Because combining a company "that brought us cars that explode when rear-ended (Pintos), SUVs with tires that explode during normal driving (Explorers), and now Jaguars" with a company that brings us crashing computers (Microsoft) would be disaterous.
You missed my point: If Ford's engineers are that incompetent, why would you assume that they made the right choice in operating systems? As I said before, being pleased that Ford engineers agree with you about Linux is like being pleased that Michael Jackson agrees with you about fashion.
Why does anyone trust the engineering expertise at a company that brought us cars that explode when rear-ended (Pintos), SUVs with tires that explode during normal driving (Explorers), and now Jaguars? Celebrating Ford's choice of Linux is like being really happy that Michael Jackson shares your taste in fashion.
It appears pilots are pretty much accustomed to handling weird problems with equipment, which they attribute to passengers' portable devices.
And in World War II, pilots used to blame weird problems on gremlins. Lets get real: Pilots, the vast majority of whom have no background in, or understanding of, electronics, are blaming portable electronic devices for interfering with their instrumentation. They provide nothing but anecdotal evidence to support these claims.
If there is a problem, it should be documented by the pilots and the airlines, the FAA should get involved, and electronic engineers should be paid to conduct an investigation. I'll be concerned when studies run by engineers and scientists show that such problems exist and are being caused by personal electronics. Is there commonality between instruments that fail (e.g., GPS units manufacture by Trimble, fly-by-wire systems in Airbus planes, etc.) or in portable devices that generate interference (e.g., Nokia 6000 series cell phones, HP Pavilion ZE4400 series notebooks, etc.)? These are the kind of questions that need to be answered.
Flying is unpleasant enough without further, possibly unnecessary, restrictions to make it even more so. After standing in line until their legs ache, passengers are practically strip-searched without probable cause. Unskilled, ignorant baggage screeners insist that people have laptop computers X-rayed. The screener manhandle cameras, laptops, and cell phones. People are crammed into undersized, uncomfortable seats. Every few years they are told to replace their carry-on luggage with something smaller because the airlines have crammed even more seats into the planes.
Well, just attach an alternator to the crank itself.
An alternator requires current to energize the rotor. No current in = No current out.
Even supposing that you did manage to make the engine produce electricity throughout the cranking period, it's unlikely that the engine would be spinning fast enough or long enough to produce the current necessary to power everything from the ECU (Engine Control Unit) to the lesser electronics throughout the vehicle.
Let's get some perspective here. A Model T engine had a 2.9l engine. It had 4.0 to 1 compression ratio, made 22.5hp, and had a 1,600rpm redline. It didn't take much of a spin to get that engine anywhere near operating speed. Contrast that with a modern engine. Let's take a Ford Taurus as a random example. It has a 3.0l engine with 8.0 to 1 compression. It makes 155hp at 4900rpm. If you've developed your arm enough to crank-start a modern car, you need a girlfriend.
Hmm.. A crank on a modern car would be very useful when you battery is dead.
Not really. If the battery is truly dead, there won't be anything to supply spark, power the electronic fuel injection, electric fuel pump, etc. It's not like the old days of magnetos and carbs.
Perhaps a PC should have a front panel for single-stepping a crashed OS.
Ignoring all of the technical ramifications of doing this with a modern PC, one major obstacle is the complexity of modern operating systems and applications. Back in the day when an 8K OS was considered bloated and a computer with 64K of RAM was considered a "loaded" system, it was quite reasonable to try to single-step your way through applications. When PCs have hundreds of megabytes of RAM and programs now take hundreds of thousands of instructions through OS calls just to perform conceptually simple things like opening a window on the screen, it's nigh-on impossible to do anything with a front panel.
Who the hell modded my comment down from 3 to 2 as "overrated"? I provided a lot of useful, interesting information for many people. What a dick you are.
To the 1950's, 1960's, and early '70s where computers had rows and rows of blinking lights and switches Anywbody remember the PDP 11's? Or the early Altairs?
Just about every computer made then had the lights and switches. There are those of us who remember keying in programs using switches on front panels. The difference was that those lights served an actual purpose -- other than pimping up a computer. It was possible to single-step through a program using those lights and switches. One could examine and modify the contents of RAM.
Putting LEDs on RAM modules today is like putting a crank on the front of a modern electric-start car.
Let's not. You're interfering with people's livelihoods here. And by expressing the desire to/. (DDOS) the phone network, you've just made it a crime.
I don't care about either point.
When I complain about a spammer, I'm interfering with his livelihood. Okay by me. What he does for a living is immoral, unethical, and despicable. Same thing with telemarketers.
As to the criminal aspect, something can be illegal without being unethical or wrong. If they want to press charges against me because I called a phone number listed as a contact number on their website, then I'm willing to face the charges in a court of law. Get a spine and do the right thing instead of worrying about the legality of it.
"Currently. Ford, Dodge and Volkswagen all void warranties if biodiesel is used. Volkswagen, however, sells a "biodiesel kit" that includes a few modifications suggested if biodiesel is used.
They can't "void" warranties unless they can show that the use of biodiesel caused the failure. It's simply not legal. That's what prevents car companies from refusing warranty repairs on your car because you used a Fram air filter rather than one made by the manufacturer.
Want to see how forgiving the diesel engines are? Here's a link to people who are powering VW diesels from used vegetable oil that restaurants throw out.
Plus, if BioDiesel ever takes off in the U.S., you may be able to use it with little to no modification. Yay!
They already run great on it. Not a thing needs to be changed.
What I'm looking forward to is the phase-in of ultra low sulfur diesel (ULSD) fuel like what is used in Europe. That will enable companies to import even more advanced common-rail diesel vehicles to the U.S. VW will be able to bring in their high-performance VW GTI diesel. BMW will be able to bring in their high-performance diesels. So will Mercedes.
