You know, I was going to moderate but I decided to respond since it seems someone always brings up this point. The USA cannot, under any circumstance dealing with distances (such as laying fiber optic lines and such), be compared to Japan. Japan's land mass is SLIGHTLY SMALLER THAN CALIFORNIA. So, if you compare Cali to Japan - ok. If you compare the continental US to Japan - not ok. There is no comparison. The economy of scale in laying fiber to every home in the US would dwarf, by some orders of magnitude, the laying of fiber in Japan. Or Korea. Or many other nations simply due to geographic diversity and total landmass. Let's face it, a fair amount of Americans do not like to live in a cramped, piss on your neighbor, listen to them fornicating through the thin apartment walls, sirens blaring at all hours, sure is nice to get delivery of (insert favorite food here) at any time of the day, city. The rural population is quite large and is one of the biggest impediments to FTTH covering the entire US.
As for the rest of your assertions - I agree. Certain people in office only want the proverbial "show me the money!" They don't care to make the US into a dominant force for change and positive industry development (not to mention that having FTTH and other technologies can lead to growth in science, art, math, and other areas).
Apologies for the rant but it is becoming a pet peeve when I see people say "Well, in Japan they're doing X". That's great and guess what? I want the same things too. I want FTTH in my neck of the woods. I would love to have a gigabit connection to the internet or at least 10 megabits or so:). Unfortunately, unless radical changes are made in the geography (or the mindset) of the US, I don't think I'll have it in my area - unless I move to a metropolis.
Even after MANY years of testing, a lot of the drugs that fall under the heading Nootropics have few to no side effects even when taken at massive doses. Another drug to look into after Piracetam is Vasopressin. There are several others as well. Very interesting reading.
Umm, yeah, you see the problem is YOU ALREADY HAVE THIS authority. YOU are the parent. If your child goes into a store and buys a videogame that you do not approve of then how about TAKING RESPONSIBILITY for your child and disciplining them for doing so. Do NOT, I repeat DO NOT, ask the Federal Government, State Government, or anyone else to raise and be responsible for your child and his/her decisions. That is YOUR job - not anyone else's.
If you don't want your 9 year old to buy product X, explain to them why not and then explain to them what will happen when they disobey mommy and daddy. Then, and this is crucial, actually discipline them for disobeying. You know - spare the rod, spoil the child. But under no circumstances should it be MY responsibility to raise your child for you. I wasn't there at conception so your child is not my responsibility. Teaching your child YOUR values is not my responsibility. Making sure your child doesn't buy videogames they want because little Johnny down the street has it is NOT my responsibility.
The responsibility for raising your child lies squarely with you.
Yeah, which is why you get your bank to create a special PayPal only account for you. If you sell a lot, just make sure to pull out the money at the end of day. If you buy a lot, you transfer money from your REAL bank account to your PayPal account, send the money to the person you're buying from and that's it.
Basically, this always leaves NO MONEY in that account. Of course, it helps to have a no-fee checking account that doesn't require $500+ balance or something like that. Even a low-fee account (say $2-5 per month) would suffice. If PayPal tries to grab that account - fsck 'em. They can have the $20 or whatever is in there.
The main problem here is that even technically oriented people DO NOT (necessarily) need the "features" in XP. And most of the "features" can be implemented with third-party products thus giving money to other companies than the empire that is Microsoft. So, why take the time to learn where Microsoft moved everything to, customize it, and then make it into a clone of 2000 when I can just.... use Win2k instead? Win2k is stable, fast, fairly secure, and easy to implement, operate, and troubleshoot. Basically, there was no need for WinXP other than to force upgrades on the OEMs and the general populace.
Please note I did not use the term "evil empire" since they may, at times, fill that role but it is not a constant.
Right then, guess I'll jump in on this with one simple FACT - Police are not there to prevent crimes but to intercede or to investigate them... after the fact more than in the act. Police, by their very nature, are REACTIVE and not PROACTIVE. Therefore, if someone breaks into my house with a gun intent to rob and probably harm me, if I have no weapon handy (and please note - the CRIMINAL has one because, well, he doesn't follow the law anyway) then I am quite possibly dead and the only thing gun banning and the police force did for me was to hopefully find my killer.
