Now that's interesting...I didn't know the ratio for electoral vote to population was that out of whack. Somebody mod parent up, pronto.:)
Just one more reason the electoral college needs an overhaul - if the power of electoral votes do not correspond equally with those from other states, then the system is flawed. Of course, in the grand scheme of things, nobody cared about Wyoming's piddly three votes, even if their "purchasing power" is higher than California's.:) But that ratio should be monitored - after all, if it were a 3.7:1 ratio in favor of California, the political situation would be vastly different.
Oops, you make the mistake of assuming the number of states and counties actually matters. See, here in America, each state gets one electoral vote for each member of Congress that state has. The nonsense you babble about "increasing voting power of smaller states" only works in the Senate, where each state is represented equally, and as such, balances the House, where the number of Congresscritters depends on the population of the state. But in the electoral college, high-population states like California (54 electoral votes? something like that...) routinely pound smaller states like Wyoming (with the federal minimum of 3 electoral votes) with the system that is in place. I recommend checking out the Electoral College FAQ by clicking on this link before posting nonsense about the Electoral College
You're just upset because your guy lost.
No, you only think that because you don't know what you're talking about. Too bad, really - since "your" guy won and you don't even know how. Funny and sad, all at the same time. *sigh*
Ugh...I misspoke when I made that statement, and as such, shot down my whole argument. I hate it when that happens.:)
Here's the deal: the 'dimming and brightening' you think is happening is really not going to occur, because the response time needed for a tungsten coil to cool from several thousand K to a temperature cool enough to notice a dimming effect is far longer than the period of time it takes to reverse an AC current. Certainly there would be a frequency shift in the peak emitted frequency from the coil which would vary on the timescale of the AC cycle, but a dimming? You're talking about shifting the wavelength from half a micron to a few microns (remember the tail in the Planck function) to 'dim' the light - that's a shift in brightness temperature of several thousand Kelvin in less than 1/60th of a second. If real light bulbs did that, they'd last a few minutes max before blowing out from thermal stress on the metal. Not gonna happen.
Here's what I think has happened - you meant to say 'flourescent lights' in your original post, got flamed for not doing it by detail-oriented/. dorks, and have since then have cobbled together a cheesy argument to show that incandescent lights 'flicker' in the same manner as flourescent lights do. And it's just not worth defending, dude - I've done the measurements (you do some strange things when you're bored in lab circuit design class:) and the fact is, incandescent lights don't flicker. They don't dim and brighten, not to the human eye, and not to any photovoltaic equipment I've ever used. If you have data to contradict this, then feel free to make a link. Otherwise, just accept it as a boo-boo, and move on.:)
In that case, the moderation is cynically correct - it is indeed "Interesting" that somebody would think that incandescent lights "flicker", much in the same manner that a train wreck is "interesting.":)
if it runs on an ac current (as almost all do) it is oscillating between on and off very fast.
This guy gets a +1, Informative for being wrong?
Here's how incandescent lights work, just so you know - current flows through a filament, which undergoes resistive heating to the point that it glows, white-hot. Sure, AC current reverses flow through the coil n times/second (depending on where you live), but if you think that the coil significantly cools n times/sec in between cycles, then I suggest you read up on heat capacities. Something tells me that the time it takes for a tungsten coil glowing at several thousand K to cool to a few hundred K takes longer than 1/60th of a second. Just watch a bulb when you turn if off, if you don't believe me: flip the switch, and the bulb in my office glows red for perhaps half a second. The "dimming and brightening" you speak of may well be occuring, but certainly not noticible to the human eye, certainly not when compared to the radical flicker produced by a flourescent light.
Allchin isn't Bill Gates, and he isn't Steve Ballmer. Allchin admitting that Microsoft broke the law would be like if slashdot's janitor came out and said that moderation violates free speech.
Neither is Allchin Microsoft's janitor...he is, after all, a vice president of the company and the guy in charge of Windows. So no, it's not like he runs the company, but he does run the part that's relevant to the discussion. As such, admitting that a demonstration made for a judge was rigged is news to me. But I'm not a cynic like you, so who knows.
I won't even dive into the lame moderation analogy - if you're one of those guys who dilutes the public ability to challenge real violations of our First Amendment rights by whining endlessly over situations where the Amendment doesn't apply (say, a privately-owned website like/.), then I don't have the time of day for you.
Um, not quite. Fair Use is a legal tradition in the US, but it is not in any way guaranteed by the Constitution.