Diesels, with their ultra-flat torque curves, are a pleasure to drive. People make the mistake of thinking that a 150hp gasoline engine vehicle is just as responsive as a 150hp diesel engine vehicle. Nothing could be further from the truth. What matters is the area under the torque curve. That's why you will find diesels with less horsepower and faster 0-60mph times and much faster response when the driver is at lower RPMs.
I own one and strongly recommend the VW TDI diesel vehicles. They include the Golf, Jetta, Jetta wagon, and VW New Beetle. The fuel economy is very good (49mpg highway). They don't have the complexity, weight, and expense of banks of batteries, large electric motors, and complicated drivetrains that typify hybrids. They are quiet, comfortable, and more stylish than most of the hybrids.
The radio is a standard DIN unit, so aftermarket radios are a snap to install. The handling is superb (after installation of the VW/Eibach "Sport Suspension" springs. The seats are very supportive and adjustable. The interior materials are first-rate.
In addition, because diesel fuel is closer to oil than gasoline, it tends to lubricate the cylinder walls rather than scouring them like gasoline does. Thus, the engines tend to have a very long life.
I have no regrets about the purchase and would happily buy the exact same car again -- though maybe with the center armrest.
As for adult advertising, I've never gotten any, but it's surprising that it has to be marked. What's your support for this?
I used to work for the USPS (in engineering) on their automated, computerized sorting equipment. Envelopes containing such items were invariably labeled something like "Adult Material".
There's still a cost, however. At a minimum there's a cost in time and perhaps even psychic well-being in receiving this stuff if only to dispose of it as quickly as possible.
But the legal and judicial systems have recognized that advertisers can take your time, which is not the same as cost-shifting for delivery.
True, but it's an increasingly pointless distinction.
I disagree. It's an important distinction that allows the government to protect consumers from unreasonable and unfair intrusions by commercial entities.
Well, it's not inherently illegal for telemarketers to call you late at night. First, there would have to be a law against it.
I suggest that you read this FTC page: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/tmarkg/straigh t.htm
From that page: "Calling times are restricted to the hours between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m." Some states, such as Colorado and Kentucky, have more restrictive state laws.
You're right; I believe that the first amendment basically demands that we have an opt-out assumption.
I don't think that the first amendment should be used as a means of cost-shifting from advertisers to consumers. We have a long-standing legal principle of not allowing such cost shifting and it is the reason why unsolicited ads sent via fax are illegal under 47 USC 227.
No, I'm a law student. Perhaps the next time you're in Philadelphia you can look me up.
Then please accept my apologies for my unfair assumption.
To promote filtering more than this though strikes me of having the government censor spam. True, the dirty work is done by individuals, but the law would have been calculated so that such dirty work is pretty much an inevitability.
I don't think that labeling requirement "promote filtering" or that filtering one's own e-mail is "dirty work." If you wish to read the spam sent to you, then you have the option of not filtering. The First Amendment guarantees your the right to express yourself, not a right to an audience.
I think then that this would be impermissible action on the part of the government, since it really leads nowhere but mail being automatically filtered due to government intervention.
That argument could be used for any number of required product labels. Informing consumers about the contents of something, whether e-mail or breakfast cereal, gives them the ability to make a decision. It's not unfair for the government to require that something be accurately labeled.
Yes, it is true and now you are just lying. I don't pay a fee when someone knocks on my door. I don't pay the Post Office when they deliver an ad to me. I don't pay the phone company when a telemarketer calls.
If people say there is no permission, that's explicit. So even if there is such a survey as you describe, it's flawed, because the answer is to a different question.
Quit playing games. The vast majority of people believe that spammers have no right to send them spam. Thus there is no implied permission. If 98% of people believe don't want you to punch them, then you don't have implied permission to punch everyone you meet.
A better question would probably be: In general, are people allowed to initiate discourse via email with strangers, or must the stranger invite them to start sending email first?
No, that's not a better, or even relevent, question. Someone who is sending spam e-mail with a forged, invalid return address which links to a domain registered with falsified contact information is not trying to initiate "discourse with strangers." And that describes most spam.
A better question would be: Do you believe that people and businesses have the right to send you unsolicited commercial e-mail?
The content of the speech is key. Commercial speech and non-commercial speech are different. That's why it is illegal for telemarketers to call you at 11 o'clock at night while your friend can call anytime. It's why adult advertising sent through the mail must be marked that way.
Truthful, non harassing spam that is not affirmatively rejected by the recipient should be entirely legal. There's no reason to ban it! But whenever people say 'all spam should be banned' they're necessarily including this, and that means they've gone too far.
Wrong. The only commercial advertising which should be legal via e-mail is that to which the recipient has opted in. What you are advocating is assuming that the recipient wants their bandwidth and storage used for someone else's ad unless they opt out. That's like assuming that you want me to spray-paint an ad on your car unless you specifically tell me otherwise.
A regulation on speech is already a bad thing no matter what,
Yeah, it's just awful that pedophiles aren't allowed to tell children about how they'd like to fuck them up the ass. Damn regulations on speech!
If the situation wouldn't change because spammers successfully avoid our jurisdiction over them, our regulations are probably inappropriate since they're causing harm without also having some good result.
Where the spam originates is immaterial. If some sleazeball in North Carolina pays some ISP in China to host his herbal Viagra site and pays some Brazillian ISP to send the spam, he's still the one responsible for it and would still be answerable under just about any well-crafted law. And the vast majority of spam received by Americans is spam sent from other Americans, whether through US ISPs or overseas ISPs.
However, I'm fully supportive of the last part, with the exception that spam should NOT be required to have a header identifying it, provided that it did not otherwise disguise itself.
