I propose a 2D datagram that uses 256 values of greyshades that stores biometric information such as the distance between your eyes, the shape of your head, etc.
Well, the insane domaingrabbing secondary market is a nuisance, and should be done away with, certainly. But what are verisign's motives? 10% of the proceeds of what? Don't they make money out of being the.com registry anyway?
ICANN will ALSO auction off domains to the highest bidder. So they're really just taking over CFIT's business out from under their noses. The expiring domain you want will still be unavailable to you. Unless you've got some pocket change.
The right thing to do would be to not have an auction, but a lottery which anyone can enter only once. Hard to set up in a cheat-proof manner, but at least you'd stand a chance. And Verisign (and ICANN) wouldn't just be raking in cash for doing nothing.
So Sitcom history seems to say that you almost NEED an intense small group of sets and characters.
If it doesn't have a small group of sets and characters... Then it's not a situational comedy, is it? It's either a sketch show, or standup comedy, or satire, or a late-night show, or a physical comedy show. Sitcoms have a few, recognizable, main characters, perhaps some recurring characters, and a small number of sets, because that's what makes it a sitcom. There are plenty of sitcoms that were totally unfunny, "despite" having a small group of characters and sets. There are also shows that are funny, but not sitcoms; or that stretch the format a bit (for example, to include storylines that span multiple episodes with characters actually developing/changing their personality; or as in Extras have the same characters, but in different - if similar - situations).
In the same vein, succesful novels are often more than 30 pages. Whereas, surprisingly, many succesful short stories are less than 30 pages!
There's a difference between shitting over laws and working lawfully to change those laws. The latter includes, in democratic countries, a whole lot of activities, including lobbying. In China, there being a distinct lack of democratic process, the opportunities for lawfully working within the system to change laws is fairly limited. Not that they are non-existant - even the tyranny isn't perfect. So you can choose to either leave their country completely and give up the tiny bit of bargaining power you DO have, or stay there and play by their rules, and gradually get yourself more leeway.
The Chinese aren't necessarily against such gradual change. It's one reason for the "one country, two systems" policy which embraces some (but not all) of Hong Kong's civil liberties and most economical liberties, as well as the Special Economic Zones.
Chinese leadership is, probably rightfully so, scared shitless of revolution though. They have had their share of ones gone wrong.
This is in no way a defense of Chinese policies, but you might get some feeling of where they're coming from, and which approach is most likely to actually change the country in a beneficial manner. Pulling out entirely accomplishes nothing. Staying in at least gives you a fighting chance at changing things one at a time.
Of course, google's motives may still be entirely evil. Who's to say.
Yes, compared to some one with oppossing views from 2 centuries ago, you'd have it good.
You'd be at a distinct political disadvantage compared to some one with opposing views from THIS century.
This is why so much money is spent on lobbying, and wining and dining congressman. And also why campaing finance reform is harshly needed. The voices of the few are heard more strongly than the voices of many, and they do not represent the interests of the common good.
Right now, a lot of businesses are (literally) making out like bandits, producing IDs in higher volumes and at higher per-unit costs than ever (what with integrated RFIDs and all other kinds of snake oil security measures, biometrics etc.) ID requirements make people FEEL safe, but they don't make things safer. Instead, dollars than could have been spent on actual security and safety improvements is spent on trivial documents, much to the delight of the manufacturers. And they get contracts usually on a State-by-State or country-to-country basis, so they're much more succesful at lobbying to Joe Schmoe's Security company that offers services like, say, guards or barbed wire.
OK, this is just wrong, as it goes against playground rules; if the record company's aren't making money, why should you? Charging $$hundreds for just copying some stuff, come on, you just charge for the media and swap..
And remember kids! Selling iPods full of music is illegal! (Well maybe not if they're all downloads from itunes, but ripped from CD sure thing). So make sure you sell your iPod with all files deleted from it!
And sell the undelete program in a separate auction. Which is linked from the cleansed iPod auction.
I'm guessing that someone's got some 10 line algorithm that looks for primes or squares in your IP and computes some kind of score. It's not that it's not nerdy
not that nerdy?!
You do realise that the vast majority of the population that does have a girlfriend has probably never even heard of IP adresses? Or how to construct an algorithm to find squares and primes in it? Let alone be interested in making it?
Your geekiness is a shiny example to us all. And your UID isn't even lower than mine..
