The drug companies don't get any bennefit from producing
drugs that kill people. They don't do this on purpose.
No one said they did it on purpose. But they have chosen,
after causing the damage, to do everything they can to abandon
any responsibility they have for their victims.
I too enjoy the benefits of drug testing, and recognize it as
a necessary risk - Which 99.999% of the time has at worst unpleasant
side effects, but on occasion kills or leaves people a wreck. That
much I can accept, and have no problem with.
When that 0.001% occurs, however, Big Pharm can't just say "oh well,
you signed a waiver, have a nice life; and if not, well, at least
you won't have to endure it long" and call it a day - Just as someone
can't legally sign themselves into slavery (other than joining the
military); or allow someone to murder them; or sign away any of the
rest of our "inalienable" rights.
The GP (post to which you responded) completely mistook the tone
of the FP - It didn't blame the victims, it completely blamed the
company. It went on to point out that, after this incident
which demonstrates how little concept comanies have of their ethical
(and possibly legal) obligations to their victims - That only total
idiots would sign up for trials with even the slightest bit of risk
(ie, any of them). And that will hurt us all.
Mozilla has just entered into a multi-year agreement with Real Networks
Look, if you plan to sell your soul, at least sell it to the devil himself, not
just any ol' schmuck in goat leggings.
Like Billy G - Now he might have given you fame, power, glory, girls (hey,
look at Melinda!). But no - Instead, you gave your soul to a guy named Phil who
smokes too much and ends every sentence with "Trust me!".
In five years, when you all look back and wonder how you went from posing a serious
threat to MSIE, to posing a sort-of-maybe threat to Opera - Remember this day.
The response/parent suggested that misbehavior was justified when management does bad things.
It's not. And it never will be in a civilized society.
Of course not. When the Fuhrer tells you to kill Jews, you just do it, right? It doesn't
matter that it counts as "bad", "in a civilized society" we obey the alpha male without question.
Damned straight! Put that goddamned hippy back in his place. I'll bet he takes pencils from work,
too...
Perhaps you've accepted the dog-collar and leg-irons your employer
asked you to wear "for your own safety", but some of us still believe
that we work to live, not live to work.
"Creating an atmosphere conducive to sexual harassment". I don't even
know where to start with describing just how much that has wrong
with it, so I'll end here before I start ranting.
it's going to come right back at you whenever you deal with the police.
Your saying that demonstrates that you don't "get" it - I shouldn't ever
need to deal with the police if I don't break the law (I'll leave
the more philosophical issue, of whether or not anyone actually can
stay 100% within the law, out of this one).
Get the fucking chip off your shoulder and learn to deal with the world.
Free clue - TV indoctrinates almost all kids to consider the police
as all but god's gift to mankind, the last bastion of truth and
beauty on the planet. That impression lasts until their first
non-fluffy-happy-show-n'-tell encounter with the police. Yes,
even naive ol' PLA once believed the sacred lies - imagine that!
Now, if so many people have an attitude similar to mine, despite having
once upon a time believed in the "officer friendly" fairytale - How do
you suppose those attitudes get so drastically reversed?
Free hint - Not because they act in a manner that warrants respect and
politeness (or at least not beyond the required act - Or, as you put
it, "deal[ing] with the world" as it exists rather than as it should).
The police have a job to do: catching people breaking the law. Anyone not
doing so shouldn't need to kiss porcine ass just to go unmolested by the
local constabulary.
Being respectful and polite is not the same as "demeaning
yourself and giving up all self-respect"
As I do not consider myself a criminal, I consider it nothing
at least a waste of my time, and more often mild harassment,
when the police decide they want to chat with me about my attire/speed/the
weather (and yes, I've have had cops "talk" with me about all three - They
don't like overcoats, they apparently don't like cruise control set 1mph
below the speed limit, and as for the weather, I can only guess
that he just wanted to "casually" chat with me and "just happen" to notice some sufficient cause to beat up the dirty hippy).
Now - Why, exactly (other than the GLARINGLY FRICKIN' OBVIOUS threat to
my safety and personal freedom) would I "respect" these assholes for
wasting my time and harassing me?
So yes, faking respect for these walking ego-trips amounts to
demeaning yourself before "da man" for the sake of staying safe
from the very people supposedly there "to serve and protect".
Since she is an experienced teacher with extremely good
recommendations, I wonder if it would have been possible to
get a master's degree very quickly by turning in a portfolio?
As another child-of-a-teacher, I can answer that - with a simple "no".
Education departments don't quite work like most others. They form
a very rigid little clique, and strongly discourage any marketable
second majors or minors* (warning sign #1, IMO - they want to make
damned sure you have no easy escape once you start). And while
politics plays far too heavy of a role in getting any
degree, Education basically amounts to "shut up, drink the
kool-ade, and think what we tell you to".
Most "good" old-school teachers can't deal with such complete
BS, and either take early retirement (if available), move to private
or university education, or change careers completely.
But have no fear, the next gen of children will have the
best-indoctrinated socialized baby-sitters ever. And
while they might graduate without knowing basic arithmetic,
cheer up, they'll have great self-esteem that their
senior project, completing "Coloring with Elmo and Me", received
an "A".
