Record keeping and large population migrations. There are simply more records due to ships logs, and other "official" documents that are available. I think more commonly, though you'll find people who can trace family back to the 17th century, which is when the documentation really started to expand more thoroughly. Prior to that are more family records (wills etc) and occasional birth and marriage records.
Those lines are easier to connect when there is more documentation.
Yeah I think older cases are more likely to be overturned. Apparently things are more accurate today and more people understand the technology so defense attorneys can dispute the evidence more easily making corruption at least a little more difficult.
But I think you'd find in more cases than not, DNA evidence didn't convict the innocent. Yes there are a few cases where DNA evidence was used and new technology found the person not to be a match, but I think those are fairly rare. In most cases where DNA is used, the person is found not guilty (still can cause damage to life and reputation) or the person was in fact guilty.
You make the assumption that the FBI (or whomever) is doing an open investigation. If they want to investigate you without your knowlege, this would make it easier for them.
I don't know if doctor-patient confidentiality holds up against a subpoena with respect to physical evidence so much as things spoken between doctor and patient, but I could be wrong.
Still, this isn't particularly recent news. Ancestry.com has been promoting DNA testing for quite a while. I don't know if they had any particular "product" on their website to make it easier, but it wasn't a hard stretch to assume they would soon if they didn't already.
Well, there's an exception to every rule. I've heard a few people describe similar cases but most people I know have had nothing but trouble with Comcast specifically and cable providers in general.
How many pay-per-view movies and "events" can you watch in a month? Now consider you have 3 college kids living in the same house, all with a light courseload. Big bills can't be that difficult.
Well that will certainly teach them. Pay them now and punish them later. How is that going to prove anything? They've already gotten what they want from you. It's almost harder to cancel service than to get it started.
This is the exact problem with Comcast. They have no problem telling people they don't need your business and we as consumers seem to think that's somehow acceptable. If you don't need hi speed for work, don't pay them a penny and suffer the dial up for a while.
They tried to double charge me every month for nearly a year and I finally gave up. I told them they could cancel my service and I wasn't paying the money I didn't owe them. I figured one negative credit hit (which mysteriously never showed up) was not worth the effort of wasting my time arguing with them over a couple hundred dollars. Comcast can kiss my ass.
They more likely started putting those ads in preparation for their "eBay Live 2007" event, which is what all the big fuss is about. They're mad because Google planned an event to deliberately conflict with that event. By the way, it's held in Boston this year.
No we don't need 5000 more Coke commercials to remember Coke.
For the big guys, advertisement isn't so much about knowing the product but let me ask you, do you remember growing up and asking for a "coke" to mean any soda? These days people ask for a soda by name but when I was a kid you asked for a Coke and got whatever was available. Obviously there is some distinction that Coke doesn't want you to forget there.
Advertisement isn't just about keeping customers, it's also about getting new ones and indoctrinating them. The "teach the world to sing" campaign was so successful for Coke the first time around that they brought it back. Not only did it remind a whole generation of their own childhood (like me) but it brought the next generation (my daughter) around to singing the same damn song. "Have a Coke and a Smile" while we take your money to the bank.
Sure eBay is big enough to not require Google for advertising, but if they have Google advertising then they'll reach that many more people, and people they've already reached will think of eBay for things that wouldn't have considered before. I started using eBay for computer crap shortly after they started auctions. I would have never considered it for new stuff, just older things. Now I use it for all sorts of things, new and used.
I knew someone was going to say that as soon as I posted. I decided not to bother posting to correct my statement though.
Of course google would have figured it out eventually, it's not anything particularly insightful for them to do. However, the sooner the customers make comments, the sooner google (or any company) will react. If it looks like there's an obviously high demand from the onset, then it will be implemented sooner.
I think receiving the Order of Merit is most likely not just because of what he did but how he did it. It's a greater measure of the man that he did this for the good of others (with some personal gain for sure but not strictly for personal gain) and that's why he received an award that only 24 living people on the planet can hold.
That puts him in very high regard and he should be. That said, I knew nothing about him until reading the article. Some people want fame and glory, others just want to do what they do and do it well. Some get both, most get neither.
No, most "sane" users have whatever is default, by default. Most "informed" users have this off by default, which is not the same as "sane". You can be perfectly sane and still be ignorant. Users don't care because they use their computers and email as a tool. Most don't understand how or why it works, they just want it to work, and for the most part it does.