Damn, the chicken-shit AC is almost right...copyright is, of course, set up in Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the U.S. Constitution, but Fair Use is delineated in Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 107 of the U.S. Code. So no, coward, it's not just "legal tradition" but in fact, "the Law."
But I just hate it when cowardly, yellow-bellied bastards take pot-shots from the shadows of anonymity and show me up.:)
How many people can honestly claim that they have no illegal mp3s?
*raises hand* Not a single one. And I have over 10GB of mp3s. Feeble compared to some, I know, but they're all of CDs I bought and the profits from which are now being used in an effort to screw me of a Constitutionally-guaranteed right.
I support fair use. The first thing I do with a new cd is to rip it.
So no, you just use your fair use rights. Congratulations, here's your cookie. If you really supported fair use, you wouldn't have said:
However, I'm not so naive to think that people don't use this technology to avoid buying cds, and I also fail to get stunned when I see record labels get upset over that.
Nobody that I'm aware of has a problem with finding ways to get at music pirates. What pisses me, and the thousands upon thousands of other people who enjoy their fair use rights (including yourself, bucko) right off is the industry's attempt to strip me of those rights. I like to make mix-MDs for long car rides. That just won't do in the future envisioned by Disney/nnAA groups, and their ilk.
And I understand that record companies don't like it when they lose profits over people not purchasing CDs, but let's face it, current technology makes the old business model of a completely-controlled, centralized distribution network of records as obsolete as wax cylinders and player pianos. It's time for the record companies to get with the times, and change the way they do business. What they are attempting to do instead is prop up their outdated business model with the help of the government. This is, of course, nothing new - but what makes it so damn sinister is that this time, we, the free citizens, are losing our rights to keep lining the pockets of rich assholes who can't/won't change, and for no other reason than because they know they can get away with it. Mention the SSCA to Joe Blow on the street, and you'll get (maybe) a raised eyebrow and a mumbled "i dunno". That doesn't change the fact that what they're doing is wrong, however.
It's not about losing profits, you see, it's about losing our rights to prevent the need for business innovation. And that's just not acceptable in my view.
Wasn't that patent granted for a specific implementation of a DRM enabled OS rather than a generic DRM within an OS?
You know, I read that patent top-to-bottom when news of it broke on/. and I never saw any mention about a specific scheme of DRM - only vague heuristics regarding theoretical methods of implementing DRM into an OS. As such, it smelled vaguely overarching and fishy. You are, of course, right about prior art, but it's not as if the Patent Office has been paying attention to such trifles as that over the last few years.:)
And before anyone goes off and starts saying root has unrestricted access, thats true today (and for the last 32 years or so), but could change - and if the right incentives are there, they will.
Not in any open-sourced OS, bub...like somebody said above, putting crap like this in the kernel would lead to a code fork faster than you could blink your eye. And with the availability of the source code, you could always hack that stuff out, and I have no fear that enough people would be intolerant of a gimpy root acount than any attempt to restrict root would be immediately zapped.
Jack Valenti one of the main proponents of the DMCA
True, but you make it clear you don't know what the DMCA is when you say:
The RIAA is also the group who sued 2600.com for publishing a link! to the DMCA source code.
First, Jack Valenti is the prez of the MPAA, not the RIAA. 2600 was sued by the MPAA, not the RIAA, for publishing the link to the DeCSS, which is made illegal by the DMCA. Your mis-guided effort were hilarious, until I remembered that uninformed malapropisms like the ones you spout are a leading cause of moronic legislation like the DMCA. Please, please PLEASE get your facts straight - the enemy is listening, and they like it when the Side of Good is represented by loud-mouthed dittos who speak without thinking. C'mon.
Final hilarity - some moderator modded this guy up +1, Informative. How the heck does a post by a guy who gets every major fact wrong get modded as informative?:)
Like he said, nobody cares that you can find cheaper TVs, the one he saw had a little sticker on it that said "$10,000" and if that's not an entry barrier, then entry barriers just don't exist.:) Sure, you can get 'em cheaper. Joe Consumer knows where the Best Buy is, and knows that those HDTV (ready) boxes are about $3-4k or so - nobody I know is still walking around saying "man, when HDTVs get below $10k, I'll buy one." So I guess I don't see your "cost-of-entry" argument as being valid anymore, at least where I live (and yes, I'm being US-centric because the/. FAQ says that/. is a US site. Thbtbtbt.:)
Anyways, who cares - the guy saw a TV that cost $10,000, and said "no thanks." Move along, nothing to see here.:)
Excellent point...thanks for making it. The post I replied to didn't even consider the energy required to create the anti-matter, but merely the energy to contain the anti-matter, which at current time, is itself greater than the energy released from the matter-anti-matter reaction. Tack on the energy cost of creating the antimatter, and it's even more of a loss.