* at my uni, you literally had to twist the rules to the breaking
point to get a minor in education - They "officially" had one, but
didn't let any non-ed-majors into the classes. In order
to get the minor, you had to declare yourself an education major
at the end of your Sophmore year, take 15+ Education credits that
couldn't possibly apply in any way to your "real" major (which would
thus technically satisfy the department-nonspecific conditions for
a minor), then switch majors the next semester (oddly, the same
technicality this exploited also required less than 30 credits
in that subject) which, the way other majors tended to schedule
classes, would all but preclude you graduating in under five years).
The company will begin relying on advertising sales rather
than monthly fees paid by customers
AOL doesn't exactly have a reputation for its great
"content". What fans it does have, it has for
making the internet accessible to complete technophobes.
So perhaps I misunderstand their use of the word "advertising",
but what, exactly, do they plan to advertise with?
Somehow, I just can't see big money rolling in to put banners
across the top of "my cat fluffy's homepage" or the literally
millions of what amount to the web equivalent of "is this thing
on?".
But good luck to 'em. As much as I hate TW, and have traditionally
made fun of A-O-Lusers, it saddens me to see the last of the
original great ISPs slowly dying off.
Start having lots of conversations in earshot of management about electrical fires.
And on a more serious note, start talking to management about the wisdom of putting
a human in the server room.
We have a similarly sized server room at my workplace, a bit more horsepower though.
And we can't actually work in there for any length of time due to OSHA regs - It stays
a nice comfy 86-88db in there all the time. If (when, I should say) we need to replace
a server, we would need to wear earplugs to legally stay in the room long enough.
Your boss might not care about pesky little problems like the Pauli Exclusion
Principle*, but when it comes to OSHA, employers tend to go out of their way to
do things the "right" way (and if not, you can guarantee they will the second
time).
The module holds keys, but the Army will not be able to control the installation of keys into the module.
How does this make the system trustworthy?
Think of the Army as an ISP. Whenever a computer tries to connect to their network, they can
query the TPM module to verify that the configuration of the machine matches what they allow - Not
only that they have allowed it (not sure how their network looks, but think "on the domain" here),
but also that someone hasn't snuck in, sat at an authorized-and-logged-in machine, and installed
a network sniffer.
Of course, the PROBLEM with TPM comes from exactly that same idea - Think of your ISP as an ISP (duh).
They can query your TPM module and deny access if, for example, they find a P2P client, or VOIP,
or IM, or basically anything they don't like.
Furthermore, your ISP could require a totally incompatible configuration from, say, your employer's
VPN (they've never enforced it, but my current broadband TOS explicitly prohibits tunneling into
another network, even with permission). Bam, hope you didn't want to telecommute.
We've heard a lot about "net neutrality" lately - You can best think of TPM as the opposite of "software (on
my own PC) neutrality". Just about anyone you connect to could conceivably refuse you service because they
don't like what you have running on your computer.
Not a pretty future, if TPM gains enough popularity that companies feel comfortable in requiring it - And
the Army counts as a big enough buyer that they just pushed us all a lot closer to that threshold.
You can safely leave the "Computer Browser" service set
to "manual", and it will almost never actually turn on.
Does SSL still work?
The "HTTP SSL" service has nothing to do with what
it sounds like - You can safely disable that.
Can I still resolve domain names?
"The DNS Client service" only acts as a cache,
you can safely disable it and DNS queries still
work just fine.
Can I still print?
That one, you need to leave turned on if
you have a printer. Though if you only print
once a month or so, you can leave it set to
manual and just turn it on when you need it (it
won't autostart on demand, though - I use a shortcut
to "net start spooler" to turn it on for the
rare occasions when I print).
Can I still adjust my video preferences?
Completely disable any services and startup programs
related to your video card - They do nothing
for you that you can't still do by going to the normal
control panel's display properties page.
And no ammount of service tweaking will replace the boost you
see from going from 128MB to 1GB of RAM
I've used cordless mice before, and the function was perfect compared to a corded mouse.
Agreed. Since I "switch"ed to wireless optical mice, I will never, ever go back.
Can't imagine what bluetooth would improve!
I see you missed that part about "does not work with Windows yet (no words on Linux)". Why
go with a USB dongle-based wireless mouse that will work on just about any machine made in the
past decade, when you can return to the glory-days of platform tie-in even for something so minor
as a mouse (which, of course, justifies paying $70 rather than $15-$20 for a similar USB wireless)?;-)
Okay, now cue the hordes of fanboys who will assume that I've never used a "Mighty Mouse",
rather than accept the possibility that I have and just find it no better, but far more
expensive, than a $20 Kensington or MI or Targus - And who then post AC to demonstrate
their conviction.
However, the cordless mice I've used have been a little fat and heavy due to batteries.
Look for a "notebook" wireless optical (they usually use AAA batteries, but sometimes take a single
AA) - I use one so small that I literally use just my index and middle fingers to move and click it.