So all you are in favor of is requiring a valid remove address? That's assinine. Opt-out is a favorite of spammers everywhere because it gives each and every spammer the opportunity to spam you and puts the burden on you to tell dozens, if not hundreds, of them every week that you don't want any more spam from them. "That spam was from John Hunt Enterprises. This is my new company, John Hunt Incorporated, so I can send you another spam. Next month I'll be sending you something from J. Hunt & Associates. Then I'll send it from John Hunt Company. Just keep opting-out." Yeah, great world you've cooked up.
Making it too easy to filter spam via governmental mandate would be, I think, effective go
My costs have not wavered in years, however, from a wide variety of local ISPs around the country. The stability in ISP costs seems to belie your position.
So your costs have remained the same even though bandwidth cost and hardware cost at the ISP level have dropped precipitously. Has it occurred to you that the reason that your cost is remaining constant (rather than dropping) is because the cost of spam is eating up the savings your ISPs are realizing in bandwidth and hardware?
No, that's a non sequitur.
No, it's a valid analogy. In both cases (owning a car and using the net), you know that there are people who will steal from you. It doesn't mean that you should accept theft as a reasonable cost.
No. You don't get to decide whether or not there is implied permission. Other people do.
The people have spoken in survey after survey and said that there is no implied permission to spam them. It's just like S&M: A small minority of people enjoy being hit, kicked, etc. during sex. But since such people are in the minority, there is no "implied permission" to batter your sex partner -- whether you decide that there is or not.
But there seems to be. Let's look at other forms of commercial communication: Salesmen are allowed to trespass on your property and knock at your door to sell you things; Phone solicitors can call you to sell you things; Junk mailers can mail you to sell you things.
It costs me nothing for someone to deliver their message by knocking at my door, calling me on the phone, or sending me conventional mail. That's the key difference: With spam, the recipients bear the brunt of the cost. It's analogous to junk faxes, which were made illegal by Title 47 Section 227.
You also ignore the restrictions placed on commercial speech of the specific types that you mention. If I don't want a salesman knocking at my door, I can inform them of that in a legally binding way with "no soliciting" and "no trespassing" signs. If I don't want a phone solicitor to call me, I can put myself on the recently-enacted "do not call" list -- or I can choose to tell a specific telephone solicitor to put me on their firm's do-not-call list. If I don't want sexually explicit ads mailed to me via conventional mail, I can fill out a Form 1500, (Application for Listing and/or Prohibitory Order). I can also designate any sender from whom I wish to receive no further mail.
Having an email address is an invitation to the world to email you; it's up to you to inform them otherwise.
Incorrect. As you pointed out, society gets to decide what's acceptable and society has decided that spam is unacceptable. And we're not talking a 51% to 49% decision.
When my e-mail address is in the domain "anti-spam.org", how can you possibly say that someone has implied permission to spam me?
I seriously doubt that that one is enforcable. And I think that it is probably best if it is not, since it is part of the recent regime of adhesive contracts that frankly has been amazingly annoying, if not harmful to numerous aspects of freedom.
Spammers LOVE people like you. You are fighting for their "freedom" to suck my bandwidth with address-harvesting software and through spamming me despite my explicit prohibition against same. You want to do everything possible to keep there from being a legal way to notify them that spamming me is not permitted.
Figure out a way to get rid of spam that doesn't jeopardize free speech, and I'd be all for it. So far we have 'no spam' notices, laws against fraud, filtering, etc. If you've got something better up your sleeve, now's a good time to let us in on it.
The solution is very simple:
Codify the majority belief that there is no implied permission to spam. Craft a law which recognizes that recipients bear the cost of spam and require that senders have explicit permission to send ads to each recipi
First, I doubt that there's any material cost to you.
Then you know practically nothing about the problem. Who do you think pays for the bandwidth used by spammers who send mail to your ISP's users? The ISP - and then they pass the costs on to you and the other subscribers.
Second, everyone who has resources consumed by spam can pretty safely be said to have known that there were costs involved in being connected to the network -- if they proceeded, they assumed those costs.
Wrong. That's analogous to saying that you knew that there were costs associated with owning a car so you have no right to complain when someone siphons gas out of your tank every night. By your argument, we all have to accept ever-increasing costs and burdens of spam because we knew that some immoral a**holes spammers existed when we connected to the network. I don't buy it and neither do most reasonable people.
My server is my private property. I paid for it. I maintain it. I pay for the connection. It's my decision who I authorize to use it. There is not any kind of implied permission for every dickhead sleazy con artist who wants to tell me about penis enlarging ripoffs and debt consolidation scams to use my bandwidth, server, and storage to do so. Nor is there permission for them to run dictionary attacks against it to try to dig up addresses. Nor is there permission for them to harvest e-mail addresses off of my web page and, in fact, it clearly states that such use is prohibited.
That said, I recognized your name from previous debates and I find it rather suspicious how you always come down on the side of spammers -- despite having been shown, repetitively, the fallacious reasoning behind your position.
nobody likes spam, sure, but this whole scene is really about encouraging the government to regulate communication.
No, it's about the government preventing someone else's "communication" from costing us money. If you want to rent a blimp to advertise your penis-pills, go for it. If you want to pay to put an ad in the back of Rolling Stone, more power to you. If you want to buy time during the Superbowl, have at it. But don't waste my bandwidth and storage, costing me money, by sending your spam to me.
if you don't like spam, do something about it. filter, build a honeypot relay, whatever.
I do. I own the domain anti-spam.org. I use multiple filters and blacklists. I have a honeypot system that includes the time, date, and IP of the system that harvested the address off of my web page. I am a member of CAUCE. I do plenty about it already.
but don't go whining to the feds demanding they regulate a free and open communications channel.
I resent your use of the term "whining." It is rude and inaccurate. The whole problem with e-mail is that it is not "free" in the monetary sense. ISPs and corporations spend incalculable sums of money on bandwidth, servers, storage, backup, administration, filtering products, to deal with spam.
