First off, I am a Linux newbie. My mouse is dying. I am having to smack the left button rather hard to get it to register. I have used a Logitech MX310 on a Windows machine - it has five buttons plus a wheel (six buttons, if you count depressing the wheel) and great Windows drivers. Two buttons are dedicated to 'page forward / page back' for web surfing. I loved it.
So I need a new mouse for my Linux box, and I know of a good mouse on Windows. Should I buy the Logitech MX310?
They want to be able to go to a third party software/driver website, follow the 'click here for Linux version' hyperlink, download the file, then double-click to install it.
This would answer the question for me - and make myself self-sufficient.
What I have done, is borrowed the MX310 and hooked it up to the Linux machine. It kinda/sorta worked. Went exploring on the web some more, and it appears I am going to have to dink with XFree86Config or some such thing.
I'm not feeling the love here, people.;-)
I'm not a complete computer idiot, but as a newbie, I see this configuration stuff is harder than it ought to be. Simple hardware upgrades should not require the employ of gear-head.
Don't get me wrong - I like Linux. But I won't be installing it on my Dad's computer anytime soon, because he would buy some new accessory, and then call me to get it installed.
I'd like to know how much more dim daylight on Mars is, compared to Earth. It's farther from the sun, and as I understand it, power falls off geometrically with distance. At the distances for both Earth and Mars, the 'cone' of light coming from the sun should be about the same when it hits both planets - but the increase in distance should mean a drop in power (I think). So 'daylight' on Mars may be more like twilight here on Earth - but I really don't know.
I used to say "intensive purposes" for exactly that reason. I heard it somewhere (I guess mis-heard is a better description) and used the wrong phrase for years. It was less than two years ago that I read the phrase, and learned what a mistake I had been making.
Oops.
At least I now know better.
The one that bugs me is "Could care less" - no, you could not care less - that's the point: your amount of 'care' is at zero, and you cannot go lower....
Did I mention that for all intents and purposes, the North Koreans were planning on invading Cuba in a 1951 pickup truck, but called it off because GWB couldn't care less?
I'm pretty sure that is incorrect - my Replay won't skip for the first two minutes, but does recognize when a commercial break exists in the first ten minutes. For example, Star Trek Enterprise opens with real video, then cuts to commercial - my Replay does properly find the end of the commercial break, four or five minutes into the show.
The first computer I bought was an Osborne. The company I worked for sent me to some training, so I lugged the thing with me. It was designed to fit under an airline seat - and it did, perfectly. I was about 22 years old at the time.
The guy in the chair next to me asked me what it was. I told him it was a portable computer. He looked at me kind of incredulously, and asked "What are you going to do with it?"
I told him I was going to write up a report of the trip in my hotel room at night, and that way it would already be done when I got back to work the next week. I would add a paragragh or two each evening - the computer came with a word processor. I was your average 22 year old, enthused, delighted that someone would ask me about my computer, laying it on thick - how great this computer would be. Spreadsheet, database, two versions of BASIC.... The guy next to me had this funny look on his face... kind of amazed, kind of concerned....
Eventually, I stop talking about myself, and actually ask him questions - it's only polite, sheesh.
The guy is a salesman for IBM! He sells mainframes - and does not have a computer of his own. (IBM was still a couple months away from announcing the original PC.)
Ah. That explains the 'hit by a ton of bricks' expression on his face.;-)
In my part of the country, our first computer club was named Tule FOG - and precious few know what the FOG stands for. I haven't been to a meeting in years.
The top level poster asked 'Geez, whatever happened to good ol' VCR's?'. That is where I was coming from - tape bad, disc good.
Unlike DVDs (or even VHS tapes), I don't have to go out of my way to acquire stuff to watch. Some friends of mine said that Absolutely Fabulous is really funny. I've never seen it, but I'll be happy to give it a shot. Instead of having to make a trip to Blockbuster (or whatever) (and payng more than I already do for basic cable), I tell the Replay to record it whenever it comes on. Someday in the future, the show will have been delivered. For the price of the channel guide, I get a limited selection of content delivered to me, without having to mess with media and late charges.
And of course, with automatic commercial skip, my Replays make network delivered material significantly more palatable.
Obviously, to each his own. But it works for me.
What will be bad, is that if DNNA blows it, businesss-wise, I have no guarentee that the channel guide will remain in production. They may be able to sell that portion of the business to someone else - they may not be able to do so....
Thanks for that - I didn't know any of that. The Replay's do not have the ability to play MP3s; although they can display JPEGs.
($99 for the Home Media Option on the first TiVo, $49 on each additional TiVo)
Speaking of quantity discounts, this is one of the other mistakes SonicBlue made, and is perpetuated by DNNA. There are no quantity discounts for owning multiple Replays. Ditto signing up a friend - if I got a discount (or service extension) by signing up a friend, then that would help grow DNNA's business. But DNNA is so fearful of losing even one dollar to a discount, that they can't see how badly they are running their business.