It takes some getting used to, since we normally use our thumbs for so much, but after a while you
start to actually forget about the mouse - it just feels like moving your hand around on the desk
makes the pointer move accordingly.
Well, yeah - You don't want just any ol' genetic fragment (such
as a virus) coming along and modifying your code... You only want
properly authorized DNA from a compatible player to merge with
your own. And don't even think about trying any region
unlock codes - We all know that leads to nothing but the
big "C".
Now, if they find that our DNA has a copyright notice, I'll get a
tad worried. But DRM can count as beneficial, just not the
kind controlled by an evil megacorp.
But to dictate to a content creator the rules upon which
they create their content (a web page) before you see it is asanine.
When did I dictate that they can't have ads?
I just said that they can't count on me actually
viewing those ads. You can give me as many religious
tracts as you want, but good luck forcing me to read them.
What the fuck are you talking about?
Good question - Did you read something entirely different and
reply to the wrong post?
Because many think there is such at thing as a free lunch.
Uploading a music video certainly goes to far. Small clips from a movie
might come under fair use. But when people post what amount to
home movies - Yes, they most certainly do have every right to
upload that to YouTube.
Free lunches exist - And in fact, when not in a climate of scarcity,
people (and even many "dumb" animals) will gladly share that of which
they have a huge surplus. Well, "bits" exist in as close to a limitless
supply as anything we've ever experienced, and plenty of people
will gladly share their bits, even with trolls like you.
And as for banner ads... Please, tell me who gets the free lunch from whom in
that situation - The parasites that think they own my eyeballs just
because they put up a web-page, or the people who choose not to
read the Chick pamphlets that come with that "free" lemonade?
Or, put another way, does exploiting the human feeling of gratitude
count as more or less sociopathic than suppressing that same feeling?
Personally, I'd say the former commits a deliberately "evil" action,
while the latter results as a learned response from dealing with
assholes falling into the first category. YMMV.
They...they couldn't see in 3 dimensions before?...Could we evolve to see 4 dimensions, then?
Think of it like this... When you look at a photograph, a
2d captured moment, you can still consciously determine
what lies closer or further than a given point most of the
time. Some unusual lighting effects or geometry may throw
you off, but you know the tiny tree belongs much further
away than the giant mouse in the foreground.
Now extend that to 4d perception - Our eyes give us a
pseudo-3d snapshot of the world around us. But we can
consciously determine, for example, that a distant car
moving straight at us will eventually reach our position,
causing either us or them to need to change course
slightly (or cause some serious harm, and not to the car).
So - Could we evolve a better sense of the 4d world around us?
Sure! Our entire prefrontal cortex, which sets us apart from
even other primates, seems geared toward an "intuitive" sense of
time and complex problem solving - Basically an evolutionary shift
toward 4d thought. A dog, seeing food through a fence, will
helplessly bark at the food (some smarter dogs will use a nearby
opening, but if they can't see it, very few dogs will let the
food out of sight to search for a gate). A monkey in the same
situation will, without much hesitation, circle the fence to
find an opening; But if you put the food in an immoveable
container just barely bigger than the monkey's hand, it will get its
hand stuck in the jar trying to pull the food out (yet with a smaller
opening, it will eventually decide to poke at the food with a stick).
And humans? We think nothing of seeing the food in the jar behind the
fence, and without even making a first failed attempt, will go get a
suitable tool to extract the food. Yet when it comes to picking our
leaders, we fall for the same meaningless cries of "for the children"
every time. So we still have room for improvement.;-)
My computer is now AMD, the previous was Intel. My
next will probably be Intel by the looks of this.
Agreed - I just thank Zeus that we finally have a good ol'
fashioned price war again - Both Intel and AMD have, for
a year or two, just kept pushing prices up as though not
in competition (which I suppose partially holds true - Intel
didn't need to fight for business market share, and AMD
didn't need to fight for the DIY'ers).
However, although Core II Duo (stupid name aside) looks rather
impressive, keep in mind that AMD's "4x4" setup might well
tip the balance back after only giving Intel a few months on
top - Although both AMD and Intel plan to release quad-core
chips in 2007, only AMD (as far as we know) has said that
their normal desktop version will allow dual CPUs for 8 total
cores.
I do have to wonder how well that will work, though... Dual cores
(or dual CPUs) truly kick serious butt for performance. Four CPUs,
however, doesn't really add all that much more kick to a machine (for
"normal" desktop tasks... For servers, just about every CPU can go to
its limit with properly configured software) compared with dual. So
unless we see a drastic shift toward massively multithreaded
apps in the next year, AMD could look silly trying to kill mosquitos
with a sledgehammer.
You already made that point - I could get that much just from reading
your post, nevermind the article (which I did in fact also read).
However, also from the link, "The last detainee's odyssey began
Sept. 5, 2001, when, after overstaying a six-month visa, he crossed the
border near Buffalo to seek asylum in Canada."
