How well does your ISP provide customer support? How well do they cover/compensate you for the hours/days that your service goes down?
Case in point: Approximately a year ago, a garbage pickup driver forgot to lower his dumpster lift. As a result, he knocked down the cable line to my block. I called it in to Comcast. They tried running me through the standard "Did you restart your computer?" routine, I responded, "No, my cable is down. I can see it lying here on the street.". They got it about the second time they asked. Anyhoo, they fixed it about 3-4 hours after the fact. Did they offer to cover it? No. Same goes for the other days they went down, such as their pathetic e-mail service (which I, ironically, depend on for business) giving either error messages or maintenance messages about every two weeks, or other outages. You have to tell them specifically when you went offline, or when you were inconvenienced by their outages.
Even if you do this, it doesn't stop them (specifically Comcast) from spreading FUD about satellite service or DSL, let alone disclosing how majorly both services technically give you the same amount of assraping for the same basic service.
Case in point: Comcast pretends their net service is cheaper. Okay, their basic connection cost is that you use the most basic cable service ($10 rounded out), and then their net connection (if you don't own a cable modem, you're paying $50 for the service and the modem rental, $60 total. On the telcos's side, you have $40 or so for DSL, and another $20 for the basic telephone line connection. Same result, $60. Both sides pretend that you're paying more for less service, no matter which you choose. As incentive to get you to pay more, they pretend further, that your cable/dsl broadband connection is costing you more for both services, when in the end, they're restricting your bandwidth to make sure you have the illusion that this in fact is true.
They're both giving us the ripoff, no matter what.
"You can never go wrong buying your child a crystal-radio set. It's a great way for him or her to learn about crystal radios."
Until he or she gets struck by lightning while trying to rig an antenna on the roof. Then it's extra credit for reproducing Benjamin Franklin's experiments with electricity.
The law is intended to prevent opening up online gambling sites within the state of WA, and the potential for money laundering (start an online account with a reloadable credit card or debit card, put a couple of thousand dollars into a gambling site, then withdraw said funds to another virtual bank account).
Is there any easy way to immigrate out of the U.S.? It seems no matter what, that there's no way to have a revolution here, with the majority either too comfortable, too complacent, or too afraid to act. So the alternative is to get out (as the freeper variety constantly demand anyone even moderately left of far right do), in order to regain any minor form of freedom.
However, from what research I've done, it seems that nobody wants to let Americans escape. Sure, if I came off a boat from China or Cuba, I have a better chance of getting into any other country, but if I tried immigrating from the U.S. to Canada, I'd need a sponsor, at least a years worth of money to live off of, even as what qualifies as a "skilled laborer" (in this case, cartoonist/artist). Essentially it seems pretty unfair that someone fresh off the boat without a penny to their name can get in without question, but if someone wants to legally immigrate from the US, they have to cough up almost $20K USD.
Ironic, since one would think that supposedly more liberal countries would jump at the opportunity to absorb liberals who've gotten tired of living in this virtual gulag of a nation.
Basically the predescessor to the Zip drive (also designed by Iomega, later bought up by 3M), while disks were cheaper (with 20 MB more capacity), and backwards compatible (try loading a 3.5 floppy into your Zip drive, oh, wait, you can't), it was also a bit snappier due to its being a floptical drive.
Unfortunately, due to the time spent in refining the device/media, and problems with the SuperDisk drives' reliability, the SuperDisk failed in the market. The fact that they had to play catchup with Iomega's Zip drive was the final nail in its coffin.
And the IPAQ PCD-1. One of the earliest CD based MP3 players, this one shipped with an incredibly poor CD reader, skipped excessively in all modes of playback (the ESP actually MADE this player skip more), no OGG compatibility, and was swiftly swept under the carpet when Compaq was bought out by HP.
As in, overpriced interactive toys that manufacturers were gambling on J.Q. Public's willingness to allow Timmy to precariously dangle his sippy cup over the keyboard of their (then) very expensive PC. These include:
Interactive Barney (MS) USB Microscope (Intel) Any variety of bolt on keyboard toy for tool simulator (I forget the manufacturer, but it allowed kids to bang on a molded plastic "tool bench" with a plastic hammer, and the onscreen cartoon hammer would do the same).
