On the somewhat off-topic of dark matter, what is the big deal with scientists searching for all this matter that we can't see? Perhaps I'm missing something really important here, but why is it so important that there might be all this matter in the universe that we can't currently detect?
Well, being that it is currently believed that 90% of the universe is made up of the stuff, it seems like a great place to start looking...
And what really cracks me up is they think that, not only will I want to buy new music in this format, but that I'm going to rush out and replace my existing CDs.
The beauty of DVDs is that they are backwards compatible with CDs. I actually believe its in the spec that this is a requirement for the DVD logo and terms of the licensing. So, no, you don't have to rebuy your CDs, but I would quickly replace key albums in 24bit goodness as soon as they are available.
As a music freak, I'm pissed that there has been almost no progress beyond the mid 80s in consumer available media for music. For the most part, I have to make my own or get some other homemade recordings to get 24bit PCM material. Sure, there is some DVD-Audio out there, but not worth the investment of upgrading my car stereo and company. It kills me that DVD video is about 10 years old and commonplace. To the point I can watch DVDs in my car and kill myself and others, but I can't get an upgrade of the tons of recorded music out there.
I've said for years, instead of suing the pants off of people downloading poor quality MP3s, why doesn't the infinite wisdom RIAA members produce products that are new like the CD was in the 80s, and then it will make it more of a PITA for people to make MP3s from the stuff and there will be such a significant difference between the MP3 and the real deal that maybe, just maybe people would fork over the cash for something new besides a mid-80s plastic disk with a listing of the songs on a piece of paper if your lucky.
I'm a firm believer that the RIAA backed companies have really lost their touch with reality in providing goods that customers want. Hell, even MP3s are still practically a crime to own.
When you have 3rd party hardware you will often need drivers that don't come with the O/S.
Yes, I know this, and I had to choose whether or not to include this caveot in my post, but I left it out under the guise of saying "IMNSHO, for average use, computers are black boxes..."
I have 3rd party hardware on my Mac, and it absolutely sucks. It reminds me of "the good old days" and that is not good. It breaks frequently between minor OS upgrades. Customer support is an oxymoron. All in all, the driver software is very immature and I feel very ripped off of the $6,000+ that is centered around said hardware and related software. But, I will also say that an average or even above average computer user does not invest over $6k on a computer system, and from my experience, neither will I until things have matured.
Now, with "normal" stuff like graphics cards, network cards, and things that come with 95+% of computers there simply is no excuse for the search for the killer driver, reboot, and settle for less mantra. To me, a "desktop" or whatever kind of computer is simply undefined in 2006 without a working keyboard, pointer, monitor, sound, and basic IO like a CDROM, you know, the basic crap that comes with a basic computer in 2006. And in 2006 all of this junk should just work.
I'm a Linux freak. I've used it for well over 10 years now and Linux basically pays for my food, place to live (and my Mac!) But Linux has a looong way to go to meet my recommendations for a "normal" person to use for normal computing tasks. Current and even future Windows offerings do not meet my standards either. When people know that "I'm a computer guy", and they start with Windows problems and advice and whatnot, I simply say that I am not an expert in that area of computing. Recently, I helped a "PC" user purchase hardware based on his needs and he said that he also needed Windows, and I said that I could help him with the hardware specs and found a killer system for him for a damn good price. I also clearly told him that I was doing the best I could under his desires, and that I could not help him with the software in any shape or form. What more could I do? Nada.
I will say that things have gotten better in the Windows world since Windows 95 when I officially ditched Windows for my personal and over 95% of my professional computing experience, but there are many, many issues I have with the platform that makes me stand by my stance of "If your software needs are only available with the Windows platform, then use Windows, but do not ask me for help because I simply am not much help in that area of computing".
Now, are OS X and Macs perfect? Hell no. But in my narrow minded point of view, there is no second place, and if you differ in opinion, thats more than fine by me. I've used Linux and Windows for years and I despised Macs up until a few years ago due to their "under the hood" inadequacies that were fixed with putting BSD under the hood. I believe Linux has a great under the hood and will probably gain a better polished UI in 10 or so years. Personally, I believe that Windows is ugly under underneath and from an "Aero" POV as well:)
I can take the pain of a troll or flamebait mod, but from memory, this search for the killer driver, reboot, and settle for the disappointment is what Windows has been like since 95. It kills me when I'm having Linux issues that are oftentimes obscure and rare and I'm talking with people that come from Windows backgrounds, they say, "Did you download the latest drivers?" "Did you reboot?" I bite my tongue and think to myself, "Real operating systems come with drivers and don't need chronic reboots for them to run. Rebooting means, not running".
Maybe I'm just getting old or spoiled by Macs, but is there an end in sight to the mantra of fetch driver and reboot and accept things as they are?
