According to the article the break only applies to a business. The break is what the business is able to depreciate from thier gross income. This in no way effects the lawyer who buys a cadallac SUV (unless it is a business purchase and not used for personal use). If the vehicle is bought for personal use then you are taxed out the wazoo for purchasing a gass guzzler.
In case some here have never ran a business or know much about small business economics this is why it is done. First the vehicle has to be used demonstrativly by the business (shown at an audit, if not you are levied a HUGE fine). So if this is the case it needs to be deducted. For example, my parents business grosses something aroun 250 thousand a year, I make slightly over 30k a year. In take home usable money (money to pay bills, buy "stuff", eat, etc..) I make more than they do simply becuase the business costs a HUGE amount to run. They require the use of several large offroad type vehicles with large carrying capacity - either a pickup truck or an SUV. They place something along the lines of 50-75 thousand miles per year on each vehicle, under continuous load. Tax write offs such as this keep them making some profit (even the article says this was meant for farmers). And becuase the larger trucks/SUV's cost a singifigant amount more than a smaller one this really helps.
Not to mention the the money is deductable from your income, not money that is given to you. Big difference between the govt allowing a 24000 dollar deduction over 3 years and them handing a person 24000 dollars.
Do some poeple abuse this? Of course. But how many small businesses legitamtly need this deduction - are you willing to run many of them into the ground because someone is abusing it? For many of the complaints people post, yea the abuse they show is not right, but there are MANY other uses (and in my parents case required) of deductions such as this.
And my last pet peeve (and a large one): This loophole costs the American Tresury close 1 Billion per year. No, it doesn't cost them anything. The govt didn't make as much as they could. By that reasoning just imagine the amount they are loosing by not increasing the tax rate by another 2%, or a new special tax on softdrinks, or any other thing they could conceivable raise/add taxes on (anything). That is some of the shittiest logic I ever see bandied about. It assumes the govt owns all my money and I only have money by thier good will, anything I keep on my own that I do not have an absolute need for is costing the taxpayers through the nose. Just like me copying a song I would never have bought in the first place costs the RIAA 15 dollars for the CD: FUCK NO!
The sad thing is that assuming the slashdot editors Did The Right Thing that is the best submission. Maybe that is where they get thier great use of repitition (because we all know that denotes importance).
You can easily dispose of the hard drive if you do not mind loosing it. We work at a govt. facility (I don't do any secret stuff, but we have research that we would not like to let out - afraid that someone might get it and our research and beat us out of funding, again nothing secret). Old hard drives get a combination of the following treatments. 1) shooting: we go out to the local gun range on the plinking range and proceded to fire 'em up. 2) sanding: take a drill and a snading disk and sand both sides throughly (you can easily find flexible disks that are carbon and cut into the platter quite good ). 3) vise/pliers or hammer: bend those puppies into odd shapes.
normally the disks will get the firing treatment, with maybe the sanding. If you have access to firearms, used platters, and a range to shoot it's quite fun (how many platters can this gun penetrate?). Sanding is a Good Thing if the data is really sensitive. Basically scramble everything you can and make it as hard as possible to move a read/write head over them, you can never raelly get 100% perfect but I bet the above is about as close as you can get (do all three for the best effect!).
The best wall outlet story I have is back in the mid to late 80's: you had ghostbusters slime and Mr. Wizard. The slime required a certain amount of heat to become "slimey", otherwise it was quite hard. Mr. Wizard had an episode where he cooked a hotdog with electricity. To a 10-12 year old there was no mention of the ac-dc converter nor the idea of resistance. Well, it took 10-15 minutes to warm the slime with your hands, if he could cook a hotdog in a few seconds I could have great slime almost instantly with electricity. So I took a peice of junk I had and cut the wire from it, next I stripped the ends of the wire and pushed them into the slime (180's degrees apart in the circular container). I then plugged the line into the wall where immediatly nearly 1/4 or so of the slime was rendered into carbon and two large fireballs shot from the wall outlet. The larger of the fireballs burned about a quarter size hole in my shirt and I had a slight burn on my chest. That was a large part of my interest in electronics (though much of it was a quest to blow up as many parts as possible, culminating in college and a step-up transformer and some LED's and AND gates).
For most cities I would say hours aren't needed. Time to get from the grocery store and back is all (say 30 minutes at a maximum). Though I agree it's probably not the best (in this case a motor vehicle - not necessarily a car - is best) the question was what does it gain over a bike, and it does gain that in steep areas.
A segway will have the same problem as a bike: it'll have to brake down the hill and accelerate up the hill
well, they claim stair management so I would assume that is taken care of, it has to brake pretty hard going down steps. Though, like you, I'm not going top pay $3k to test:) (as I said above I'm only offering what it buys over a bicycle in certain conditions, not why every one should have one)
well, I was in my early teens and it wasn't even a ten speed. Thinking back it was REALLY stupid, but I suppose not the dumbest thing I did. I had the typical redneck upbringing: "mom, I'm going out to blow up my GI joe guys" "ok, be carefull of your fingers" (literal conversation I once had).
I also caught my fingers on a belt sander in high school at the age of 14, I'm now 28 and I still have no finger prints on two fingers and have totally numb spot on one finger:).
I can honestly say at this point I do very few really stupid things with dangerous items, i've already done them when I didn't have access to incredibly dangerous items (guns, wall electrical outlets, home shop equipment, etc.) - ironically I'm probably safer than most people with them (now at least:) ).
well, for one thing the segway was more marketed towards people like mailmen and such - and it's an improvement over thier current needs.
Then there are places that propelled transportation is very desirable (such as where I live, an extremely hilly area - east tennessee) where many hills are kinda long and steep for a bike ride (as a teenager I had a spedometer on my bike, by about halfway down the hill I lived on I got up to 45 MPH coasting - no input from me - and I finally lost nerve and braked - I was still accelerating). I've seen pictures from california where things are pretty dense and steep - so they would be usefull.
The important part of your post is "what will it do for me that my bike won't?" - probably nothing, but that doesn't mean it won't for someone else - not every single person on the planet lives in the same environment that you do.
Re:I am the author/submitter and...
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Dow vs. Parody
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· Score: 1
Although Dow's response is a parody the story is still valid because the story is about DOW using the DMCA to force Verio to terminate service to The Thing, RTMark, and The Yes Men.
The problem is that nearly the entierty of you r argument about this being evil is not from dow. Just because the DMCA was invoked does it make it bad, in this case it was already covered under traditional copyright law. If the links provided in the beginning had been valid then I would agree with what you said, the single response that is actually from dow is actually rather valid.
Finally: a more recent poster lays a pretty good foundation that DOW has paid everything that the courts have ordered and then some.
umm, ok - you just seemed to give an argument against what you said and has nothing to do with what I said (or at least what I meant, maybe I wasn't as clear as I could have been). I actually agree with greenpeace (and beleive me when I say that is about the only time I will say this in my life) that DOW got off easy, the courts did not fine them NEAR what they should (and hence the "get away with it" line).