While they were cute tech demos, they weren't exactly practical for parents.
The maximum speed of a Boeing 767 is 550 MPH, or approximately.85 Mach, mainly because of built in safety measures. As I said, close to Mach 1, and oh, did I mention mass VS. inertia?
When the wings hit they could have done any variety of things:
(1) Shatter: The aluminum structures of the wings could, and most likely did shatter upon impact. Even the titanium that makes up the engines could have broken apart (which in this case is just the turbine blades, the rest is steel, magnesium, aluminum, plastics and rubber). In a high speed impact (each attack involved pushing the planes to almost MACH 1, for maximum damage), so you already have 500+ MPH in inertia, VS. the weight of the engines and plane itself, impacting reinforced concrete. After that, the plane is just another projectile.
(2) Dispersal: Due to (1), the wings would have more than likely folded along the fuselage, thanks to all that concrete giving all of those recently seperated components no other course to follow, other than their straight trajectory through the outer wall. Anything that could break off would have followed a scattering pattern through the first, second, and third rings of the Pentagon (as seen from aerial photographs after the fact)
(3) Destroyed due to fire: While titanium and steel components are resistant to the heat generated by burning fuel, the aluminum skin of the fuselage and wings would have vaporized shortly after impact (take a look at any picture of a plane that caught fire on the ground while stationary, without the benefit of a fuel explosion, even then almost half of the fuselage is melted away in most cases).
Now as for skids, like I said before, the plane could have hit at near level attitude, there would be no cases for a skid in that case.
And for the lack of burned grass: Lets take the following into account. One, we're looking at an obviously well maintained lawn, correct? How does 99.9% of businesses, governments, and individuals insure a nice, GREEN, well maintained lawn? Especially on a warm summerlike day? Watering, of course. And when do most of the aformentioned entities water their lawns? In the morning, usually over the course of 2-3 hours from sunrise. Wastes a lot of water, yes, but that's how people who can afford their water bills do it. In essense, most of the grass in the area was either damp or well watered. Under such conditions, a flash fire would do little cosmetic harm to the grass, even if the grass died in the process (dead foliage takes a couple of days under direct sunlight to turn brown after the fact).
The wings on most aircraft today are made to shear off (eg; snap off of the fuselage) upon impact, in order to reduce the risk of ruptured fuel tanks discharging their burning payload directly into the cabin.
The only reason that the outlines of the planes' wings remained on both of the impacted WTC towers was due to the building materials. Short of the box girders, those sites were covered with a thin stainless steel facade. The underlying girders themselves were in fact a ruddy brown color, which would be invisible to the naked eye under fire conditions, adding to the illusion that those planes somehow punched a huge hole through, when at best it was approximately the size of the fuselage as well. Evidence of this is consistent with the debris left at the Pentagon.
Similarly, you have building materials VS. aircraft design in the Pentagon attack. The Pentagon was initially designed to withstand aerial bombardment during WWII, and retrofitted for nuclear attack in the decades to follow. That translates to LOTS of reinforced concrete and stone which, if anyone else here watched impact testing and missile tests against solid concrete bunkers, et al, showed very similar, if not exactly, the same results when compared to the Pentagon attack. The impacts would not only have sheared off the wings, but the general refusal of reinforced concrete to either snap or bend out of the way would have resulted in a misleadingly small impact site. As for nonexistant skid marks at the Pentagon, it may just be possible that the plane was either in level flight, or on the rebound (as evidenced by light posts that were snapped off at the base, exactly as they're designed to) before impacting.
Additionally, to all the nutters who claimed the WTC was hit by a missile, those so called pods are in fact the rear landing gear bays, the flash they claim to be a launch is more than likely a high voltage discharge from the radome in the aircraft's nose (visible just as the fiberglas dome comes into contact with the outside of the towers). Just bright enough to arc and trigger theories everywhere from people who have no idea how planes are made, sadly enough.