- TVs, PCs and other such devices are filled to the brim with rechargable batteries; otherwise known as capacitators - it wastes less energy than the current circuits, seeing as it doesn't have a transformer connected to the mains 24/7. Those wallwarts used to charge cell phones etc. take up a huge amount of electricity just by being plugged in. The cell phone itself wastes FAR less energy in its standby mode than the wallwart on its own. It's why they're so warm.
It would be trivial to have a (rechargeable) backup battery in the device that powers the, well, powerswitch. You could even use a normally-closed relay, so that when the battery powers down, the device powers up, stealthily enters sleep mode just to recharge the battery, and the shuts down; though that would cost more energy and doesn't make much sense (why have a sleep mode at all on devices that are switched off for months at end?). Mobile phones don't power down by being unplugged and they do fine springing to life at the touch of a button.
The main reason sleep mode sucks though is that by its increasing ubiquitousness, it's pushing away good old circuit breakers to where you can't find them. Plenty of PC cases only have the soft-off button connected to the BIOS, and the only way to break the circuit is to remove the powerplug from the socket (which incidentally is just great for repair and maintenance, since now you've also removed the ground circuit). Many TVs have thoroughly hidden actual-off switches. And sometimes, when you switch something OFF you just want it to switch OFF. *sigh*
Also, if an administrative user logs in, it will be with the admin profile. There is no immediate reason that someone only using Explorer.exe to browse the HD, even with web folders active, will somehow pick up a known exploit for Trident/MSHTML.
The recent WMF exploit that attacked the thumbnailing process however...
Nice try, except as anyone living in The Netherlands should know:
Article 120
The constitutionality of Acts of Parliament and treaties shall not be reviewed by the courts.
In civics class, you might have heard that one as "aan de Grondwet wordt niet getoetst".
And treaties supercede the constitution, even according to the constitution itself;
Article 94
Statutory regulations in force within the Kingdom shall not be applicable if such application is in conflict with provisions of treaties that are binding on all persons or of resolutions by international institutions.
And yes, the Constitution is considered to be a "statutory regulation".
As for urban legends, it was widely reported in respectable media.
"There is a bilateral agreement between the Netherlands and the US regarding transports of troops and military equipment. Both this agreement and the related rules and further agreements are secret. Pursuant to article 7, sub d., of the Law approval and publishing treaties, such documents are not submitted to Parliament for approval"
But hey, if you won't take the Government's word for it..
And I suggest you start reading newspapers. And don't pass yourself off as a Constitutional expert when you're not. (Don't you even remember the HUGELY expensive pro-European-Constitution marketing blitz that SPECIFICALLY mentioned the above provisions as an argument why the EU Constitution would be better than our own, because, as an International Treaty, it's civil rights provisions would supercede our own constitution? Faulty reasoning, yes, but widely publicized none the less.).
You may laugh, but consider this; The Netherlands, the pesky little country I'm from actually has secret treaties with the US. These supercede our own constitution. They're the reason we let the US use our airspace and their military bases on our soil in preparation of the current war on Iraq, even though our Parliament did NOT approve. Nor did they get to read said secret treaties with the US.
Now consider this; if our Parliament isn't aware of their content.. Who is? They didn't get to look it up on www.loc.gov, otherwise they wouldn't be secret anymore..
So there you have it folks, the US has secret international treaties with foreign powers, and it holds that these supercede at the very least other countries' constitutions and Parliaments.
It sounds like a lot, but $24,000 is substantially less than the cost of 1 IT staff. Besides, it's not mentioned how large these companies are (on average). For a 1 person operation $24,000 is a lot, for a Fortune 500 company with hundreds/thousands of employees, it isn't.
The great thing about Takei is he's cool with his orientation. I know plenty of gay people who either A) are shy, B) think every straight person is out to get them, or C) outrageously gay.
The B) category of gays is probably outnumbered quite a bit by heterosexual males worried that all gays are out to get them (from behind!)..;-)
No one seriously believes Symantec is capable of making virusses. Not competent enough to even build a virusscanner that doesn't rely on internet explorer for its user interface (except, interestingly enough, the corporate edition, which isn't sold to noobs; not that it's perfect, it's a bitch to setup and maintain in just the way you want). And what's with the skins? You've got your priorities right there, make it look pretty and screw up user's expectations of the user interface.