Why is it that any time someone wants to dispute the gun laws in the US compared to those of other countries, that argument comes up? You know the one "If you like so much maybe you should just move there and let us 'Patriots' stay here" ?
I understand your obviously skewed belief that the "libs" want you to give them credit for the good things and blame the republicans for the bad things. They definitely do that. So do the republicans. Welcome to the reality of politics--they lie to get reelected. They change their minds. They vote against things they say they'll support because some other jackass tacked on an amendment to the bill that says it's okay have sex at 14 or some other bullshit.
Just because you're more than willing to give up one of your freedoms in order to own a gun (which you feel is obviously more important than your right to privacy) doesn't mean the rest of us should be happy about it, liberal or republican doesn't matter. I wonder if you'd feel your right to own a gun was so important when you can no longer get insurance because you've seen a counselor once or twice in your life. Or you can't buy that gun because you talked to a shrink when your wife left you for a few days. What about when you can't work for the government because you have a record of "mental instability" or you're no longer allowed to be given control of your inheritance because your too much of a liability and you don't have the mental faculties to deal with the responsibility.
Yes, those seem like ridiculous statements. But twenty years ago it seemed ridiculous to think you'd be "protecting" your children from criminals that can't even see them. It also seemed ridiculous that the government would even think of wiretapping citizens without warrants or that your personal possessions could be siezed by non-government persons (RIAA types) in conjunction with the police for a civil case.
Because the kind of power these people wield isn't all about being voted into office. A past President arguably has more power than a presiding one, because he/she no longer is answerable to the people of the country. Past Presidents still retain all the personal security force of the Secret Service, (escept Nixon who declined it because he was paranoid and hired his own security personnel) they command great salaries, have a tremendous amount of political leverage (often both domestically and abroad) and they have stock piles of money (usually). All of that without the benefit of checks and balances built into the Constitution (which do still sort of work, occasionally) or the need to worry about re-election.
People like that can be very dangerous, especially if they are coming from a position, like the current President, of constant removal of citizen's rights in favor of big corporations and "security".
So the whole thing isn't necessarily about "State Power" so much as it's about "individual power" or the power of a small group of people. And it's about retaining and expanding that power (economically or otherwise) as much as possible.
I'm not a conspiracy theorist and I'm not saying there is a deliberate push to erode your rights in order for these people to have more control. I'm just saying that's how and why it happens. The people who make these decisions, in my opinion, by and large think they're doing the right thing. Unfortunately they come from the position of bias that just happens to be in the position that "the right thing" is always more beneficial to them (either monetarily or influencially) more than the "average" citizen.
The rich get richer, and the powerful become more powerful. And every day there is less separation between those two groups and more separation between the haves and have nots.
Welcome to the "New World Order" that isn't so new. It's been this way all along, we just had some illusion that the last 20-50 years were different somehow, but they weren't.
Hate to disappoint you, but Jane Goodall and her team witnessed "war" in Chimpanzee communities in the 70s. Some stories were documented in "Demonic Males:Apes and the Origins of Human Violence" by Richard Wrangham and Dale Peterson.
Here's a link to an excerpt, if you're interested:
That's not to say I completely disagree with your sentiment, just that it isn't a uniquely human trait. Perhaps a uniquely primate trait, but not strictly human.
Humans ceratinly seem to have the greatest capacity for war, and I don't think we'll be finished with it any time soon, but that doesn't mean our more violent nature isn't some kind of throwback to instinctive behavior.
I don't know where you're shopping but Oakley's shouldn't cost more than a couple hundred, for the expensive ones. The cheaper ones run from about $85 to $120. Fake Oakleys go for $10-$15 in most of the places I've seen them, and they last just as long as the originals. The lenses probably won't stop a shotgun blast, but they block UV just fine which is why most people buy sunglasses.
As for toys, they're toys not expected to last for generations, Fisher Price or not. And no toy sells for premium values at yard sales, unless it is somehow a rare collector's item. Then they still don't sell well at yard sales, just on eBay.
Fake purses do sell for a pretty penny, but they also cost a lot more to make than fake CDs do, in materials and labor. You will need to add these bits of information to your calculations.