Conclusion: This is slashdot!!
ohh, so since this is slashdot we should be happy to have misinformation spread around? I suppose that means reposts == slashdot == good also? Or any of the other myriad stuff one typically wades through to get anything usefull? The problem I had was just that, intentional or not, you seemed to beleive greenpeace totally correct and used "evidence" that you even knew was a farce to prove a point.
Re:Play a little devils advocate.
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Dow vs. Parody
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no, no, no, you misunderstood what I said. The poster talked about a google search, I seriously doubt that all the web news sources are owned by five companies. Most of the large media companies are owned by a very small amount of companies, but by no means are THAT many owned by five companies (i mean there are PLENTY of non-mainstream news companies), a google search should have turned up plenty of resources.
Re:Play a little devils advocate.
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Dow vs. Parody
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Well, the way I see it three reasons.
One) there is a conspiracy. This is the least likely, too many news sources out there to only have greenpeace reporting it. I would beleive conspiracy if many were running it and the three big + cnn + fox were not running it, but I can't believe that any group has that much worldwide influence.
two) thier slow. This is possible. News in india probably is not very high on thier lists unless it's REALLY bad (such as the original contamination). I would buy this
three) misrepresentation. As I said greenpeace isn't really known for unbiased reporting and telling the whole story. Maybe they blew it out of proportion or misreported it.
Most likely I would guess a little bit of two and three, the contamination happened a while ago, out of most people memories. It takes time to fully research what they have (and I bet if they ran mostly false reports on dow they would rightfully sue). And I bet that there is more to this story than what they are saying (from both sides).
Play a little devils advocate.
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Dow vs. Parody
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· Score: 3, Insightful
First off there seems to have been a genreal uproar over dows "response" link, notice even the author raelised it was a parody and not in any way from dow, so you can't really fault dow for that peice (though the author says " While writing this submission I noticed that I have become a victim of The Yes Men and "Dow's" response is actually one of their parodies!:-) The story is still valid " - umm, dow didn't write it but lets hate them for it anyway? plenty of reason to hate dow but using a parody to hate them really weakens your position.)
I don't really know why the copyright violations in this are DMCA, it seems that normal copyright and trademarks cover thier violations, and yes they are violations. They were before DMCA and still will be if the DMCA is repealed. Though this should not have forced the whole site down, just the removeal of the copyrighted/trademarked images (hey, make some parody version of them - that's legal, but you can't just copy thier images and pretend to be them). Plus they quote cybersquatting statutes, they don't really seem to be cybersquatting (though using dow-chemical is iffy on copyright, had they used something like dow-chemical-sucks they would have easily been in the parody/protest stuff, but they seemed to have intentionally tried to fool someone into thinking they were dow to get them there).
And lastly "Dow has committed a reprehensible act, even for corporate America, by suing the survivors for ten years of income ($10,000) for protesting Dow's failure to clean up the mess." No, even according to the greenpeace article the survivors carried contamited material to thier site - that's not legal. While I greatly sympathise with them (and definatly think they got screwed royally) that doesn't give you the right to do that. As neither does being rich give someone the right to pollute with impunity. Much like in the US many protestors seem to think that the first amendment gives them the right to trasspass and destroy property, it doesn't - gather on public land all you want, don't block traffic and not only are you legal but you garner much more sympathy.
In sum, they have a very legitimate complaint, dow chemical did some VERY bad stuff and deserve to be raped in court, and never have and probably never will. But that doesn't give you the right (in the US, or apparently india either) to do whatever you feel (eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth isn't in the constitution). Plus my final complaint is that we have only heard one side, greenpeace isn't really know for being exactly unbiased and giving complete stories. There are much more effective ways to try and get something, they failed, now all they do is make people much less sympathetic overall to their cause (maybe it makes them feel better though).
so, though it is a little late to answer your post, I will say the following:
sorry about missing the third, I though I had them all, though that still doesn't invalidate what I said.
about the presser case, ok, I admit I erred, I read several cases on google that claimed to deal with it, but they dealt with several other cases also. So from the releveant case log from google I will quote:
"The question is, therefore," Justice Woods wrote, "Had he a right, as a citizen of the United States, in disobedience of the state law, to associate with others as a military company, and to drill and parade with arms in the towns and cities of the state?"
In the decision of the United States Supreme Court, Justice Wood wrote, "We think it clear that the sections under consideration which only forbid bodies of men to associate together as military organization, or to drill or parade with arms in cities and towns unless authorized by law, do not infringe the right of the people to keep and bear arms."
Justice Woods went on to say in Presser, supra, "It is undoubtedly true that all citizens capable of bearing arms constitute the reserve military force or reserve militia of the United States as well as of the states, and, in view of this prerogative of the general government, as well as of its general powers, that states cannot, even laying the Constitutional provision in question out of view, prohibit the people from keeping and bearing arms, so as to deprive the United States of their rightful resource for maintaining the public security, and disable the people from performing their duty to the general government."
in this end they still are supporting states right and not the federal govts to impose gun restrictions. Had the federal govt imposed those laws I would say they would be found void.
from your own words: The language implied that the state could not universally ban a weapon needed by a state militia. But the court did not state that the each and every citizen of the state must be legally permitted to keep and bear those weapons or that each person be allowed to be a part of said state militia.
doesn't the ninth amendment or so state that the federal govt only has those powers explicitly given to them by the constitution, therefore isn't the above right you mention null and void of the federal govt? Now then I think states have the right to do so (as they have the right to state a state run religion, notice the first amendment says "congress", not govt.
now to the one I missed: Print Version
United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
UNITED STATES v. Francis T. WARIN, 530 F.2d 103 (1976)
cert denied 96 S.Ct. 3168 (1976)
Argued Dec. 16, 1975. Decided Feb. 4, 1976.
Syllabus
Defendant was convicted in the District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, Don J. Young, J., of possessing a submachine gun which was not registered to him and he appealed. The Court of Appeals, Lively, Circuit Judge, held that Second Amendment guaranteed a collective rather than an individual right; that fact that defendant, in common with all adult residents and citizens of Ohio, was subject to enrollment in the state militia did not confer any Second Amendment right upon him to possess the submachine gun; that the National Firearms Act did not attempt to tax the right to keep and bear arms and thus did not apply to any right protected by the Second Amendment; and that the possession of an unregistered submachine gun was not an additional fundamental right protected by the Ninth Amendment.
umm, you do know the difference between the circut court and the supreme court don't you? Circut courts do not revolve around the whole united states, plus the decision only applied to fully automatic rifles (which were dubious at best, much like atomic weapons/weapons of mass destruction).
from your reply:Every able bodied person WAS the militia - they felt standing armies were anathema to a democracy or republic.