Once you have used a PVR, you will never go back. VCR's are based on tape - an archaic technology if there ever was one. Imagine you are watching a show, and the phone rings. You hit the pause button. The tape has to queue up, and start recording - you are going to miss at least five seconds of video by the time the tape actually get rolling - and then, you still have to let the video run, so it gets copied to tape. When your phone call ends, now you have to rewind to where you started. It is cumbersome, and kludgy - which is why people don't bother. There is none of that problem with a PVR. You hit the pause button - and the video pauses. That's it.
I am sad to see DNNA shooting themselves in the foot like this. I love my Replays. I have two of them, connected on a 100 Mbps switched network here at home. A show on one Replay can be streamed over the network to the other Replay. In other words, I can play back a show recorded on the bedroom Replay, from the living room Replay - while the living room Replay is recording a show off the air. Try that with a VCR. (I cannot tell if Tivo has that capapbility - I went to www.sony.com/tivo and got redirected to sonystyle.com - and a search on that web site for "tivo" came up empty.)
Anyway, back on topic, I am very disappointed that the management at DNNA is bound and determined to ruin the company. I understand as a company get worried about money, they focus on the pennies, and lose sight of the dollars. They need to reverse their attitude if they want to survive - they need to cut deals that will grow their userbase, not shrink it. But they don't appear to see that. It is sad.
Ah. That makes more sense. Thanks for clarifying that.
And it is a pretty good idea.
A common boondoggle are post offices. The scam works like this: CongresscritterA wants to send a little money toward his friends. Doesn't want to be held responsible for what looks to be an outright kickback setup. Trades his vote on a pork project with CongresscritterB who sits on the post office building committee. Next thing you know, the friends of CongresscritterA have sold land (at pork barrel prices) to the USPS, and contractor friends build a new post office building at premium prices. Joe Citizen mistakenly drives into the post office, looking for a service window, only to be told that it is a 'satellite delivery station' and they don't accept mail here. WTF?
My town got two of these in the last couple years. The town's population grew 10% in the last decade, but our post office truck capacity grew %100. FWIW, my congresscritter has a bunch of towns in his district.
So the questions are:
1) During the lawsuit, CongresscritterA will claim zero involvement, so it isn't fair to blame his district for the financial misdeeds of CongresscritterB. Who, really, will be held responsible to pay? Law makers are often lawyers, and are (or hire) professionals at the game "shift the blame". You bet my state would claim the fault lies with CongresscritterB's state for electing him. I suppose we don't really care, as long as someone takes a fall.
2) These new post offices are for improving the efficiency of the federal organization known as the United States Postal Service. "It's not a local benefit, it's nation-wide" will be the claim. How does one argue against making the USPS more efficient?
All in all, you've a proposed a good idea. The courts are supposed to be one of the parts of checks and balances. Man, can you imagine the change of venue hearings? I think in some cases it would be easy, but in others, it would be exceedingly difficult to make the case to shift the financial burden. I still think that dollars spent per capita (beneficiaries) would make a decent yardstick.
Your point, of suing for your money back, makes sense if you think of it in private-sector terms. Big Hardware Store advertises a front yard makeover for $2,600 - but bills you for $14,600 (they did throw in the back yard, side yard, and an extra shrubbery or two).
Except... what happens if you win your lawsuit? Monetary award to you, the plaintif? This isn't the private sector, where the store loses customers and goes out of business. If you win the lawsuit, everyone wins the lawsuit. Every citizen gets to be a plaintif, and everyone cashes in on the award, because a horde of lawyers will decend on city hall, taking their cut. Lawyers love a 'deep pockets' target.
You win, but... the government will raise your taxes to pay for it.... whoops, you lose.
Don't get me wrong, I agree that accountability is a good thing. I also believe that the current system of government is designed to avoid accountability as much as can be gotten away with. Used to be, the newsmedia was a check that provided balance, but no more.
I don't think we will get that balance back until we go to a direct vote. Even then, proposed capital expenditures would have to be ranked by dollars per capita-benefited - and bureaucrats would still fudge the numbers of benefited recipients, in order to make the cost look lower per person.
Of course, one of the biggest problems with the Big Dig was that the bureaucrats that sold the public on the idea lied through their teeth about its proposed cost. The only solution to that is 1) they should be fired -or- 2) jailed.
I agree. Actually - I bought a Replay. Then I bought another, it was so good. The company takes care of bug fixes, and has a way of downloading them automatically. I don't see the value in building my own appliances, unless that were my main hobby (which it isn't).
