Actually in many ways I do agree with you. Electrical indeed does suck for high speed high load applications.
Personaly I'm for natural gas conversions. For about a $2000 investment you get tanks, an on the fly switchable between traditional petrol / natural gas, and you don't have to worry about pesky issues like achiving free way speeds of 60mph (about 100Km/H)
But even so, many of my daily rounds can be accomplished "easily" with a vehicel that goes only 25mph. I can fetch my morning latte, a gal of milk, some staple food items, all without the peskyness of typical automobile polution. I don't need a 200 mile range when a sub 50mile range daily would do just dandy.
See L.A. Can't see it through the smog? Visit L.A. take a deep breath Feel the soot on your car after just one day there. Lovely isn't it. Leave L.A. compair and contrast the ease of breathing in L.A. and just 20 miles north.
Los Angles California is a pretty toxic enviroment. While I don't have any ACTUAL studies in front of me, I can reasonably assume that the vast majority of their air polution comes from cars. It kinda makes it a good testing ground for new clean air regulations, it being a basin filled with millions of people, and millions of cars.
Modern, working cars don't pollute enough to make a difference either
Oh yea right. I guess all that COx and NOx compounds spewing out of millions are cars are in no way causing an enviromental impact.
For those not familar with the State of Washingon, most of our power comes from hydroelectric plants. We tried for nuclear power once in western washington, known as I believe " Washington Public Power Supply System" aka or WoPPSS. While it can be argued about the enviromental impact of hydro power, it indeed is a fuck of alot cleaner then internal combustion engines. Additional supplimental power plants are being constructed that burn natural gas, which again tends to be a fuck of alot cleaner then petrol.
I see a major application of electric vehicels for in town commuting, on roads where the posted limits are between 25-35 mph. Many of these vehicels can achieve 25mph, while considered slow... perfectly within acceptable limits esp on days with heavy trafic conjestion. While the posted limit may indeed be greater then 25mph, 10mph is often times more typical in downtown areas.
While you have a point, a city's road system can be accomidated to actually support the use of these sub 30mph cars reasonably. Most major cities here are setup in a convienent grid like patern, dedicate a road parelell to the 35mph zones to things that can travel that fast, and slower residental streets to the sub 30mph crowd.
Given that the eco-friendly road alterntive is manual powered bike, I see there being less of an issue with conjection actually.
Infact, I don't see them being a major issue on our interstates between Seattle and Tacoma during rushour, as the average speed tends to be sub 25mph, unfortunatly.
There are those of us who would actually use cheeper more eco-friendly forms of transportation if it was available. People like my self would invest the the expence of using natural gas if it wasn't for the lack of filling stations. But I personaly can't refuel on it unless I drive roughly 40miles away, making it none too practical. Electric is a viable alternative for us who need more cargo room then a motorcycle, but less cargo room then a typical car.
if one of your plant leave seed/fruit/whatever on the neighbourgh field, you loose all right on those which become the other people propriety
I can see that being an issue in france, as they have a decent wine industry, an industry that is dependent on diffrent varities of grapes.
Assuming a seed can be protected under typical IP laws... one could in theory plant this seed protected under IP laws on respective farms and force farmers to pay you royalities on this seed that was brought in through no fault of your own.
Unfortunatly, this may be reality... though personaly I don't think it would be very enforcable in reality. Assuming seed was brought in via natural means, a farmer really has no choice in the matter. It would be diffrent if respective plants could be non-distructivly tested to verify they are free from copyright.
Unless the copyright holders have a means of actually identifying the plants on a massive scale, and provide the man power to remove the plants, as it's their own damn fault for allowing IP being distrubited via wind and animals, I personaly feel that these cases should be thrown out of court. It's a fucking plant.
I'm not sure when intel created the DX and SX designations. the 486 SX was indeed without onboard math-co, but neither did the 80386 DX nor 80386 SX.
I know it's nitpicking, but the SX/DX designation doesn't seem to indicate with or without math-co atleast for the 386 series.
Wonderful... now where's the comercial application
on
The Mac Made of Lego
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· Score: 1
Many people have bought small cases back when they picked up their first computer. I think you know the type... two 5.25 inch drive bays, 2 3.5 inch bays, a couple internal.
Lego building blocks actually have a level of modularability that I can see being of great benifit to case design. If you need extra drive bays, just buy more building blocks. Need removable storage, just do it in building blocks.
While I wouldn't nessicarly trust Lego blocks to create anything industrual, little memories of taking my legos in the bath tub and having them fall apart come to mind, i'm sure the design can be advanced just a little bit, perhaps by providing locking screws for each of the little Lego tops.
Sue the
Wind for illegal distrubution of IP
The animals for illegal distrubution of IP
The vehicel manufactor for creating a safe harbor for the distrubution of IP
Sue the plants them selves for reproducing without a license.
I'm talking about streches of roads where I live where you'll get rear ended for going the speed limit. While technicaly it's an offence to exceed the posted limits, doing so causes accidents.
Police are 100% aware of this... they have common sence and reasoning skills to realize that following posted speeds in these zones are hazardious to your heath, but don't fight to raise the limits as they find the same zones valuable to check for sobrity.