But nowhere enough to give people the real story about 9/11, just more noise to keep people with real credentials from being heard.
Anyway, the long and short: There's a lot more involved in aerospace than most would imagine, and even fewer bother to verify or study, like much junk science or conspiracy theories. If the idea of aircraft "disappearing" in the process of crashing sounds like a conspiracy, then the Valujet crash in the Everglades a decade or so ago must have come from little green men indeed.
Seems to be what 99.9% of those against national ID are expecting to hear in the US. Seems kind of silly, honestly, even to an American.
The holes in the argument are pretty obvious:
(1) Social Security numbers: Even today, the lunatic fringe considers this to be a "mark of the beast". You cannot apply for benefits, pay your taxes, or for that matter, obtain a job without presenting this old fashioned, still printed on paper card stock, document. Interestingly, you cannot get more than 10 duplicate copies issued within your entire lifetime, which means if you're in a disaster prone region or high crime area where such documents could go missing at any given time, you're no longer allowed to replace your card after that point.
Because of existing US laws, no employer can give you a job legally, without seeing (and often obtaining a hard copy of, which of course leaves a ton of fraud possibilities) your social security card, but that won't stop anyone who has access to a semidecent printer. If sufficient security for a NID is implemented, you can avoid this hassle right off the bat (unless, of course, the limit that exists for a SS card applies to the NID as well).
(2) Photo ID/Drivers licenses: Similarly, you cannot obtain a bank account, job, purchase cigarettes or alcohol without a state issued ID. Sometimes you can't even get the above without switching your ID over from whatever state it was issued in. Bar codes? Those are ignored for the most part. All it takes is a thin holographic film laminate to convince the untrained eye that the ID is in fact legit. Interestingly, said bar code will most likely be incorporated into a NID card, with (more than likely) the exact same information.
Before 9/11, anyone with a state issued ID could cross the border to and from Canada and Mexico, but now you have to bring a birth certificate and/or passport to boot. Hypothetically, it would take very little for someone to pilfer a state issued ID and make a fake, anyone who is already a criminal with enough to hide could do this, so if your card could report itself as a forgery, it would be easier to protect your identity.
Now as for birth certificates themselves, there's still absolutely no protection against fraud. Any sufficiently skilled counterfeiter can make an authentic looking certificate with watermarking and a nice little notary seal. And guess what document will allow you to obtain both a state issued ID and a NID without any fuss?
So in essense, both forms of ID are insufficient at preventing identity theft, because anyone with enough incentive won't *need* to copy your ID, either physically, or via RFID sniffing.
(3) Compulsive ID: It's unlikely that people will be forced to have a card with them, just like now. There's a couple million gutterpunks, rainbow hippies, homeless guys, anarchists, etc, who don't bother with ID today. What happens to them when they're detained without said ID? They're held a few hours or days longer until their ID is verified and their names are checked against existing arrest warrants. What'll happen with a NID? Same thing.
End result? Secret agent man, secret agent man, they've given you a number and taken away your name. It's the same way now that it's been 10-30 years ago. I remember how everyone was freaking out about bar codes way back when, that these exact same potential abuses were used as an argument against their use.
IE, like it, love it, or loath it, is the closest thing that browsers have come in the 15 some odd years they've been around to standards. Everything else has been playing catchup to match said standards, in the case of Netscape, even ignoring some standards to a point.
As memory serves, back about 8 years ago, I had a website with some simple stuff, just midi music at best, no flash, very primative material all in all. IE: Ran perfectly. Netscape: Ran okay, but if you opened it under Linux, instant crash to desktop for nothing more than the midi files. That, honestly, was ridiculous (considering the midi standard was around for what, almost 15 years prior to 1998?).
Now on the other hand, if the logic used by the mighty Dvorak is correct, Microsoft was in no way guilty of antitrust behavior, because in every instance of Windows shipped with Internet Explorer (or for that matter, Media Player, since both are about as vital to the "Windows Experience", running straight out of the box), was in fact the only way Microsoft could make back his alleged losses on developing Internet Explorer, Vista, et al.