I've tried many virusscanners and security products and Symantec products have consistently offered the worst experience in terms of ease of use, expert use, and even just plain uninstalling. I wouldn't recommend them to anyone.
Now, that may bruise your ego, but if it does, I suggest you apply for a management position. Your products suck, do something about it, or just put on blinders and keep humming "lalala I can't hear you".
Have you even tried your competitors' software? Even AVG's free edition anti-virus kicks your butt, likewist for sygate's free personal firewall..
I can find service pack 3 just fine.. It's at this site called autopatcher. Also there's this tool to make slipstreamed and unintended installs, here. Also, windowsupates works just fine in firefox.
Most probably it's just IBM policy to always acknowledge some one else's trademarks, so as not to get in trouble. Both GNU (yeah, I know! I knooow..) and Linux are registered trademarks (... of their respective owners, of course..)
Well, a settlement in a civil suit, even if it is a class action, doesn't mean you won't be criminally prosecuted.
Also, I doubt the US government is included in the action's class.
Write (not e-mail) your congressman today. Make sure to sign the letter with a real pen, too (politician's like that sort of thing, reminds them of crayons).
Perhaps not this products, but the fine folks at texas memory systems will hook you up with that (be it for a price, but I couldn't be bothered to find the "#2 we try harder", TMS is the market leader for DB oriented solid state drives).
What? You can't possibly convince me they didn't already KNOW the limitations of those frequencies long before they even designed the system. The propogation of different frequencies of radio signals has been extremely well-known for a very, very long time, so acting like they were surprised at how poorly ~400MHz penetrates buildings (only after spending billions on the system) is completely crazy.
That's politics. They were either suckered into it, or on the take.
Of course the proposed solution is to make it compulsory for owners of "dense" buildings to install repeaters on their own costs. Seeing as they'd have to buy those from the same TETRA manufacturers that pushed the whole system in the first place, I'd say; on the take.
Slashdot Mirror
I propose a 2D datagram that uses 256 values of greyshades that stores biometric information such as the distance between your eyes, the shape of your head, etc.
I endeavor to make this datagram human readable.
I shall call it.. the photograph.
Well, the insane domaingrabbing secondary market is a nuisance, and should be done away with, certainly. But what are verisign's motives? 10% of the proceeds of what? Don't they make money out of being the .com registry anyway?
ICANN will ALSO auction off domains to the highest bidder. So they're really just taking over CFIT's business out from under their noses. The expiring domain you want will still be unavailable to you. Unless you've got some pocket change.
The right thing to do would be to not have an auction, but a lottery which anyone can enter only once. Hard to set up in a cheat-proof manner, but at least you'd stand a chance. And Verisign (and ICANN) wouldn't just be raking in cash for doing nothing.
So Sitcom history seems to say that you almost NEED an intense small group of sets and characters.
If it doesn't have a small group of sets and characters... Then it's not a situational comedy, is it? It's either a sketch show, or standup comedy, or satire, or a late-night show, or a physical comedy show. Sitcoms have a few, recognizable, main characters, perhaps some recurring characters, and a small number of sets, because that's what makes it a sitcom. There are plenty of sitcoms that were totally unfunny, "despite" having a small group of characters and sets. There are also shows that are funny, but not sitcoms; or that stretch the format a bit (for example, to include storylines that span multiple episodes with characters actually developing/changing their personality; or as in Extras have the same characters, but in different - if similar - situations).
In the same vein, succesful novels are often more than 30 pages. Whereas, surprisingly, many succesful short stories are less than 30 pages!
There's a difference between shitting over laws and working lawfully to change those laws. The latter includes, in democratic countries, a whole lot of activities, including lobbying. In China, there being a distinct lack of democratic process, the opportunities for lawfully working within the system to change laws is fairly limited. Not that they are non-existant - even the tyranny isn't perfect. So you can choose to either leave their country completely and give up the tiny bit of bargaining power you DO have, or stay there and play by their rules, and gradually get yourself more leeway.
The Chinese aren't necessarily against such gradual change. It's one reason for the "one country, two systems" policy which embraces some (but not all) of Hong Kong's civil liberties and most economical liberties, as well as the Special Economic Zones.
Chinese leadership is, probably rightfully so, scared shitless of revolution though. They have had their share of ones gone wrong.
This is in no way a defense of Chinese policies, but you might get some feeling of where they're coming from, and which approach is most likely to actually change the country in a beneficial manner. Pulling out entirely accomplishes nothing. Staying in at least gives you a fighting chance at changing things one at a time.