Even in Europe, I would imagine there are provisions for telling it to the judge, and i'd think that violating the speed limit to escape a rear comming big ass mac truck going 10+ over would give one cause speed up to avoid an accident. Which it just so happens in my region, these small strips of extra low speed limits are far too short for 10 ton trucks to slow down.
My reasoning isn't shite at all either
1) you slow down to the accepted speed, get hit by truck
2) you maintain your speed when entering this obscure slow zone, you don't get hit by truck.
Now.. a number cruncher looking at the raw data isn't going to realize this.... they'll see a note in the log that you were going 10 over without any knowledge of the conditions. You can't really defend your self from a log file from some data.
Now where you live, there are cameras. From this I guess that people generally obey the speed limits. Great! In your enviroment there isn't this excuse for speeding. If I drove in that sorta enviroment, I would indeed follow the posted limits like a religion. In my enviroment, I tend to go 5-10 over posted limits to avoid getting hit by big ass trucks.
There was a time I didn't do this... and you know what, I got hit by big ass trucks.
I like the idea of the scram jet. That whole concept of actually using ambient "air" rather the having to carry liquid oxygen to get your vehicel off the ground makes a fair amount of sence to me.
What makes even more sence is keeping a supply of fuel in orbit, as well as smaller craft docked to a space station for the high orbit recovery missions, craft that don't have to be weighed down by needing trivial little things such as heat shielding and enough fuel to reach escape velocity.
Have three classes of space vehicels
1. The large cargo shuttle. 2. The medium load shuttle. 3. The small manned crew shuttle.
While I would agree that the person was in the right calling the cops, but it opens up a can of worms as far as trust between IT professionals and companies that they contract to.
People generaly want to protect their privacy, even in cases where a person who did what I'd consider to be the honest, moral, and legal thing, businesses don't tend to hire people who phone the cops on clients, right or wrong. Business if full of shady dealings, even how profit margin businesses like resturants and their dealings with local health inspectors.
This is sad but true.
What comes to mind, typical non-discolsure agreements prohibit you from discussing what you see in the workplace. Sadly, violating that even in this case tends to get you fired.
Personaly I feel there should indeed be a law protecting wistle blowers, but until then, do it ANONYMOUSLY.... like in this case, burn the CD of the offending material, and send to the FBI, or better yet, setup a simple script to e-mail the images on a time delay.
"you have the right to remain silent, if you give up this right anything you say can be used agenst you in a court of law". --- Generic Maranda warning America
Don't get me wrong... if I'm dead i'd be happy to share my black box information. However...
Until i'm dead, that information is mine to do with as I please, just as any personal data is. At the very least a warrent should be required to gain access to this information. Unless they record audio though, they are not nessicarly protected under wiretaping laws, unfortunatly.
A brillent observation was made by someone I knew visiting from Germany. "In america no one here pays attention to the speedlimit." This is very much true... while one does run the risk of getting a ticket typicaly, most cops use some form of common sence and don't actually ticket the bizaro speed zones. It wouldn't make me very happy if my car blackbox could be searched at will to judge if I was indeed going over the speedlimit, which chances are I am, 5-10mph. There is a good reason for this, cause everyone else is and I don't enjoy getting rear ended.
Given that some form of warning needs to be issued in most places i'm familar with if you are under arest, shouldn't the same rule apply to car black boxes?
Friends don't let friends pay with credit cards
on
Databases and Privacy
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· Score: 4, Interesting
I'm still a traditional fan of cash, rather then a credit card for most daily transations. It has the benifit of being remarkably easy to budget, as in alocate daily spending, impossible to go over your self imposed set limits. But importantly, it's none too traceable.
I may be slightly paranoid, but after buying electronic goods at a shop, I got a phone call within days asking me how i'm enjoying my thingie. It's like, "how did you get my number, I didn't give it to you".
I guess I have in the past given my personal info to radio shack to get free batteries, and actually they send me a christmas gift certificate every year... and actaully I enjoyed getting their catalogs back when they actually had them.
But the point i'm making is, cash is a remarkable means to provide some privacy. Not that you can't get away from things like morgages, cars, air line tickets, and other larger purcahces, but there is some info that random people don't have the right to know, like an employer checking to see if you buy alot of porn or booze.
The starting fee in my region for ultra-basic cable access is $6.00, though it's not widly advertsided, pretty much the lower chanel spectium. The website's lowest price for my region is $29.99 a month.
Watching something typical on primetime network gives you roughly 42min of programing, 18min of comercials that's roughly 30% comercials
If they have cable, and ask why pay for a bunch of ads, just say they already are, with the exception of movie chanels which cost a touch extra.
I'm troubled by popups personaly, but I respect the fact that they often times pay for websites cost of operation in many cases.
This is a VALID argument to pay for cable, cause the advertising pays for the programing and cost to operate a station, and what you are paying for is a cable that carries a clear signal, as no one seems to know what a yagi arial is.
Unfortunatly I think spam is going to stay with us for some time... but I think it will evolve in to something our minds can just filter out, and atleast for the web, you can always use lynx.