Similarly, my Replay units just fade to black, skip the commercials, and fade from black... well, mostly. Some shows fade to black, and the Replay does not identify the commercial break. So I have to hit the 30 second skip forward button four or six times.
The newest Replay units have a different button, that you hit once, and it skips to the end of the commercial break. This was their way of incorporating the commercial skip feature, but putting the onus on the end user, and thus removing themselves from the crosshairs of the TV advertising industry lawyers.
It sounds like the Tivo shows the commercial while skipping through it? The Replay does not - it just executes the skip forward command (the video stream just 'blips' and shows the next chunk of video.)
I know you have already heard a lot of rebuttal on this, however, I would like to add one more point.
The point is, people choose to be in those images.
In my home county, we had a Sheriff a few years ago who had a young teenage daughter. Some bright (not) drug dealer came up with an idea, and seduced the girl - you know, when they hit that rebellious age (13-14) and they want someone to treat them like a 'grownup'. Got her hooked on crack-cocaine, then withheld the crack until she agreed to get her picture taken giving the guy a blowjob. His theory was that the photos would be the equivalent of a 'get out jail free' card. If the Sheriff arrested him, he'd send the photos to be published.
Not that drug dealers are all that bright to begin with, but this guy was counting on the Sheriff's shame to be more powerful than his anger. He was wrong, but that leads to a different story.
My point is that yes, the girl chose to be in those images, but there was nothing good / fun / pleasurable in them.
Not all that glitters is gold.
As I understand it, this is the problem with the 'girls gone wild' videos - the girls show their tits in exchange for drugs. Can you say "debased"?
I don't deny they have every right to debase themselves - but I think it's a crying shame that the television industry uses them for such a great profit center. It says something about their customers, too.
I believe in freedom, and I believe that people should be free to live their life any way that doesn't harm other people. But I think it is a disservice to society to argue that
... all of the women in porn are there because they chose to be, and while some may feel dirty, most don't.
Personally, I think that is just wishful thinking. I am sure that quite a few people (customers) entertain that wishful thinking - but still, the for-profit porn industry isn't exactly clean living.
I read some of your other posts - and I 100% agree with your point about putting all the family computers in the family room. In fact, this is what I did. It's a good idea, and sensible. This evening, my step-son and I played a game of C&C Generals: Zero Hour together, and it's more fun that way. Being in the same room, we can tell each other about what part of the map to check out as we bombard the enemy to smithereens. But I digress
I have also done the other technique you mentioned - my router sends me emails of all the URL's visited. I've told my step-sons that I don't want porn in the house of any kind, and that yes, I am checking. Of course, when they were younger, they tested me on that. And I explained my position to them: Just as you are what you eat, you are what you think.
The point I made to my step-sons was that porn (falsely) sets expectations. Girls want to matter as real people. They don't want to have to overcome the ideas in some sex crazed boy's mind, planted by porn. So the rule in my house is: no porn. I think it is demeaning to women, and not good for my kids. And I think they repect that.
Let me take you on a hypothetical thought experiment: twin teenage boys with a younger sister, go on their first date with twin teenage girls (to different places). Both boys prepare for the date, and get done early. One boy spends the extra half hour with younger sister, entertaining her, listening as she talks about horses, and all that kind of stuff. The other boy spends the half hour surfing porn. Which of the twin girls will have the better date? Which one will most want to go out on another date?
It sounds like you have more information on it than I. I learned about it because that factory I was working for made the circuit boards for it. (Technically, we made printed wiring boards - we didn't do components or soldering).
So of course everyone in the factory (that liked high-tech stuff) thought it was cool, and kept an eye out for it in the news.
Last I heard, (and this was several years ago) Odetics still had it in their corporate offices down in L.A. On special days, they let it roam the hallways, which was a kick for the employees. I suppose on one of those 'bring your kid to work' days, the kid would have the best story the next day at school.;-)
With it being in the Smithsonian; that is newer information than I have.
FWIW, we were making boards for Gyyr, a division of Odetics. Last I looked, Odetics went through a number of mergers and acquisitions - so it doesn't suprise me that the people remaining don't have a clue as to what they had.
One of the circuit boards we built had concentric rings of wide contacts (nickle plated) to make part of the robot capable of 360 degree movement. That is to say, instead a cable harness that restricts swivel to some maximum, the ring contacts permit 360, 720, 1000 degree, (infinite) spins if needed. I think this allowed the head to rotate independent of the legs/body.
Now that I think about it, I think the order was for five circuit boards of each type. Of course, we built extras, in case a board got damaged in production. Gyyr probably built two or three prototypes, with the other boards going into the spare parts bin.
The video of the thing walking and squatting and lifting sure was cool.