Two very unusual points to note there - First, September fifth, no
WTC attack yet (meaning, despite his status as a brownskinned nonchristian
with flight training - The only reason given for his initial detention - he
tried to leave, not enter, the country). Second, and the part that really gets
me - Does it really make sense to you, by any twisted form of logic, to arrest
someone... For overstaying their welcome here... While, of all things, trying to leave
the country??? He didn't fight to stay, that never existed as a problem (reread
point #2 above). He just wanted to go to Canada, rather than Algeria - Our brilliant
INS magically turned "someone else's problem" into a human rights disaster.
Or, as you've now pointed out twice - "Hey dumbass... maybe you'd like to RTFA from yahoo....",
as the last paragraph nicely sums up a point that you don't seem to quite appreciate: "The imprisonment
Mr. Benatta has endured has been a de facto prison sentence," the U.N. group wrote in findings made
public in March. "In no way can the simple administrative offense of having stayed in the United
States after his visa had expired justify such a disproportionate sentence."
Hey, when it comes to illegal immigration, you can count me squarely on the side of "strip 'em,
tar-n-feather 'em, and give 'em a swift boot back over the Rio". But when a simple expired visa
results in a five-year stay in a cage? Question for you - Have you ever visited another country?
Did you even need a visa to visit (assuming you didn't go there for employment)? And as
for the whole passport, you have that to get back into the "land of the free", not because
your destination cares.
His "due process" worked out just as it should
Well then, I'll repeat myself - "Should" needs to change.
Next time they should just deport without an appeal?
No, "next time" they should let the matter drop once a fair trial finds
someone innocent, rather than petulantly deporting the poor bastard
for daring to defend himself in court.
Same thing happened to Sami Al-Arian - A court found the DOJ's case
against him basically nothing more than a trainload of cow dung, and
as payback for winning, the DOJ gave him a "choice". After an innocent
man had already spend almost three years in solitary confinement, he
could either accept a plea on the weakest of the charges and accept
another eight months plus deportation; or he could waste the
next 20 years of his life, still imprisoned of course (respected professors
pose a high flight-risk, dontcha know) fighthing retrial after retrial
on a neverending stream of fictitious charges.
Perhaps you consider that "fair" - Just the system working like it
should... I consider that a sign that if the system "should"
work like that, we need a massive overhaul of the system itself.
"Justice" needs to exist as a concept that doesn't overly burden
innocent people; The weak shouldn't need to accept a plea on a
bogus charge because they can't afford (in time, not just money) to
fight it. No one should rot in a cage for years while the
government tried to scrape together enough circumstantial evidence
to intimidate the defendant into a plea. And once found not guilty,
people shouldn't need to watch their backs out of fear of retribution.
Then the write-up that convicts the entire program
even before an investigation (which is apparently now
stalled) has been started by calling it "illegal actions"
The program does indeed break the law. Only two
points remain in-the-air - Who authorized it, and will
Congress make similar future programs legal.
But breaking the law breaks the law - If you get convicted
of "murder"ing your (literally) braindead spouse the day
before congress passes an exception for assisted suicide,
you still go to prison for murder.
Bush (or someone VERY high up, which the proposed
investigation would determine) broke the law (again).
I want to see Bush or Cheney do the perp walk. So
do the majority of Americans at this point - It
might have taken most of the sheep six years to catch
on, but they've finally noticed that every time the
wolf appears, some of them vanish.
Yeah, because polygraphs have such a great reputation for validity,
right?
You can learn to make them show whatever answer you want, and
they can return false positives on people not lying. When you can't
trust the answer in either direction, it doesn't say much for
the test.
The courts don't accept polygraphs as evidence for a reason. It
doesn't exactly give me the warm-n'-fuzzies that the so-called
"intelligence" community doesn't have the same level of sensibility.
Hell, why not just use an e-meter? They'd get just as meaningful
of a result, and could at least give applicants the cop-out that
their Thetan level disqualified them.
Why do they think its so difficult. Go to google.com and search for Warez.
Why did this get modded "funny"? I'd almost call it obvious, but not
really all that funny, just a fact. "Insightful", if anything.
Seriously, finding pirated material takes so little effort even a child could
do it - As Hong Kong apparently intends to demonstrate. Just search Google for
"[warez/appz/gamez/serialz/keygen]" AND "[name of product]" and then filter
through the literally thousands of hits until you find something promising (usually
the first hit that doesn't try to send you to popup-hell or auto-download a
suspiciously small executable).
If they are so powerfull, how can you know that they are not fooling you? If their
technology are so superior, how can you know that they are who they claim to be?
When a cop, or soldier, or alien overlord, tells you to believe 1+1=3 and that the sun
sets in the North - You'd do well to believe the guy with the gun, whether you do
or not.
The Bible says this about idols, including your little green men:
Idols? Ummm... Okay, I probably took a weak joke a bit too far. I think
you've taken it and run from "too far" all the way back to "funny".
Laugh - If not at my joke, at me for making such a sad attempt at one.;-)
I don't think the Red Staters will be down with their taxes
going to teach godless little green people.
Godless??? How do you think the Red Staters will respond to
learning that the little green people, arriving in their brand
new model 6006 JHVH craft, seeded all life on Earth - Thus
making them our gods?
Enki forbid that their advanced civilization might have very neatly
solved the whole abortion issue by promoting homosexual activity as
a form of birth control...;-)
I can hear their cute little heads popping right off their
cute little red necks... Pop! Pop! Popopop!