I don't reboot my car, and don't chronically have to update it, and search the web to drive it. I don't have to screw around with my timed thermostat for my house, search the web, reboot, and screw with it. I don't have to do this with my DVR which is a computer and works well. I don't have to do this with my Mac either.
IMNSHO, for average use, computers are black boxes that just work like microwaves, car stereos, cars, and everything else. They are not a religion or a cult, they are appliances that do stuff.
I guess I am getting old, and I'll gladly take my sysadmin paycheck for monkeying with Linux, Solaris, BSD, and any other *NIX variant that gets the job done, but for general stuff, I'll just buy a computer that just works. No spyware, no viruses, no popups, none of that crap.
the US Patent office is supposed to exercise judgement in determining what is patentable. That they may choose not to is, in and of itself, poor judgment.
"Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment."
-- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
From what I know, there is something like a 60% annual turnover rate in the USPO. The only exception is the "other" office that patents porn and dildos.
Patents started as a good theory turned into yet another form of payola and big business practice.
I'm a SpamAssasin fan, and it works VERY well for me.
Yes, I use custom rules and RulesEmporium rules, and I have private HAM rules that give negative points to things that are indicators that mail was sent by a human who knows my organization, which in turn trains the bayes filter to learn HAM automagically.
The thing is that spammers read the spamassasin mailinglist and others, but they can NEVER learn the intricacies of every organization to send blanket mails that will escape all of these custom HAM rules.
Unfortunately, we cannot talk about these HAM rules specifically. Its up to every human mail admin to add these things in the privacy of their own computer system.
spam is funded by idiots. we will never run out of idiots on the net.
Also, there are idiots that are independent of computers, email, etc.
I recently read about how 3 states in the US have loopholes in the credit laws, and how people who have the same personality of a successful spammer (yes, many are multi millionaires) where they are loaning people small amounts of money when they are desperate with up to a 25% initial fee, and the APR is over 300%.
There will always be profit in getting money from those who have it and are ignorant about the scam. Its amazing how almost all scams are pretty much unchanged from the beginning of scamming history, yet they still work. NIGERIAN scams are variations of the age old con of "I have come upon X, but can't collect on it because of Y, so if you help me, with little effort on your part, I'll give you some fraction of X, and we both win. Thanks for your help, and God bless".
Snake oil scams, work at home scams, FREE!!!! stuff scams, the list goes on and on. The best defense is always, "If it seems too good to be true, odds are it is".
However, I don't see scams stopping any time soon.
Besides, who really thought that the idea of a memorial for the victims of a terrorist attack that encouraged visitors to see the whole thing from the terrorists' points of view would really fly?
Excellent point. But I would have come to that conclusion for a mere $500 million, saving the US population $1.5 billion and 4.99 years.
Or a sticky, pinned, or something special attached to a post like this.
Did the poster write, posit, or add anything? No, it was merely an observation from an outsider that basically says, WTF????
I'm sure everybody has heard the crap from older people about "Back in the good ol days..." and "its surely not like it used to be..." and similar, but I do live here in the US, and I am witnessing a digression right in front of my eyes.
Yes, we do have issues with our police force, our elections, and our "free" press. Also, to date, our police, our elections, and our press are still better than probably 90+% of the world's population, but its the systematic demoralization of said institutions that is bothering me and others.
This trend appears to have begun in this country after WWII, when we began thinking that we were "the shit", the bully on the block, the world police, NATO, the economic center, or however you want to phrase it (all have truths to them).
Since WWII, we have been in a state of chronic war and debt. Kinda like a macrocosm of the population inside, eh?
Oh, and I read yesterday where the organization that was set up to rebuild the WTC complex after the 9/11/01 attacks was calling it quits after 5 years of nothing. Well, lets rephrase the nothing. More like after spending $2 billion dollars of our money with nothing in return. Yes, that is $400 million dollars a year. To put this on a scale that people can relate to. The WTC complex was insured for $3.5 billion, and Silverstein tried to get $7.0 billion because 2 buildings were demolished (actually 3, but who's counting?)
I saw a Penn and Teller episode about this same thing, and they were comparing this lack of rebuilding and everything to how casinos in Las Vegas can get torn down and rebuilt overnight, yet the financial center of the US can't get anything besides nothing after spending over $2 billion?
As with 99.99% of all other arguments by analogy, we will now digress into where the analogy is not sufficient for such an argument.
No, there are no absolutes in the human adventure, but there are definitely common trends. Sure, air is free (today:), but there are unwritten rules for being "in the club" that are almost universally adhered to.