Built by Odetics, a division of Gyyr, ODEX-1 was a real robot. So many of these nominations are for dreams of a robot, or media portrayal of one. ODEX-1 could climb stairs, crawl out of the back of a pickup truck, and then lift the back of the pickup truck off the ground (it put one arm under the trailer hitch.) It could also draw its legs up close so it could walk through narrow doorways.
Odetics wanted to sell it to the US military as a guard robot - it never sleeps, and if someone shoots it, there isn't a telegram to be sent to the parents. Alas, it cost too much.
The hardware isn't the problem. The place I work for has moved most of its apps off the S/390 mainframe. Our box is big, and can be down-sized. So we are looking at a replacement mainframe from IBM - and it is an Intel based system.
All they need out of it is 18 MIPS, and IBM can deliver that on a 1 GHz Pentium III. IBM tells us it will be running some sort of *nix, which will host a software based hardware emulator, which will then host everything on the box we have today - MVS and CICS, and everything else.
Some of the application on the box was written in the late 1960s. If it is still good in 2003, why would we dump it? If we can re-host the box and its OS on new hardware, why would we not?
Pretty easily, actually. Quite a while ago, Novell figured out (got hit with the cluestick enough times) that they had this great directory - but nobody wants to be forced to adopt 'Novell compliant' code. So they figured if they couldn't get the industry to come to their directory, they would have to bring their directory to the industry. Thus, a product call DirXML was born. From the link:
"DirXML is a bi-directional data sharing service that leverages Novell eDirectory to distribute new and updated information across directories, databases and critical applications.... DirXML helps you achieve uniform data integrity and automated efficiency by helping to eliminate the manual and repetitive tasks of creating and modifying user identities in all the different systems and applications within your enterprise and partner systems."
and
"DirXML leverages Novell eDirectory(TM) to create XML-based pathways that automatically distribute new and updated identity information across every designated application and directory, based on your business."
Lotus Notes is already in the list of pre-made 'connectors', as are Active Directory, Exchange, iPlanet Directory Server, IBM SecureWay Directory, PeopleSoft, Oracle, IBM DB2, Sybase, and even Delimited Text files.
I don't know if it would put Notes 'over the top'. From what I hear, the problem with Notes is that companies need an in-house developer before it really begins to shine.
So if a company already has a Notes developer, adding an XML based engine to push and pull data from a plethora of sources might be the ticket.
On the other hand, my company was looking at Single Sign On products - of which Novell has one (and yes, it leverages eDirectory). Tivoli also has a SSO product, which relied on their own directory. From their point of view, my company ought to abandon this great directory we already have, and adopt their directory, on dedicated servers. Their SSO product would do the job - but implementing it would have made our life harder, not easier. If you already have Tivoli, I'm sure it would have made sense.
To sum up, yes Novell has products that, as a part of an IBM toolkit, ought to make Microsoft worry. To me, the killer app that Notes is best at is workflow - and adding really robust I/O could could only help. Don't know if it would be worth the price of acquisition though.
Nassi-Schneiderman flowcharts don't have gotos - and are great at top-down structured refinement.
You are correct about the global data space, but for just working out what do next, Nassi-Schneiderman flowcharts are cool, as you have to think about the scope of your loops and if statements.
In a quick search, I have not found any free Nassi-Schneiderman flowchart programs. I know that Visio included a stencil... don't know if it is still there....
So we agree that it is the sheer volume of mail that makes it a problem, and that the volume is so great because of the extraordinarily low cost of e-mail. Where we disagree, are what disincentives ought to be applied. I think that regulation is ineffective and overrated, while you think that it will be effective. I think that the private sector will figure out solutions on its own, (although I admit it might take a while). For some reason, you prefer government control. Fair enough.
My point is that you are ignoring a lot of not-so-subtle disincentives to the activities you cite. All of these are provided by government in one way or another.
I would argue that the expense without reward is the largest disincentive -- and is not provided by government. Even without fines for littering, unsolicited annoying advertising is doomed to failure. Why not let it fail naturally, without bringing in regulators?
Well, you make a decent point about the minor being protected by law, and that is a good thing. I will give you that. That the immunity from responsibility by the child causes the businessman to check his behaviour is also a good thing.
On the other hand, I hate the idea that laws should be passed to protect people from their own stupidity. At some point, a person grows up. Of all the paths to choose, why do people insist that it takes government to do the right thing?
As I got to work today, my snail-mail-box had a catalog from Global Computer. 120 pages of dead tree hawking systems, hardware, peripherals, power, networking, software, supplies, media, furniture, and accessories (it says so right here on the cover). They took a gamble, paid for printing and postage, and shipped the catalog to me. I probably get one of these per month. I never buy from them, but it doesn't bother me that the thing showed up. So why is unsolicited commercial snail-mail not a problem, but unsolicited commercial e-mail is a problem?