And for the fact of the matter, everyone who is just getting into computers as a vital tool, is going to be wanting to use it straight out of the box, NOT spending a week or more looking up new tools that do the same thing (but with higher security), or spending weeks to months learning how to use Linux to satisfy the clamoring throngs of Linux zealots.
Seriously, the bulk of the profits from ANY game console is in the licensing. When did the Gameboy, or for that matter the Gameboy Advance, really start to corner the portable market? When they fell below $100 per unit, of course. That's why Nintendo beat Sony, NEC, et al, in the handheld wars way back when. Both competitors were asking over $150 per unit, plain and simple. Most folks, both when buying a game system for themselves, or for their kids, find it hard (unless they're really hardcore) to pay more than $150 for a game system, and will wait for the price to drop after market saturation occurs.
Have you seen just exactly what's at Yucca Flats? It sits right in the location where hundreds (if not more) of above and underground nuclear bomb testing has already taken place. Hardly an area where any additional radiation would make much of a difference.
From what I recall, there was an episode of Icons (G4 BOOO!!!) that covered Polyphony Digital's trials and tribulations in developing/releasing Gran Turismo. In the case of Gran Turismo 2, Sony (et al) basically forced Polyphony to rush the release without sufficient testing/debugging, and the title suffered (albeit briefly when later sequels were released). As a positive, nobody rushes PD as a result of this.
Maybe that's what US game developers should do. Hell, I was pissed off that just a couple of months after Final Fantasy VII was released to PC, only to find that it was made for a previous version of DirectX (ironically DX 7 came out just about the same time). I tried support, customer service, all of them said that in order to play the game, that I would have to essentially cripple my ability to play later games. It sounds, however, like it's likely due to the suits at Squaresoft pushing for a rushed release (ironically, FF7 runs faster when emulated on a PC using ePSX or what have you, than the official PC release does).
It's surprising this is suddenly receiving attention in the mainstream. Does anyone recall the report about 5 years ago, about how carbon fullerenes (and possibly nanotubes) proved fatal to fish?
The problem with scrubbers is that they do NOT, in fact, filter out fine particulates. They're made for removal of coarse particulates (visible soot). All they do is make the air look prettier, not healthier. Hence this is why there's been an almost parallel increase in respiratory disorders in line with the amount of pollution controls in coal plants.
Also, while air quality standards have been applied to diesel fuel technology, cases of asthma have been rising in areas adjacent to rail lines and freeways (more than likely due to high sulfur fuels).
What we really need is to promote the living Hell out of solar power, put up collection farms in the desert areas (and stop wringing our hands over possibly inconveniencing some tortoises, they won't do much better if we DON'T do this), and start designing new products to take more homes off the grid.
One idea I had a short while ago, was to start making roofing shingles out of amorphous solar cells. They're flexible, relatively cheap, somewhat durable, but low in efficiency (thus the reason to cover entire southern facing roofs with them) Just tack down a roll like you normally would with shingles, or a panel at a time, then wire it all together. Imagine how much power could be generated in the southwestern US alone, without making life altering changes.
In Asia, Sony promoted the living Hell out of the MD, Betamax, and a ton of stuff we've never seen in the states.
Whatever happened to the MD format, I remember when it was unveiled in 1992, back when the idea of a CD-R available to the masses was unheard of, and (AFAIK) mp3 didn't exist.
Seriously, I don't get what the mystery is. If you want to sell a product, you advertise said product. Disney didn't bother to advertise Tron sufficiently, as such, it was a box office flop when it came out. IBM didn't bother advertising OS/2 sufficiently, and it fell to Windows 95. Sony has a good assortment of digital media available that still receives little to no advertising, so how is this any more surprising?
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How well does your ISP provide customer support? How well do they cover/compensate you for the hours/days that your service goes down?