This software is not fault tolerant and is not designed, manufactured, or intended for use or resale as on-line control equipment in hazadours enviroments requiring fail-safe peformance, such as in the operation of nuclear facilities, aircraft navigation or communication systems, air trafic control, direct life support machines, or weapons systems, in which case the failure of the software could lead directly to death, personal injury, or severe physical or enviromental damage --Microsofts typical phrasing quoted loosly from "Java support" segment
It's not the fact that open source has fewer bugs.
Open source has the advantage of being able to be picked through with a fine tooth comb, and bugs can be resolved by onsite or offsite staff.
Imagine if the geek community had the ability to actually test Nasa software, simulations, flight plans. Some guy in Nambia might discover a bug that could save a mission. While Nasa has a trained staff of people... it is no match the joint effort of thousands, or millions of people. While it's almosts assured that nasa has machines that *whips the llamas* ass, it no were matches the joint computing power of the planet earth.
The funny thing about microsoft, wether you like them or not, do sometimes have semi-decent ideas and indisputably marketable products. X-box is one of them, basicly assembling an off the shelf small PC dedicated for the purpose of game playing, using an OS, though it be trimmed down, that they already have a staff familar with.
Now... what's to stop someone from creating a compeating product, based on linux, without all the inhearent microsoft gayness? While I don't believe it's possible to actually make and market a product nearly so cost effective as the x-box, presently fetching roughly $180, it's been demonstrated that the game console community will pay over twice that something that that can't be replaced / upgrade / altered.
I see a linux based game console as being a very very marketable product, but part of the drawback is the lack of games for that particular platform, as well as relative ease of use.
But what it lacks in cutting edge titles... can be made up for in EMULATION to achive marketability. Lets face it, homes across the globe have in their attic Ataris, commodores, nintendos, segas, pretty much a whole slew of stuff. While this likely could be achieved on Xbox, it would be a pain in the butt due to microsoft's design of only running signed games.
Given the fact that people are willing to spend in excess of $180 for something that will become obsolete and unsupported, imagine the the looks on their faces when you say it can do more then a game console. Imagine their faces when you tell them, "oh yea, when the next generation comes out, all the stuff you bought will work with it, no problem". Oh and the ever popular *oh yea you can browse the web and check your e-mail too*.
----
Why I think this would be cool?
The X-box's coolness is the fact it's *just a PC* excepting the fact that it's PC aspects are disabled. Otherwise I know a number of people and businesses who would quickly plop down $180 + the cost of a monitor to have something that can run microsoft word. Let's face it, the typical home user doesn't *need* high end cpu.
Wether this linbox be in the form of an X-box modified (legal questions pop up) or a newly marketed baby sized PC marketed as a game machine but PC ability.
----
This is the reason I say *oh yea* the more games that are ported or created to linux. Each title makes it a more viable platorm.
But about when Third World issues threaten the rest of the world, like was the case with Polio. The magic bag had a vaccine and all but eliminated it from the planet.
While yes, it should never be our goal to change the third world based on our image, or run the risk of having a India Pakastan situation. But there are issues such as the HIV epidemic that require us as a species to get together and resolve it. And who knows... many a drug breakthrough has been made by going to far out of the way regions and seeing what the local people do for herbal medication.
Nah, I can't believe that. While I agree some people have natural limitations as far as learning go, but being able to chalange your self does serve to increase your ability to solve problems.
If you don't ever bother to use your mind, you don't gain the ability to reason. You enter a state of mental aphtropy.
Without knowlege, what use is intelligence? Intelligence can be described by those who can learn, do, or teach. All the attributes you described can be taught... atleast socrates thought so:P
Well, there is the other concept too... the concept of ownership, which has nothing to do with free music or building new a utopia.
Let me go into my closete.
I have a copy of "John Denver's Greatest Hits vol 2" on 8 track. I'm not proud of this fact, but never the less, at some point in my life I just wanted a copy of, "thank god i'm a country boy".
Now, do I own a copy of the song for personal use, or do I just own the physical cartrage and have no rights to play the song what so ever?
Until recently, I've been under the impression that the indended use of the media was to be played and heard privatly, in my home or in my car, which just so happened had only an 8track player at the time. I bought it, it's pretty much mine to do with as I please so long as I don't do it it publicly which I personaly define as situations where people pay money to listen to my copy of John Denver on 8-track. To me this is fair and reasonable.
I was also under the impression, should I choose, make a backup of this 8track on cassette. I own a copy, 8 track was an obscure standard, it seemed silly to buy another copy of John Denver Greatest Hits as I already had one that worked just fine. To me, this is reasonable, as there are a few standards of players, and not every car or home I happen to wish to play this in had an 8-track player, it being a remarkably dead standard.
But recently, based on what i've heard, the RIAA is trying to make this practice illegal. To me this seems unreasonable as I already bought a copy of John Denver's Greatest Hits, but I no longer have an 8-track player.
To me, the concept of making a copy for personal use of material I already bought isn't a criminal act nor a violation of copyrights. The store was payed it's money, took it's share, the recording company got paid, John Denver got paid. I'm not stealing because they already sold me a copy.