Not to mention that, well, we've had one revolution in this country - against yours you know - and your government said "wow, looking at our history let's ban all guns on the grounds of protecting our peaceful way of life! (aka we want to remain in power)" whereas our government said "A well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed."
Yes, I fully understand that by leaving guns in the hands of the individual we also have more gun violence in this country and parts of it are worse than others. I understand that this is the price I and other Americans pay to be an individual with the RIGHT to own a gun and defend myself with it. I understand all of this and more and now I want you to ask yourself this: Do I trust my government and police with ALL the power, ALL the weapons, and ALL the authority to use those three in a sane, non-malevolent manner consistent with the will of the people - not the will of the "state" or the will of the corporation or the will of the few?
Soccer Moms of the world would have them for lunch.
You know, as much as I dislike some of the crap the **AA's are doing, in this case I'd cheer for the MPAA if a studio would step up to bat and say "Fuck all the soccer moms. We're putting out PLENTY of warning that this film will be bloody, gory, and violent. The movie will be rated R. If a soccer mom DOES NOT UNDERSTAND THIS RATING, she should look it up. We are not responsible for raising your children. You are. If you let them come see this movie and they have nightmares, it is YOUR FUCKING FAULT. Not ours. You have been warned. Thank you and go see DOOM!"
If it was the biggest steaming pile of shit as a movie, I'd still spend the money to see it just because someone took a stand and said "WE are not raising/responsible for your children, you are."
Now, be honest, wouldn't pretty much everyone here love to hear someone (even the MPAA) take a stand and say that shit to the world at large?
Quote: My apologies for the abrasive manner of the response, but patches are around for a reason: to fix known problems.
Well, yes, this may be true BUT Microsoft patches are _notorious_ for breaking as many, if not more, things than they fix. How long can a critical system such as this one stay down for "routine" maintenance? WHEN would the breaks introduced by the patches show up? In the middle of routing 20 or more airplanes in the airspace around LAX?
Although the specific bug had a patch, perhaps this was a case of "do we patch and pray OR do we reboot monthly?"
*shrug* Maybe the heads of the department overrode the IT personnel and instead of paying the money to patch and test they told them to just reboot the system? No, I didn't RTFA but who knows exactly what went down? The department heads are all in a CYA mode right now and the "truth" may never be known.
If something works fine and you install Service Pack X and it doesn't work anymore then Service Pack X BROKE the system. It fucked something up that was working fine and I believe even Merriam Webster defines that as broken.
(Saruman's power was his will and his voice. He could talk practically anyone into doing anything. He had very little power of his own; once the Ents destroyed Isengard, he was shafted. Again, another bit the film got completely wrong was his fight with Gandalf. In the books, it's a battle of wills, and pre-Moria Gandalf is definitely Saruman's inferior.) (emphasis added)
I don't want this to be viewed as a troll but you are correct in that it is a battle of wills between Saruman and Gandalf, but who the hell wants to sit in the theater and watch two men with long beards stare at each other for 5-10 minutes? That would be like watching a chess match!;-) People would be walking out or wondering "what the fuck is happening?"
Even though I'm sure it could have been visualized in a much different way, with the need to show action and conflict I think Jackson did a good job in showing the 'fight'.
Corporations do NOT have the same protections under the law as "we the people" in the context of free speech. They are restrained under many other laws, including the fact that what company officials say is _commercial speech_ and not protected under the First Amendment. Just like Nike cannot lie to sell products, SCO will not be able to use the First Amendment to cover their ass.