According to Brightmail, roughly 40 percent of all e-mail traffic in the United States was spam as of March of this year. That means that four of every ten mail servers at major ISPs are needed just because of spam. It means that 40% of the bandwidth that the ISPs buy for e-mail is used by spam. It means that ISP's customers are paying for the spam.
If I come over to your house and spraypaint an ad for my autobody shop on your car's hood, don't complain. It's just me exercising my rights to free speech.
Because it costs the recipient money. Why isn't it free speech if I spray-paint the number of my autobody shop on your car while you sleep? Why isn't it free speech if I take your credit card number and use it to pay the postage when I send you an ad in the mail.
Spammers have a right to express themselves -- just not at the expense of others.
Bloom County turned out to be just a bunch of tossed-out references to '80's pop culture. 20 years later, it's as dated and forced as, say, brand new Doonesbury strips.
The same thing could be said of the editorials from newspapers of the day. Do you now dismiss editorials as irrelevent and not worthy as a form of writing? What made Bloom County important was that it commented on the issues of the day. It made a statement. I hope that "Opus" is similarly brash and in-your-face.
Some comics just make people laugh. I think that we have room for comics that make people think as well.
Considering how far that strategy has gotten us with the DMCA in general and DeCSS in particular, refusing the use programs that force DRM on users is the better option.
Two thoughts:
1. Unjust laws sometimes take years, or even decades, to be overturned or rescinded. Don't give up yet. The DMCA and DeCSS case are still in the infant stages and we may yet succeed.
2. Boycotting programs that use DRM will be completely ineffective. For every geek that reads Slashdot and actually boycotts the product, there will be 10,000 "regular" people that do not. I'm not saying that, as a matter of principle, it's a bad idea. Quite the opposite. Just don't believe for a second that it is likely to effect a change.
That's all well and good, but I never claimed to be statistically significant, did I? I was merely relating my experience.
Sorry. I didn't mean to come across too negatively or to appear to be on the attack. I have become overly sensitized on this subject. I have to deal with people on a regular basis who say that {fill in brand name here} drives are horribly unreliable because they had one fail at home or they know two people who had them fail, etc.
The OpenBios project has been in the works for a while now.
While interesting and useful, the OpenBIOS project doesn't solve the DRM problem. If a software vendor, whether selling OSs or applications, chooses to make their software such that it relies on a PC with a "DRM-enabled" BIOS, it won't work on a PC which utilizes an OpenBIOS.
The only means to fight against DRM is to encourage and support legislation which guarantees the rights of consumers to backup, copy, move, transcode, etc., purchased multimedia and software products.
It's about time - CDs have been overpriced for years.
But when a large segment of the public is going to be comparing $12.98 with the $0.00 filesharing price, I have to wonder if it will have any effect at all.
If they were lowering prices due to normal market forces rather than copyright violation, I'd feel a lot more comfortable. This may be a ploy to fight filesharing in Congress. Imagine the RIAA testifying to Congress about how filesharing has forced record companies to drastically cut CD prices in order to keep from going bankrupt (monetarily, not morally -- the latter happened years ago).
This is nor the free market at work -- and it never can be. Music companies are just conglomerated monopolies. Universal has the monopoly on recordings by Sheryl Crow, Elton John, No Doubt, Sting, U2, and many others. If you want the new CD from one of those artists, you can't choose between buying it from Universal, Capital, CBS, etc. So there is no competition to push down the price. If your favorite artist is Sheryl Crowe, you can just decide that, because her CDs are too expensive, that Billy Ray Cyrus is will be your new favorite, that his music will stir your emotions, make you want to get up and dance, and that his lyrics will resonate with you.
Sorry if I don't celebrate, but I see this as a storm cloud on the horizon.
Nevertheless, in my experience it seems that Macs are much less likely to suffer a hard drive crash. For example, it has never happened to me.
Here's your term of the day: statistically significant. One, two, three, or even ten computers is not enough to to provide a statistically significant sample. You can't determine anything about hard drive reliability from such a small sample set. You need to have access to, at the very least, hard drive failure information for hundreds of systems.
Let's say that you see reports from 1,000 users that their Brand X hard drives failed. Does that mean that Brand X hard drives are unreliable? Not necessarily. It may mean that Brand X released one particular drive model with a design or manufacturing flaw. It could me that Brand X is just a very popular drive. Maybe Brand X purchasers tend to gravitate to that forum because of search engine results (e.g., "Brand X" and "failure").
Suppose that Brand Y drives failures were reported in only three systems on the same forum. Are Brand Y drives more reliable than Brand X? Not necessarily. Brand Y drives may have only been installed in 1% of computers while Brand X drives may have been in 50%. Brand Y users might be congregated on a website called www.brand-y-sucks.com.
And I'm using Maxtor drives, which are supposedly notorious for bad quality.
Like most major manufacturers, Maxtor has produced both good and bad drive models and model lines. At different times in its history, Maxtor seems to have focused on price, speed, or quality. The same can be said of Seagate, Western Digital, and many other manufacturers.
(Well, I do have a drive that doesn't want to wake up from sleep, but I'm just keeping it spun up until I buy another one. Probably a Western Digital.)
The bearings and/or motor are failing. Replace the drive now or, at the least, mirror it with a backup.
But still, I've never had a crash. The Maxtors, I'm told, have issues with heat.
I've not seen heat-related problems with Maxtors (and I do have data on thousands of systems through one of my clients). Seagates are another story.
I probably shouldn't be running dnetc all the time with my main drive underneath another one. Oh well, something else the new G5 design fixes, hmm?
Stacked drives with little or no airspace between them result in many heat-related problems. That includes CD-R/W drives, DVD drives, hard drives, etc. You need proper airflow or you can cook any drive.
Slashdot Mirror
Because combining a company "that brought us cars that explode when rear-ended (Pintos), SUVs with tires that explode during normal driving (Explorers), and now Jaguars" with a company that brings us crashing computers (Microsoft) would be disaterous.