Let's say I bought a 8track deck specificly to copy off this and other 8-tracks I happen to have. I don't have all that many, but used the deck to record a cassette, or make a CD or MP3. Provided I still maintain ownership of the 8-track, I don't see this as being criminal in the slightest. I don't have an interest in the CD, not at $15.00 from a popular online retailer, not when it's remotly possible to get a player on an online auction site for less then $15.00, or borrow a deck from a friend for the sole purpose of cracking out a copy.
This is one right that i'd be inclined to fight for.
A person who goes further applies his aquired and applied knowledge does increase his/her ability to reason, comprehend, and understand. It's only through the chalange of one's own abilitys do we grow as a person.
Only via communication can we become more intelligent as a species, increascing our global knowlege and ability to reason, comprehend, conceptualize, and understand the world and universe as we know it. We wouldn't have quantum mechanics if knowlege, in the form of observations, theories, and discoveries were not shared.
This has NOTHING to do with geek knowledge or any sorta propriority facts.
Inteligence is a good balance of aquired knolege and applied knolege. Roughly translated it's knowing shit, and knowing how to do shit.
I thought I made it clear that I consider technology to be all forms of shit. If we raise the collective inteligence, we as a planet can do more shit!
Computers are only a tool... one DAMNED good application of this tool is education. You don't need to be really smart to operate a computer, in fact with good text to speech application, you don't nessicarly need to be literate (though it might help).
Let me quote something for ya
The loss of agricultural knowledge and management skills Case studies undertaken in rural areas with high levels of seroprevalence make repeated references to the loss of traditional knowledge and cultural practices, in part attributed to HIV/AIDS-related morbidity and mortality. When one or both parents die or are seriously ill, their skills may not be transferred to their children or other relatives. This may have far reaching implications in terms of the continuity of agricultural production. In Eastern Africa, where the cultivation of coffee and bananas has been a traditional feature of the farming system, cultural practices associated with coffee and banana tree cultivation may be essential towards ensuring the system's continuity. As has already been noted, the correct mulching, weeding and pruning of plantations is a prerequisite for reasonable yields. However, in areas where there is a high incidence of HIV/AIDS, and the subsequent lack of understanding of the correct agricultural practices, plots have been neglected resulting in poor yields. --http://www.fao.org/waicent/faoinfo/sustdev/WPdir ect/WPre0003.htm
I'm sure the FAO would help, but onsite help requires man power, resource, transportation, and great time estimate. Establishing basic computer technology in those regions with issues of lost inhearated knolege would give people access to aquired knolege, and apply it.
Agriculture technology is among one of the worlds most important developments. This has nothing to do with getting Africa high tech, but it provides a vehicel to provide assistance in helping 3rd world nations learn to solve their own problems.
Education.
1. How to grow food
2. How to clean water
3. medicine
a. How to treat the ill
b. preventive
i. diet
ii. HIV!!!!!
One major issue with 3rd world contries is the massive HIV infection rate. Had a friend working for peace corps who's major irratation was the fact that it was so hard conviencing people that HIV was infact a disease... one which kills. It's somewhat hard to believe, but dispite it's existance in the 1980s it wasn't something people believed either.
Communication between the 3rd world and the rest of the world would promote little trivial things like taking preventive measures to stop the spread of HIV and other infectious diseases. Hardcopy and people take resources to move... digial communciations takes only power and equipment, equipment the likes we replace every 1.5 years.
Communication would open the door to the global market place. While under developed countries lack much in the way of industry, there is art, music, and stories. All of these are marketable products.
Technology is what seperates us from animals, wether it be the basic Bushmen of the Kalahari level that is excelent to insure survivial in a very harsh enviroment, or the high tech that we who can read this enjoy.
I see a great benifit of raising the global I.Q. of a planet of roughly 6 billion people.
Re:This is not a load of bullcrap :P
on
Spam, Milord
·
· Score: 1
I do not believe using a paypal acount would make it easier to track down a spammer, as the artical spoke of using stolen credit cards to fund the project. Via the use of idenity theft, it's painfully easy to open up a bank account. Atleast in america, all you need is a social security # and state issued ID. Further, I don't support any idea that promotes paypal specificy. Not that paypal isn't spiffy, but there are other systems of payment that should be accepted for the sake dealing with everyone on the planet.
While I'm not an expert in spammer economics, given that the snail mail spam is still very popular, I don't imagine a nomimal charge would help. Also, while i'm not aware of the amount typical gross of a spamming business, I am aware that they do indeed make money. Enough money to support dialup, dsl/cable, t-1, and in some cases also the software to boot. A program to decode the authorization system you spoke of would be a marketable product to the spammer community, not to speak of the so called, "authorized spam" that legit businesses *feel* they have the right to send you. Bigger legit businesses what open channels to their customers, and bigger businesses who don't want to pay a staff minimum wage to manualy do this stuff *would* pay for software to automate the process.
Plus you didn't cover the issue of who gets this 1cent per e-mail. Your ISP? Internic? Your city / local / national goverment?
Slashdot Mirror
Actually in many ways I do agree with you. Electrical indeed does suck for high speed high load applications.