Including convicted felons?
But it was not every person. It was every able-bodied male. So does that mean that a state has a legal right to prevent women from owning guns? Sounds that way if we want to be strict constructionists.
if you have chosen to make the argument about what the founding fathers thought, then yes, that is true. Abled bodies males isn't toatally correct (they must be land owning also). The thought is that only the people with something to risk will care about the country.
on the other hand if you wish to base your arguments about something else then ok, state it, but if you state that the founding fathers wanted X when that is demonstrativly not truie then you fail, try again.
We have a SGI CAVE system at work, at a nearly 7 x 7 cube it is huge. The guys that run it are all happy because they have 1280*1280 (it's not quite square, 1280x something smaller, I don't remeber - oh yea, they got a new machine to drive it and moved up from 1024xsomething a little smaller) resolution. I had basically the same thought as you. But after playing quake on it I would have to say I was very impressed, both by the detail and the immersive environment. I don't know why it looked good (the DPI had to suck) but whatever it was it worked (I suppose given the right set of inputs my brain filled in the rest?).
That being said I have not personally seen this monitor and can not specifically answer your missgiving, just that DPI in CRT != DPI on a cave system (or the immersa(sp?) desk as it was quite low also)
If the Constitution guaranteed an individual's right to unregulated gun ownership, the NRA would be challenging laws like this one and The Brady Bill in the Supreme Court. That is not happening because the NRA knows that they would lose any such challenge.
actually the NRA has. Parts of the brady bill were found unconstitutional. Several other laws have made it to the circit court and they found that it DOES relate to an individuals right (and the supreme court refuse to hear the case on appeal). The Ninth circut court ruled it only applied to the military, well see if the case goes to the supreme court.
as far as the cases you cited I looked them up on the internet. That is not exactly what the court said. In both cases a sawed off shotgun was the case. They found a sawed off shotgun was not needed for a state militia (and thier language strongly implied that if it were the law would have been unconstitutional) and therefore fell into states right. It wasn't that it was not an individual right it was that the sawed off shotgun didn't fit the category they wanted for the arms.
Now congress passing a law (versus the state) can be seen in a totally other light (it's interesting that in the early years of govt. it was assumed because the first amendent said "congress" states could propose official state religions and curb some speech - though that is not the interpretation now). In presser vs. Illinois they repeated several times that the states had the right to ban them. (Even though I would fall into the "gun nut" category I agree with this, I don't live in california so who am I to say getting rid of guns there won't solve all thier problems, I do live in tennessee and I will say that more than several of my relatives that live in the mountains depend on thier guns to kill food, they would starve without them - bad thing to take them away)
And lastly we can look at the federalist papers and see an expanded version. Every able bodied person WAS the militia - they felt standing armies were anathema to a democracy or republic. In thier language militia == individual right as an official state (or federal) army was considered unconstitutional. They made that fairly plain in thier writings, now of course it is entierly possible for the supreme court to decide it means something else but for a few of the amendments the founding fathers were quite verbose about EXACTLY what they meant.
Actually I've had my microwave crash once, every cell in the panel lit up and it did nothing, had to unplug the thing. And the timer repeatedly, but not consistently sits for about a second and a half in the 5-10 second range. And it's not a cheap wal-mart microwave either. Do you think they can have the gun operate corectly in the 5 nines range? if not I hope you don't need it when it failes the one in "really big number I don't remeber off hand".
Putting these recordings on P2P networks for anyone to download just denies descendants of the original artists of those recordings their rightful royalties.
no, in the case you mentioned it does not. First the 78's are not available for sale, what is pressed on the 78 is all there will ever be, no more sales == no more roalities. Thus once all the 78's are worn out (record do wear out you know, maybe you aren't old enough to remeber) the music will be gone forever - unless a master is saved (probably not, not profitable) or someone has "illegally" recorded said music to CD.
this issue has absolutely nothing to do with P2P networks. After a reasonable period of time copyright runs out, this is one of the examples that it is meant to preserve. This is a perfect example of unlimited copyright (or very long copyright) and inability to make fair use copies destroying forever someones artistic works.
I don't necessarily disagree, and I think neither do the authors. One chapter of the book goes over both problems with thier study and what you can't deduce from it (it's late in the book). They basically say something similar to what you said above (though a little less critical of course:) ). While correlation does not prove causation it doesn't disprove causation either, a big chunk of the book was an attempt to strengthen that argument.
Gould assumes too much (basically the problem I have with many, not all, of the detractors). He begins by saying they are social darwinisms and debunks that theory, good - he right on debunking it. Unfortunatly for gould The Bell Curve was not the classic social darwinism he debunked. He also make claims he does not support, i.e.:
The general claim is neither uninteresting nor illogical, but it does require the validity of fourshaky premises, all asserted (but hardly discussed or de- fended) by Herrnstein and Murray. Intelligence, in their formulation, must be depictable as a single number, capable of ranking people in linear order, genetically based, and effectively immutable. If any of these premises are false, their en-tire argument collapses.
occupies at least a whole chapter on cultural influences and the weaknesses of single number IQ tests, he just didn't like thier arguments so he dismisses them as "not there" (Gould seems to do this quite often on social issues). As one of the articles about his review is that modern IQ tests are not quite as simple as they make out (though they still reduce it to one number). Basically it seems there are several camps on the use of IQ tests, if you fall into one of the diametrically opposed viewpoints of them you will hate the book. The genetically based IQ was what they were trying to show so it doesn't count. And finally immutable IQ's don't necessarilly invalidate what they said, unless they are drastically changable (like from 95-130, some variation is expected but not that serious)
or another example
for early intervention in education might work to boost I.Q. permanently,
he accuses authors of no proof and then makes a statement like this, yea it might, and it might not - didn't proove anything. At least link to some study that shows this, it's like saying our current theory of gravity might not be correct because somewhere in the universe it may not hold. Well, yea, that's true - but that doesn't mean that the current gravity theory is wrong either (nor should we ignore it becuase of that). I don't know enough about IQ studies if it is shown that IQ's fluctuate signifigantly or not, but the twin studies The Bell Curve uses would seem to suggest a strong genetic influence and relativly immutable, at least show evidence to the contrary or I have to assume Gould is just being a hack.
next he goes on to dicuss inheritance in things such as height, and is totally correct. What he failed to address was the use of identical twins study, and what I at least took as the bulk of the bell curve. As the authors stated the sample is still quite small and there are other problems but no real showstoppers. Again Gould has always seemed to have this trait: ignore stuff he doesn't think is relevant.
After reading Gould refutations I'm basically repeating them, they were much more insightfull than his (and one was critical of both the bell curve and Gould).
basically when I read statements like the one I responded too it's usually someone who has not read the book. My phsych teacher was a Phd candidate and went into a 15 minute tirade about the bell curve one day, all completely wrong. I said that that is not what the book said and with a triumphant smile she asked had I raed the book, yes, twice though the apendicies only once. I then asked if she had and she said, "well, I raed the introduction but that is all I needed to read". Basically she listened to what the news complained about and reiterated it.