Slashdot Mirror
The drug companies don't get any bennefit from producing drugs that kill people. They don't do this on purpose.
No one said they did it on purpose. But they have chosen, after causing the damage, to do everything they can to abandon any responsibility they have for their victims.
I too enjoy the benefits of drug testing, and recognize it as a necessary risk - Which 99.999% of the time has at worst unpleasant side effects, but on occasion kills or leaves people a wreck. That much I can accept, and have no problem with.
When that 0.001% occurs, however, Big Pharm can't just say "oh well, you signed a waiver, have a nice life; and if not, well, at least you won't have to endure it long" and call it a day - Just as someone can't legally sign themselves into slavery (other than joining the military); or allow someone to murder them; or sign away any of the rest of our "inalienable" rights.
The GP (post to which you responded) completely mistook the tone of the FP - It didn't blame the victims, it completely blamed the company. It went on to point out that, after this incident which demonstrates how little concept comanies have of their ethical (and possibly legal) obligations to their victims - That only total idiots would sign up for trials with even the slightest bit of risk (ie, any of them). And that will hurt us all.
Mozilla has just entered into a multi-year agreement with Real Networks
Look, if you plan to sell your soul, at least sell it to the devil himself, not just any ol' schmuck in goat leggings.
Like Billy G - Now he might have given you fame, power, glory, girls (hey, look at Melinda!). But no - Instead, you gave your soul to a guy named Phil who smokes too much and ends every sentence with "Trust me!".
In five years, when you all look back and wonder how you went from posing a serious threat to MSIE, to posing a sort-of-maybe threat to Opera - Remember this day.
The response/parent suggested that misbehavior was justified when management does bad things. It's not. And it never will be in a civilized society.
Of course not. When the Fuhrer tells you to kill Jews, you just do it, right? It doesn't matter that it counts as "bad", "in a civilized society" we obey the alpha male without question.
Damned straight! Put that goddamned hippy back in his place. I'll bet he takes pencils from work, too...
Wow, you're an idiot and you deserved it.
For changing his PC's wallpaper?
Perhaps you've accepted the dog-collar and leg-irons your employer asked you to wear "for your own safety", but some of us still believe that we work to live, not live to work.
"Creating an atmosphere conducive to sexual harassment". I don't even know where to start with describing just how much that has wrong with it, so I'll end here before I start ranting.
it's going to come right back at you whenever you deal with the police.
Your saying that demonstrates that you don't "get" it - I shouldn't ever need to deal with the police if I don't break the law (I'll leave the more philosophical issue, of whether or not anyone actually can stay 100% within the law, out of this one).
Get the fucking chip off your shoulder and learn to deal with the world.
Free clue - TV indoctrinates almost all kids to consider the police as all but god's gift to mankind, the last bastion of truth and beauty on the planet. That impression lasts until their first non-fluffy-happy-show-n'-tell encounter with the police. Yes, even naive ol' PLA once believed the sacred lies - imagine that!
Now, if so many people have an attitude similar to mine, despite having once upon a time believed in the "officer friendly" fairytale - How do you suppose those attitudes get so drastically reversed?
Free hint - Not because they act in a manner that warrants respect and politeness (or at least not beyond the required act - Or, as you put it, "deal[ing] with the world" as it exists rather than as it should).
The police have a job to do: catching people breaking the law. Anyone not doing so shouldn't need to kiss porcine ass just to go unmolested by the local constabulary.
Being respectful and polite is not the same as "demeaning yourself and giving up all self-respect"
As I do not consider myself a criminal, I consider it nothing at least a waste of my time, and more often mild harassment, when the police decide they want to chat with me about my attire/speed/the weather (and yes, I've have had cops "talk" with me about all three - They don't like overcoats, they apparently don't like cruise control set 1mph below the speed limit, and as for the weather, I can only guess that he just wanted to "casually" chat with me and "just happen" to notice some sufficient cause to beat up the dirty hippy).
Now - Why, exactly (other than the GLARINGLY FRICKIN' OBVIOUS threat to my safety and personal freedom) would I "respect" these assholes for wasting my time and harassing me?
So yes, faking respect for these walking ego-trips amounts to demeaning yourself before "da man" for the sake of staying safe from the very people supposedly there "to serve and protect".
Since she is an experienced teacher with extremely good recommendations, I wonder if it would have been possible to get a master's degree very quickly by turning in a portfolio?
As another child-of-a-teacher, I can answer that - with a simple "no".
Education departments don't quite work like most others. They form a very rigid little clique, and strongly discourage any marketable second majors or minors* (warning sign #1, IMO - they want to make damned sure you have no easy escape once you start). And while politics plays far too heavy of a role in getting any degree, Education basically amounts to "shut up, drink the kool-ade, and think what we tell you to".
Most "good" old-school teachers can't deal with such complete BS, and either take early retirement (if available), move to private or university education, or change careers completely.