"t certainly used to be the case that bank notes would state "I promise to pay the bearer on demand...", and this used to refer to gold (maybe that was just in the UK?). The idea was that cash would only be printed to cover the value of the gold reserves. I believe this is no longer the case after a "run on Gold" starting in the '60s... from the article..."
According to wikipedia, no nation uses the gold standard anymore: "The gold standard is no longer used in any nation, having been replaced completely by fiat currency. It still is in use by private institutions in the supply of digital gold currency, which uses accounted gold grams as money."
You are correct that the gold standard was removed by Nixon for the US, which was nearly 30 years after the UK left the gold standard, having gone to a flat currency after depleting its gold supply with World War II purchases of weapons.
So, yes a $20 note will always buy $20 worth of goods and/or services, the problem is that because of unchecked inflation since leaving the gold standard, the goods purchasable with that $20 will eventually be a pack of gum.
"Just a guess, but from what I read in the article it seems they are specifically using these tactics on immigrant street vendors who may not speak English very well, and may not know their rights very well."
You mean, they're now attacking an acceptable target. White-haired grandmas bring people down on them and cause a lot of negative PR. Raiding immigrants, especially those that seem (to white, middle class America) to be illegal is a far easier target to get positive PR.
Were these raids reasonable? I'd say yes, if in fact these people were selling bootleg copies. But make no mistake, this is about PR and control of opinions far more than it's about the money. The RIAA can now point at a valid act of piracy, not just a bunch of people downloading music, and say, "See we told you. Now make more laws to make it easier for us to control the flow." And now they will actually have something that gives them popular support for those laws because it looks like they're supporting the current anti-immigrant opinion.
Slashdot Mirror
Record keeping and large population migrations. There are simply more records due to ships logs, and other "official" documents that are available. I think more commonly, though you'll find people who can trace family back to the 17th century, which is when the documentation really started to expand more thoroughly. Prior to that are more family records (wills etc) and occasional birth and marriage records.
Those lines are easier to connect when there is more documentation.
That sure is an entertaining (for other people) way to find out though.
Student: Uh, professor, my blood doesn't seem to match.
Prof: Hmmm, I'd go have a talk with your mom if I were you.
Yeah I think older cases are more likely to be overturned. Apparently things are more accurate today and more people understand the technology so defense attorneys can dispute the evidence more easily making corruption at least a little more difficult.
But I think you'd find in more cases than not, DNA evidence didn't convict the innocent. Yes there are a few cases where DNA evidence was used and new technology found the person not to be a match, but I think those are fairly rare. In most cases where DNA is used, the person is found not guilty (still can cause damage to life and reputation) or the person was in fact guilty.
You make the assumption that the FBI (or whomever) is doing an open investigation. If they want to investigate you without your knowlege, this would make it easier for them.
I don't know if doctor-patient confidentiality holds up against a subpoena with respect to physical evidence so much as things spoken between doctor and patient, but I could be wrong.
Still, this isn't particularly recent news. Ancestry.com has been promoting DNA testing for quite a while. I don't know if they had any particular "product" on their website to make it easier, but it wasn't a hard stretch to assume they would soon if they didn't already.
Yeah, I erased my second sentence because I thought it was too much flamebait.
"Or we just have different priorities: hmm, which should I have tonight, dinner or The Simpsons?"
"I [choose] to pay $xxx.xx a month" is a better fix. Nobody needs this service, they just want it.
Well, there's an exception to every rule. I've heard a few people describe similar cases but most people I know have had nothing but trouble with Comcast specifically and cable providers in general.
You're a "low budget family" paying $180/month for cable?
I think we have different definitions of low budget.
How many pay-per-view movies and "events" can you watch in a month? Now consider you have 3 college kids living in the same house, all with a light courseload. Big bills can't be that difficult.
Well that will certainly teach them. Pay them now and punish them later. How is that going to prove anything? They've already gotten what they want from you. It's almost harder to cancel service than to get it started.
This is the exact problem with Comcast. They have no problem telling people they don't need your business and we as consumers seem to think that's somehow acceptable. If you don't need hi speed for work, don't pay them a penny and suffer the dial up for a while.
They tried to double charge me every month for nearly a year and I finally gave up. I told them they could cancel my service and I wasn't paying the money I didn't owe them. I figured one negative credit hit (which mysteriously never showed up) was not worth the effort of wasting my time arguing with them over a couple hundred dollars. Comcast can kiss my ass.