The other one that drive me nuts is how often Adam Smiths The Wealth of Nations is misquoted by people who have never read it, and the last one is charles darwins Origin of the Species.
While people still like to bash the bell curve it's the first place I ever heard that phrase, and they said it often. I also learned first there what a normal distribution was (and what they said was the same I got in my stats classes).
The problem came when journalist and many other people read the correlation numbers and assumed it proved something. They complained constantly and many people took it to be gospel.
In fact the final conclusion of the bell curve was an increased emphasis on education. That a high level of education for people of lower intelligence had a great impact, just don't force the smarter kids to learn at thier pace - and I agree totally.
The other part is that genetics plays a large part of maximum intelligence. Thier quote was basically that had newton grown up in the rain forest he probably would have not invented calculus, but he would still have been smart. Don't force avarage children to take AP calsses and don't force brilliant children to take fundamental (that's what the lowest "hardness" classes were called when I was in school), Which also makes sense - maximise what each level is able to learn, don't force the kids (if an average intelligence can work hard enough to pass an ap course let them). All in all I think that is a reasonable thing, much better than what I experience in school (in order to "boost" thier self esteem they made certain kids go into a higher class than they could actually do, they learned nothing and they slowed the rest of the class considerably).
And finally my thoughts on it are most people have no problem with every other physical aspect being ruled by genetics, why is your innate intelligence the only one not? intellegence != education and that is important to remember, as above, put a below average person in an AP class and they are still below average, but an above average in a fundamental class and they are still above average. An above average that lives in the mountains of tennessee (as I have several family members who do) without electricity and no school : they are not educated, take a below average intelligence person in the cities of tennessee and put them through high school and they will have a lot higer level of education (will no more "things"). I never really found that too drastic of a thought and fairly obvious, but I know some people who that idea just enrages.
Maybe amazon should try and patent this type of thing, popup a window, when you mouse over it automatically purchase the book! Imagine the convenience, you no longer will have to even use the energy required to punch a single button, everything is taken care for you. And the best part is you don't even have to think about the purchase, the've already done it for you! Imagine getting the hottest book sells in the coutry delivered right to your door!
At least from my reading of the article is that they had two choices: linux on new store checkout systems, windows on the desktops (same arch at the least, maybe same hardware): or windows everywhere. They decided that purchasing hardware and making sure hardware/drivers were compatible between both systems was too much work (plus I am assuming that cost of two sets of IT staff figured in as well, or at the least extra training), So they chose windows. That seems like valid logic to me (choosing all linux would also be valid logic).
And, like it or not, if you are either a large enough customer, or a famous enough customer, microsoft bends over backwards for you (they do for us at work, and we are mostly a linux shop). Remember the recent article about the kernel developers trying to make it harder for binary only modules? That's not really trying to woo corporate customers (and it was not thier intention to pander to coporations, so no i'm not bashing anyone when I say this). I'm not really suprised by corporate america looking at moves like that as a "negative" in the support column. You can't have the best of both worlds (do what I like and screw everybody, coporate anywhere LOVES this).
Amusingly enough if anyone here gets G4TV (A channel only about video games) one of thier current sopts they run during commercial breaks has some older game deseigners talking and doing stupid dances. Probably the funnies (IMO) is some guy with a large beard (similar to a well know linux geek) and say basically (i'm paraphrasing) "I created yar's revenge, one of the most popular video games in history (with large smile and enthusiastic, then change to downcast look and low voice) and E.T., the worst game in video game history". The scene changes and has him doing some really hokey dances, it is quite amusing. (plus interesting the same guy did both those games)
That is simply your definition of a ghost. As your definition stands it is impossible. While I don't bel;eive in ghosts you are still making a HUGE mistake in your reasoning.
Now how about this one. We have inside of us a soul, you can't measure or see it. Once we die this soul leaves our bodies, with some people an event has happened that the soul stays around on the earth. Now some people souls are able to perceive another soul and thier mind simply interprets that as a vision, but the vision is not directly through the ocular nerves, but that section of the brain processes this.
proove it wrong. You can say there is not a shred of evidence to support this and you are right, produce some that says it's absolutly wrong. About camera's taking a ghosts pictures? they can't, they are all fakes, only a being with a soul can actually detecty one. Said ghost could easily pass through a wall (do you know the physics governing a soul? maybe they can also travel in time: who knows?)
Should what I said be belived? not really, I made it up on the spot. Any evidence for it? no. It has never made it passed the hypothesis stage, nor will it ever make it past that stage. I bet you can't prove it doesn't happen, lack of detection of the whole soul things means it can never be disproved. Is it impossible? no, it just not very probable (impossible means you have show, with evidence, that it can not happen, and even then you sometimes are proven that your "proof" is not right, it's happened a few times in scientific history).
In short, be VERY carefull about using absolutes, especially when you have no way of proving them to be absolute, it's just another version of faith when you do so (though I by no means think faith is a bad thing, it's amusing when someone uses faith to disprove and ridicule faith).
They said the first public release of thier drivers. Past instances of SC have generally shown future work (as in beta stuff), not current tech. I'm willing to bet that there are other graphics drivers from other vendors that are still internal.
Plus if you don't know what video/driver subsystem how do you know it was not nvidia (and hence, still the first)?
I absolutly agree with almost every point you make except this one:
It's unheard of to be _required_ by law to purchase some particular (extreemly expensive) software.
This is, unfortunatly, quite common. My parents own a small business (land surveying company). I worked there as a "kid" (around 12-24) and still do from time to time (they can not use the specialized software I wrote and I can draw topographical maps more accurate than they can and they paid for nearly all my school and still help me if I run short of funds - and I also help them when they do). Local law REQUIRES that they provide an autocad file (nearly 4000 dollars for the software, Acad and supprting software included). This cost is EXTREMELY costly for them (no free (as in beer) option, that has all the functions that are required, software for them (of course suggestions are always welcome:) ). The local govt only sees that it is cheaper for them if this format is followed, not the costs to individual companies. These people are not really CS people and either dont really care about these issues or are not aware of them. This is why I have no problem helping my parents out (and BSD liscense all my code so it can be givin to other surveyors, for a business that has razor thin margins and is very small this seems to me to be the best option). I wish you all the luck as I know first hand that owning a business != a lot of money.
this is exactly the same type of "lose" the riaa/mpaa reports. They did not lose anything, they didn't make as much as they would if they held all numbers constant except one (tax in the case of govt, ratio of sales/downloads in the case of riaa/mpaa). That's as false in the case of *aa's as it is in the govt. To assume purchases are complete orthogonal to EVERY other factor involved is moronic (not to mention the word "lose" is not defined as "not as much as the maximum we could have").