Of course, google's motives may still be entirely evil. Who's to say.
Yes, compared to some one with oppossing views from 2 centuries ago, you'd have it good.
You'd be at a distinct political disadvantage compared to some one with opposing views from THIS century.
This is why so much money is spent on lobbying, and wining and dining congressman. And also why campaing finance reform is harshly needed. The voices of the few are heard more strongly than the voices of many, and they do not represent the interests of the common good.
Right now, a lot of businesses are (literally) making out like bandits, producing IDs in higher volumes and at higher per-unit costs than ever (what with integrated RFIDs and all other kinds of snake oil security measures, biometrics etc.) ID requirements make people FEEL safe, but they don't make things safer. Instead, dollars than could have been spent on actual security and safety improvements is spent on trivial documents, much to the delight of the manufacturers. And they get contracts usually on a State-by-State or country-to-country basis, so they're much more succesful at lobbying to Joe Schmoe's Security company that offers services like, say, guards or barbed wire.
OK, this is just wrong, as it goes against playground rules; if the record company's aren't making money, why should you? Charging $$hundreds for just copying some stuff, come on, you just charge for the media and swap..
And remember kids! Selling iPods full of music is illegal! (Well maybe not if they're all downloads from itunes, but ripped from CD sure thing). So make sure you sell your iPod with all files deleted from it!
And sell the undelete program in a separate auction. Which is linked from the cleansed iPod auction.
I'm guessing that someone's got some 10 line algorithm that looks for primes or squares in your IP and computes some kind of score. It's not that it's not nerdy
not that nerdy?!
You do realise that the vast majority of the population that does have a girlfriend has probably never even heard of IP adresses? Or how to construct an algorithm to find squares and primes in it? Let alone be interested in making it?
Your geekiness is a shiny example to us all. And your UID isn't even lower than mine..
for windows apps; tinyapps.org.
- TVs, PCs and other such devices are filled to the brim with rechargable batteries; otherwise known as capacitators
- it wastes less energy than the current circuits, seeing as it doesn't have a transformer connected to the mains 24/7. Those wallwarts used to charge cell phones etc. take up a huge amount of electricity just by being plugged in. The cell phone itself wastes FAR less energy in its standby mode than the wallwart on its own. It's why they're so warm.
It would be trivial to have a (rechargeable) backup battery in the device that powers the, well, powerswitch. You could even use a normally-closed relay, so that when the battery powers down, the device powers up, stealthily enters sleep mode just to recharge the battery, and the shuts down; though that would cost more energy and doesn't make much sense (why have a sleep mode at all on devices that are switched off for months at end?). Mobile phones don't power down by being unplugged and they do fine springing to life at the touch of a button.
The main reason sleep mode sucks though is that by its increasing ubiquitousness, it's pushing away good old circuit breakers to where you can't find them. Plenty of PC cases only have the soft-off button connected to the BIOS, and the only way to break the circuit is to remove the powerplug from the socket (which incidentally is just great for repair and maintenance, since now you've also removed the ground circuit). Many TVs have thoroughly hidden actual-off switches. And sometimes, when you switch something OFF you just want it to switch OFF. *sigh*
Also, if an administrative user logs in, it will be with the admin profile. There is no immediate reason that someone only using Explorer.exe to browse the HD, even with web folders active, will somehow pick up a known exploit for Trident/MSHTML.
The recent WMF exploit that attacked the thumbnailing process however...
Nice try, except as anyone living in The Netherlands should know:
Article 120
The constitutionality of Acts of Parliament and treaties shall not be reviewed by the courts.
In civics class, you might have heard that one as "aan de Grondwet wordt niet getoetst".
And treaties supercede the constitution, even according to the constitution itself;
Article 94
Statutory regulations in force within the Kingdom shall not be applicable if such application is in conflict with provisions of treaties that are binding on all persons or of resolutions by international institutions.
And yes, the Constitution is considered to be a "statutory regulation".
As for urban legends, it was widely reported in respectable media.
You might want to check out this statement by the minister of defence:
"There is a bilateral agreement between the Netherlands and the US regarding transports of troops and military equipment. Both this agreement and the related rules and further agreements are secret. Pursuant to article 7, sub d., of the Law approval and publishing treaties, such documents are not submitted to Parliament for approval"
But hey, if you won't take the Government's word for it..