Wait. I am not one who enjoys frivolous lawsuits or believes in them (in fact, I think we should have the same system as in several Eurpoean countries: the loser pays the winners lawyer fees and court costs) BUT I firmly believe that if my child was in a public school where they were going to let in the BSA to "teach" my children morality on copyright issues I would approach the school board with simple facts:
1) I pay taxes for my children to go to school to be taught HOW to think, not WHAT to think 2) Corporations blatantly "teaching" a one-sided version of "morality" for crass consumerism have no place in public schools (and I'm almost sure there is a bylaw or code that keeps corporations from doing just that) 3) It is MY responsibility as a parent (and yours, and his, and hers, etc) to teach children morality based on MY (and yours, and his, and hers, etc) belief system - not based on the BSA's.
With all these things in mind, I would simply tell the school board where my child was in class that I would be finding the MANY other parents who believed along the same lines as I did and we would be pulling our children out of school and forming a class action lawsuit against the school board (as a whole), each individual member of the school board, the principal of the school where the BSA was to "teach", and - if necessary - the STATE school board as well. I'm sure having 20% or more of the parents from one county (or parish) starting a class action lawsuit against the state and local school board would get a) severe media attention and b) the elected officals attention.
What better way to nip this in the bud than to use the legal system against the "rat bastard" BSA... and I'd be teaching my child the meaning of Irony at the same time:)
Yeah, but they would want you to only use the Wal-Mart(c) Branded IE infested browser to surf the web with that contains spy-ware and tracks all your buying habits (most of which are redirected to www.wal-mart.com). They would use their market position (hey, anyone remember Microsoft??) to bully, cajole, buyout, and otherwise continue to dominate the market once they reached significant penetration rates.
Wal-Mart save broadband? Yeah, right... Wal-Mart may be the leader in supplying low-cost shit to the masses but they do NOT have the interest of "the people" at heart. In my opinion, Wal-Mart will give rise to the anti-christ.
Hell, wouldn't you have a comment on someone who professed (or was it her mother?) in front of a national audience that she didn't wear panties?? I'd be saying "Yeah, you could tell that under that uniform she had smooth curves..";-)
Here! Here! A flat (rate) tax would make things much better overall IMHO. Basically, make it voluntary as to how much "tax" you pay (to a point it is voluntary since, if all goods are taxed, everyone has to eat and we would pay "taxes" in that respect). Here is a little more info on the subject.
Plus, when the person hiring me says "We're willing to pay you $70,000 per year" I don't want to have to go "OK, let's see, 70k*.65 = ~45k per year after taxes". With a flat tax, what you agreed to work for you ACTUALLY get. Then _I_ can determine where to spend my tax money. I like that idea.
Why not? Depending on which site you're working on, why not educate the public that Microsoft Internet Explorer is, technically, incompatible with web standards. Hell, it breaks most of them so that you're forced to use their browser when people design "for IE only". It is insecure and one of the main avenues for viruses, malicious programs, and other nasty things to get onto their computer. Instead of treating the public like the sheep they sometimes seem to be, educate them to the truth. Enlighten them to reality and suggest an alternative browser and maybe a website on setting it up so that those people who aren't computer literate or comfortable with installing software will have a virtual hand to hold while they're doing just that. Instead of submitting to the Microsoft IE Overlord, promote change.
Yes, I know that if you're designing a corporate or business website you can't necessarily use that platform to educate the public on using alternative browsers but if you ask, you might be surprised how many small businesses (and larger ones) would want to be seen in the positive light of trying to REDUCE the transmission of viruses and malicious programs and other things to home computers and corporate partners. When you put that face on it (we're helping to make the internet safer/more user friendly/etc) then not only will business want to be a part of it, but they can use it for advertising and self-promotion - a draw to get more people to their site./shrug - just my thoughts on the subject
The Judiciary has been slashdotted. Either that or <tinfoil hat on> someone warned "good ole' boy" Orrin about his sounding in favor of P2P and they are now expunging the records </tinfoil hat off>. Should be interesting to see if his comments are still there or were "lost during system failure" or some other technical bs...
Barcodes: pay in cash Credit cards: don't use them Driver's license: fake identity? Grocery discount cards: lie, lie, lie License plates: fake identity? (this answer works for all of the entries:-p) Cookies: eat them!