Slashdot Mirror
According to the article the break only applies to a business. The break is what the business is able to depreciate from thier gross income. This in no way effects the lawyer who buys a cadallac SUV (unless it is a business purchase and not used for personal use). If the vehicle is bought for personal use then you are taxed out the wazoo for purchasing a gass guzzler.
In case some here have never ran a business or know much about small business economics this is why it is done. First the vehicle has to be used demonstrativly by the business (shown at an audit, if not you are levied a HUGE fine). So if this is the case it needs to be deducted. For example, my parents business grosses something aroun 250 thousand a year, I make slightly over 30k a year. In take home usable money (money to pay bills, buy "stuff", eat, etc..) I make more than they do simply becuase the business costs a HUGE amount to run. They require the use of several large offroad type vehicles with large carrying capacity - either a pickup truck or an SUV. They place something along the lines of 50-75 thousand miles per year on each vehicle, under continuous load. Tax write offs such as this keep them making some profit (even the article says this was meant for farmers). And becuase the larger trucks/SUV's cost a singifigant amount more than a smaller one this really helps.
Not to mention the the money is deductable from your income, not money that is given to you. Big difference between the govt allowing a 24000 dollar deduction over 3 years and them handing a person 24000 dollars.
Do some poeple abuse this? Of course. But how many small businesses legitamtly need this deduction - are you willing to run many of them into the ground because someone is abusing it? For many of the complaints people post, yea the abuse they show is not right, but there are MANY other uses (and in my parents case required) of deductions such as this.
And my last pet peeve (and a large one): This loophole costs the American Tresury close 1 Billion per year. No, it doesn't cost them anything. The govt didn't make as much as they could. By that reasoning just imagine the amount they are loosing by not increasing the tax rate by another 2%, or a new special tax on softdrinks, or any other thing they could conceivable raise/add taxes on (anything). That is some of the shittiest logic I ever see bandied about. It assumes the govt owns all my money and I only have money by thier good will, anything I keep on my own that I do not have an absolute need for is costing the taxpayers through the nose. Just like me copying a song I would never have bought in the first place costs the RIAA 15 dollars for the CD: FUCK NO!
The sad thing is that assuming the slashdot editors Did The Right Thing that is the best submission. Maybe that is where they get thier great use of repitition (because we all know that denotes importance).
You can easily dispose of the hard drive if you do not mind loosing it. We work at a govt. facility (I don't do any secret stuff, but we have research that we would not like to let out - afraid that someone might get it and our research and beat us out of funding, again nothing secret). Old hard drives get a combination of the following treatments. 1) shooting: we go out to the local gun range on the plinking range and proceded to fire 'em up. 2) sanding: take a drill and a snading disk and sand both sides throughly (you can easily find flexible disks that are carbon and cut into the platter quite good
). 3) vise/pliers or hammer: bend those puppies into odd shapes.
normally the disks will get the firing treatment, with maybe the sanding. If you have access to firearms, used platters, and a range to shoot it's quite fun (how many platters can this gun penetrate?). Sanding is a Good Thing if the data is really sensitive. Basically scramble everything you can and make it as hard as possible to move a read/write head over them, you can never raelly get 100% perfect but I bet the above is about as close as you can get (do all three for the best effect!).
The best wall outlet story I have is back in the mid to late 80's: you had ghostbusters slime and Mr. Wizard. The slime required a certain amount of heat to become "slimey", otherwise it was quite hard. Mr. Wizard had an episode where he cooked a hotdog with electricity. To a 10-12 year old there was no mention of the ac-dc converter nor the idea of resistance. Well, it took 10-15 minutes to warm the slime with your hands, if he could cook a hotdog in a few seconds I could have great slime almost instantly with electricity. So I took a peice of junk I had and cut the wire from it, next I stripped the ends of the wire and pushed them into the slime (180's degrees apart in the circular container). I then plugged the line into the wall where immediatly nearly 1/4 or so of the slime was rendered into carbon and two large fireballs shot from the wall outlet. The larger of the fireballs burned about a quarter size hole in my shirt and I had a slight burn on my chest. That was a large part of my interest in electronics (though much of it was a quest to blow up as many parts as possible, culminating in college and a step-up transformer and some LED's and AND gates).
For most cities I would say hours aren't needed. Time to get from the grocery store and back is all (say 30 minutes at a maximum). Though I agree it's probably not the best (in this case a motor vehicle - not necessarily a car - is best) the question was what does it gain over a bike, and it does gain that in steep areas.
:) (as I said above I'm only offering what it buys over a bicycle in certain conditions, not why every one should have one)
A segway will have the same problem as a bike: it'll have to brake down the hill and accelerate up the hill
well, they claim stair management so I would assume that is taken care of, it has to brake pretty hard going down steps. Though, like you, I'm not going top pay $3k to test
well, I was in my early teens and it wasn't even a ten speed. Thinking back it was REALLY stupid, but I suppose not the dumbest thing I did. I had the typical redneck upbringing: "mom, I'm going out to blow up my GI joe guys" "ok, be carefull of your fingers" (literal conversation I once had).
:).
:) ).
I also caught my fingers on a belt sander in high school at the age of 14, I'm now 28 and I still have no finger prints on two fingers and have totally numb spot on one finger
I can honestly say at this point I do very few really stupid things with dangerous items, i've already done them when I didn't have access to incredibly dangerous items (guns, wall electrical outlets, home shop equipment, etc.) - ironically I'm probably safer than most people with them (now at least
well, for one thing the segway was more marketed towards people like mailmen and such - and it's an improvement over thier current needs.
Then there are places that propelled transportation is very desirable (such as where I live, an extremely hilly area - east tennessee) where many hills are kinda long and steep for a bike ride (as a teenager I had a spedometer on my bike, by about halfway down the hill I lived on I got up to 45 MPH coasting - no input from me - and I finally lost nerve and braked - I was still accelerating). I've seen pictures from california where things are pretty dense and steep - so they would be usefull.
The important part of your post is "what will it do for me that my bike won't?" - probably nothing, but that doesn't mean it won't for someone else - not every single person on the planet lives in the same environment that you do.
Although Dow's response is a parody the story is still valid because the story is about DOW using the DMCA to force Verio to terminate service to The Thing, RTMark, and The Yes Men.
The problem is that nearly the entierty of you r argument about this being evil is not from dow. Just because the DMCA was invoked does it make it bad, in this case it was already covered under traditional copyright law. If the links provided in the beginning had been valid then I would agree with what you said, the single response that is actually from dow is actually rather valid.
Finally: a more recent poster lays a pretty good foundation that DOW has paid everything that the courts have ordered and then some.
umm, ok - you just seemed to give an argument against what you said and has nothing to do with what I said (or at least what I meant, maybe I wasn't as clear as I could have been). I actually agree with greenpeace (and beleive me when I say that is about the only time I will say this in my life) that DOW got off easy, the courts did not fine them NEAR what they should (and hence the "get away with it" line).
