Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble.
After reading about the experience of Beck Weathers on Mount Everest (he had radial keratotomy surgery, and during the climb experienced blindness that cost him both hands and part of his face to frostbite), I've decided that maybe glasses aren't so bad after all.
So what's more disturbing : a split second of distant phone vibration, or an usher walking into the theatre (probably multiple times), scanning up and down the aisle calling somebody's name?
If your sensibilities and attention span are so fragile that you absolutely must have a pristinely uninterrupted movie watching experience, perhaps you should avoid public theatres. Wait six months, rent the DVD, and watch it at home in your soundproof bunker. Otherwise, realize that the world doesn't revolve around you and that small annoyances are the price we all pay for living in a society.
Thank you for the kind donation of a sample of dirt from your back yard. We are pleased to inform you that we have isolated a fascinating compound from it and consequently we will require a larger amount for further study. We'll bring in the backhoes and dumptrucks around 1:00 this Tuesday.
Sincerely, The Biodesign Institute
PS - Have you considered getting a built-in pool? Now might be a good time.
(Puts on tinfoil hat)
In 1972, the CIA used Howard Hughes (at the time, one of the richest men in the world) to provide a plausible cover story for an attempt to recover a sunken Soviet submarine.
Given the current administration's tendency to monitor it's citizen's activities, and Google's tendency to cooperate with totalitarian regimes, perhaps history is repeating itself...?
Not sure what to make of the rather incomprehensible parent comment, but I do have a hard time waxing poetic on Carly Fiorina.
"There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore." - Carly Fiorina
While working in Manhattan I saw two entire floors' worth of HP staff become unemployed with a stroke of Carly's pen. At the same time she was eliminating and/or offshoring thousands of US tech jobs, Carly Fiorina and her ilk were cruising around in Jetstreams and luxury yachts, hobnobbing with celebrities and politicians. She epitomizes the grasping callousness, hypocrisy and greed that permeates the top levels of corporate America.
It only took about three days (and one badass rainstorm) for the city of New Orleans to descend into a state of lawless chaos.
Imagine what a more prolonged disaster (meteor strike, plague, nuke/bio/chemical attack, etc) could do to a major metropolitan area in a very short span of time.
If you do any work at all in the financial industry, you'll find that Excel can't be that easily dismissed. It is simply *the* essential application for large segments of the workforce.
It must also be admitted that in the hands of an experienced user (and at the banks that I do work for, there are some serious Excel power users) Excel is an impressive application. The open source spreadsheets that I've seen (e.g., OpenOffice Calc and Gnumeric), while fine for casual use, don't even come close to matching Excel in this arena.
Ian Callens, Icomm Technologies, explains: "If someone is seen in the workplace using an iPod it's more than likely that it's for the wrong reasons - either podslurping or downloading music without permission."
Apparently the millions of people who listen to music on their iPods are "more than likely" criminals and spies.
Talk about sowing FUD -- I wonder how much the RIAA pays this guy?
I'm not sure if this is what he's referring to, but back in the day $FFE4 was the address for the "get whatever key is being pressed" routine in the 8-bit Commodore kernal (e.g., the C64).
As in:
WAITKEY: JSR $FFE4 ; Check for a keypress BEQ WAITKEY ; If no key pressed, a zero is in the accumulator, so loop back
I've been writing software for computing grid environments for about three years. It's an architecture that works well for problems with many discrete, parallel, CPU-intensive calculations (think Monte Carlo-type simulations). You can't just take any application, throw it on the grid, and expect it to scale up - the software really needs to be designed for a distributed environment. Issues of data movement, process synchronization and fault tolerance are all magnified when the application is spread across hundreds (or thousands) of machines simultaneously.
The companies that use these applications tend to be very large corporations (in my case, financial institutions, but I'm also aware of some oil companies that use them). Given the amount of development and IP required to build such systems, and the general tendency of such places towards paranoia, I believe they'd be reluctant to allow a third party to host these apps.
"Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed? We want them broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts that you're up against - and then you'll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We're after power and we mean it. There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of lawbreakers and then you cash in on the guilt. Now that's the system, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."
Seems to me that they've been cozy for a while already.
For example, any time I run RealPlayer, Microsoft's AntiSpyware software blithely allows the addition of the "realsched.exe" daemon to the system autorun list in the registry. AntiSpyware doesn't even give me the option to refuse the change.
Now I simply avoid playing RealMedia files - not worth the pain.
The big difference is that the RIAA is going after a child. In our society there presumption that children do not have the same understanding of the consequences of their actions as adults do. This is why, for example, a minor cannot enter into a legal contract, and why there is a separate system of laws for underage offenders.
This is what makes this particular RIAA tactic so despicable -- they are going after the most defenseless segment of the population.
Slashdot Mirror
The only part of Jessica Alba that should be invisible is her clothes.
If you want subtle acting and believable characterization, you can go watch Meryl Streep. In the meantime, I'll be watching Alba with the sound off.
- George W. Bush
At first I thought it meant that you should conceal your iPod within a Cowbell.
"Guess what? I got a fever. And the only prescription...is more cowbell!"
Check this out:
Using my 733t hax0r sk1llz, I can use my EYES to COPY the movie to my BRAIN, where I can remember it OVER and OVER again -- for FREE!
Eat THAT, MPAA!
After reading about the experience of Beck Weathers on Mount Everest (he had radial keratotomy surgery, and during the climb experienced blindness that cost him both hands and part of his face to frostbite), I've decided that maybe glasses aren't so bad after all.
So what's more disturbing : a split second of distant phone vibration, or an usher walking into the theatre (probably multiple times), scanning up and down the aisle calling somebody's name?