-
The government -- your friend,... really? It is not lost upon me that Global Computer gets a bulk rate subsidized by your and my first class postage. And I am pretty sure that the post office is required by law to deliver it. Nondelivery is not an option - even for those people who really want it*. Are you certain regulation of e-mail will be a good thing?
I tend to agree with the author of the article, anti-spam legislation is mostly a feel good feint that government can actually do something about the problem. My home town passed an anti-graffiti law. Care to guess whether the amount of graffiti in my town went up or down?
If I were working in a smaller organization, I would be promoting the challenge -- response system. Just like with instant messaging, where you can block the callers you do not want, the systems are open without regulation. In a larger organization, I would use a server based spam filter with mailboxes for spam and ham that my users fill. In fact, I hope to be implementing it next week.
You may end up being correct, that anti-spam legislation does get passed, and that we look back at it as a good thing. Me, I think that spam is a passing fad, much like flyers placed on car windshields. When printing first became really affordable, many people put flyers on cars. It hardly happens today because people realize it just doesn't work - no one ever buys anything from a flyer - and it still costs money to print the thing.
*Actually, I saw an instance where a government agency managed to mail a letter knowing that it would not be delivered. It was kind of a dirty trick, but I digress.
My point was that spammers are playing the system. The system is broken because spammers can send their junk for (essentially) free. Laws to squash the play are a red herring. The real solution is to fix the broken system.
The 'war on drugs' is just an example of the hell we have gotten ourselves into relying on a government solution to a social problem. In this case, it is a mistake to pursue a government solution to a commercial problem.
You did not address the personal responsibility of my user who solicited spam. Do you think that passing a law "protecting" her is really in her best interest?
Ulitmately, what is in my best interest is that she learns not to talk to strangers. I don't think you can legislate that.
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First off, I am a Linux newbie. My mouse is dying. I am having to smack the left button rather hard to get it to register. I have used a Logitech MX310 on a Windows machine - it has five buttons plus a wheel (six buttons, if you count depressing the wheel) and great Windows drivers. Two buttons are dedicated to 'page forward / page back' for web surfing. I loved it.
So I need a new mouse for my Linux box, and I know of a good mouse on Windows. Should I buy the Logitech MX310?
This would answer the question for me - and make myself self-sufficient.
What I have done, is borrowed the MX310 and hooked it up to the Linux machine. It kinda/sorta worked. Went exploring on the web some more, and it appears I am going to have to dink with XFree86Config or some such thing.
I'm not feeling the love here, people. ;-)
I'm not a complete computer idiot, but as a newbie, I see this configuration stuff is harder than it ought to be. Simple hardware upgrades should not require the employ of gear-head.
Don't get me wrong - I like Linux. But I won't be installing it on my Dad's computer anytime soon, because he would buy some new accessory, and then call me to get it installed.
So, with pressure and heating, greenhouses on Mars might get away without additional lighting, providing we can utilize low-light plants. Cool.
I'd like to know how much more dim daylight on Mars is, compared to Earth. It's farther from the sun, and as I understand it, power falls off geometrically with distance. At the distances for both Earth and Mars, the 'cone' of light coming from the sun should be about the same when it hits both planets - but the increase in distance should mean a drop in power (I think). So 'daylight' on Mars may be more like twilight here on Earth - but I really don't know.
Oops.
At least I now know better.
The one that bugs me is "Could care less" - no, you could not care less - that's the point: your amount of 'care' is at zero, and you cannot go lower....
Did I mention that for all intents and purposes, the North Koreans were planning on invading Cuba in a 1951 pickup truck, but called it off because GWB couldn't care less?
I'm pretty sure that is incorrect - my Replay won't skip for the first two minutes, but does recognize when a commercial break exists in the first ten minutes. For example, Star Trek Enterprise opens with real video, then cuts to commercial - my Replay does properly find the end of the commercial break, four or five minutes into the show.
The guy in the chair next to me asked me what it was. I told him it was a portable computer. He looked at me kind of incredulously, and asked "What are you going to do with it?"
I told him I was going to write up a report of the trip in my hotel room at night, and that way it would already be done when I got back to work the next week. I would add a paragragh or two each evening - the computer came with a word processor. I was your average 22 year old, enthused, delighted that someone would ask me about my computer, laying it on thick - how great this computer would be. Spreadsheet, database, two versions of BASIC.... The guy next to me had this funny look on his face... kind of amazed, kind of concerned....
Eventually, I stop talking about myself, and actually ask him questions - it's only polite, sheesh.
The guy is a salesman for IBM! He sells mainframes - and does not have a computer of his own. (IBM was still a couple months away from announcing the original PC.)
Ah. That explains the 'hit by a ton of bricks' expression on his face. ;-)
In my part of the country, our first computer club was named Tule FOG - and precious few know what the FOG stands for. I haven't been to a meeting in years.