You missed my point: If Ford's engineers are that incompetent, why would you assume that they made the right choice in operating systems? As I said before, being pleased that Ford engineers agree with you about Linux is like being pleased that Michael Jackson agrees with you about fashion.
Why does anyone trust the engineering expertise at a company that brought us cars that explode when rear-ended (Pintos), SUVs with tires that explode during normal driving (Explorers), and now Jaguars? Celebrating Ford's choice of Linux is like being really happy that Michael Jackson shares your taste in fashion.
It appears pilots are pretty much accustomed to handling weird problems with equipment, which they attribute to passengers' portable devices.
And in World War II, pilots used to blame weird problems on gremlins. Lets get real: Pilots, the vast majority of whom have no background in, or understanding of, electronics, are blaming portable electronic devices for interfering with their instrumentation. They provide nothing but anecdotal evidence to support these claims.
If there is a problem, it should be documented by the pilots and the airlines, the FAA should get involved, and electronic engineers should be paid to conduct an investigation. I'll be concerned when studies run by engineers and scientists show that such problems exist and are being caused by personal electronics. Is there commonality between instruments that fail (e.g., GPS units manufacture by Trimble, fly-by-wire systems in Airbus planes, etc.) or in portable devices that generate interference (e.g., Nokia 6000 series cell phones, HP Pavilion ZE4400 series notebooks, etc.)? These are the kind of questions that need to be answered.
Flying is unpleasant enough without further, possibly unnecessary, restrictions to make it even more so. After standing in line until their legs ache, passengers are practically strip-searched without probable cause. Unskilled, ignorant baggage screeners insist that people have laptop computers X-rayed. The screener manhandle cameras, laptops, and cell phones. People are crammed into undersized, uncomfortable seats. Every few years they are told to replace their carry-on luggage with something smaller because the airlines have crammed even more seats into the planes.
Well, just attach an alternator to the crank itself.
An alternator requires current to energize the rotor. No current in = No current out.
Even supposing that you did manage to make the engine produce electricity throughout the cranking period, it's unlikely that the engine would be spinning fast enough or long enough to produce the current necessary to power everything from the ECU (Engine Control Unit) to the lesser electronics throughout the vehicle.
Let's get some perspective here. A Model T engine had a 2.9l engine. It had 4.0 to 1 compression ratio, made 22.5hp, and had a 1,600rpm redline. It didn't take much of a spin to get that engine anywhere near operating speed. Contrast that with a modern engine. Let's take a Ford Taurus as a random example. It has a 3.0l engine with 8.0 to 1 compression. It makes 155hp at 4900rpm. If you've developed your arm enough to crank-start a modern car, you need a girlfriend.
Hmm.. A crank on a modern car would be very useful when you battery is dead.
Not really. If the battery is truly dead, there won't be anything to supply spark, power the electronic fuel injection, electric fuel pump, etc. It's not like the old days of magnetos and carbs.
Perhaps a PC should have a front panel for single-stepping a crashed OS.
Ignoring all of the technical ramifications of doing this with a modern PC, one major obstacle is the complexity of modern operating systems and applications. Back in the day when an 8K OS was considered bloated and a computer with 64K of RAM was considered a "loaded" system, it was quite reasonable to try to single-step your way through applications. When PCs have hundreds of megabytes of RAM and programs now take hundreds of thousands of instructions through OS calls just to perform conceptually simple things like opening a window on the screen, it's nigh-on impossible to do anything with a front panel.
Who the hell modded my comment down from 3 to 2 as "overrated"? I provided a lot of useful, interesting information for many people. What a dick you are.
To the 1950's, 1960's, and early '70s where computers had rows and rows of blinking lights and switches Anywbody remember the PDP 11's? Or the early Altairs?
Just about every computer made then had the lights and switches. There are those of us who remember keying in programs using switches on front panels. The difference was that those lights served an actual purpose -- other than pimping up a computer. It was possible to single-step through a program using those lights and switches. One could examine and modify the contents of RAM.
Putting LEDs on RAM modules today is like putting a crank on the front of a modern electric-start car.
Let's not. You're interfering with people's livelihoods here. And by expressing the desire to /. (DDOS) the phone network, you've just made it a crime.
I don't care about either point.
When I complain about a spammer, I'm interfering with his livelihood. Okay by me. What he does for a living is immoral, unethical, and despicable. Same thing with telemarketers.
As to the criminal aspect, something can be illegal without being unethical or wrong. If they want to press charges against me because I called a phone number listed as a contact number on their website, then I'm willing to face the charges in a court of law. Get a spine and do the right thing instead of worrying about the legality of it.
"Currently. Ford, Dodge and Volkswagen all void warranties if biodiesel is used. Volkswagen, however, sells a "biodiesel kit" that includes a few modifications suggested if biodiesel is used.
They can't "void" warranties unless they can show that the use of biodiesel caused the failure. It's simply not legal. That's what prevents car companies from refusing warranty repairs on your car because you used a Fram air filter rather than one made by the manufacturer.
Want to see how forgiving the diesel engines are? Here's a link to people who are powering VW diesels from used vegetable oil that restaurants throw out.
Plus, if BioDiesel ever takes off in the U.S., you may be able to use it with little to no modification. Yay!
They already run great on it. Not a thing needs to be changed.
What I'm looking forward to is the phase-in of ultra low sulfur diesel (ULSD) fuel like what is used in Europe. That will enable companies to import even more advanced common-rail diesel vehicles to the U.S. VW will be able to bring in their high-performance VW GTI diesel. BMW will be able to bring in their high-performance diesels. So will Mercedes.
Diesels, with their ultra-flat torque curves, are a pleasure to drive. People make the mistake of thinking that a 150hp gasoline engine vehicle is just as responsive as a 150hp diesel engine vehicle. Nothing could be further from the truth. What matters is the area under the torque curve. That's why you will find diesels with less horsepower and faster 0-60mph times and much faster response when the driver is at lower RPMs.