Unless their mandate has changed, the FBI is doing what they're supposed to be doing. You should be asking "What, exactly, is the Secret Service doing about this?"
Slashdot Mirror
You know, I was going to moderate but I decided to respond since it seems someone always brings up this point. The USA cannot, under any circumstance dealing with distances (such as laying fiber optic lines and such), be compared to Japan. Japan's land mass is SLIGHTLY SMALLER THAN CALIFORNIA. So, if you compare Cali to Japan - ok. If you compare the continental US to Japan - not ok. There is no comparison. The economy of scale in laying fiber to every home in the US would dwarf, by some orders of magnitude, the laying of fiber in Japan. Or Korea. Or many other nations simply due to geographic diversity and total landmass. Let's face it, a fair amount of Americans do not like to live in a cramped, piss on your neighbor, listen to them fornicating through the thin apartment walls, sirens blaring at all hours, sure is nice to get delivery of (insert favorite food here) at any time of the day, city. The rural population is quite large and is one of the biggest impediments to FTTH covering the entire US.
:). Unfortunately, unless radical changes are made in the geography (or the mindset) of the US, I don't think I'll have it in my area - unless I move to a metropolis.
As for the rest of your assertions - I agree. Certain people in office only want the proverbial "show me the money!" They don't care to make the US into a dominant force for change and positive industry development (not to mention that having FTTH and other technologies can lead to growth in science, art, math, and other areas).
Apologies for the rant but it is becoming a pet peeve when I see people say "Well, in Japan they're doing X". That's great and guess what? I want the same things too. I want FTTH in my neck of the woods. I would love to have a gigabit connection to the internet or at least 10 megabits or so
Even after MANY years of testing, a lot of the drugs that fall under the heading Nootropics have few to no side effects even when taken at massive doses. Another drug to look into after Piracetam is Vasopressin. There are several others as well. Very interesting reading.
Umm, yeah, you see the problem is YOU ALREADY HAVE THIS authority. YOU are the parent. If your child goes into a store and buys a videogame that you do not approve of then how about TAKING RESPONSIBILITY for your child and disciplining them for doing so. Do NOT, I repeat DO NOT, ask the Federal Government, State Government, or anyone else to raise and be responsible for your child and his/her decisions. That is YOUR job - not anyone else's.
If you don't want your 9 year old to buy product X, explain to them why not and then explain to them what will happen when they disobey mommy and daddy. Then, and this is crucial, actually discipline them for disobeying. You know - spare the rod, spoil the child. But under no circumstances should it be MY responsibility to raise your child for you. I wasn't there at conception so your child is not my responsibility. Teaching your child YOUR values is not my responsibility. Making sure your child doesn't buy videogames they want because little Johnny down the street has it is NOT my responsibility.
The responsibility for raising your child lies squarely with you.
Yeah, which is why you get your bank to create a special PayPal only account for you. If you sell a lot, just make sure to pull out the money at the end of day. If you buy a lot, you transfer money from your REAL bank account to your PayPal account, send the money to the person you're buying from and that's it.
Basically, this always leaves NO MONEY in that account. Of course, it helps to have a no-fee checking account that doesn't require $500+ balance or something like that. Even a low-fee account (say $2-5 per month) would suffice. If PayPal tries to grab that account - fsck 'em. They can have the $20 or whatever is in there.
The main problem here is that even technically oriented people DO NOT (necessarily) need the "features" in XP. And most of the "features" can be implemented with third-party products thus giving money to other companies than the empire that is Microsoft. So, why take the time to learn where Microsoft moved everything to, customize it, and then make it into a clone of 2000 when I can just .... use Win2k instead? Win2k is stable, fast, fairly secure, and easy to implement, operate, and troubleshoot. Basically, there was no need for WinXP other than to force upgrades on the OEMs and the general populace.
Please note I did not use the term "evil empire" since they may, at times, fill that role but it is not a constant.