They more likely started putting those ads in preparation for their "eBay Live 2007" event, which is what all the big fuss is about. They're mad because Google planned an event to deliberately conflict with that event. By the way, it's held in Boston this year.
No we don't need 5000 more Coke commercials to remember Coke.
For the big guys, advertisement isn't so much about knowing the product but let me ask you, do you remember growing up and asking for a "coke" to mean any soda? These days people ask for a soda by name but when I was a kid you asked for a Coke and got whatever was available. Obviously there is some distinction that Coke doesn't want you to forget there.
Advertisement isn't just about keeping customers, it's also about getting new ones and indoctrinating them. The "teach the world to sing" campaign was so successful for Coke the first time around that they brought it back. Not only did it remind a whole generation of their own childhood (like me) but it brought the next generation (my daughter) around to singing the same damn song. "Have a Coke and a Smile" while we take your money to the bank.
Sure eBay is big enough to not require Google for advertising, but if they have Google advertising then they'll reach that many more people, and people they've already reached will think of eBay for things that wouldn't have considered before. I started using eBay for computer crap shortly after they started auctions. I would have never considered it for new stuff, just older things. Now I use it for all sorts of things, new and used.
I knew someone was going to say that as soon as I posted. I decided not to bother posting to correct my statement though.
Of course google would have figured it out eventually, it's not anything particularly insightful for them to do. However, the sooner the customers make comments, the sooner google (or any company) will react. If it looks like there's an obviously high demand from the onset, then it will be implemented sooner.
Hopefully you've let google know that. Otherwise it's just wishful thinking.
ha, took me a second. I'm surprised someone has modded this up. Someone has to find this funny. Come on mods, let's give a little love here.
I think receiving the Order of Merit is most likely not just because of what he did but how he did it. It's a greater measure of the man that he did this for the good of others (with some personal gain for sure but not strictly for personal gain) and that's why he received an award that only 24 living people on the planet can hold.
That puts him in very high regard and he should be. That said, I knew nothing about him until reading the article. Some people want fame and glory, others just want to do what they do and do it well. Some get both, most get neither.
No, most "sane" users have whatever is default, by default. Most "informed" users have this off by default, which is not the same as "sane". You can be perfectly sane and still be ignorant. Users don't care because they use their computers and email as a tool. Most don't understand how or why it works, they just want it to work, and for the most part it does.
Hey Pink Triangles are already spoken for, damnit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_triangle
l u2.gif
I'd dare say gold stars are too: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/images/star-b
Can't say I know of any blue disks so you can have that one. You'll have to figure something else out for the others though.
Why is it that any time someone wants to dispute the gun laws in the US compared to those of other countries, that argument comes up? You know the one "If you like so much maybe you should just move there and let us 'Patriots' stay here" ?
I understand your obviously skewed belief that the "libs" want you to give them credit for the good things and blame the republicans for the bad things. They definitely do that. So do the republicans. Welcome to the reality of politics--they lie to get reelected. They change their minds. They vote against things they say they'll support because some other jackass tacked on an amendment to the bill that says it's okay have sex at 14 or some other bullshit.
Just because you're more than willing to give up one of your freedoms in order to own a gun (which you feel is obviously more important than your right to privacy) doesn't mean the rest of us should be happy about it, liberal or republican doesn't matter. I wonder if you'd feel your right to own a gun was so important when you can no longer get insurance because you've seen a counselor once or twice in your life. Or you can't buy that gun because you talked to a shrink when your wife left you for a few days. What about when you can't work for the government because you have a record of "mental instability" or you're no longer allowed to be given control of your inheritance because your too much of a liability and you don't have the mental faculties to deal with the responsibility.
Yes, those seem like ridiculous statements. But twenty years ago it seemed ridiculous to think you'd be "protecting" your children from criminals that can't even see them. It also seemed ridiculous that the government would even think of wiretapping citizens without warrants or that your personal possessions could be siezed by non-government persons (RIAA types) in conjunction with the police for a civil case.