The real question, in my mind at least (and as you seem to have intuited), is should M/AM become a feasible technology, where will we get the antimatter from? And if we can't get it, does antimatter matter anymore? *groan*:)
...so I'll be gentle.:) Right now, the energy required to create and hold the anti-hydrogen exceeds the the energy output of the matter-antimatter reaction. Right now, remember. Similar to how it requires more energy to design and build a car engine than that engine will be producing. But, once you work the bugs out and get that sucker up to speed, the energy created by the matter-anti-matter reaction will far exceed the energy required to hold the reaction. It's just a matter of time...provided the funding to do the research is there. We'll see how Big Oil reacts to this.:)
Hmm, IIRC, the payloads of these balloons (called "rawinsondes") have reward notices on them, and are frequently retrieved and re-used. Not sure about all the details - it's been awhile since I learned about that stuff, but it's not like these are extremely complicated devices - I think there's a goodly number of them that use human hair to measure moisture, for example. Any NWS guys out there wanna back me up with facts?:)
Usually, I ignore ACs, but this one's too good to let pass by:
Do not apologize. You were right the first time. Just because this guy was to much of a pussy to defend his belief that the minimum wage is to high.
No, I apologize because the guy responded to personal attacks with dignity - a rare quality in this age of rampant flamewarrior-ism. He has his points - not that I necessarily agree with them, but he chooses to engage in discussion, freely and openly, and that's something that I respect. Voltaire said something about disagreeing but defending to the death the right to disagree (note to lamers/kwhores: I know the quote. I'm just using it in context. Don't reply with the quote, or you will look like a tool.:) Oh, and he chooses to make his arguments while logged in in case you didn't notice, Mr. Anonymous Coward. Who's the pussy now?
Never feel ashamed when you go for the throat.
Ugh. Just because I'm willing to be aggressive in making my point does not mean I need to be soulless to do it. It's that kind of crap attitude that landed us in this mess. I suggest you grow up and realize that even those with whom you disagree deserve respect. Or at least the logged-in ones, you AC sissy-mary.:)
Only feel ashamed when your arguments are indefensible. ie. The minimum wage is to high because 2 bedroom apts. go for $400 where I live.
I never did figure out this poorly-phrased argument. It's not surprising, really - I didn't expect you to argue cogently, even with somebody with whom you nominally agree. Here's a hint - morons like you make my life harder, because those with whom I disagree can, during an argument, point at posts like yours and say "But you've got these guys on your side!" To which I have no reply. Shaddup, already, you're making us look bad!:)
If I use whatever-that-crack-is to generate a valid product key and activation key, I never need to register with Microsoft.
Assuming, of course, you never intend to allow those machines to connect to the Internet. On the one copy of Windows XP I've installed, the first thing it did was check authentication keys with Microsoft - on the internet. Maybe there's another way to install Windows XP that I'm not aware of - some method to install WinXP without needing a 'net connection, but as soon as you decide to take your pirated copies of Windows online, they'll undoubtedly check with MS (say, for "upgrade information" or other "helpful features" from your favorite meddling^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hhelpful OS corp:) and you'll be up the creek, sans paddle.
But maybe I'm wrong about that...care to show me how?
Touche. I flame like like there's no tomorrow, you reply with grace and acceptance. It's clear I'm in the presence of a better man than I, so I apologize for the excessive flamage. I gotta learn to stop reading/. late at night!:(
And I see you point - it would be good to help everyone out of wage-slave jobs, and the part about increasing minimum wage above the federal minimum does make sense. I have some points of contention - for example, a grad student right now makes about the same as a McDonald's employee, and works harder and under more stressful conditions - certainly to somebody flippin' burgers and takin' it easy, the whole idea of higher education seems like a waste of effort. And I guess I still think there's people to whom a mere $25k a year is sufficient, and if they're happy, then so am I. But you do make a very good point.
And you're certainly welcome about your posts being good - after all, you're the one that wrote 'em.:) It burned my butt to flame someone who speaks with clarity and makes reasoned arguments - a real rarity on/. - and I'm glad to see that I can learn the error of my ways still. Thanks for the reply!
So that's why they have those darned plastic boxes...you learn something new every day! I thought it was similar to a child-proof cap on a bottle of pills - you know, something to make you think to yourself "hmm, opening up a Microsoft product, do I really want to open this box?":) Product safety and some such, you know?:D
...then even track which store location gets each copy.