Case in point: Approximately a year ago, a garbage pickup driver forgot to lower his dumpster lift. As a result, he knocked down the cable line to my block. I called it in to Comcast. They tried running me through the standard "Did you restart your computer?" routine, I responded, "No, my cable is down. I can see it lying here on the street.". They got it about the second time they asked. Anyhoo, they fixed it about 3-4 hours after the fact. Did they offer to cover it? No. Same goes for the other days they went down, such as their pathetic e-mail service (which I, ironically, depend on for business) giving either error messages or maintenance messages about every two weeks, or other outages. You have to tell them specifically when you went offline, or when you were inconvenienced by their outages.
Even if you do this, it doesn't stop them (specifically Comcast) from spreading FUD about satellite service or DSL, let alone disclosing how majorly both services technically give you the same amount of assraping for the same basic service.
Case in point: Comcast pretends their net service is cheaper. Okay, their basic connection cost is that you use the most basic cable service ($10 rounded out), and then their net connection (if you don't own a cable modem, you're paying $50 for the service and the modem rental, $60 total. On the telcos's side, you have $40 or so for DSL, and another $20 for the basic telephone line connection. Same result, $60. Both sides pretend that you're paying more for less service, no matter which you choose. As incentive to get you to pay more, they pretend further, that your cable/dsl broadband connection is costing you more for both services, when in the end, they're restricting your bandwidth to make sure you have the illusion that this in fact is true.
They're both giving us the ripoff, no matter what.
"You can never go wrong buying your child a crystal-radio set. It's a great way for him or her to learn about crystal radios."
Until he or she gets struck by lightning while trying to rig an antenna on the roof. Then it's extra credit for reproducing Benjamin Franklin's experiments with electricity.
The law is intended to prevent opening up online gambling sites within the state of WA, and the potential for money laundering (start an online account with a reloadable credit card or debit card, put a couple of thousand dollars into a gambling site, then withdraw said funds to another virtual bank account).
At least that's my read on TFA.
Sure, go for it! Post a link when you do?
Hi, I'm a Mac elevator, I'm sexy and sleek, and never lock u-
Hi, I'm a PC elevator, I've been around for decades, so you know I'm relia- AAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!! *SMASH*
Is there any easy way to immigrate out of the U.S.? It seems no matter what, that there's no way to have a revolution here, with the majority either too comfortable, too complacent, or too afraid to act. So the alternative is to get out (as the freeper variety constantly demand anyone even moderately left of far right do), in order to regain any minor form of freedom.
However, from what research I've done, it seems that nobody wants to let Americans escape. Sure, if I came off a boat from China or Cuba, I have a better chance of getting into any other country, but if I tried immigrating from the U.S. to Canada, I'd need a sponsor, at least a years worth of money to live off of, even as what qualifies as a "skilled laborer" (in this case, cartoonist/artist). Essentially it seems pretty unfair that someone fresh off the boat without a penny to their name can get in without question, but if someone wants to legally immigrate from the US, they have to cough up almost $20K USD.
Ironic, since one would think that supposedly more liberal countries would jump at the opportunity to absorb liberals who've gotten tired of living in this virtual gulag of a nation.
Basically the predescessor to the Zip drive (also designed by Iomega, later bought up by 3M), while disks were cheaper (with 20 MB more capacity), and backwards compatible (try loading a 3.5 floppy into your Zip drive, oh, wait, you can't), it was also a bit snappier due to its being a floptical drive.
Unfortunately, due to the time spent in refining the device/media, and problems with the SuperDisk drives' reliability, the SuperDisk failed in the market. The fact that they had to play catchup with Iomega's Zip drive was the final nail in its coffin.
And the IPAQ PCD-1. One of the earliest CD based MP3 players, this one shipped with an incredibly poor CD reader, skipped excessively in all modes of playback (the ESP actually MADE this player skip more), no OGG compatibility, and was swiftly swept under the carpet when Compaq was bought out by HP.
As in, overpriced interactive toys that manufacturers were gambling on J.Q. Public's willingness to allow Timmy to precariously dangle his sippy cup over the keyboard of their (then) very expensive PC. These include:
Interactive Barney (MS)
USB Microscope (Intel)
Any variety of bolt on keyboard toy for tool simulator (I forget the manufacturer, but it allowed kids to bang on a molded plastic "tool bench" with a plastic hammer, and the onscreen cartoon hammer would do the same).