I own one and strongly recommend the VW TDI diesel vehicles. They include the Golf, Jetta, Jetta wagon, and VW New Beetle. The fuel economy is very good (49mpg highway). They don't have the complexity, weight, and expense of banks of batteries, large electric motors, and complicated drivetrains that typify hybrids. They are quiet, comfortable, and more stylish than most of the hybrids.
The radio is a standard DIN unit, so aftermarket radios are a snap to install. The handling is superb (after installation of the VW/Eibach "Sport Suspension" springs. The seats are very supportive and adjustable. The interior materials are first-rate.
In addition, because diesel fuel is closer to oil than gasoline, it tends to lubricate the cylinder walls rather than scouring them like gasoline does. Thus, the engines tend to have a very long life.
I have no regrets about the purchase and would happily buy the exact same car again -- though maybe with the center armrest.
It's "ingo", not "Ringo".
He's right. Ohn, Aul, and Eorge all agree that it was "Ingo."
As for adult advertising, I've never gotten any, but it's surprising that it has to be marked. What's your support for this?
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I used to work for the USPS (in engineering) on their automated, computerized sorting equipment. Envelopes containing such items were invariably labeled something like "Adult Material".
There's still a cost, however. At a minimum there's a cost in time and perhaps even psychic well-being in receiving this stuff if only to dispose of it as quickly as possible.
But the legal and judicial systems have recognized that advertisers can take your time, which is not the same as cost-shifting for delivery.
True, but it's an increasingly pointless distinction.
I disagree. It's an important distinction that allows the government to protect consumers from unreasonable and unfair intrusions by commercial entities.
Well, it's not inherently illegal for telemarketers to call you late at night. First, there would have to be a law against it.
I suggest that you read this FTC page: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/tmarkg/straig
From that page: "Calling times are restricted to the hours between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m." Some states, such as Colorado and Kentucky, have more restrictive state laws.
You're right; I believe that the first amendment basically demands that we have an opt-out assumption.
I don't think that the first amendment should be used as a means of cost-shifting from advertisers to consumers. We have a long-standing legal principle of not allowing such cost shifting and it is the reason why unsolicited ads sent via fax are illegal under 47 USC 227.
No, I'm a law student. Perhaps the next time you're in Philadelphia you can look me up.
Then please accept my apologies for my unfair assumption.
To promote filtering more than this though strikes me of having the government censor spam. True, the dirty work is done by individuals, but the law would have been calculated so that such dirty work is pretty much an inevitability.
I don't think that labeling requirement "promote filtering" or that filtering one's own e-mail is "dirty work." If you wish to read the spam sent to you, then you have the option of not filtering. The First Amendment guarantees your the right to express yourself, not a right to an audience.
I think then that this would be impermissible action on the part of the government, since it really leads nowhere but mail being automatically filtered due to government intervention.
That argument could be used for any number of required product labels. Informing consumers about the contents of something, whether e-mail or breakfast cereal, gives them the ability to make a decision. It's not unfair for the government to require that something be accurately labeled.
This is not true.
Yes, it is true and now you are just lying. I don't pay a fee when someone knocks on my door. I don't pay the Post Office when they deliver an ad to me. I don't pay the phone company when a telemarketer calls.
If people say there is no permission, that's explicit. So even if there is such a survey as you describe, it's flawed, because the answer is to a different question.
Quit playing games. The vast majority of people believe that spammers have no right to send them spam. Thus there is no implied permission. If 98% of people believe don't want you to punch them, then you don't have implied permission to punch everyone you meet.
A better question would probably be: In general, are people allowed to initiate discourse via email with strangers, or must the stranger invite them to start sending email first?
No, that's not a better, or even relevent, question. Someone who is sending spam e-mail with a forged, invalid return address which links to a domain registered with falsified contact information is not trying to initiate "discourse with strangers." And that describes most spam.
A better question would be: Do you believe that people and businesses have the right to send you unsolicited commercial e-mail?
The content of the speech is key. Commercial speech and non-commercial speech are different. That's why it is illegal for telemarketers to call you at 11 o'clock at night while your friend can call anytime. It's why adult advertising sent through the mail must be marked that way.
Truthful, non harassing spam that is not affirmatively rejected by the recipient should be entirely legal. There's no reason to ban it! But whenever people say 'all spam should be banned' they're necessarily including this, and that means they've gone too far.
Wrong. The only commercial advertising which should be legal via e-mail is that to which the recipient has opted in. What you are advocating is assuming that the recipient wants their bandwidth and storage used for someone else's ad unless they opt out. That's like assuming that you want me to spray-paint an ad on your car unless you specifically tell me otherwise.
A regulation on speech is already a bad thing no matter what,
Yeah, it's just awful that pedophiles aren't allowed to tell children about how they'd like to fuck them up the ass. Damn regulations on speech!
If the situation wouldn't change because spammers successfully avoid our jurisdiction over them, our regulations are probably inappropriate since they're causing harm without also having some good result.
Where the spam originates is immaterial. If some sleazeball in North Carolina pays some ISP in China to host his herbal Viagra site and pays some Brazillian ISP to send the spam, he's still the one responsible for it and would still be answerable under just about any well-crafted law. And the vast majority of spam received by Americans is spam sent from other Americans, whether through US ISPs or overseas ISPs.
However, I'm fully supportive of the last part, with the exception that spam should NOT be required to have a header identifying it, provided that it did not otherwise disguise itself.
So all you are in favor of is requiring a valid remove address? That's assinine. Opt-out is a favorite of spammers everywhere because it gives each and every spammer the opportunity to spam you and puts the burden on you to tell dozens, if not hundreds, of them every week that you don't want any more spam from them. "That spam was from John Hunt Enterprises. This is my new company, John Hunt Incorporated, so I can send you another spam. Next month I'll be sending you something from J. Hunt & Associates. Then I'll send it from John Hunt Company. Just keep opting-out." Yeah, great world you've cooked up.