Right - that much is a given, but once Best Buy has the box o' software, I doubt very much that they track who buys the software, which is ultimately what MS would need. If in doubt, try buying WinXP with cash, and see if they take down any personal information. I think they probably won't. Besides, there's nothing that says that I can't buy WinXP in another part of the country (say on a business trip or something) and then take it back to where I live - that would mess up the 'system' too. It's tough luck for MS, tougher luck for their customers, and toughest luck of all for the sundering of the business-client trust relationship. And I just don't think that even MS, juggernaut though they may be, can bludgeon through this - so the Windows XP activation will remain a nuisance to those unlucky souls who happen to buy an MS product whose key has already been distributed. D'oh.
Man, I can be a mean sonufabitch after a few beers.:) Sucks too, 'cause I liked this ryan guys' last few posts, but c'mon, man, give the po' man a break. It's bad enough these guys gotta work at McDonald's, right?
sorry about the explosion...nothing to see here...move along, move along. *sigh*
Minimum wage is supposed to be a learning wage, not a living wage...
You're an arrogant little cock, aren't you? Pardon me while I feel bad that you're paying an extra dime or two for a fucking hamburger while somebody else slaves away earning billions for somebody else, while they themselves earn only enough to pay for maybe half of their living costs. There's some half-witted retard two posts down or so that thinks that without welfare, we wouldn't have a recession - this, despite the wage-slaves at the local Mickey D's probably aren't on fucking welfare...they have jobs, after all and you, who apparently doesn't think that everybody in this country deserves a livable wage. Isn't that why people came to America, to get out from under the thumbs of the ruling class and find a way to make a living, despite (horrors!) maybe being somewhat behind the curve? Equality of all humans means jack shit to you, does it?
--Begin wanton flamage--
I guess it's just not good enough for you, Oh Mighty Fast-Food Devotee. But we all see right through you, you fucking prick: all the "hard work" and "education" you do (and that your mommy and daddy probably pay for anyways) will never allow you to grow up enough to help out somebody who's on the skids, or is just trying to make their way through this fucked-up world. Your own life is so pathetic that you have nothing better to say about those "below" you than gripe about their existence on subsidence wages in this, the greatest country in the world. Well fuck you and the horse you rode in on, dickhead.
--End wanton flamage--
Besides, numb-nuts, you're not subsidizing the guy for whom a house and car is "enough" (like not being a bitch of consumerism is a bad thing...) - you're subsidizing the three-piece suit who runs the chain. Remember that, next time you feel self-righteous when purchasing fast food. Jackass.
Oopsie, you forgot to read my post!:) Apparently, you misunderstood the thrust of my argument. We actually agree quite well...we both stated that Joe Sixpack doesn't understand the DVR. Only I did so from Joe Sixpack's POV - which to Joe Sixpack, means that a DVR is pretty much the same as a VCR. Of course I know the difference between a TiVO and a VCR - I believe the topic was "why doesn't the average consumer buy a DVR?" And my point was that since the average consomer sees a DVR as a VCR, only $250 more expensive. Understand now?
I can only assume Microsoft has a similar policy, where if you can prove ownership, they'll unblock your key.
Maybe...but I'd say eventually, the number of installations of WinXP will vastly outrank the number of installations of Tribes 2, wouldn't you think? Besides, the cost factor comes into play as well...$50 for the game, $200 for the OS - somebody "3133t" enough to get a keygen will certainly decide it's worth his while to have his pal who works at the local Egghead's print out a bogus receipt. There's also the time-honored technique of dumpster-diving for receipts; combine all this with a photo of a random WinXP box, an overworked MS hack being paid $5.50/hr to listen to Joe Sixpack complain about how his brand new OS doesn't activate, and you still have a huge logistic headache for Microsoft. But that's what you get when you decide that your customers aren't worth your trust.:)
Joe Sixpack buys Windows XP, installs, and registers with the MS Key, all legal and marvy.
Joe Script-Kiddie gets a "valid" WinXP key that matches Joe Sixpacks, and tries to install XP using the generated key.
Now there's two copies of WinXP out there with the key, one of them bad. Simple solution, right? First guy to use the key is legal, second guy is the pirate. But wait - suppose Joe Script-Kiddie gets the key and installs a pirated WinXP before Joe Sixpack gets home from Best Buy. Now the situation is reversed, since the first guy is the pirate. And I doubt that any serial number database MS would set up would have something so obtuse as where each individual copy of Windows is sold - it would defy logic to think that the serial number of every copy of Windows is tracked with that copy's physical location. So you can't really sort out who bought Windows legally, and who's installing with a bogus key. Sounds like a tough nut for MS to crack - well, tough shit.:)
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Now that's interesting...I didn't know the ratio for electoral vote to population was that out of whack. Somebody mod parent up, pronto. :)
:) But that ratio should be monitored - after all, if it were a 3.7:1 ratio in favor of California, the political situation would be vastly different.