While they were cute tech demos, they weren't exactly practical for parents.
Anyone who pirated Gighli? Anything they can use as an excuse for it tanking?
"Well I'll be a monkey's uncle!" takes on a whole new meaning.
The maximum speed of a Boeing 767 is 550 MPH, or approximately .85 Mach, mainly because of built in safety measures. As I said, close to Mach 1, and oh, did I mention mass VS. inertia?
When the wings hit they could have done any variety of things:
(1) Shatter: The aluminum structures of the wings could, and most likely did shatter upon impact. Even the titanium that makes up the engines could have broken apart (which in this case is just the turbine blades, the rest is steel, magnesium, aluminum, plastics and rubber). In a high speed impact (each attack involved pushing the planes to almost MACH 1, for maximum damage), so you already have 500+ MPH in inertia, VS. the weight of the engines and plane itself, impacting reinforced concrete. After that, the plane is just another projectile.
(2) Dispersal: Due to (1), the wings would have more than likely folded along the fuselage, thanks to all that concrete giving all of those recently seperated components no other course to follow, other than their straight trajectory through the outer wall. Anything that could break off would have followed a scattering pattern through the first, second, and third rings of the Pentagon (as seen from aerial photographs after the fact)
(3) Destroyed due to fire: While titanium and steel components are resistant to the heat generated by burning fuel, the aluminum skin of the fuselage and wings would have vaporized shortly after impact (take a look at any picture of a plane that caught fire on the ground while stationary, without the benefit of a fuel explosion, even then almost half of the fuselage is melted away in most cases).
Now as for skids, like I said before, the plane could have hit at near level attitude, there would be no cases for a skid in that case.
And for the lack of burned grass: Lets take the following into account. One, we're looking at an obviously well maintained lawn, correct? How does 99.9% of businesses, governments, and individuals insure a nice, GREEN, well maintained lawn? Especially on a warm summerlike day? Watering, of course. And when do most of the aformentioned entities water their lawns? In the morning, usually over the course of 2-3 hours from sunrise. Wastes a lot of water, yes, but that's how people who can afford their water bills do it. In essense, most of the grass in the area was either damp or well watered. Under such conditions, a flash fire would do little cosmetic harm to the grass, even if the grass died in the process (dead foliage takes a couple of days under direct sunlight to turn brown after the fact).
The wings on most aircraft today are made to shear off (eg; snap off of the fuselage) upon impact, in order to reduce the risk of ruptured fuel tanks discharging their burning payload directly into the cabin.
The only reason that the outlines of the planes' wings remained on both of the impacted WTC towers was due to the building materials. Short of the box girders, those sites were covered with a thin stainless steel facade. The underlying girders themselves were in fact a ruddy brown color, which would be invisible to the naked eye under fire conditions, adding to the illusion that those planes somehow punched a huge hole through, when at best it was approximately the size of the fuselage as well. Evidence of this is consistent with the debris left at the Pentagon.
Similarly, you have building materials VS. aircraft design in the Pentagon attack. The Pentagon was initially designed to withstand aerial bombardment during WWII, and retrofitted for nuclear attack in the decades to follow. That translates to LOTS of reinforced concrete and stone which, if anyone else here watched impact testing and missile tests against solid concrete bunkers, et al, showed very similar, if not exactly, the same results when compared to the Pentagon attack. The impacts would not only have sheared off the wings, but the general refusal of reinforced concrete to either snap or bend out of the way would have resulted in a misleadingly small impact site.
As for nonexistant skid marks at the Pentagon, it may just be possible that the plane was either in level flight, or on the rebound (as evidenced by light posts that were snapped off at the base, exactly as they're designed to) before impacting.
Additionally, to all the nutters who claimed the WTC was hit by a missile, those so called pods are in fact the rear landing gear bays, the flash they claim to be a launch is more than likely a high voltage discharge from the radome in the aircraft's nose (visible just as the fiberglas dome comes into contact with the outside of the towers). Just bright enough to arc and trigger theories everywhere from people who have no idea how planes are made, sadly enough.