Making it too easy to filter spam via governmental mandate would be, I think, effective go
My costs have not wavered in years, however, from a wide variety of local ISPs around the country. The stability in ISP costs seems to belie your position.
So your costs have remained the same even though bandwidth cost and hardware cost at the ISP level have dropped precipitously. Has it occurred to you that the reason that your cost is remaining constant (rather than dropping) is because the cost of spam is eating up the savings your ISPs are realizing in bandwidth and hardware?
No, that's a non sequitur.
No, it's a valid analogy. In both cases (owning a car and using the net), you know that there are people who will steal from you. It doesn't mean that you should accept theft as a reasonable cost.
No. You don't get to decide whether or not there is implied permission. Other people do.
The people have spoken in survey after survey and said that there is no implied permission to spam them. It's just like S&M: A small minority of people enjoy being hit, kicked, etc. during sex. But since such people are in the minority, there is no "implied permission" to batter your sex partner -- whether you decide that there is or not.
But there seems to be. Let's look at other forms of commercial communication: Salesmen are allowed to trespass on your property and knock at your door to sell you things; Phone solicitors can call you to sell you things; Junk mailers can mail you to sell you things.
It costs me nothing for someone to deliver their message by knocking at my door, calling me on the phone, or sending me conventional mail. That's the key difference: With spam, the recipients bear the brunt of the cost. It's analogous to junk faxes, which were made illegal by Title 47 Section 227.
You also ignore the restrictions placed on commercial speech of the specific types that you mention. If I don't want a salesman knocking at my door, I can inform them of that in a legally binding way with "no soliciting" and "no trespassing" signs. If I don't want a phone solicitor to call me, I can put myself on the recently-enacted "do not call" list -- or I can choose to tell a specific telephone solicitor to put me on their firm's do-not-call list. If I don't want sexually explicit ads mailed to me via conventional mail, I can fill out a Form 1500, (Application for Listing and/or Prohibitory Order). I can also designate any sender from whom I wish to receive no further mail.
Having an email address is an invitation to the world to email you; it's up to you to inform them otherwise.
Incorrect. As you pointed out, society gets to decide what's acceptable and society has decided that spam is unacceptable. And we're not talking a 51% to 49% decision.
When my e-mail address is in the domain "anti-spam.org", how can you possibly say that someone has implied permission to spam me?
I seriously doubt that that one is enforcable. And I think that it is probably best if it is not, since it is part of the recent regime of adhesive contracts that frankly has been amazingly annoying, if not harmful to numerous aspects of freedom.
Spammers LOVE people like you. You are fighting for their "freedom" to suck my bandwidth with address-harvesting software and through spamming me despite my explicit prohibition against same. You want to do everything possible to keep there from being a legal way to notify them that spamming me is not permitted.
Figure out a way to get rid of spam that doesn't jeopardize free speech, and I'd be all for it. So far we have 'no spam' notices, laws against fraud, filtering, etc. If you've got something better up your sleeve, now's a good time to let us in on it.
The solution is very simple:
Codify the majority belief that there is no implied permission to spam. Craft a law which recognizes that recipients bear the cost of spam and require that senders have explicit permission to send ads to each recipi
First, I doubt that there's any material cost to you.
Then you know practically nothing about the problem. Who do you think pays for the bandwidth used by spammers who send mail to your ISP's users? The ISP - and then they pass the costs on to you and the other subscribers.
Second, everyone who has resources consumed by spam can pretty safely be said to have known that there were costs involved in being connected to the network -- if they proceeded, they assumed those costs.
Wrong. That's analogous to saying that you knew that there were costs associated with owning a car so you have no right to complain when someone siphons gas out of your tank every night. By your argument, we all have to accept ever-increasing costs and burdens of spam because we knew that some immoral a**holes spammers existed when we connected to the network. I don't buy it and neither do most reasonable people.
My server is my private property. I paid for it. I maintain it. I pay for the connection. It's my decision who I authorize to use it. There is not any kind of implied permission for every dickhead sleazy con artist who wants to tell me about penis enlarging ripoffs and debt consolidation scams to use my bandwidth, server, and storage to do so. Nor is there permission for them to run dictionary attacks against it to try to dig up addresses. Nor is there permission for them to harvest e-mail addresses off of my web page and, in fact, it clearly states that such use is prohibited.
That said, I recognized your name from previous debates and I find it rather suspicious how you always come down on the side of spammers -- despite having been shown, repetitively, the fallacious reasoning behind your position.
or really hate freedom.
Or really hate theft.
nobody likes spam, sure, but this whole scene is really about encouraging the government to regulate communication.
No, it's about the government preventing someone else's "communication" from costing us money. If you want to rent a blimp to advertise your penis-pills, go for it. If you want to pay to put an ad in the back of Rolling Stone, more power to you. If you want to buy time during the Superbowl, have at it. But don't waste my bandwidth and storage, costing me money, by sending your spam to me.
if you don't like spam, do something about it. filter, build a honeypot relay, whatever.
I do. I own the domain anti-spam.org. I use multiple filters and blacklists. I have a honeypot system that includes the time, date, and IP of the system that harvested the address off of my web page. I am a member of CAUCE. I do plenty about it already.
but don't go whining to the feds demanding they regulate a free and open communications channel.
I resent your use of the term "whining." It is rude and inaccurate. The whole problem with e-mail is that it is not "free" in the monetary sense. ISPs and corporations spend incalculable sums of money on bandwidth, servers, storage, backup, administration, filtering products, to deal with spam.
According to Brightmail, roughly 40 percent of all e-mail traffic in the United States was spam as of March of this year. That means that four of every ten mail servers at major ISPs are needed just because of spam. It means that 40% of the bandwidth that the ISPs buy for e-mail is used by spam. It means that ISP's customers are paying for the spam.