But have no fear, the next gen of children will have the best-indoctrinated socialized baby-sitters ever. And while they might graduate without knowing basic arithmetic, cheer up, they'll have great self-esteem that their senior project, completing "Coloring with Elmo and Me", received an "A".
* at my uni, you literally had to twist the rules to the breaking point to get a minor in education - They "officially" had one, but didn't let any non-ed-majors into the classes. In order to get the minor, you had to declare yourself an education major at the end of your Sophmore year, take 15+ Education credits that couldn't possibly apply in any way to your "real" major (which would thus technically satisfy the department-nonspecific conditions for a minor), then switch majors the next semester (oddly, the same technicality this exploited also required less than 30 credits in that subject) which, the way other majors tended to schedule classes, would all but preclude you graduating in under five years).
The company will begin relying on advertising sales rather than monthly fees paid by customers
AOL doesn't exactly have a reputation for its great "content". What fans it does have, it has for making the internet accessible to complete technophobes.
So perhaps I misunderstand their use of the word "advertising", but what, exactly, do they plan to advertise with?
Somehow, I just can't see big money rolling in to put banners across the top of "my cat fluffy's homepage" or the literally millions of what amount to the web equivalent of "is this thing on?".
But good luck to 'em. As much as I hate TW, and have traditionally made fun of A-O-Lusers, it saddens me to see the last of the original great ISPs slowly dying off.
Start having lots of conversations in earshot of management about electrical fires.
And on a more serious note, start talking to management about the wisdom of putting a human in the server room.
We have a similarly sized server room at my workplace, a bit more horsepower though. And we can't actually work in there for any length of time due to OSHA regs - It stays a nice comfy 86-88db in there all the time. If (when, I should say) we need to replace a server, we would need to wear earplugs to legally stay in the room long enough.
Your boss might not care about pesky little problems like the Pauli Exclusion Principle*, but when it comes to OSHA, employers tend to go out of their way to do things the "right" way (and if not, you can guarantee they will the second time).
* Yes, I know - Laugh, don't take it literally.
The module holds keys, but the Army will not be able to control the installation of keys into the module. How does this make the system trustworthy?
Think of the Army as an ISP. Whenever a computer tries to connect to their network, they can query the TPM module to verify that the configuration of the machine matches what they allow - Not only that they have allowed it (not sure how their network looks, but think "on the domain" here), but also that someone hasn't snuck in, sat at an authorized-and-logged-in machine, and installed a network sniffer.
Of course, the PROBLEM with TPM comes from exactly that same idea - Think of your ISP as an ISP (duh). They can query your TPM module and deny access if, for example, they find a P2P client, or VOIP, or IM, or basically anything they don't like.
Furthermore, your ISP could require a totally incompatible configuration from, say, your employer's VPN (they've never enforced it, but my current broadband TOS explicitly prohibits tunneling into another network, even with permission). Bam, hope you didn't want to telecommute.
We've heard a lot about "net neutrality" lately - You can best think of TPM as the opposite of "software (on my own PC) neutrality". Just about anyone you connect to could conceivably refuse you service because they don't like what you have running on your computer.
Not a pretty future, if TPM gains enough popularity that companies feel comfortable in requiring it - And the Army counts as a big enough buyer that they just pushed us all a lot closer to that threshold.
Can I still browse the network?
;-)
You can safely leave the "Computer Browser" service set to "manual", and it will almost never actually turn on.
Does SSL still work?
The "HTTP SSL" service has nothing to do with what it sounds like - You can safely disable that.
Can I still resolve domain names?
"The DNS Client service" only acts as a cache, you can safely disable it and DNS queries still work just fine.
Can I still print?
That one, you need to leave turned on if you have a printer. Though if you only print once a month or so, you can leave it set to manual and just turn it on when you need it (it won't autostart on demand, though - I use a shortcut to "net start spooler" to turn it on for the rare occasions when I print).
Can I still adjust my video preferences?
Completely disable any services and startup programs related to your video card - They do nothing for you that you can't still do by going to the normal control panel's display properties page.
And no ammount of service tweaking will replace the boost you see from going from 128MB to 1GB of RAM
Very true! But why not do both?
I've used cordless mice before, and the function was perfect compared to a corded mouse.
;-)
Agreed. Since I "switch"ed to wireless optical mice, I will never, ever go back.
Can't imagine what bluetooth would improve!
I see you missed that part about "does not work with Windows yet (no words on Linux)". Why go with a USB dongle-based wireless mouse that will work on just about any machine made in the past decade, when you can return to the glory-days of platform tie-in even for something so minor as a mouse (which, of course, justifies paying $70 rather than $15-$20 for a similar USB wireless)?
Okay, now cue the hordes of fanboys who will assume that I've never used a "Mighty Mouse", rather than accept the possibility that I have and just find it no better, but far more expensive, than a $20 Kensington or MI or Targus - And who then post AC to demonstrate their conviction.
However, the cordless mice I've used have been a little fat and heavy due to batteries.
Look for a "notebook" wireless optical (they usually use AAA batteries, but sometimes take a single AA) - I use one so small that I literally use just my index and middle fingers to move and click it. It takes some getting used to, since we normally use our thumbs for so much, but after a while you start to actually forget about the mouse - it just feels like moving your hand around on the desk makes the pointer move accordingly.