Just one more reason the electoral college needs an overhaul - if the power of electoral votes do not correspond equally with those from other states, then the system is flawed. Of course, in the grand scheme of things, nobody cared about Wyoming's piddly three votes, even if their "purchasing power" is higher than California's.
Oops, you make the mistake of assuming the number of states and counties actually matters. See, here in America, each state gets one electoral vote for each member of Congress that state has. The nonsense you babble about "increasing voting power of smaller states" only works in the Senate, where each state is represented equally, and as such, balances the House, where the number of Congresscritters depends on the population of the state. But in the electoral college, high-population states like California (54 electoral votes? something like that...) routinely pound smaller states like Wyoming (with the federal minimum of 3 electoral votes) with the system that is in place. I recommend checking out the Electoral College FAQ by clicking on this link before posting nonsense about the Electoral College
You're just upset because your guy lost.
No, you only think that because you don't know what you're talking about. Too bad, really - since "your" guy won and you don't even know how. Funny and sad, all at the same time. *sigh*
Ugh...I misspoke when I made that statement, and as such, shot down my whole argument. I hate it when that happens. :)
/. dorks, and have since then have cobbled together a cheesy argument to show that incandescent lights 'flicker' in the same manner as flourescent lights do. And it's just not worth defending, dude - I've done the measurements (you do some strange things when you're bored in lab circuit design class :) and the fact is, incandescent lights don't flicker. They don't dim and brighten, not to the human eye, and not to any photovoltaic equipment I've ever used. If you have data to contradict this, then feel free to make a link. Otherwise, just accept it as a boo-boo, and move on. :)
Here's the deal: the 'dimming and brightening' you think is happening is really not going to occur, because the response time needed for a tungsten coil to cool from several thousand K to a temperature cool enough to notice a dimming effect is far longer than the period of time it takes to reverse an AC current. Certainly there would be a frequency shift in the peak emitted frequency from the coil which would vary on the timescale of the AC cycle, but a dimming? You're talking about shifting the wavelength from half a micron to a few microns (remember the tail in the Planck function) to 'dim' the light - that's a shift in brightness temperature of several thousand Kelvin in less than 1/60th of a second. If real light bulbs did that, they'd last a few minutes max before blowing out from thermal stress on the metal. Not gonna happen.
Here's what I think has happened - you meant to say 'flourescent lights' in your original post, got flamed for not doing it by detail-oriented
...shit... s/Informative/Interesting/
:)
In that case, the moderation is cynically correct - it is indeed "Interesting" that somebody would think that incandescent lights "flicker", much in the same manner that a train wreck is "interesting."
if it runs on an ac current (as almost all do) it is oscillating between on and off very fast.
This guy gets a +1, Informative for being wrong?
Here's how incandescent lights work, just so you know - current flows through a filament, which undergoes resistive heating to the point that it glows, white-hot. Sure, AC current reverses flow through the coil n times/second (depending on where you live), but if you think that the coil significantly cools n times/sec in between cycles, then I suggest you read up on heat capacities. Something tells me that the time it takes for a tungsten coil glowing at several thousand K to cool to a few hundred K takes longer than 1/60th of a second. Just watch a bulb when you turn if off, if you don't believe me: flip the switch, and the bulb in my office glows red for perhaps half a second. The "dimming and brightening" you speak of may well be occuring, but certainly not noticible to the human eye, certainly not when compared to the radical flicker produced by a flourescent light.
Allchin isn't Bill Gates, and he isn't Steve Ballmer. Allchin admitting that Microsoft broke the law would be like if slashdot's janitor came out and said that moderation violates free speech.
/.), then I don't have the time of day for you.
Neither is Allchin Microsoft's janitor...he is, after all, a vice president of the company and the guy in charge of Windows. So no, it's not like he runs the company, but he does run the part that's relevant to the discussion. As such, admitting that a demonstration made for a judge was rigged is news to me. But I'm not a cynic like you, so who knows.
I won't even dive into the lame moderation analogy - if you're one of those guys who dilutes the public ability to challenge real violations of our First Amendment rights by whining endlessly over situations where the Amendment doesn't apply (say, a privately-owned website like
Um, not quite. Fair Use is a legal tradition in the US, but it is not in any way guaranteed by the Constitution.