Conclusion: This is slashdot!!
ohh, so since this is slashdot we should be happy to have misinformation spread around? I suppose that means reposts == slashdot == good also? Or any of the other myriad stuff one typically wades through to get anything usefull? The problem I had was just that, intentional or not, you seemed to beleive greenpeace totally correct and used "evidence" that you even knew was a farce to prove a point.
no, no, no, you misunderstood what I said. The poster talked about a google search, I seriously doubt that all the web news sources are owned by five companies. Most of the large media companies are owned by a very small amount of companies, but by no means are THAT many owned by five companies (i mean there are PLENTY of non-mainstream news companies), a google search should have turned up plenty of resources.
Well, the way I see it three reasons.
One) there is a conspiracy. This is the least likely, too many news sources out there to only have greenpeace reporting it. I would beleive conspiracy if many were running it and the three big + cnn + fox were not running it, but I can't believe that any group has that much worldwide influence.
two) thier slow. This is possible. News in india probably is not very high on thier lists unless it's REALLY bad (such as the original contamination). I would buy this
three) misrepresentation. As I said greenpeace isn't really known for unbiased reporting and telling the whole story. Maybe they blew it out of proportion or misreported it.
Most likely I would guess a little bit of two and three, the contamination happened a while ago, out of most people memories. It takes time to fully research what they have (and I bet if they ran mostly false reports on dow they would rightfully sue). And I bet that there is more to this story than what they are saying (from both sides).
First off there seems to have been a genreal uproar over dows "response" link, notice even the author raelised it was a parody and not in any way from dow, so you can't really fault dow for that peice (though the author says " While writing this submission I noticed that I have become a victim of The Yes Men and "Dow's" response is actually one of their parodies! :-) The story is still valid " - umm, dow didn't write it but lets hate them for it anyway? plenty of reason to hate dow but using a parody to hate them really weakens your position.)
I don't really know why the copyright violations in this are DMCA, it seems that normal copyright and trademarks cover thier violations, and yes they are violations. They were before DMCA and still will be if the DMCA is repealed. Though this should not have forced the whole site down, just the removeal of the copyrighted/trademarked images (hey, make some parody version of them - that's legal, but you can't just copy thier images and pretend to be them). Plus they quote cybersquatting statutes, they don't really seem to be cybersquatting (though using dow-chemical is iffy on copyright, had they used something like dow-chemical-sucks they would have easily been in the parody/protest stuff, but they seemed to have intentionally tried to fool someone into thinking they were dow to get them there).
And lastly "Dow has committed a reprehensible act, even for corporate America, by suing the survivors for ten years of income ($10,000) for protesting Dow's failure to clean up the mess." No, even according to the greenpeace article the survivors carried contamited material to thier site - that's not legal. While I greatly sympathise with them (and definatly think they got screwed royally) that doesn't give you the right to do that. As neither does being rich give someone the right to pollute with impunity. Much like in the US many protestors seem to think that the first amendment gives them the right to trasspass and destroy property, it doesn't - gather on public land all you want, don't block traffic and not only are you legal but you garner much more sympathy.
In sum, they have a very legitimate complaint, dow chemical did some VERY bad stuff and deserve to be raped in court, and never have and probably never will. But that doesn't give you the right (in the US, or apparently india either) to do whatever you feel (eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth isn't in the constitution). Plus my final complaint is that we have only heard one side, greenpeace isn't really know for being exactly unbiased and giving complete stories. There are much more effective ways to try and get something, they failed, now all they do is make people much less sympathetic overall to their cause (maybe it makes them feel better though).
so, though it is a little late to answer your post, I will say the following:
sorry about missing the third, I though I had them all, though that still doesn't invalidate what I said.
about the presser case, ok, I admit I erred, I read several cases on google that claimed to deal with it, but they dealt with several other cases also. So from the releveant case log from google I will quote:
"The question is, therefore," Justice Woods wrote, "Had he a
right, as a citizen of the United States, in disobedience of the state
law, to associate with others as a military company, and to drill and
parade with arms in the towns and cities of the state?"
In the decision of the United States Supreme Court, Justice Wood
wrote, "We think it clear that the sections under consideration which
only forbid bodies of men to associate together as military
organization, or to drill or parade with arms in cities and towns unless
authorized by law, do not infringe the right of the people to keep and
bear arms."
Justice Woods went on to say in Presser, supra, "It is
undoubtedly true that all citizens capable of bearing arms constitute
the reserve military force or reserve militia of the United States as
well as of the states, and, in view of this prerogative of the general
government, as well as of its general powers, that states cannot, even
laying the Constitutional provision in question out of view, prohibit
the people from keeping and bearing arms, so as to deprive the United
States of their rightful resource for maintaining the public security,
and disable the people from performing their duty to the general
government."
in this end they still are supporting states right and not the federal govts to impose gun restrictions. Had the federal govt imposed those laws I would say they would be found void.
from your own words:
The language implied that the state could not universally ban a weapon needed by a state militia. But the court did not state that the each and every citizen of the state must be legally permitted to keep and bear those weapons or that each person be allowed to be a part of said state militia.
doesn't the ninth amendment or so state that the federal govt only has those powers explicitly given to them by the constitution, therefore isn't the above right you mention null and void of the federal govt? Now then I think states have the right to do so (as they have the right to state a state run religion, notice the first amendment says "congress", not govt.
now to the one I missed:
Print Version
United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
UNITED STATES v. Francis T. WARIN, 530 F.2d 103 (1976)
cert denied 96 S.Ct. 3168 (1976)
Argued Dec. 16, 1975.
Decided Feb. 4, 1976.
Syllabus
Defendant was convicted in the District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, Don J. Young, J., of possessing a submachine gun which was not registered to him and he appealed. The Court of Appeals, Lively, Circuit Judge, held that Second Amendment guaranteed a collective rather than an individual right; that fact that defendant, in common with all adult residents and citizens of Ohio, was subject to enrollment in the state militia did not confer any Second Amendment right upon him to possess the submachine gun; that the National Firearms Act did not attempt to tax the right to keep and bear arms and thus did not apply to any right protected by the Second Amendment; and that the possession of an unregistered submachine gun was not an additional fundamental right protected by the Ninth Amendment.
umm, you do know the difference between the circut court and the supreme court don't you? Circut courts do not revolve around the whole united states, plus the decision only applied to fully automatic rifles (which were dubious at best, much like atomic weapons/weapons of mass destruction).
from your reply:Every able bodied person WAS the militia - they felt standing armies were anathema to a democracy or republic.
Including convicted felons?