So my body has built in DRM?!
Well, yeah - You don't want just any ol' genetic fragment (such as a virus) coming along and modifying your code... You only want properly authorized DNA from a compatible player to merge with your own. And don't even think about trying any region unlock codes - We all know that leads to nothing but the big "C".
Now, if they find that our DNA has a copyright notice, I'll get a tad worried. But DRM can count as beneficial, just not the kind controlled by an evil megacorp.
But to dictate to a content creator the rules upon which they create their content (a web page) before you see it is asanine.
When did I dictate that they can't have ads?
I just said that they can't count on me actually viewing those ads. You can give me as many religious tracts as you want, but good luck forcing me to read them.
What the fuck are you talking about?
Good question - Did you read something entirely different and reply to the wrong post?
Because many think there is such at thing as a free lunch.
Uploading a music video certainly goes to far. Small clips from a movie might come under fair use. But when people post what amount to home movies - Yes, they most certainly do have every right to upload that to YouTube.
Free lunches exist - And in fact, when not in a climate of scarcity, people (and even many "dumb" animals) will gladly share that of which they have a huge surplus. Well, "bits" exist in as close to a limitless supply as anything we've ever experienced, and plenty of people will gladly share their bits, even with trolls like you.
And as for banner ads... Please, tell me who gets the free lunch from whom in that situation - The parasites that think they own my eyeballs just because they put up a web-page, or the people who choose not to read the Chick pamphlets that come with that "free" lemonade?
Or, put another way, does exploiting the human feeling of gratitude count as more or less sociopathic than suppressing that same feeling? Personally, I'd say the former commits a deliberately "evil" action, while the latter results as a learned response from dealing with assholes falling into the first category. YMMV.
They...they couldn't see in 3 dimensions before? ...Could we evolve to see 4 dimensions, then?
;-)
Think of it like this... When you look at a photograph, a 2d captured moment, you can still consciously determine what lies closer or further than a given point most of the time. Some unusual lighting effects or geometry may throw you off, but you know the tiny tree belongs much further away than the giant mouse in the foreground.
Now extend that to 4d perception - Our eyes give us a pseudo-3d snapshot of the world around us. But we can consciously determine, for example, that a distant car moving straight at us will eventually reach our position, causing either us or them to need to change course slightly (or cause some serious harm, and not to the car).
So - Could we evolve a better sense of the 4d world around us? Sure! Our entire prefrontal cortex, which sets us apart from even other primates, seems geared toward an "intuitive" sense of time and complex problem solving - Basically an evolutionary shift toward 4d thought. A dog, seeing food through a fence, will helplessly bark at the food (some smarter dogs will use a nearby opening, but if they can't see it, very few dogs will let the food out of sight to search for a gate). A monkey in the same situation will, without much hesitation, circle the fence to find an opening; But if you put the food in an immoveable container just barely bigger than the monkey's hand, it will get its hand stuck in the jar trying to pull the food out (yet with a smaller opening, it will eventually decide to poke at the food with a stick).
And humans? We think nothing of seeing the food in the jar behind the fence, and without even making a first failed attempt, will go get a suitable tool to extract the food. Yet when it comes to picking our leaders, we fall for the same meaningless cries of "for the children" every time. So we still have room for improvement.
My computer is now AMD, the previous was Intel. My next will probably be Intel by the looks of this.
Agreed - I just thank Zeus that we finally have a good ol' fashioned price war again - Both Intel and AMD have, for a year or two, just kept pushing prices up as though not in competition (which I suppose partially holds true - Intel didn't need to fight for business market share, and AMD didn't need to fight for the DIY'ers).
However, although Core II Duo (stupid name aside) looks rather impressive, keep in mind that AMD's "4x4" setup might well tip the balance back after only giving Intel a few months on top - Although both AMD and Intel plan to release quad-core chips in 2007, only AMD (as far as we know) has said that their normal desktop version will allow dual CPUs for 8 total cores.
I do have to wonder how well that will work, though... Dual cores (or dual CPUs) truly kick serious butt for performance. Four CPUs, however, doesn't really add all that much more kick to a machine (for "normal" desktop tasks... For servers, just about every CPU can go to its limit with properly configured software) compared with dual. So unless we see a drastic shift toward massively multithreaded apps in the next year, AMD could look silly trying to kill mosquitos with a sledgehammer.
His Visa expired... RTFA!!!!
You already made that point - I could get that much just from reading your post, nevermind the article (which I did in fact also read).
However, also from the link, "The last detainee's odyssey began Sept. 5, 2001, when, after overstaying a six-month visa, he crossed the border near Buffalo to seek asylum in Canada."
Two very unusual points to note there - First, September fifth, no WTC attack yet (meaning, despite his status as a brownskinned nonchristian with flight training - The only reason given for his initial detention - he tried to leave, not enter, the country). Second, and the part that really gets me - Does it really make sense to you, by any twisted form of logic, to arrest someone... For overstaying their welcome here... While, of all things, trying to leave the country??? He didn't fight to stay, that never existed as a problem (reread point #2 above). He just wanted to go to Canada, rather than Algeria - Our brilliant INS magically turned "someone else's problem" into a human rights disaster.