:)
Damn, the chicken-shit AC is almost right...copyright is, of course, set up in Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the U.S. Constitution, but Fair Use is delineated in Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 107 of the U.S. Code. So no, coward, it's not just "legal tradition" but in fact, "the Law."
But I just hate it when cowardly, yellow-bellied bastards take pot-shots from the shadows of anonymity and show me up.
How many people can honestly claim that they have no illegal mp3s?
*raises hand* Not a single one. And I have over 10GB of mp3s. Feeble compared to some, I know, but they're all of CDs I bought and the profits from which are now being used in an effort to screw me of a Constitutionally-guaranteed right.
I support fair use. The first thing I do with a new cd is to rip it.
So no, you just use your fair use rights. Congratulations, here's your cookie. If you really supported fair use, you wouldn't have said:
However, I'm not so naive to think that people don't use this technology to avoid buying cds, and I also fail to get stunned when I see record labels get upset over that.
Nobody that I'm aware of has a problem with finding ways to get at music pirates. What pisses me, and the thousands upon thousands of other people who enjoy their fair use rights (including yourself, bucko) right off is the industry's attempt to strip me of those rights. I like to make mix-MDs for long car rides. That just won't do in the future envisioned by Disney/nnAA groups, and their ilk.
And I understand that record companies don't like it when they lose profits over people not purchasing CDs, but let's face it, current technology makes the old business model of a completely-controlled, centralized distribution network of records as obsolete as wax cylinders and player pianos. It's time for the record companies to get with the times, and change the way they do business. What they are attempting to do instead is prop up their outdated business model with the help of the government. This is, of course, nothing new - but what makes it so damn sinister is that this time, we, the free citizens, are losing our rights to keep lining the pockets of rich assholes who can't/won't change, and for no other reason than because they know they can get away with it. Mention the SSCA to Joe Blow on the street, and you'll get (maybe) a raised eyebrow and a mumbled "i dunno". That doesn't change the fact that what they're doing is wrong, however.
It's not about losing profits, you see, it's about losing our rights to prevent the need for business innovation. And that's just not acceptable in my view.
Wasn't that patent granted for a specific implementation of a DRM enabled OS rather than a generic DRM within an OS?
/. and I never saw any mention about a specific scheme of DRM - only vague heuristics regarding theoretical methods of implementing DRM into an OS. As such, it smelled vaguely overarching and fishy. You are, of course, right about prior art, but it's not as if the Patent Office has been paying attention to such trifles as that over the last few years. :)
You know, I read that patent top-to-bottom when news of it broke on
And before anyone goes off and starts saying root has unrestricted access, thats true today (and for the last 32 years or so), but could change - and if the right incentives are there, they will.
Not in any open-sourced OS, bub...like somebody said above, putting crap like this in the kernel would lead to a code fork faster than you could blink your eye. And with the availability of the source code, you could always hack that stuff out, and I have no fear that enough people would be intolerant of a gimpy root acount than any attempt to restrict root would be immediately zapped.
Jack Valenti one of the main proponents of the DMCA
:)
True, but you make it clear you don't know what the DMCA is when you say:
The RIAA is also the group who sued 2600.com for publishing a link! to the DMCA source code.
First, Jack Valenti is the prez of the MPAA, not the RIAA. 2600 was sued by the MPAA, not the RIAA, for publishing the link to the DeCSS, which is made illegal by the DMCA. Your mis-guided effort were hilarious, until I remembered that uninformed malapropisms like the ones you spout are a leading cause of moronic legislation like the DMCA. Please, please PLEASE get your facts straight - the enemy is listening, and they like it when the Side of Good is represented by loud-mouthed dittos who speak without thinking. C'mon.
Final hilarity - some moderator modded this guy up +1, Informative. How the heck does a post by a guy who gets every major fact wrong get modded as informative?
Like he said, nobody cares that you can find cheaper TVs, the one he saw had a little sticker on it that said "$10,000" and if that's not an entry barrier, then entry barriers just don't exist.
Anyways, who cares - the guy saw a TV that cost $10,000, and said "no thanks." Move along, nothing to see here.
Excellent point...thanks for making it. The post I replied to didn't even consider the energy required to create the anti-matter, but merely the energy to contain the anti-matter, which at current time, is itself greater than the energy released from the matter-anti-matter reaction. Tack on the energy cost of creating the antimatter, and it's even more of a loss.
:)
The real question, in my mind at least (and as you seem to have intuited), is should M/AM become a feasible technology, where will we get the antimatter from? And if we can't get it, does antimatter matter anymore? *groan*
(Physics is not my forte).