But it was not every person. It was every able-bodied male. So does that mean that a state has a legal right to prevent women from owning guns? Sounds that way if we want to be strict constructionists.
if you have chosen to make the argument about what the founding fathers thought, then yes, that is true. Abled bodies males isn't toatally correct (they must be land owning also). The thought is that only the people with something to risk will care about the country.
on the other hand if you wish to base your arguments about something else then ok, state it, but if you state that the founding fathers wanted X when that is demonstrativly not truie then you fail, try again.
We have a SGI CAVE system at work, at a nearly 7 x 7 cube it is huge. The guys that run it are all happy because they have 1280*1280 (it's not quite square, 1280x something smaller, I don't remeber - oh yea, they got a new machine to drive it and moved up from 1024xsomething a little smaller) resolution. I had basically the same thought as you. But after playing quake on it I would have to say I was very impressed, both by the detail and the immersive environment. I don't know why it looked good (the DPI had to suck) but whatever it was it worked (I suppose given the right set of inputs my brain filled in the rest?).
That being said I have not personally seen this monitor and can not specifically answer your missgiving, just that DPI in CRT != DPI on a cave system (or the immersa(sp?) desk as it was quite low also)
If the Constitution guaranteed an individual's right to unregulated gun ownership, the NRA would be challenging laws like this one and The Brady Bill in the Supreme Court. That is not happening because the NRA knows that they would lose any such challenge.
actually the NRA has. Parts of the brady bill were found unconstitutional. Several other laws have made it to the circit court and they found that it DOES relate to an individuals right (and the supreme court refuse to hear the case on appeal). The Ninth circut court ruled it only applied to the military, well see if the case goes to the supreme court.
as far as the cases you cited I looked them up on the internet. That is not exactly what the court said. In both cases a sawed off shotgun was the case. They found a sawed off shotgun was not needed for a state militia (and thier language strongly implied that if it were the law would have been unconstitutional) and therefore fell into states right. It wasn't that it was not an individual right it was that the sawed off shotgun didn't fit the category they wanted for the arms.
Now congress passing a law (versus the state) can be seen in a totally other light (it's interesting that in the early years of govt. it was assumed because the first amendent said "congress" states could propose official state religions and curb some speech - though that is not the interpretation now). In presser vs. Illinois they repeated several times that the states had the right to ban them. (Even though I would fall into the "gun nut" category I agree with this, I don't live in california so who am I to say getting rid of guns there won't solve all thier problems, I do live in tennessee and I will say that more than several of my relatives that live in the mountains depend on thier guns to kill food, they would starve without them - bad thing to take them away)
And lastly we can look at the federalist papers and see an expanded version. Every able bodied person WAS the militia - they felt standing armies were anathema to a democracy or republic. In thier language militia == individual right as an official state (or federal) army was considered unconstitutional. They made that fairly plain in thier writings, now of course it is entierly possible for the supreme court to decide it means something else but for a few of the amendments the founding fathers were quite verbose about EXACTLY what they meant.
Actually I've had my microwave crash once, every cell in the panel lit up and it did nothing, had to unplug the thing. And the timer repeatedly, but not consistently sits for about a second and a half in the 5-10 second range. And it's not a cheap wal-mart microwave either. Do you think they can have the gun operate corectly in the 5 nines range? if not I hope you don't need it when it failes the one in "really big number I don't remeber off hand".
Putting these recordings on P2P networks for anyone to download just denies descendants of the original artists of those recordings their rightful royalties.
no, in the case you mentioned it does not. First the 78's are not available for sale, what is pressed on the 78 is all there will ever be, no more sales == no more roalities. Thus once all the 78's are worn out (record do wear out you know, maybe you aren't old enough to remeber) the music will be gone forever - unless a master is saved (probably not, not profitable) or someone has "illegally" recorded said music to CD.
this issue has absolutely nothing to do with P2P networks. After a reasonable period of time copyright runs out, this is one of the examples that it is meant to preserve. This is a perfect example of unlimited copyright (or very long copyright) and inability to make fair use copies destroying forever someones artistic works.
I don't necessarily disagree, and I think neither do the authors. One chapter of the book goes over both problems with thier study and what you can't deduce from it (it's late in the book). They basically say something similar to what you said above (though a little less critical of course :) ). While correlation does not prove causation it doesn't disprove causation either, a big chunk of the book was an attempt to strengthen that argument.
Gould assumes too much (basically the problem I have with many, not all, of the detractors). He begins by saying they are social darwinisms and debunks that theory, good - he right on debunking it. Unfortunatly for gould The Bell Curve was not the classic social darwinism he debunked. He also make claims he does not support, i.e.:
The general claim is neither uninteresting nor illogical, but it does require the validity of fourshaky premises, all asserted (but hardly discussed or de- fended) by Herrnstein and Murray. Intelligence, in their formulation, must be depictable as a single number, capable of ranking people in linear order, genetically based, and effectively immutable. If any of these premises are false, their en-tire argument collapses.
occupies at least a whole chapter on cultural influences and the weaknesses of single number IQ tests, he just didn't like thier arguments so he dismisses them as "not there" (Gould seems to do this quite often on social issues). As one of the articles about his review is that modern IQ tests are not quite as simple as they make out (though they still reduce it to one number). Basically it seems there are several camps on the use of IQ tests, if you fall into one of the diametrically opposed viewpoints of them you will hate the book. The genetically based IQ was what they were trying to show so it doesn't count. And finally immutable IQ's don't necessarilly invalidate what they said, unless they are drastically changable (like from 95-130, some variation is expected but not that serious)
or another example
for early intervention in education
might work to boost I.Q. permanently,
he accuses authors of no proof and then makes a statement like this, yea it might, and it might not - didn't proove anything. At least link to some study that shows this, it's like saying our current theory of gravity might not be correct because somewhere in the universe it may not hold. Well, yea, that's true - but that doesn't mean that the current gravity theory is wrong either (nor should we ignore it becuase of that). I don't know enough about IQ studies if it is shown that IQ's fluctuate signifigantly or not, but the twin studies The Bell Curve uses would seem to suggest a strong genetic influence and relativly immutable, at least show evidence to the contrary or I have to assume Gould is just being a hack.
next he goes on to dicuss inheritance in things such as height, and is totally correct. What he failed to address was the use of identical twins study, and what I at least took as the bulk of the bell curve. As the authors stated the sample is still quite small and there are other problems but no real showstoppers. Again Gould has always seemed to have this trait: ignore stuff he doesn't think is relevant.
After reading Gould refutations I'm basically repeating them, they were much more insightfull than his (and one was critical of both the bell curve and Gould).
basically when I read statements like the one I responded too it's usually someone who has not read the book. My phsych teacher was a Phd candidate and went into a 15 minute tirade about the bell curve one day, all completely wrong. I said that that is not what the book said and with a triumphant smile she asked had I raed the book, yes, twice though the apendicies only once. I then asked if she had and she said, "well, I raed the introduction but that is all I needed to read". Basically she listened to what the news complained about and reiterated it.