Unlike DVDs (or even VHS tapes), I don't have to go out of my way to acquire stuff to watch. Some friends of mine said that Absolutely Fabulous is really funny. I've never seen it, but I'll be happy to give it a shot. Instead of having to make a trip to Blockbuster (or whatever) (and payng more than I already do for basic cable), I tell the Replay to record it whenever it comes on. Someday in the future, the show will have been delivered. For the price of the channel guide, I get a limited selection of content delivered to me, without having to mess with media and late charges.
And of course, with automatic commercial skip, my Replays make network delivered material significantly more palatable.
Obviously, to each his own. But it works for me.
What will be bad, is that if DNNA blows it, businesss-wise, I have no guarentee that the channel guide will remain in production. They may be able to sell that portion of the business to someone else - they may not be able to do so....
Speaking of quantity discounts, this is one of the other mistakes SonicBlue made, and is perpetuated by DNNA. There are no quantity discounts for owning multiple Replays. Ditto signing up a friend - if I got a discount (or service extension) by signing up a friend, then that would help grow DNNA's business. But DNNA is so fearful of losing even one dollar to a discount, that they can't see how badly they are running their business.
I am sad to see DNNA shooting themselves in the foot like this. I love my Replays. I have two of them, connected on a 100 Mbps switched network here at home. A show on one Replay can be streamed over the network to the other Replay. In other words, I can play back a show recorded on the bedroom Replay, from the living room Replay - while the living room Replay is recording a show off the air. Try that with a VCR. (I cannot tell if Tivo has that capapbility - I went to www.sony.com/tivo and got redirected to sonystyle.com - and a search on that web site for "tivo" came up empty.)
Anyway, back on topic, I am very disappointed that the management at DNNA is bound and determined to ruin the company. I understand as a company get worried about money, they focus on the pennies, and lose sight of the dollars. They need to reverse their attitude if they want to survive - they need to cut deals that will grow their userbase, not shrink it. But they don't appear to see that. It is sad.
And it is a pretty good idea.
A common boondoggle are post offices. The scam works like this: CongresscritterA wants to send a little money toward his friends. Doesn't want to be held responsible for what looks to be an outright kickback setup. Trades his vote on a pork project with CongresscritterB who sits on the post office building committee. Next thing you know, the friends of CongresscritterA have sold land (at pork barrel prices) to the USPS, and contractor friends build a new post office building at premium prices. Joe Citizen mistakenly drives into the post office, looking for a service window, only to be told that it is a 'satellite delivery station' and they don't accept mail here. WTF?
My town got two of these in the last couple years. The town's population grew 10% in the last decade, but our post office truck capacity grew %100. FWIW, my congresscritter has a bunch of towns in his district.
So the questions are:
1) During the lawsuit, CongresscritterA will claim zero involvement, so it isn't fair to blame his district for the financial misdeeds of CongresscritterB. Who, really, will be held responsible to pay? Law makers are often lawyers, and are (or hire) professionals at the game "shift the blame". You bet my state would claim the fault lies with CongresscritterB's state for electing him. I suppose we don't really care, as long as someone takes a fall.
2) These new post offices are for improving the efficiency of the federal organization known as the United States Postal Service. "It's not a local benefit, it's nation-wide" will be the claim. How does one argue against making the USPS more efficient?
All in all, you've a proposed a good idea. The courts are supposed to be one of the parts of checks and balances. Man, can you imagine the change of venue hearings? I think in some cases it would be easy, but in others, it would be exceedingly difficult to make the case to shift the financial burden. I still think that dollars spent per capita (beneficiaries) would make a decent yardstick.
Except... what happens if you win your lawsuit? Monetary award to you, the plaintif? This isn't the private sector, where the store loses customers and goes out of business. If you win the lawsuit, everyone wins the lawsuit. Every citizen gets to be a plaintif, and everyone cashes in on the award, because a horde of lawyers will decend on city hall, taking their cut. Lawyers love a 'deep pockets' target.
You win, but... the government will raise your taxes to pay for it.... whoops, you lose.
Don't get me wrong, I agree that accountability is a good thing. I also believe that the current system of government is designed to avoid accountability as much as can be gotten away with. Used to be, the newsmedia was a check that provided balance, but no more.
I don't think we will get that balance back until we go to a direct vote. Even then, proposed capital expenditures would have to be ranked by dollars per capita-benefited - and bureaucrats would still fudge the numbers of benefited recipients, in order to make the cost look lower per person.
Of course, one of the biggest problems with the Big Dig was that the bureaucrats that sold the public on the idea lied through their teeth about its proposed cost. The only solution to that is 1) they should be fired -or- 2) jailed.