:) Right now, the energy required to create and hold the anti-hydrogen exceeds the the energy output of the matter-antimatter reaction. Right now, remember. Similar to how it requires more energy to design and build a car engine than that engine will be producing. But, once you work the bugs out and get that sucker up to speed, the energy created by the matter-anti-matter reaction will far exceed the energy required to hold the reaction. It's just a matter of time...provided the funding to do the research is there. We'll see how Big Oil reacts to this. :)
...so I'll be gentle.
Hmm, IIRC, the payloads of these balloons (called "rawinsondes") have reward notices on them, and are frequently retrieved and re-used. Not sure about all the details - it's been awhile since I learned about that stuff, but it's not like these are extremely complicated devices - I think there's a goodly number of them that use human hair to measure moisture, for example. Any NWS guys out there wanna back me up with facts? :)
Usually, I ignore ACs, but this one's too good to let pass by:
:) Oh, and he chooses to make his arguments while logged in in case you didn't notice, Mr. Anonymous Coward. Who's the pussy now?
:)
:)
/me. Oh well!
Do not apologize. You were right the first time. Just because this guy was to much of a pussy to defend his belief that the minimum wage is to high.
No, I apologize because the guy responded to personal attacks with dignity - a rare quality in this age of rampant flamewarrior-ism. He has his points - not that I necessarily agree with them, but he chooses to engage in discussion, freely and openly, and that's something that I respect. Voltaire said something about disagreeing but defending to the death the right to disagree (note to lamers/kwhores: I know the quote. I'm just using it in context. Don't reply with the quote, or you will look like a tool.
Never feel ashamed when you go for the throat.
Ugh. Just because I'm willing to be aggressive in making my point does not mean I need to be soulless to do it. It's that kind of crap attitude that landed us in this mess. I suggest you grow up and realize that even those with whom you disagree deserve respect. Or at least the logged-in ones, you AC sissy-mary.
Only feel ashamed when your arguments are indefensible. ie. The minimum wage is to high because 2 bedroom apts. go for $400 where I live.
I never did figure out this poorly-phrased argument. It's not surprising, really - I didn't expect you to argue cogently, even with somebody with whom you nominally agree. Here's a hint - morons like you make my life harder, because those with whom I disagree can, during an argument, point at posts like yours and say "But you've got these guys on your side!" To which I have no reply. Shaddup, already, you're making us look bad!
Another late-night quasi-flame from
If I use whatever-that-crack-is to generate a valid product key and activation key, I never need to register with Microsoft.
:) and you'll be up the creek, sans paddle.
Assuming, of course, you never intend to allow those machines to connect to the Internet. On the one copy of Windows XP I've installed, the first thing it did was check authentication keys with Microsoft - on the internet. Maybe there's another way to install Windows XP that I'm not aware of - some method to install WinXP without needing a 'net connection, but as soon as you decide to take your pirated copies of Windows online, they'll undoubtedly check with MS (say, for "upgrade information" or other "helpful features" from your favorite meddling^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hhelpful OS corp
But maybe I'm wrong about that...care to show me how?
Touche. I flame like like there's no tomorrow, you reply with grace and acceptance. It's clear I'm in the presence of a better man than I, so I apologize for the excessive flamage. I gotta learn to stop reading /. late at night! :(
:) It burned my butt to flame someone who speaks with clarity and makes reasoned arguments - a real rarity on /. - and I'm glad to see that I can learn the error of my ways still. Thanks for the reply!
And I see you point - it would be good to help everyone out of wage-slave jobs, and the part about increasing minimum wage above the federal minimum does make sense. I have some points of contention - for example, a grad student right now makes about the same as a McDonald's employee, and works harder and under more stressful conditions - certainly to somebody flippin' burgers and takin' it easy, the whole idea of higher education seems like a waste of effort. And I guess I still think there's people to whom a mere $25k a year is sufficient, and if they're happy, then so am I. But you do make a very good point.
And you're certainly welcome about your posts being good - after all, you're the one that wrote 'em.
cheers,
So that's why they have those darned plastic boxes...you learn something new every day! I thought it was similar to a child-proof cap on a bottle of pills - you know, something to make you think to yourself "hmm, opening up a Microsoft product, do I really want to open this box?" :) Product safety and some such, you know? :D
...then even track which store location gets each copy.