The other one that drive me nuts is how often Adam Smiths The Wealth of Nations is misquoted by people who have never read it, and the last one is charles darwins Origin of the Species.
While people still like to bash the bell curve it's the first place I ever heard that phrase, and they said it often. I also learned first there what a normal distribution was (and what they said was the same I got in my stats classes).
The problem came when journalist and many other people read the correlation numbers and assumed it proved something. They complained constantly and many people took it to be gospel.
In fact the final conclusion of the bell curve was an increased emphasis on education. That a high level of education for people of lower intelligence had a great impact, just don't force the smarter kids to learn at thier pace - and I agree totally.
The other part is that genetics plays a large part of maximum intelligence. Thier quote was basically that had newton grown up in the rain forest he probably would have not invented calculus, but he would still have been smart. Don't force avarage children to take AP calsses and don't force brilliant children to take fundamental (that's what the lowest "hardness" classes were called when I was in school), Which also makes sense - maximise what each level is able to learn, don't force the kids (if an average intelligence can work hard enough to pass an ap course let them). All in all I think that is a reasonable thing, much better than what I experience in school (in order to "boost" thier self esteem they made certain kids go into a higher class than they could actually do, they learned nothing and they slowed the rest of the class considerably).
And finally my thoughts on it are most people have no problem with every other physical aspect being ruled by genetics, why is your innate intelligence the only one not? intellegence != education and that is important to remember, as above, put a below average person in an AP class and they are still below average, but an above average in a fundamental class and they are still above average. An above average that lives in the mountains of tennessee (as I have several family members who do) without electricity and no school : they are not educated, take a below average intelligence person in the cities of tennessee and put them through high school and they will have a lot higer level of education (will no more "things"). I never really found that too drastic of a thought and fairly obvious, but I know some people who that idea just enrages.
Maybe amazon should try and patent this type of thing, popup a window, when you mouse over it automatically purchase the book! Imagine the convenience, you no longer will have to even use the energy required to punch a single button, everything is taken care for you. And the best part is you don't even have to think about the purchase, the've already done it for you! Imagine getting the hottest book sells in the coutry delivered right to your door!
At least from my reading of the article is that they had two choices: linux on new store checkout systems, windows on the desktops (same arch at the least, maybe same hardware): or windows everywhere. They decided that purchasing hardware and making sure hardware/drivers were compatible between both systems was too much work (plus I am assuming that cost of two sets of IT staff figured in as well, or at the least extra training), So they chose windows. That seems like valid logic to me (choosing all linux would also be valid logic).
And, like it or not, if you are either a large enough customer, or a famous enough customer, microsoft bends over backwards for you (they do for us at work, and we are mostly a linux shop). Remember the recent article about the kernel developers trying to make it harder for binary only modules? That's not really trying to woo corporate customers (and it was not thier intention to pander to coporations, so no i'm not bashing anyone when I say this). I'm not really suprised by corporate america looking at moves like that as a "negative" in the support column. You can't have the best of both worlds (do what I like and screw everybody, coporate anywhere LOVES this).
Amusingly enough if anyone here gets G4TV (A channel only about video games) one of thier current sopts they run during commercial breaks has some older game deseigners talking and doing stupid dances. Probably the funnies (IMO) is some guy with a large beard (similar to a well know linux geek) and say basically (i'm paraphrasing) "I created yar's revenge, one of the most popular video games in history (with large smile and enthusiastic, then change to downcast look and low voice) and E.T., the worst game in video game history". The scene changes and has him doing some really hokey dances, it is quite amusing. (plus interesting the same guy did both those games)
That is simply your definition of a ghost. As your definition stands it is impossible. While I don't bel;eive in ghosts you are still making a HUGE mistake in your reasoning.
Now how about this one. We have inside of us a soul, you can't measure or see it. Once we die this soul leaves our bodies, with some people an event has happened that the soul stays around on the earth. Now some people souls are able to perceive another soul and thier mind simply interprets that as a vision, but the vision is not directly through the ocular nerves, but that section of the brain processes this.
proove it wrong. You can say there is not a shred of evidence to support this and you are right, produce some that says it's absolutly wrong. About camera's taking a ghosts pictures? they can't, they are all fakes, only a being with a soul can actually detecty one. Said ghost could easily pass through a wall (do you know the physics governing a soul? maybe they can also travel in time: who knows?)
Should what I said be belived? not really, I made it up on the spot. Any evidence for it? no. It has never made it passed the hypothesis stage, nor will it ever make it past that stage. I bet you can't prove it doesn't happen, lack of detection of the whole soul things means it can never be disproved. Is it impossible? no, it just not very probable (impossible means you have show, with evidence, that it can not happen, and even then you sometimes are proven that your "proof" is not right, it's happened a few times in scientific history).
In short, be VERY carefull about using absolutes, especially when you have no way of proving them to be absolute, it's just another version of faith when you do so (though I by no means think faith is a bad thing, it's amusing when someone uses faith to disprove and ridicule faith).
They said the first public release of thier drivers. Past instances of SC have generally shown future work (as in beta stuff), not current tech. I'm willing to bet that there are other graphics drivers from other vendors that are still internal.
Plus if you don't know what video/driver subsystem how do you know it was not nvidia (and hence, still the first)?
I absolutly agree with almost every point you make except this one:
:) ). The local govt only sees that it is cheaper for them if this format is followed, not the costs to individual companies. These people are not really CS people and either dont really care about these issues or are not aware of them. This is why I have no problem helping my parents out (and BSD liscense all my code so it can be givin to other surveyors, for a business that has razor thin margins and is very small this seems to me to be the best option). I wish you all the luck as I know first hand that owning a business != a lot of money.
It's unheard of to be _required_ by law to purchase some particular (extreemly expensive) software.
This is, unfortunatly, quite common. My parents own a small business (land surveying company). I worked there as a "kid" (around 12-24) and still do from time to time (they can not use the specialized software I wrote and I can draw topographical maps more accurate than they can and they paid for nearly all my school and still help me if I run short of funds - and I also help them when they do). Local law REQUIRES that they provide an autocad file (nearly 4000 dollars for the software, Acad and supprting software included). This cost is EXTREMELY costly for them (no free (as in beer) option, that has all the functions that are required, software for them (of course suggestions are always welcome
this is exactly the same type of "lose" the riaa/mpaa reports. They did not lose anything, they didn't make as much as they would if they held all numbers constant except one (tax in the case of govt, ratio of sales/downloads in the case of riaa/mpaa). That's as false in the case of *aa's as it is in the govt. To assume purchases are complete orthogonal to EVERY other factor involved is moronic (not to mention the word "lose" is not defined as "not as much as the maximum we could have").
No wonder govt likes thier definition of lose.