I agree. Actually - I bought a Replay. Then I bought another, it was so good. The company takes care of bug fixes, and has a way of downloading them automatically. I don't see the value in building my own appliances, unless that were my main hobby (which it isn't).
The newest Replay units have a different button, that you hit once, and it skips to the end of the commercial break. This was their way of incorporating the commercial skip feature, but putting the onus on the end user, and thus removing themselves from the crosshairs of the TV advertising industry lawyers.
It sounds like the Tivo shows the commercial while skipping through it? The Replay does not - it just executes the skip forward command (the video stream just 'blips' and shows the next chunk of video.)
Dance, puppet, dance! Hey, what's with these cables tugging on my arms????
Although with a Beowulf cluster of Big Macs, I'd like to take a shot at finding the question....
In my home county, we had a Sheriff a few years ago who had a young teenage daughter. Some bright (not) drug dealer came up with an idea, and seduced the girl - you know, when they hit that rebellious age (13-14) and they want someone to treat them like a 'grownup'. Got her hooked on crack-cocaine, then withheld the crack until she agreed to get her picture taken giving the guy a blowjob. His theory was that the photos would be the equivalent of a 'get out jail free' card. If the Sheriff arrested him, he'd send the photos to be published.
Not that drug dealers are all that bright to begin with, but this guy was counting on the Sheriff's shame to be more powerful than his anger. He was wrong, but that leads to a different story.
My point is that yes, the girl chose to be in those images, but there was nothing good / fun / pleasurable in them.
Not all that glitters is gold.
As I understand it, this is the problem with the 'girls gone wild' videos - the girls show their tits in exchange for drugs. Can you say "debased"?
I don't deny they have every right to debase themselves - but I think it's a crying shame that the television industry uses them for such a great profit center. It says something about their customers, too.
I believe in freedom, and I believe that people should be free to live their life any way that doesn't harm other people. But I think it is a disservice to society to argue that
Personally, I think that is just wishful thinking. I am sure that quite a few people (customers) entertain that wishful thinking - but still, the for-profit porn industry isn't exactly clean living.I read some of your other posts - and I 100% agree with your point about putting all the family computers in the family room. In fact, this is what I did. It's a good idea, and sensible. This evening, my step-son and I played a game of C&C Generals: Zero Hour together, and it's more fun that way. Being in the same room, we can tell each other about what part of the map to check out as we bombard the enemy to smithereens. But I digress
I have also done the other technique you mentioned - my router sends me emails of all the URL's visited. I've told my step-sons that I don't want porn in the house of any kind, and that yes, I am checking. Of course, when they were younger, they tested me on that. And I explained my position to them: Just as you are what you eat, you are what you think.
The point I made to my step-sons was that porn (falsely) sets expectations. Girls want to matter as real people. They don't want to have to overcome the ideas in some sex crazed boy's mind, planted by porn. So the rule in my house is: no porn. I think it is demeaning to women, and not good for my kids. And I think they repect that.
Let me take you on a hypothetical thought experiment: twin teenage boys with a younger sister, go on their first date with twin teenage girls (to different places). Both boys prepare for the date, and get done early. One boy spends the extra half hour with younger sister, entertaining her, listening as she talks about horses, and all that kind of stuff. The other boy spends the half hour surfing porn. Which of the twin girls will have the better date? Which one will most want to go out on another date?
So of course everyone in the factory (that liked high-tech stuff) thought it was cool, and kept an eye out for it in the news.
Last I heard, (and this was several years ago) Odetics still had it in their corporate offices down in L.A. On special days, they let it roam the hallways, which was a kick for the employees. I suppose on one of those 'bring your kid to work' days, the kid would have the best story the next day at school. ;-)
With it being in the Smithsonian; that is newer information than I have.
FWIW, we were making boards for Gyyr, a division of Odetics. Last I looked, Odetics went through a number of mergers and acquisitions - so it doesn't suprise me that the people remaining don't have a clue as to what they had.
One of the circuit boards we built had concentric rings of wide contacts (nickle plated) to make part of the robot capable of 360 degree movement. That is to say, instead a cable harness that restricts swivel to some maximum, the ring contacts permit 360, 720, 1000 degree, (infinite) spins if needed. I think this allowed the head to rotate independent of the legs/body.
Now that I think about it, I think the order was for five circuit boards of each type. Of course, we built extras, in case a board got damaged in production. Gyyr probably built two or three prototypes, with the other boards going into the spare parts bin.
The video of the thing walking and squatting and lifting sure was cool.
Odetics wanted to sell it to the US military as a guard robot - it never sleeps, and if someone shoots it, there isn't a telegram to be sent to the parents. Alas, it cost too much.