Right - that much is a given, but once Best Buy has the box o' software, I doubt very much that they track who buys the software, which is ultimately what MS would need. If in doubt, try buying WinXP with cash, and see if they take down any personal information. I think they probably won't. Besides, there's nothing that says that I can't buy WinXP in another part of the country (say on a business trip or something) and then take it back to where I live - that would mess up the 'system' too. It's tough luck for MS, tougher luck for their customers, and toughest luck of all for the sundering of the business-client trust relationship. And I just don't think that even MS, juggernaut though they may be, can bludgeon through this - so the Windows XP activation will remain a nuisance to those unlucky souls who happen to buy an MS product whose key has already been distributed. D'oh.
Man, I can be a mean sonufabitch after a few beers. :) Sucks too, 'cause I liked this ryan guys' last few posts, but c'mon, man, give the po' man a break. It's bad enough these guys gotta work at McDonald's, right?
sorry about the explosion...nothing to see here...move along, move along. *sigh*
Initiating karma burn in 3...2...1...
:)
Minimum wage is supposed to be a learning wage, not a living wage...
You're an arrogant little cock, aren't you? Pardon me while I feel bad that you're paying an extra dime or two for a fucking hamburger while somebody else slaves away earning billions for somebody else, while they themselves earn only enough to pay for maybe half of their living costs. There's some half-witted retard two posts down or so that thinks that without welfare, we wouldn't have a recession - this, despite the wage-slaves at the local Mickey D's probably aren't on fucking welfare...they have jobs, after all and you, who apparently doesn't think that everybody in this country deserves a livable wage. Isn't that why people came to America, to get out from under the thumbs of the ruling class and find a way to make a living, despite (horrors!) maybe being somewhat behind the curve? Equality of all humans means jack shit to you, does it?
--Begin wanton flamage--
I guess it's just not good enough for you, Oh Mighty Fast-Food Devotee. But we all see right through you, you fucking prick: all the "hard work" and "education" you do (and that your mommy and daddy probably pay for anyways) will never allow you to grow up enough to help out somebody who's on the skids, or is just trying to make their way through this fucked-up world. Your own life is so pathetic that you have nothing better to say about those "below" you than gripe about their existence on subsidence wages in this, the greatest country in the world. Well fuck you and the horse you rode in on, dickhead.
--End wanton flamage--
Besides, numb-nuts, you're not subsidizing the guy for whom a house and car is "enough" (like not being a bitch of consumerism is a bad thing...) - you're subsidizing the three-piece suit who runs the chain. Remember that, next time you feel self-righteous when purchasing fast food. Jackass.
Karma burn complete...
Eh, what the hell, it was worth it.
Oopsie, you forgot to read my post! :) Apparently, you misunderstood the thrust of my argument. We actually agree quite well...we both stated that Joe Sixpack doesn't understand the DVR. Only I did so from Joe Sixpack's POV - which to Joe Sixpack, means that a DVR is pretty much the same as a VCR. Of course I know the difference between a TiVO and a VCR - I believe the topic was "why doesn't the average consumer buy a DVR?" And my point was that since the average consomer sees a DVR as a VCR, only $250 more expensive. Understand now?
I can only assume Microsoft has a similar policy, where if you can prove ownership, they'll unblock your key.
:)
Maybe...but I'd say eventually, the number of installations of WinXP will vastly outrank the number of installations of Tribes 2, wouldn't you think? Besides, the cost factor comes into play as well...$50 for the game, $200 for the OS - somebody "3133t" enough to get a keygen will certainly decide it's worth his while to have his pal who works at the local Egghead's print out a bogus receipt. There's also the time-honored technique of dumpster-diving for receipts; combine all this with a photo of a random WinXP box, an overworked MS hack being paid $5.50/hr to listen to Joe Sixpack complain about how his brand new OS doesn't activate, and you still have a huge logistic headache for Microsoft. But that's what you get when you decide that your customers aren't worth your trust.
Now there's two copies of WinXP out there with the key, one of them bad. Simple solution, right? First guy to use the key is legal, second guy is the pirate. But wait - suppose Joe Script-Kiddie gets the key and installs a pirated WinXP before Joe Sixpack gets home from Best Buy. Now the situation is reversed, since the first guy is the pirate. And I doubt that any serial number database MS would set up would have something so obtuse as where each individual copy of Windows is sold - it would defy logic to think that the serial number of every copy of Windows is tracked with that copy's physical location. So you can't really sort out who bought Windows legally, and who's installing with a bogus key. Sounds like a tough nut for MS to crack - well, tough shit.
Shit... s/"high-altitude"/"high-altitude decompression"/g
:)
Man, I gotta start using the "Preview" key and actually previewing the stuff I write.