Or, as you've now pointed out twice - "Hey dumbass... maybe you'd like to RTFA from yahoo....", as the last paragraph nicely sums up a point that you don't seem to quite appreciate: "The imprisonment Mr. Benatta has endured has been a de facto prison sentence," the U.N. group wrote in findings made public in March. "In no way can the simple administrative offense of having stayed in the United States after his visa had expired justify such a disproportionate sentence."
Hey, when it comes to illegal immigration, you can count me squarely on the side of "strip 'em, tar-n-feather 'em, and give 'em a swift boot back over the Rio". But when a simple expired visa results in a five-year stay in a cage? Question for you - Have you ever visited another country? Did you even need a visa to visit (assuming you didn't go there for employment)? And as for the whole passport, you have that to get back into the "land of the free", not because your destination cares.
His "due process" worked out just as it should
Well then, I'll repeat myself - "Should" needs to change.
Next time they should just deport without an appeal?
No, "next time" they should let the matter drop once a fair trial finds someone innocent, rather than petulantly deporting the poor bastard for daring to defend himself in court.
Same thing happened to Sami Al-Arian - A court found the DOJ's case against him basically nothing more than a trainload of cow dung, and as payback for winning, the DOJ gave him a "choice". After an innocent man had already spend almost three years in solitary confinement, he could either accept a plea on the weakest of the charges and accept another eight months plus deportation; or he could waste the next 20 years of his life, still imprisoned of course (respected professors pose a high flight-risk, dontcha know) fighthing retrial after retrial on a neverending stream of fictitious charges.
Perhaps you consider that "fair" - Just the system working like it should... I consider that a sign that if the system "should" work like that, we need a massive overhaul of the system itself. "Justice" needs to exist as a concept that doesn't overly burden innocent people; The weak shouldn't need to accept a plea on a bogus charge because they can't afford (in time, not just money) to fight it. No one should rot in a cage for years while the government tried to scrape together enough circumstantial evidence to intimidate the defendant into a plea. And once found not guilty, people shouldn't need to watch their backs out of fear of retribution.
Then the write-up that convicts the entire program even before an investigation (which is apparently now stalled) has been started by calling it "illegal actions"
The program does indeed break the law. Only two points remain in-the-air - Who authorized it, and will Congress make similar future programs legal.
But breaking the law breaks the law - If you get convicted of "murder"ing your (literally) braindead spouse the day before congress passes an exception for assisted suicide, you still go to prison for murder.
Bush (or someone VERY high up, which the proposed investigation would determine) broke the law (again). I want to see Bush or Cheney do the perp walk. So do the majority of Americans at this point - It might have taken most of the sheep six years to catch on, but they've finally noticed that every time the wolf appears, some of them vanish.
Man-made gems can be more ethical as well since they don't finance activities which further human suffering.
;-)
I see we have incompatible opinions on marriage...
thus jeopardising the validity of future tests.
Yeah, because polygraphs have such a great reputation for validity, right?
You can learn to make them show whatever answer you want, and they can return false positives on people not lying. When you can't trust the answer in either direction, it doesn't say much for the test.
The courts don't accept polygraphs as evidence for a reason. It doesn't exactly give me the warm-n'-fuzzies that the so-called "intelligence" community doesn't have the same level of sensibility.
Hell, why not just use an e-meter? They'd get just as meaningful of a result, and could at least give applicants the cop-out that their Thetan level disqualified them.
Why do they think its so difficult. Go to google.com and search for Warez.
Why did this get modded "funny"? I'd almost call it obvious, but not really all that funny, just a fact. "Insightful", if anything.
Seriously, finding pirated material takes so little effort even a child could do it - As Hong Kong apparently intends to demonstrate. Just search Google for "[warez/appz/gamez/serialz/keygen]" AND "[name of product]" and then filter through the literally thousands of hits until you find something promising (usually the first hit that doesn't try to send you to popup-hell or auto-download a suspiciously small executable).
If they are so powerfull, how can you know that they are not fooling you? If their technology are so superior, how can you know that they are who they claim to be?
;-)
When a cop, or soldier, or alien overlord, tells you to believe 1+1=3 and that the sun sets in the North - You'd do well to believe the guy with the gun, whether you do or not.
The Bible says this about idols, including your little green men:
Idols? Ummm... Okay, I probably took a weak joke a bit too far. I think you've taken it and run from "too far" all the way back to "funny".
Laugh - If not at my joke, at me for making such a sad attempt at one.
I don't think the Red Staters will be down with their taxes going to teach godless little green people.
;-)
Godless??? How do you think the Red Staters will respond to learning that the little green people, arriving in their brand new model 6006 JHVH craft, seeded all life on Earth - Thus making them our gods?
Enki forbid that their advanced civilization might have very neatly solved the whole abortion issue by promoting homosexual activity as a form of birth control...
I can hear their cute little heads popping right off their cute little red necks... Pop! Pop! Popopop!