All they need out of it is 18 MIPS, and IBM can deliver that on a 1 GHz Pentium III. IBM tells us it will be running some sort of *nix, which will host a software based hardware emulator, which will then host everything on the box we have today - MVS and CICS, and everything else.
Some of the application on the box was written in the late 1960s. If it is still good in 2003, why would we dump it? If we can re-host the box and its OS on new hardware, why would we not?
"DirXML is a bi-directional data sharing service that leverages Novell eDirectory to distribute new and updated information across directories, databases and critical applications .... DirXML helps you achieve uniform data integrity and automated efficiency by helping to eliminate the manual and repetitive tasks of creating and modifying user identities in all the different systems and applications within your enterprise and partner systems."
and
"DirXML leverages Novell eDirectory(TM) to create XML-based pathways that automatically distribute new and updated identity information across every designated application and directory, based on your business."
Lotus Notes is already in the list of pre-made 'connectors', as are Active Directory, Exchange, iPlanet Directory Server, IBM SecureWay Directory, PeopleSoft, Oracle, IBM DB2, Sybase, and even Delimited Text files.
I don't know if it would put Notes 'over the top'. From what I hear, the problem with Notes is that companies need an in-house developer before it really begins to shine.
So if a company already has a Notes developer, adding an XML based engine to push and pull data from a plethora of sources might be the ticket.
On the other hand, my company was looking at Single Sign On products - of which Novell has one (and yes, it leverages eDirectory). Tivoli also has a SSO product, which relied on their own directory. From their point of view, my company ought to abandon this great directory we already have, and adopt their directory, on dedicated servers. Their SSO product would do the job - but implementing it would have made our life harder, not easier. If you already have Tivoli, I'm sure it would have made sense.
To sum up, yes Novell has products that, as a part of an IBM toolkit, ought to make Microsoft worry. To me, the killer app that Notes is best at is workflow - and adding really robust I/O could could only help. Don't know if it would be worth the price of acquisition though.
Very funny. Thank you. Gotta go get a towel now.... ;-)
You are correct about the global data space, but for just working out what do next, Nassi-Schneiderman flowcharts are cool, as you have to think about the scope of your loops and if statements.
Nassi-Schneiderman diagrams
How to Draw Nassi-Shneiderman Diagrams
In a quick search, I have not found any free Nassi-Schneiderman flowchart programs. I know that Visio included a stencil... don't know if it is still there....
I would argue that the expense without reward is the largest disincentive -- and is not provided by government. Even without fines for littering, unsolicited annoying advertising is doomed to failure. Why not let it fail naturally, without bringing in regulators?
On the other hand, I hate the idea that laws should be passed to protect people from their own stupidity. At some point, a person grows up. Of all the paths to choose, why do people insist that it takes government to do the right thing?
As I got to work today, my snail-mail-box had a catalog from Global Computer. 120 pages of dead tree hawking systems, hardware, peripherals, power, networking, software, supplies, media, furniture, and accessories (it says so right here on the cover). They took a gamble, paid for printing and postage, and shipped the catalog to me. I probably get one of these per month. I never buy from them, but it doesn't bother me that the thing showed up. So why is unsolicited commercial snail-mail not a problem, but unsolicited commercial e-mail is a problem?
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The government -- your friend, ... really? It is not lost upon me that Global Computer gets a bulk rate subsidized by your and my first class postage. And I am pretty sure that the post office is required by law to deliver it. Nondelivery is not an option - even for those people who really want it*. Are you certain regulation of e-mail will be a good thing?
I tend to agree with the author of the article, anti-spam legislation is mostly a feel good feint that government can actually do something about the problem. My home town passed an anti-graffiti law. Care to guess whether the amount of graffiti in my town went up or down?
If I were working in a smaller organization, I would be promoting the challenge -- response system. Just like with instant messaging, where you can block the callers you do not want, the systems are open without regulation. In a larger organization, I would use a server based spam filter with mailboxes for spam and ham that my users fill. In fact, I hope to be implementing it next week.
You may end up being correct, that anti-spam legislation does get passed, and that we look back at it as a good thing. Me, I think that spam is a passing fad, much like flyers placed on car windshields. When printing first became really affordable, many people put flyers on cars. It hardly happens today because people realize it just doesn't work - no one ever buys anything from a flyer - and it still costs money to print the thing.
*Actually, I saw an instance where a government agency managed to mail a letter knowing that it would not be delivered. It was kind of a dirty trick, but I digress.
The 'war on drugs' is just an example of the hell we have gotten ourselves into relying on a government solution to a social problem. In this case, it is a mistake to pursue a government solution to a commercial problem.
You did not address the personal responsibility of my user who solicited spam. Do you think that passing a law "protecting" her is really in her best interest?
Ulitmately, what is in my best interest is that she learns not to talk to strangers. I don't think you can legislate that.