Personaly I'm for natural gas conversions. For about a $2000 investment you get tanks, an on the fly switchable between traditional petrol / natural gas, and you don't have to worry about pesky issues like achiving free way speeds of 60mph (about 100Km/H)
But even so, many of my daily rounds can be accomplished "easily" with a vehicel that goes only 25mph. I can fetch my morning latte, a gal of milk, some staple food items, all without the peskyness of typical automobile polution. I don't need a 200 mile range when a sub 50mile range daily would do just dandy.
See L.A. Can't see it through the smog?
Visit L.A. take a deep breath
Feel the soot on your car after just one day there. Lovely isn't it.
Leave L.A. compair and contrast the ease of breathing in L.A. and just 20 miles north.
Los Angles California is a pretty toxic enviroment. While I don't have any ACTUAL studies in front of me, I can reasonably assume that the vast majority of their air polution comes from cars. It kinda makes it a good testing ground for new clean air regulations, it being a basin filled with millions of people, and millions of cars.
I've gotten laid in my Toyota Corolla, I don't know what your problem is.
Modern, working cars don't pollute enough to make a difference either
Oh yea right. I guess all that COx and NOx compounds spewing out of millions are cars are in no way causing an enviromental impact.
For those not familar with the State of Washingon, most of our power comes from hydroelectric plants. We tried for nuclear power once in western washington, known as I believe " Washington Public Power Supply System" aka or WoPPSS. While it can be argued about the enviromental impact of hydro power, it indeed is a fuck of alot cleaner then internal combustion engines. Additional supplimental power plants are being constructed that burn natural gas, which again tends to be a fuck of alot cleaner then petrol.
I see a major application of electric vehicels for in town commuting, on roads where the posted limits are between 25-35 mph. Many of these vehicels can achieve 25mph, while considered slow... perfectly within acceptable limits esp on days with heavy trafic conjestion. While the posted limit may indeed be greater then 25mph, 10mph is often times more typical in downtown areas.
While you have a point, a city's road system can be accomidated to actually support the use of these sub 30mph cars reasonably. Most major cities here are setup in a convienent grid like patern, dedicate a road parelell to the 35mph zones to things that can travel that fast, and slower residental streets to the sub 30mph crowd.
Given that the eco-friendly road alterntive is manual powered bike, I see there being less of an issue with conjection actually.
Infact, I don't see them being a major issue on our interstates between Seattle and Tacoma during rushour, as the average speed tends to be sub 25mph, unfortunatly.
There are those of us who would actually use cheeper more eco-friendly forms of transportation if it was available. People like my self would invest the the expence of using natural gas if it wasn't for the lack of filling stations. But I personaly can't refuel on it unless I drive roughly 40miles away, making it none too practical. Electric is a viable alternative for us who need more cargo room then a motorcycle, but less cargo room then a typical car.
if one of your plant leave seed/fruit/whatever on the neighbourgh field, you loose all right on those which become the other people propriety
I can see that being an issue in france, as they have a decent wine industry, an industry that is dependent on diffrent varities of grapes.
Assuming a seed can be protected under typical IP laws... one could in theory plant this seed protected under IP laws on respective farms and force farmers to pay you royalities on this seed that was brought in through no fault of your own.
Unfortunatly, this may be reality... though personaly I don't think it would be very enforcable in reality. Assuming seed was brought in via natural means, a farmer really has no choice in the matter. It would be diffrent if respective plants could be non-distructivly tested to verify they are free from copyright.
Unless the copyright holders have a means of actually identifying the plants on a massive scale, and provide the man power to remove the plants, as it's their own damn fault for allowing IP being distrubited via wind and animals, I personaly feel that these cases should be thrown out of court. It's a fucking plant.
I'm not sure when intel created the DX and SX designations. the 486 SX was indeed without onboard math-co, but neither did the 80386 DX nor 80386 SX.
I know it's nitpicking, but the SX/DX designation doesn't seem to indicate with or without math-co atleast for the 386 series.
Many people have bought small cases back when they picked up their first computer. I think you know the type... two 5.25 inch drive bays, 2 3.5 inch bays, a couple internal.
Lego building blocks actually have a level of modularability that I can see being of great benifit to case design. If you need extra drive bays, just buy more building blocks. Need removable storage, just do it in building blocks.
While I wouldn't nessicarly trust Lego blocks to create anything industrual, little memories of taking my legos in the bath tub and having them fall apart come to mind, i'm sure the design can be advanced just a little bit, perhaps by providing locking screws for each of the little Lego tops.
You grow a plant in a field... plant grows...
Plants produce seeds, which get carried off by
1. Wind
2. Animals
3. Vehicels
then reproduce into other plants.
The answer is obvious
Sue the
Wind for illegal distrubution of IP
The animals for illegal distrubution of IP
The vehicel manufactor for creating a safe harbor for the distrubution of IP
Sue the plants them selves for reproducing without a license.
I'm not talking about europe.
I'm talking about streches of roads where I live where you'll get rear ended for going the speed limit. While technicaly it's an offence to exceed the posted limits, doing so causes accidents.