Right then, guess I'll jump in on this with one simple FACT - Police are not there to prevent crimes but to intercede or to investigate them... after the fact more than in the act. Police, by their very nature, are REACTIVE and not PROACTIVE. Therefore, if someone breaks into my house with a gun intent to rob and probably harm me, if I have no weapon handy (and please note - the CRIMINAL has one because, well, he doesn't follow the law anyway) then I am quite possibly dead and the only thing gun banning and the police force did for me was to hopefully find my killer.
Not to mention that, well, we've had one revolution in this country - against yours you know - and your government said "wow, looking at our history let's ban all guns on the grounds of protecting our peaceful way of life! (aka we want to remain in power)" whereas our government said "A well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed."
Yes, I fully understand that by leaving guns in the hands of the individual we also have more gun violence in this country and parts of it are worse than others. I understand that this is the price I and other Americans pay to be an individual with the RIGHT to own a gun and defend myself with it. I understand all of this and more and now I want you to ask yourself this: Do I trust my government and police with ALL the power, ALL the weapons, and ALL the authority to use those three in a sane, non-malevolent manner consistent with the will of the people - not the will of the "state" or the will of the corporation or the will of the few?
You know, as much as I dislike some of the crap the **AA's are doing, in this case I'd cheer for the MPAA if a studio would step up to bat and say "Fuck all the soccer moms. We're putting out PLENTY of warning that this film will be bloody, gory, and violent. The movie will be rated R. If a soccer mom DOES NOT UNDERSTAND THIS RATING, she should look it up. We are not responsible for raising your children. You are. If you let them come see this movie and they have nightmares, it is YOUR FUCKING FAULT. Not ours. You have been warned. Thank you and go see DOOM!"
If it was the biggest steaming pile of shit as a movie, I'd still spend the money to see it just because someone took a stand and said "WE are not raising/responsible for your children, you are."
Now, be honest, wouldn't pretty much everyone here love to hear someone (even the MPAA) take a stand and say that shit to the world at large?
YES! At least Han _won_ first and Lucas can't change it. ;-)
Well, yes, this may be true BUT Microsoft patches are _notorious_ for breaking as many, if not more, things than they fix. How long can a critical system such as this one stay down for "routine" maintenance? WHEN would the breaks introduced by the patches show up? In the middle of routing 20 or more airplanes in the airspace around LAX?
Although the specific bug had a patch, perhaps this was a case of "do we patch and pray OR do we reboot monthly?"
*shrug* Maybe the heads of the department overrode the IT personnel and instead of paying the money to patch and test they told them to just reboot the system? No, I didn't RTFA but who knows exactly what went down? The department heads are all in a CYA mode right now and the "truth" may never be known.
which is also known as "breaking the system".
If something works fine and you install Service Pack X and it doesn't work anymore then Service Pack X BROKE the system. It fucked something up that was working fine and I believe even Merriam Webster defines that as broken.
IT fucking snuffed it!
....shooting fish in a barrel ;). Ultimately you wind up with a large mess but it's kinda fun in the meantime.
I don't want this to be viewed as a troll but you are correct in that it is a battle of wills between Saruman and Gandalf, but who the hell wants to sit in the theater and watch two men with long beards stare at each other for 5-10 minutes? That would be like watching a chess match! ;-) People would be walking out or wondering "what the fuck is happening?"
Even though I'm sure it could have been visualized in a much different way, with the need to show action and conflict I think Jackson did a good job in showing the 'fight'.
Corporations do NOT have the same protections under the law as "we the people" in the context of free speech. They are restrained under many other laws, including the fact that what company officials say is _commercial speech_ and not protected under the First Amendment. Just like Nike cannot lie to sell products, SCO will not be able to use the First Amendment to cover their ass.
Class Action Lawsuit.