But nowhere enough to give people the real story about 9/11, just more noise to keep people with real credentials from being heard.
Anyway, the long and short: There's a lot more involved in aerospace than most would imagine, and even fewer bother to verify or study, like much junk science or conspiracy theories. If the idea of aircraft "disappearing" in the process of crashing sounds like a conspiracy, then the Valujet crash in the Everglades a decade or so ago must have come from little green men indeed.
For once, saying "I have a shitty job." would be a good thing.
Seems to be what 99.9% of those against national ID are expecting to hear in the US. Seems kind of silly, honestly, even to an American.
The holes in the argument are pretty obvious:
(1) Social Security numbers: Even today, the lunatic fringe considers this to be a "mark of the beast". You cannot apply for benefits, pay your taxes, or for that matter, obtain a job without presenting this old fashioned, still printed on paper card stock, document. Interestingly, you cannot get more than 10 duplicate copies issued within your entire lifetime, which means if you're in a disaster prone region or high crime area where such documents could go missing at any given time, you're no longer allowed to replace your card after that point.
Because of existing US laws, no employer can give you a job legally, without seeing (and often obtaining a hard copy of, which of course leaves a ton of fraud possibilities) your social security card, but that won't stop anyone who has access to a semidecent printer. If sufficient security for a NID is implemented, you can avoid this hassle right off the bat (unless, of course, the limit that exists for a SS card applies to the NID as well).
(2) Photo ID/Drivers licenses: Similarly, you cannot obtain a bank account, job, purchase cigarettes or alcohol without a state issued ID. Sometimes you can't even get the above without switching your ID over from whatever state it was issued in. Bar codes? Those are ignored for the most part. All it takes is a thin holographic film laminate to convince the untrained eye that the ID is in fact legit. Interestingly, said bar code will most likely be incorporated into a NID card, with (more than likely) the exact same information.
Before 9/11, anyone with a state issued ID could cross the border to and from Canada and Mexico, but now you have to bring a birth certificate and/or passport to boot. Hypothetically, it would take very little for someone to pilfer a state issued ID and make a fake, anyone who is already a criminal with enough to hide could do this, so if your card could report itself as a forgery, it would be easier to protect your identity.
Now as for birth certificates themselves, there's still absolutely no protection against fraud. Any sufficiently skilled counterfeiter can make an authentic looking certificate with watermarking and a nice little notary seal. And guess what document will allow you to obtain both a state issued ID and a NID without any fuss?
So in essense, both forms of ID are insufficient at preventing identity theft, because anyone with enough incentive won't *need* to copy your ID, either physically, or via RFID sniffing.
(3) Compulsive ID: It's unlikely that people will be forced to have a card with them, just like now. There's a couple million gutterpunks, rainbow hippies, homeless guys, anarchists, etc, who don't bother with ID today. What happens to them when they're detained without said ID? They're held a few hours or days longer until their ID is verified and their names are checked against existing arrest warrants. What'll happen with a NID? Same thing.
End result? Secret agent man, secret agent man, they've given you a number and taken away your name. It's the same way now that it's been 10-30 years ago. I remember how everyone was freaking out about bar codes way back when, that these exact same potential abuses were used as an argument against their use.
Almost makes you wish psychic paper existed, eh?
IE, like it, love it, or loath it, is the closest thing that browsers have come in the 15 some odd years they've been around to standards. Everything else has been playing catchup to match said standards, in the case of Netscape, even ignoring some standards to a point.
As memory serves, back about 8 years ago, I had a website with some simple stuff, just midi music at best, no flash, very primative material all in all. IE: Ran perfectly. Netscape: Ran okay, but if you opened it under Linux, instant crash to desktop for nothing more than the midi files. That, honestly, was ridiculous (considering the midi standard was around for what, almost 15 years prior to 1998?).
Now on the other hand, if the logic used by the mighty Dvorak is correct, Microsoft was in no way guilty of antitrust behavior, because in every instance of Windows shipped with Internet Explorer (or for that matter, Media Player, since both are about as vital to the "Windows Experience", running straight out of the box), was in fact the only way Microsoft could make back his alleged losses on developing Internet Explorer, Vista, et al.