Police are 100% aware of this... they have common sence and reasoning skills to realize that following posted speeds in these zones are hazardious to your heath, but don't fight to raise the limits as they find the same zones valuable to check for sobrity.
Even in Europe, I would imagine there are provisions for telling it to the judge, and i'd think that violating the speed limit to escape a rear comming big ass mac truck going 10+ over would give one cause speed up to avoid an accident. Which it just so happens in my region, these small strips of extra low speed limits are far too short for 10 ton trucks to slow down.
My reasoning isn't shite at all either
1) you slow down to the accepted speed, get hit by truck
2) you maintain your speed when entering this obscure slow zone, you don't get hit by truck.
Now.. a number cruncher looking at the raw data isn't going to realize this.... they'll see a note in the log that you were going 10 over without any knowledge of the conditions. You can't really defend your self from a log file from some data.
Now where you live, there are cameras. From this I guess that people generally obey the speed limits. Great! In your enviroment there isn't this excuse for speeding. If I drove in that sorta enviroment, I would indeed follow the posted limits like a religion. In my enviroment, I tend to go 5-10 over posted limits to avoid getting hit by big ass trucks.
There was a time I didn't do this... and you know what, I got hit by big ass trucks.
I'll stick with my policy thanks.
I like the idea of the scram jet. That whole concept of actually using ambient "air" rather the having to carry liquid oxygen to get your vehicel off the ground makes a fair amount of sence to me.
What makes even more sence is keeping a supply of fuel in orbit, as well as smaller craft docked to a space station for the high orbit recovery missions, craft that don't have to be weighed down by needing trivial little things such as heat shielding and enough fuel to reach escape velocity.
Have three classes of space vehicels
1. The large cargo shuttle.
2. The medium load shuttle.
3. The small manned crew shuttle.
While I would agree that the person was in the right calling the cops, but it opens up a can of worms as far as trust between IT professionals and companies that they contract to.
People generaly want to protect their privacy, even in cases where a person who did what I'd consider to be the honest, moral, and legal thing, businesses don't tend to hire people who phone the cops on clients, right or wrong. Business if full of shady dealings, even how profit margin businesses like resturants and their dealings with local health inspectors.
This is sad but true.
What comes to mind, typical non-discolsure agreements prohibit you from discussing what you see in the workplace. Sadly, violating that even in this case tends to get you fired.
Personaly I feel there should indeed be a law protecting wistle blowers, but until then, do it ANONYMOUSLY.... like in this case, burn the CD of the offending material, and send to the FBI, or better yet, setup a simple script to e-mail the images on a time delay.
"you have the right to remain silent, if you give up this right anything you say can be used agenst you in a court of law". --- Generic Maranda warning America
Don't get me wrong... if I'm dead i'd be happy to share my black box information. However...
Until i'm dead, that information is mine to do with as I please, just as any personal data is. At the very least a warrent should be required to gain access to this information. Unless they record audio though, they are not nessicarly protected under wiretaping laws, unfortunatly.
A brillent observation was made by someone I knew visiting from Germany. "In america no one here pays attention to the speedlimit." This is very much true... while one does run the risk of getting a ticket typicaly, most cops use some form of common sence and don't actually ticket the bizaro speed zones. It wouldn't make me very happy if my car blackbox could be searched at will to judge if I was indeed going over the speedlimit, which chances are I am, 5-10mph. There is a good reason for this, cause everyone else is and I don't enjoy getting rear ended.
Given that some form of warning needs to be issued in most places i'm familar with if you are under arest, shouldn't the same rule apply to car black boxes?
I'm still a traditional fan of cash, rather then a credit card for most daily transations. It has the benifit of being remarkably easy to budget, as in alocate daily spending, impossible to go over your self imposed set limits. But importantly, it's none too traceable.
I may be slightly paranoid, but after buying electronic goods at a shop, I got a phone call within days asking me how i'm enjoying my thingie. It's like, "how did you get my number, I didn't give it to you".
I guess I have in the past given my personal info to radio shack to get free batteries, and actually they send me a christmas gift certificate every year... and actaully I enjoyed getting their catalogs back when they actually had them.
But the point i'm making is, cash is a remarkable means to provide some privacy. Not that you can't get away from things like morgages, cars, air line tickets, and other larger purcahces, but there is some info that random people don't have the right to know, like an employer checking to see if you buy alot of porn or booze.
See cable telivision.
The starting fee in my region for ultra-basic cable access is $6.00, though it's not widly advertsided, pretty much the lower chanel spectium. The website's lowest price for my region is $29.99 a month.
Watching something typical on primetime network gives you roughly 42min of programing, 18min of comercials that's roughly 30% comercials
If they have cable, and ask why pay for a bunch of ads, just say they already are, with the exception of movie chanels which cost a touch extra.
I'm troubled by popups personaly, but I respect the fact that they often times pay for websites cost of operation in many cases.
This is a VALID argument to pay for cable, cause the advertising pays for the programing and cost to operate a station, and what you are paying for is a cable that carries a clear signal, as no one seems to know what a yagi arial is.
Unfortunatly I think spam is going to stay with us for some time... but I think it will evolve in to something our minds can just filter out, and atleast for the web, you can always use lynx.