:)
Wait. I am not one who enjoys frivolous lawsuits or believes in them (in fact, I think we should have the same system as in several Eurpoean countries: the loser pays the winners lawyer fees and court costs) BUT I firmly believe that if my child was in a public school where they were going to let in the BSA to "teach" my children morality on copyright issues I would approach the school board with simple facts:
1) I pay taxes for my children to go to school to be taught HOW to think, not WHAT to think
2) Corporations blatantly "teaching" a one-sided version of "morality" for crass consumerism have no place in public schools (and I'm almost sure there is a bylaw or code that keeps corporations from doing just that)
3) It is MY responsibility as a parent (and yours, and his, and hers, etc) to teach children morality based on MY (and yours, and his, and hers, etc) belief system - not based on the BSA's.
With all these things in mind, I would simply tell the school board where my child was in class that I would be finding the MANY other parents who believed along the same lines as I did and we would be pulling our children out of school and forming a class action lawsuit against the school board (as a whole), each individual member of the school board, the principal of the school where the BSA was to "teach", and - if necessary - the STATE school board as well. I'm sure having 20% or more of the parents from one county (or parish) starting a class action lawsuit against the state and local school board would get a) severe media attention and b) the elected officals attention.
What better way to nip this in the bud than to use the legal system against the "rat bastard" BSA... and I'd be teaching my child the meaning of Irony at the same time
Eh??
Yeah, but they would want you to only use the Wal-Mart(c) Branded IE infested browser to surf the web with that contains spy-ware and tracks all your buying habits (most of which are redirected to www.wal-mart.com). They would use their market position (hey, anyone remember Microsoft??) to bully, cajole, buyout, and otherwise continue to dominate the market once they reached significant penetration rates.
Wal-Mart save broadband? Yeah, right... Wal-Mart may be the leader in supplying low-cost shit to the masses but they do NOT have the interest of "the people" at heart. In my opinion, Wal-Mart will give rise to the anti-christ.
Hell, wouldn't you have a comment on someone who professed (or was it her mother?) in front of a national audience that she didn't wear panties?? I'd be saying "Yeah, you could tell that under that uniform she had smooth curves.." ;-)
Plus, when the person hiring me says "We're willing to pay you $70,000 per year" I don't want to have to go "OK, let's see, 70k*.65 = ~45k per year after taxes". With a flat tax, what you agreed to work for you ACTUALLY get. Then _I_ can determine where to spend my tax money. I like that idea.
Cortex Bomb
Simple, effective, near-absolute control.
Welcome to the future, cyberpunks.
He sucks.
You figure out exactly what... ;-)
Why not? Depending on which site you're working on, why not educate the public that Microsoft Internet Explorer is, technically, incompatible with web standards. Hell, it breaks most of them so that you're forced to use their browser when people design "for IE only". It is insecure and one of the main avenues for viruses, malicious programs, and other nasty things to get onto their computer. Instead of treating the public like the sheep they sometimes seem to be, educate them to the truth. Enlighten them to reality and suggest an alternative browser and maybe a website on setting it up so that those people who aren't computer literate or comfortable with installing software will have a virtual hand to hold while they're doing just that. Instead of submitting to the Microsoft IE Overlord, promote change.
/shrug - just my thoughts on the subject
Yes, I know that if you're designing a corporate or business website you can't necessarily use that platform to educate the public on using alternative browsers but if you ask, you might be surprised how many small businesses (and larger ones) would want to be seen in the positive light of trying to REDUCE the transmission of viruses and malicious programs and other things to home computers and corporate partners. When you put that face on it (we're helping to make the internet safer/more user friendly/etc) then not only will business want to be a part of it, but they can use it for advertising and self-promotion - a draw to get more people to their site.
The Judiciary has been slashdotted. Either that or <tinfoil hat on> someone warned "good ole' boy" Orrin about his sounding in favor of P2P and they are now expunging the records </tinfoil hat off>. Should be interesting to see if his comments are still there or were "lost during system failure" or some other technical bs...
Here is the answer to the following:
:-p)
Barcodes: pay in cash
Credit cards: don't use them
Driver's license: fake identity?
Grocery discount cards: lie, lie, lie
License plates: fake identity? (this answer works for all of the entries
Cookies: eat them!
Unless, of course, I've lost all my marbles...