And I suggest you start reading newspapers. And don't pass yourself off as a Constitutional expert when you're not. (Don't you even remember the HUGELY expensive pro-European-Constitution marketing blitz that SPECIFICALLY mentioned the above provisions as an argument why the EU Constitution would be better than our own, because, as an International Treaty, it's civil rights provisions would supercede our own constitution? Faulty reasoning, yes, but widely publicized none the less.).
The Executive branch and the Legislative branch (i.e. Parliament) are different.
You may laugh, but consider this; The Netherlands, the pesky little country I'm from actually has secret treaties with the US. These supercede our own constitution. They're the reason we let the US use our airspace and their military bases on our soil in preparation of the current war on Iraq, even though our Parliament did NOT approve. Nor did they get to read said secret treaties with the US.
Now consider this; if our Parliament isn't aware of their content.. Who is? They didn't get to look it up on www.loc.gov, otherwise they wouldn't be secret anymore..
So there you have it folks, the US has secret international treaties with foreign powers, and it holds that these supercede at the very least other countries' constitutions and Parliaments.
It sounds like a lot, but $24,000 is substantially less than the cost of 1 IT staff. Besides, it's not mentioned how large these companies are (on average). For a 1 person operation $24,000 is a lot, for a Fortune 500 company with hundreds/thousands of employees, it isn't.
The great thing about Takei is he's cool with his orientation. I know plenty of gay people who either A) are shy, B) think every straight person is out to get them, or C) outrageously gay.
;-)
The B) category of gays is probably outnumbered quite a bit by heterosexual males worried that all gays are out to get them (from behind!)..
No one seriously believes Symantec is capable of making virusses. Not competent enough to even build a virusscanner that doesn't rely on internet explorer for its user interface (except, interestingly enough, the corporate edition, which isn't sold to noobs; not that it's perfect, it's a bitch to setup and maintain in just the way you want). And what's with the skins? You've got your priorities right there, make it look pretty and screw up user's expectations of the user interface.
I've tried many virusscanners and security products and Symantec products have consistently offered the worst experience in terms of ease of use, expert use, and even just plain uninstalling. I wouldn't recommend them to anyone.
Now, that may bruise your ego, but if it does, I suggest you apply for a management position. Your products suck, do something about it, or just put on blinders and keep humming "lalala I can't hear you".
Have you even tried your competitors' software? Even AVG's free edition anti-virus kicks your butt, likewist for sygate's free personal firewall..
I can find service pack 3 just fine.. It's at this site called autopatcher. Also there's this tool to make slipstreamed and unintended installs, here. Also, windowsupates works just fine in firefox.
Fine tools from the folks NOT at microsoft..
Most probably it's just IBM policy to always acknowledge some one else's trademarks, so as not to get in trouble. Both GNU (yeah, I know! I knooow..) and Linux are registered trademarks (... of their respective owners, of course..)
Well, a settlement in a civil suit, even if it is a class action, doesn't mean you won't be criminally prosecuted.
Also, I doubt the US government is included in the action's class.
Write (not e-mail) your congressman today. Make sure to sign the letter with a real pen, too (politician's like that sort of thing, reminds them of crayons).
You do realize that you're parodying Lexis-Nexis, not MLB? ;-)
Plenty of news sources make explicit and prominent mention of the SEC probe. Especially on Thursday.
Perhaps not this products, but the fine folks at texas memory systems will hook you up with that (be it for a price, but I couldn't be bothered to find the "#2 we try harder", TMS is the market leader for DB oriented solid state drives).
He has said for years that he plans to give most of his fortune to chairity before he dies.
;-)
Lemme check. Not given away most, yet. But then, not dead yet either. Though, what he IS giving away is all going to medical research...
Perhaps he's not planning on dying?
What? You can't possibly convince me they didn't already KNOW the limitations of those frequencies long before they even designed the system. The propogation of different frequencies of radio signals has been extremely well-known for a very, very long time, so acting like they were surprised at how poorly ~400MHz penetrates buildings (only after spending billions on the system) is completely crazy.
That's politics. They were either suckered into it, or on the take.
Of course the proposed solution is to make it compulsory for owners of "dense" buildings to install repeaters on their own costs. Seeing as they'd have to buy those from the same TETRA manufacturers that pushed the whole system in the first place, I'd say; on the take.