Because the kind of power these people wield isn't all about being voted into office. A past President arguably has more power than a presiding one, because he/she no longer is answerable to the people of the country. Past Presidents still retain all the personal security force of the Secret Service, (escept Nixon who declined it because he was paranoid and hired his own security personnel) they command great salaries, have a tremendous amount of political leverage (often both domestically and abroad) and they have stock piles of money (usually). All of that without the benefit of checks and balances built into the Constitution (which do still sort of work, occasionally) or the need to worry about re-election.
People like that can be very dangerous, especially if they are coming from a position, like the current President, of constant removal of citizen's rights in favor of big corporations and "security".
So the whole thing isn't necessarily about "State Power" so much as it's about "individual power" or the power of a small group of people. And it's about retaining and expanding that power (economically or otherwise) as much as possible.
I'm not a conspiracy theorist and I'm not saying there is a deliberate push to erode your rights in order for these people to have more control. I'm just saying that's how and why it happens. The people who make these decisions, in my opinion, by and large think they're doing the right thing. Unfortunately they come from the position of bias that just happens to be in the position that "the right thing" is always more beneficial to them (either monetarily or influencially) more than the "average" citizen.
The rich get richer, and the powerful become more powerful. And every day there is less separation between those two groups and more separation between the haves and have nots.
Welcome to the "New World Order" that isn't so new. It's been this way all along, we just had some illusion that the last 20-50 years were different somehow, but they weren't.
Hate to disappoint you, but Jane Goodall and her team witnessed "war" in Chimpanzee communities in the 70s. Some stories were documented in "Demonic Males:Apes and the Origins of Human Violence" by Richard Wrangham and Dale Peterson.
r m/books/chap1/demonicmales.htm
Here's a link to an excerpt, if you're interested:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longte
That's not to say I completely disagree with your sentiment, just that it isn't a uniquely human trait. Perhaps a uniquely primate trait, but not strictly human.
Humans ceratinly seem to have the greatest capacity for war, and I don't think we'll be finished with it any time soon, but that doesn't mean our more violent nature isn't some kind of throwback to instinctive behavior.
I don't know where you're shopping but Oakley's shouldn't cost more than a couple hundred, for the expensive ones. The cheaper ones run from about $85 to $120. Fake Oakleys go for $10-$15 in most of the places I've seen them, and they last just as long as the originals. The lenses probably won't stop a shotgun blast, but they block UV just fine which is why most people buy sunglasses.
As for toys, they're toys not expected to last for generations, Fisher Price or not. And no toy sells for premium values at yard sales, unless it is somehow a rare collector's item. Then they still don't sell well at yard sales, just on eBay.
Fake purses do sell for a pretty penny, but they also cost a lot more to make than fake CDs do, in materials and labor. You will need to add these bits of information to your calculations.
"t certainly used to be the case that bank notes would state "I promise to pay the bearer on demand ...", and this used to refer to gold (maybe that was just in the UK?). The idea was that cash would only be printed to cover the value of the gold reserves. I believe this is no longer the case after a "run on Gold" starting in the '60s ... from the article ..."
According to wikipedia, no nation uses the gold standard anymore: "The gold standard is no longer used in any nation, having been replaced completely by fiat currency. It still is in use by private institutions in the supply of digital gold currency, which uses accounted gold grams as money."
You are correct that the gold standard was removed by Nixon for the US, which was nearly 30 years after the UK left the gold standard, having gone to a flat currency after depleting its gold supply with World War II purchases of weapons.
So, yes a $20 note will always buy $20 worth of goods and/or services, the problem is that because of unchecked inflation since leaving the gold standard, the goods purchasable with that $20 will eventually be a pack of gum.
"Just a guess, but from what I read in the article it seems they are specifically using these tactics on immigrant street vendors who may not speak English very well, and may not know their rights very well."
You mean, they're now attacking an acceptable target. White-haired grandmas bring people down on them and cause a lot of negative PR. Raiding immigrants, especially those that seem (to white, middle class America) to be illegal is a far easier target to get positive PR.
Were these raids reasonable? I'd say yes, if in fact these people were selling bootleg copies. But make no mistake, this is about PR and control of opinions far more than it's about the money. The RIAA can now point at a valid act of piracy, not just a bunch of people downloading music, and say, "See we told you. Now make more laws to make it easier for us to control the flow." And now they will actually have something that gives them popular support for those laws because it looks like they're supporting the current anti-immigrant opinion.