WARNING, DANGER WILL ROBINSON
This software is not fault tolerant and is not designed, manufactured, or intended for use or resale as on-line control equipment in hazadours enviroments requiring fail-safe peformance, such as in the operation of nuclear facilities, aircraft navigation or communication systems, air trafic control, direct life support machines, or weapons systems, in which case the failure of the software could lead directly to death, personal injury, or severe physical or enviromental damage --Microsofts typical phrasing quoted loosly from "Java support" segment
It's not the fact that open source has fewer bugs.
Open source has the advantage of being able to be picked through with a fine tooth comb, and bugs can be resolved by onsite or offsite staff.
Imagine if the geek community had the ability to actually test Nasa software, simulations, flight plans. Some guy in Nambia might discover a bug that could save a mission. While Nasa has a trained staff of people... it is no match the joint effort of thousands, or millions of people.
While it's almosts assured that nasa has machines that *whips the llamas* ass, it no were matches the joint computing power of the planet earth.
The funny thing about microsoft, wether you like them or not, do sometimes have semi-decent ideas and indisputably marketable products. X-box is one of them, basicly assembling an off the shelf small PC dedicated for the purpose of game playing, using an OS, though it be trimmed down, that they already have a staff familar with.
Now... what's to stop someone from creating a compeating product, based on linux, without all the inhearent microsoft gayness? While I don't believe it's possible to actually make and market a product nearly so cost effective as the x-box, presently fetching roughly $180, it's been demonstrated that the game console community will pay over twice that something that that can't be replaced / upgrade / altered.
I see a linux based game console as being a very very marketable product, but part of the drawback is the lack of games for that particular platform, as well as relative ease of use.
But what it lacks in cutting edge titles... can be made up for in EMULATION to achive marketability. Lets face it, homes across the globe have in their attic Ataris, commodores, nintendos, segas, pretty much a whole slew of stuff. While this likely could be achieved on Xbox, it would be a pain in the butt due to microsoft's design of only running signed games.
Given the fact that people are willing to spend in excess of $180 for something that will become obsolete and unsupported, imagine the the looks on their faces when you say it can do more then a game console. Imagine their faces when you tell them, "oh yea, when the next generation comes out, all the stuff you bought will work with it, no problem". Oh and the ever popular *oh yea you can browse the web and check your e-mail too*.
----
Why I think this would be cool?
The X-box's coolness is the fact it's *just a PC* excepting the fact that it's PC aspects are disabled. Otherwise I know a number of people and businesses who would quickly plop down $180 + the cost of a monitor to have something that can run microsoft word. Let's face it, the typical home user doesn't *need* high end cpu.
Wether this linbox be in the form of an X-box modified (legal questions pop up) or a newly marketed baby sized PC marketed as a game machine but PC ability.
----
This is the reason I say *oh yea* the more games that are ported or created to linux. Each title makes it a more viable platorm.
"You want to see my web cam?"
But about when Third World issues threaten the rest of the world, like was the case with Polio. The magic bag had a vaccine and all but eliminated it from the planet.
While yes, it should never be our goal to change the third world based on our image, or run the risk of having a India Pakastan situation. But there are issues such as the HIV epidemic that require us as a species to get together and resolve it. And who knows... many a drug breakthrough has been made by going to far out of the way regions and seeing what the local people do for herbal medication.
Nah, I can't believe that. While I agree some people have natural limitations as far as learning go, but being able to chalange your self does serve to increase your ability to solve problems.
:P
If you don't ever bother to use your mind, you don't gain the ability to reason. You enter a state of mental aphtropy.
Without knowlege, what use is intelligence? Intelligence can be described by those who can learn, do, or teach. All the attributes you described can be taught... atleast socrates thought so
Well, there is the other concept too... the concept of ownership, which has nothing to do with free music or building new a utopia.
Let me go into my closete.
I have a copy of "John Denver's Greatest Hits vol 2" on 8 track. I'm not proud of this fact, but never the less, at some point in my life I just wanted a copy of, "thank god i'm a country boy".
Now, do I own a copy of the song for personal use, or do I just own the physical cartrage and have no rights to play the song what so ever?
Until recently, I've been under the impression that the indended use of the media was to be played and heard privatly, in my home or in my car, which just so happened had only an 8track player at the time. I bought it, it's pretty much mine to do with as I please so long as I don't do it it publicly which I personaly define as situations where people pay money to listen to my copy of John Denver on 8-track. To me this is fair and reasonable.
I was also under the impression, should I choose, make a backup of this 8track on cassette. I own a copy, 8 track was an obscure standard, it seemed silly to buy another copy of John Denver Greatest Hits as I already had one that worked just fine. To me, this is reasonable, as there are a few standards of players, and not every car or home I happen to wish to play this in had an 8-track player, it being a remarkably dead standard.
But recently, based on what i've heard, the RIAA is trying to make this practice illegal. To me this seems unreasonable as I already bought a copy of John Denver's Greatest Hits, but I no longer have an 8-track player.
To me, the concept of making a copy for personal use of material I already bought isn't a criminal act nor a violation of copyrights. The store was payed it's money, took it's share, the recording company got paid, John Denver got paid. I'm not stealing because they already sold me a copy.