And for the fact of the matter, everyone who is just getting into computers as a vital tool, is going to be wanting to use it straight out of the box, NOT spending a week or more looking up new tools that do the same thing (but with higher security), or spending weeks to months learning how to use Linux to satisfy the clamoring throngs of Linux zealots.
Heh, how about an interactive porn video player? Touching is good, after all.
Seriously, the bulk of the profits from ANY game console is in the licensing. When did the Gameboy, or for that matter the Gameboy Advance, really start to corner the portable market? When they fell below $100 per unit, of course. That's why Nintendo beat Sony, NEC, et al, in the handheld wars way back when. Both competitors were asking over $150 per unit, plain and simple. Most folks, both when buying a game system for themselves, or for their kids, find it hard (unless they're really hardcore) to pay more than $150 for a game system, and will wait for the price to drop after market saturation occurs.
Have you seen just exactly what's at Yucca Flats? It sits right in the location where hundreds (if not more) of above and underground nuclear bomb testing has already taken place. Hardly an area where any additional radiation would make much of a difference.
From what I recall, there was an episode of Icons (G4 BOOO!!!) that covered Polyphony Digital's trials and tribulations in developing/releasing Gran Turismo. In the case of Gran Turismo 2, Sony (et al) basically forced Polyphony to rush the release without sufficient testing/debugging, and the title suffered (albeit briefly when later sequels were released). As a positive, nobody rushes PD as a result of this.
Maybe that's what US game developers should do. Hell, I was pissed off that just a couple of months after Final Fantasy VII was released to PC, only to find that it was made for a previous version of DirectX (ironically DX 7 came out just about the same time). I tried support, customer service, all of them said that in order to play the game, that I would have to essentially cripple my ability to play later games. It sounds, however, like it's likely due to the suits at Squaresoft pushing for a rushed release (ironically, FF7 runs faster when emulated on a PC using ePSX or what have you, than the official PC release does).
It's surprising this is suddenly receiving attention in the mainstream. Does anyone recall the report about 5 years ago, about how carbon fullerenes (and possibly nanotubes) proved fatal to fish?
Ah, just googled it, here's one of the many hits:
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn4825
The problem with scrubbers is that they do NOT, in fact, filter out fine particulates. They're made for removal of coarse particulates (visible soot). All they do is make the air look prettier, not healthier. Hence this is why there's been an almost parallel increase in respiratory disorders in line with the amount of pollution controls in coal plants.
Also, while air quality standards have been applied to diesel fuel technology, cases of asthma have been rising in areas adjacent to rail lines and freeways (more than likely due to high sulfur fuels).
What we really need is to promote the living Hell out of solar power, put up collection farms in the desert areas (and stop wringing our hands over possibly inconveniencing some tortoises, they won't do much better if we DON'T do this), and start designing new products to take more homes off the grid.
One idea I had a short while ago, was to start making roofing shingles out of amorphous solar cells. They're flexible, relatively cheap, somewhat durable, but low in efficiency (thus the reason to cover entire southern facing roofs with them) Just tack down a roll like you normally would with shingles, or a panel at a time, then wire it all together. Imagine how much power could be generated in the southwestern US alone, without making life altering changes.
In Asia, Sony promoted the living Hell out of the MD, Betamax, and a ton of stuff we've never seen in the states.
Whatever happened to the MD format, I remember when it was unveiled in 1992, back when the idea of a CD-R available to the masses was unheard of, and (AFAIK) mp3 didn't exist.
Seriously, I don't get what the mystery is. If you want to sell a product, you advertise said product. Disney didn't bother to advertise Tron sufficiently, as such, it was a box office flop when it came out. IBM didn't bother advertising OS/2 sufficiently, and it fell to Windows 95. Sony has a good assortment of digital media available that still receives little to no advertising, so how is this any more surprising?
"Aren't you a little short for a Stormtrooper?" has a double entendre!
(That, and "This may smell bad kid, but it'll keep you warm.")