If I come over to your house and spraypaint an ad for my autobody shop on your car's hood, don't complain. It's just me exercising my rights to free speech.
Why isn't spam free speech?
Because it costs the recipient money. Why isn't it free speech if I spray-paint the number of my autobody shop on your car while you sleep? Why isn't it free speech if I take your credit card number and use it to pay the postage when I send you an ad in the mail.
Spammers have a right to express themselves -- just not at the expense of others.
Bloom County turned out to be just a bunch of tossed-out references to '80's pop culture. 20 years later, it's as dated and forced as, say, brand new Doonesbury strips.
The same thing could be said of the editorials from newspapers of the day. Do you now dismiss editorials as irrelevent and not worthy as a form of writing? What made Bloom County important was that it commented on the issues of the day. It made a statement. I hope that "Opus" is similarly brash and in-your-face.
Some comics just make people laugh. I think that we have room for comics that make people think as well.
Of course, the story is quick to state that the whole study was funded and commissioned by our favorite Redmond, WA based software giant.
That's what we call "ethics." It would have been unethical Microsoft to use a study that they funded without revealing that they funded it.
Considering how far that strategy has gotten us with the DMCA in general and DeCSS in particular, refusing the use programs that force DRM on users is the better option.
Two thoughts:
1. Unjust laws sometimes take years, or even decades, to be overturned or rescinded. Don't give up yet. The DMCA and DeCSS case are still in the infant stages and we may yet succeed.
2. Boycotting programs that use DRM will be completely ineffective. For every geek that reads Slashdot and actually boycotts the product, there will be 10,000 "regular" people that do not. I'm not saying that, as a matter of principle, it's a bad idea. Quite the opposite. Just don't believe for a second that it is likely to effect a change.
That's all well and good, but I never claimed to be statistically significant, did I? I was merely relating my experience.
Sorry. I didn't mean to come across too negatively or to appear to be on the attack. I have become overly sensitized on this subject. I have to deal with people on a regular basis who say that {fill in brand name here} drives are horribly unreliable because they had one fail at home or they know two people who had them fail, etc.
In any case, thanks for the info/advice.
I'm happy if it was useful or interesting.
The OpenBios project has been in the works for a while now.
While interesting and useful, the OpenBIOS project doesn't solve the DRM problem. If a software vendor, whether selling OSs or applications, chooses to make their software such that it relies on a PC with a "DRM-enabled" BIOS, it won't work on a PC which utilizes an OpenBIOS.
The only means to fight against DRM is to encourage and support legislation which guarantees the rights of consumers to backup, copy, move, transcode, etc., purchased multimedia and software products.
It's about time - CDs have been overpriced for years.
But when a large segment of the public is going to be comparing $12.98 with the $0.00 filesharing price, I have to wonder if it will have any effect at all.
If they were lowering prices due to normal market forces rather than copyright violation, I'd feel a lot more comfortable. This may be a ploy to fight filesharing in Congress. Imagine the RIAA testifying to Congress about how filesharing has forced record companies to drastically cut CD prices in order to keep from going bankrupt (monetarily, not morally -- the latter happened years ago).
This is nor the free market at work -- and it never can be. Music companies are just conglomerated monopolies. Universal has the monopoly on recordings by Sheryl Crow, Elton John, No Doubt, Sting, U2, and many others. If you want the new CD from one of those artists, you can't choose between buying it from Universal, Capital, CBS, etc. So there is no competition to push down the price. If your favorite artist is Sheryl Crowe, you can just decide that, because her CDs are too expensive, that Billy Ray Cyrus is will be your new favorite, that his music will stir your emotions, make you want to get up and dance, and that his lyrics will resonate with you.
Sorry if I don't celebrate, but I see this as a storm cloud on the horizon.
Nevertheless, in my experience it seems that Macs are much less likely to suffer a hard drive crash. For example, it has never happened to me.
Here's your term of the day: statistically significant. One, two, three, or even ten computers is not enough to to provide a statistically significant sample. You can't determine anything about hard drive reliability from such a small sample set. You need to have access to, at the very least, hard drive failure information for hundreds of systems.
Let's say that you see reports from 1,000 users that their Brand X hard drives failed. Does that mean that Brand X hard drives are unreliable? Not necessarily. It may mean that Brand X released one particular drive model with a design or manufacturing flaw. It could me that Brand X is just a very popular drive. Maybe Brand X purchasers tend to gravitate to that forum because of search engine results (e.g., "Brand X" and "failure").
Suppose that Brand Y drives failures were reported in only three systems on the same forum. Are Brand Y drives more reliable than Brand X? Not necessarily. Brand Y drives may have only been installed in 1% of computers while Brand X drives may have been in 50%. Brand Y users might be congregated on a website called www.brand-y-sucks.com.
And I'm using Maxtor drives, which are supposedly notorious for bad quality.
Like most major manufacturers, Maxtor has produced both good and bad drive models and model lines. At different times in its history, Maxtor seems to have focused on price, speed, or quality. The same can be said of Seagate, Western Digital, and many other manufacturers.
(Well, I do have a drive that doesn't want to wake up from sleep, but I'm just keeping it spun up until I buy another one. Probably a Western Digital.)
The bearings and/or motor are failing. Replace the drive now or, at the least, mirror it with a backup.
But still, I've never had a crash. The Maxtors, I'm told, have issues with heat.
I've not seen heat-related problems with Maxtors (and I do have data on thousands of systems through one of my clients). Seagates are another story.
I probably shouldn't be running dnetc all the time with my main drive underneath another one. Oh well, something else the new G5 design fixes, hmm?
Stacked drives with little or no airspace between them result in many heat-related problems. That includes CD-R/W drives, DVD drives, hard drives, etc. You need proper airflow or you can cook any drive.