Let's say I bought a 8track deck specificly to copy off this and other 8-tracks I happen to have. I don't have all that many, but used the deck to record a cassette, or make a CD or MP3. Provided I still maintain ownership of the 8-track, I don't see this as being criminal in the slightest. I don't have an interest in the CD, not at $15.00 from a popular online retailer, not when it's remotly possible to get a player on an online auction site for less then $15.00, or borrow a deck from a friend for the sole purpose of cracking out a copy.
This is one right that i'd be inclined to fight for.
Reason.... applied knowledge
conceptualize.... applied knowledge
understand... acquired knowledge
A person who goes further applies his aquired and applied knowledge does increase his/her ability to reason, comprehend, and understand. It's only through the chalange of one's own abilitys do we grow as a person.
Only via communication can we become more intelligent as a species, increascing our global knowlege and ability to reason, comprehend, conceptualize, and understand the world and universe as we know it. We wouldn't have quantum mechanics if knowlege, in the form of observations, theories, and discoveries were not shared.
This has NOTHING to do with geek knowledge or any sorta propriority facts.
r ect/WPre0003.htm
Inteligence is a good balance of aquired knolege and applied knolege. Roughly translated it's knowing shit, and knowing how to do shit.
I thought I made it clear that I consider technology to be all forms of shit. If we raise the collective inteligence, we as a planet can do more shit!
Computers are only a tool... one DAMNED good application of this tool is education. You don't need to be really smart to operate a computer, in fact with good text to speech application, you don't nessicarly need to be literate (though it might help).
Let me quote something for ya
The loss of agricultural knowledge and management skills
Case studies undertaken in rural areas with high levels of seroprevalence make repeated references to the loss of traditional knowledge and cultural practices, in part attributed to HIV/AIDS-related morbidity and mortality. When one or both parents die or are seriously ill, their skills may not be transferred to their children or other relatives. This may have far reaching implications in terms of the continuity of agricultural production. In Eastern Africa, where the cultivation of coffee and bananas has been a traditional feature of the farming system, cultural practices associated with coffee and banana tree cultivation may be essential towards ensuring the system's continuity. As has already been noted, the correct mulching, weeding and pruning of plantations is a prerequisite for reasonable yields. However, in areas where there is a high incidence of HIV/AIDS, and the subsequent lack of understanding of the correct agricultural practices, plots have been neglected resulting in poor yields. --http://www.fao.org/waicent/faoinfo/sustdev/WPdi
I'm sure the FAO would help, but onsite help requires man power, resource, transportation, and great time estimate. Establishing basic computer technology in those regions with issues of lost inhearated knolege would give people access to aquired knolege, and apply it.
Agriculture technology is among one of the worlds most important developments. This has nothing to do with getting Africa high tech, but it provides a vehicel to provide assistance in helping 3rd world nations learn to solve their own problems.
These are issues as well, but there is also
Education.
1. How to grow food
2. How to clean water
3. medicine
a. How to treat the ill
b. preventive
i. diet
ii. HIV!!!!!
One major issue with 3rd world contries is the massive HIV infection rate. Had a friend working for peace corps who's major irratation was the fact that it was so hard conviencing people that HIV was infact a disease... one which kills. It's somewhat hard to believe, but dispite it's existance in the 1980s it wasn't something people believed either.
Communication between the 3rd world and the rest of the world would promote little trivial things like taking preventive measures to stop the spread of HIV and other infectious diseases. Hardcopy and people take resources to move... digial communciations takes only power and equipment, equipment the likes we replace every 1.5 years.
Communication would open the door to the global market place. While under developed countries lack much in the way of industry, there is art, music, and stories. All of these are marketable products.
Technology is what seperates us from animals, wether it be the basic Bushmen of the Kalahari level that is excelent to insure survivial in a very harsh enviroment, or the high tech that we who can read this enjoy.
I see a great benifit of raising the global I.Q. of a planet of roughly 6 billion people.
I do not believe using a paypal acount would make it easier to track down a spammer, as the artical spoke of using stolen credit cards to fund the project. Via the use of idenity theft, it's painfully easy to open up a bank account. Atleast in america, all you need is a social security # and state issued ID. Further, I don't support any idea that promotes paypal specificy. Not that paypal isn't spiffy, but there are other systems of payment that should be accepted for the sake dealing with everyone on the planet.
While I'm not an expert in spammer economics, given that the snail mail spam is still very popular, I don't imagine a nomimal charge would help. Also, while i'm not aware of the amount typical gross of a spamming business, I am aware that they do indeed make money. Enough money to support dialup, dsl/cable, t-1, and in some cases also the software to boot. A program to decode the authorization system you spoke of would be a marketable product to the spammer community, not to speak of the so called, "authorized spam" that legit businesses *feel* they have the right to send you. Bigger legit businesses what open channels to their customers, and bigger businesses who don't want to pay a staff minimum wage to manualy do this stuff *would* pay for software to automate the process.
Plus you didn't cover the issue of who gets this 1cent per e-mail. Your ISP? Internic? Your city / local / national goverment?