If your sensibilities and attention span are so fragile that you absolutely must have a pristinely uninterrupted movie watching experience, perhaps you should avoid public theatres. Wait six months, rent the DVD, and watch it at home in your soundproof bunker. Otherwise, realize that the world doesn't revolve around you and that small annoyances are the price we all pay for living in a society.
Patches for this problem available here, here and here.
Dear Sir:
Thank you for the kind donation of a sample of dirt from your back yard. We are pleased to inform you that we have isolated a fascinating compound from it and consequently we will require a larger amount for further study. We'll bring in the backhoes and dumptrucks around 1:00 this Tuesday.
Sincerely,
The Biodesign Institute
PS - Have you considered getting a built-in pool? Now might be a good time.
(Puts on tinfoil hat) In 1972, the CIA used Howard Hughes (at the time, one of the richest men in the world) to provide a plausible cover story for an attempt to recover a sunken Soviet submarine. Given the current administration's tendency to monitor it's citizen's activities, and Google's tendency to cooperate with totalitarian regimes, perhaps history is repeating itself...?
Not sure what to make of the rather incomprehensible parent comment, but I do have a hard time waxing poetic on Carly Fiorina.
"There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore." - Carly Fiorina
While working in Manhattan I saw two entire floors' worth of HP staff become unemployed with a stroke of Carly's pen. At the same time she was eliminating and/or offshoring thousands of US tech jobs, Carly Fiorina and her ilk were cruising around in Jetstreams and luxury yachts, hobnobbing with celebrities and politicians. She epitomizes the grasping callousness, hypocrisy and greed that permeates the top levels of corporate America.
TIGER HAND! ...
Come on! You Know!
You don't know Tiger Hand?
Tiger Hand beats paper. Like totally beats paper. Always.
http://www.rockpapersaddam.com/one.html
Here's the correct one: http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/experiment/000 00109
This is best done outdoors. Procure a two-liter bottle of soda and roll of the Freshmakers.
0 00109/
Step-by-step directions (plus videos of the results) here:
http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/experiment/00
It only took about three days (and one badass rainstorm) for the city of New Orleans to descend into a state of lawless chaos.
Imagine what a more prolonged disaster (meteor strike, plague, nuke/bio/chemical attack, etc) could do to a major metropolitan area in a very short span of time.
Look how far we've come:
"Give me liberty, or give me death" Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775
"Civil liberties do not mean much when you are dead," Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky) March 2, 2006
If you do any work at all in the financial industry, you'll find that Excel can't be that easily dismissed. It is simply *the* essential application for large segments of the workforce.
It must also be admitted that in the hands of an experienced user (and at the banks that I do work for, there are some serious Excel power users) Excel is an impressive application. The open source spreadsheets that I've seen (e.g., OpenOffice Calc and Gnumeric), while fine for casual use, don't even come close to matching Excel in this arena.
Ian Callens, Icomm Technologies, explains: "If someone is seen in the workplace using an iPod it's more than likely that it's for the wrong reasons - either podslurping or downloading music without permission."
Apparently the millions of people who listen to music on their iPods are "more than likely" criminals and spies.
Talk about sowing FUD -- I wonder how much the RIAA pays this guy?
I'm not sure if this is what he's referring to, but back in the day $FFE4 was the address for the "get whatever key is being pressed" routine in the 8-bit Commodore kernal (e.g., the C64).
As in:
WAITKEY: JSR $FFE4 ; Check for a keypress
BEQ WAITKEY ; If no key pressed, a zero is in the accumulator, so loop back
Hardware is only half the battle.
I've been writing software for computing grid environments for about three years. It's an architecture that works well for problems with many discrete, parallel, CPU-intensive calculations (think Monte Carlo-type simulations). You can't just take any application, throw it on the grid, and expect it to scale up - the software really needs to be designed for a distributed environment. Issues of data movement, process synchronization and fault tolerance are all magnified when the application is spread across hundreds (or thousands) of machines simultaneously.
The companies that use these applications tend to be very large corporations (in my case, financial institutions, but I'm also aware of some oil companies that use them). Given the amount of development and IP required to build such systems, and the general tendency of such places towards paranoia, I believe they'd be reluctant to allow a third party to host these apps.
"Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed? We want them broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts that you're up against - and then you'll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We're after power and we mean it. There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of lawbreakers and then you cash in on the guilt. Now that's the system, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."
To put the entire blame on the developer misses the point.
While programmer ignorance, incompetence and/or laziness certainly plays a role in the problem, there are other factors that should be considered:
(1) Death-march-style deadlines imposed by management, leaving no time for proper design, threat modeling, or testing.
(2) Security flaws in the underlying infrastructure (operating system, network, etc).
(3) Malice/stupidity of authorized users to bypass established safeguards.
Security is the responsibility of everyone involved in the creation, management, and use of a system, not just the hapless developer.
Seems to me that they've been cozy for a while already.
For example, any time I run RealPlayer, Microsoft's AntiSpyware software blithely allows the addition of the "realsched.exe" daemon to the system autorun list in the registry. AntiSpyware doesn't even give me the option to refuse the change.
Now I simply avoid playing RealMedia files - not worth the pain.
Douse it with holy water, drive a stake into its black heart, and shoot a silver bullet through its positronic brain.
The big difference is that the RIAA is going after a child. In our society there presumption that children do not have the same understanding of the consequences of their actions as adults do. This is why, for example, a minor cannot enter into a legal contract, and why there is a separate system of laws for underage offenders.
This is what makes this particular RIAA tactic so despicable -- they are going after the most defenseless segment of the population.
What's next? Stomping puppies?