews" have largely been on entertainment shows. When preparing for the precious few press interviews, Obama selects journalists who are least likely to challenge him. The administration exploits social media and prepared videos/press releases to evade scrutiny. At his "press conferences" in the WH he abruptly leaves the podium after delivering his prepared statements to ignore journalists trying to confront him with questions. WH spokesman Jay Carney shows an evasive disposition that has resulted in increasing confrontation from an increasingly skeptical and frustrated press.
Obama has admitted that he intends to punish his political enemies. Intimidation, harassment, and retaliation are tools frequently deployed, witness the IRS singling out conservative groups and other federal agencies targetting businesses and individuals who have either criticized the administration or contributed funding to opposition movements. Dr. Ben Carson was endured his first ever IRS audit less than four months after delivering a speech critical of the administration, with a visibly steaming Obama sitting two seats away from him. The Rev Billy Graham was audited after he endorsed Mitt Romney during the 2012 campaign.
Obama had the mainstream press in his pocket until they learned of his betrayal when the DoJ ordered the search of phone records of Associated Press organizations. Their eyes were finally opened to the manipulations of the administration and they have turned on him. Not all of the news outlets have followed suit but they are changing their stripes one by one.
Obama (and Hillary) were disciples of Saul Alinsky, whose "Rules for Radicals" book encourages ad hominem tactics, deception, harassment, any means necessary to accomplish an agenda. Indeed, Saul Alinsky dedicated his book to Satan.
For those of you who voted for a new hope, you have no idea of the deception that was handed to you.