Take a salesman for example. There are tons of different salesmen that sell basically everything that anyone can buy. But there is an unwritten dress code for such sales people. A $50 hooker on the street corner dresses different than the $300 hooker on the next corner and they both dress different than the $2,000 "escort". And sure, there are many other variables, but even a non-hooker expert gets the point.
The same goes with something like a car salesman. There are the used car salesmen that don't dress that nice, and usually their cars are a little less expensive and of lesser quality than a new car salesman that sells higher end cars like Lexus or Acura, and the Lexus or Acura salesmen are going to look different than the Rolls Royce or Lamborghini salesmen. The likelihood of the salesman wearing gold cufflinks is directly proportional to dollar amount of the cars they sell and their income. Is it correlation? Yes. Is there some degree of causation? Sure.
The same goes with software. I did not understand this for years. I did not understand why someone on a multi-million dollar install paid for a retail box of RedHat vs just letting me download the same thing for free. I mean, come on, why spend $60 dollars when its not needed, right?
Well, the millionaire heading the thing is looking out for others like him, and he could give a flying fuck about my lowly opinion besides that I could set up the software and make him more millions, and I would stay at my same salary wondering why I don't have millions.
He should probably go back and read a few books on economy again.
The proper economic term is called the "sliding scale". Free or zero does not fit on that scale unless there is some advertising or marketing behind it. Its probably in the books that the CEO read.
Agreed... a lot of businesses won't use free stuff because, if it breaks, who can they blame and order to fix it?
I hear this all the time, so it must be true, right?
Personally, I don't believe the underlying belief is no pay == no accountability. I believe its, no pay for X == no pay for me either.
Think about it. We are in a payola society. Get busted doing what everybody else does and show up with a fee lawyer, good luck. Get busted doing what everybody else does and show up with a known high dollar team of lawyers, well, we could make an exception this time Mr. Simpson.
There is some sense of value, right, wrong, or irrational, when something is paid for vs received for free. Most suits are familiar with "free" software that gives them viruses, spyware, or is just junk. Now, with running an enterprise level server, why would 3.2 mil/year CEO base his company on Linux downloaded for free and leave the RedHat CEO hungry? He would be cutting off his nose to spite his face.
Other evidence of my payola theory is the amount of software and hardware that is either 100% or severely discounted for non-profit entities. These organizations are not necessarily a part of the payola business world, but they use the same equipment, maybe even more of it with much higher volumes than many for-profit organizations. An example of this is computing at the university level. Highly discounted, with large, enterprise level installations with a large userbase and a very dynamic number of users coming and going. I've worked for branches of Fortune 100 companies, and their eyes were wide open when I talked about normal business at a major university compared to their little military projects. But, they paid out the yazoo for software and hardware, and loved it!
But how will you know, the actual machine in front of you is running the software examined?
Of course it will have a sha1 signature (eg, d46b82a7f4dad427760124c777c0b56fe642afbc) of the binary similar to a BSOD error message so that every grandmother will clearly know that the same code was used.
What did you think?!?
Sarcasm aside, I'm a fan of either paper or lever systems. Simple, reliable, accountable, proven, inexpensive, and hard to hack.
My iMac at home has a power cord, wireless keyboard, mouse, internet, the computer is the size of the display, variable speed CPU and fans, and comes with a good OS.
"Normal" people look at my computer and its simplicity and the beauty of the OS and whatnot, and say "WOW!"
When it comes to server applications, does AMD's technology (HyperTransport etc) make it that much more desirable? Or will/should Conroe gain more market share back to Intel?
First, HyperTransport is an open standard, not an AMD technology, and from what I know, it kicks ass.
AMD has gained recently, especially in the server/HPC market because of a few things. Price, performance, power consumption, backwards compatibility, and 64bit offerings. These are the key variables for server/HPC computing. Power consumption and to some degree 64bit-ness are newer and these variables have increasing weights in today's markets.
Personally, I'm not a fan of the EM64T or other hacks for providing 64bit capabilities over a native 64bit architecture, but then again I've never dealt with these x86 extensions first hand, so I could change my opinion with new information. From what I know the original Intel Core was only 32bit, but the core duo included 64bit abilities.
Here's a hint for politicians: If in a population of 300,000,000 only 1,000,000 are capable of understanding how the voting system works, and if only 1,000 people are actually allowed to see how it works, and if there's no verifiable paper trail or any simple and legitimate verification system, then democracy is a farce.
First, democracy may not be a farce, but it is clearly an ideal that is nowhere close to a reality.
Good, bad, indifferent, look at the current ratings of the guy who is the President of the US. Also, remember the interesting events that led to him obtaining office.
Now, I'm fairly paranoid. I mean, I felt like I was about to have sex with a known whore with HIV w/o a condom when I used a PC at my bank to access my bank records to dispute some charges by my bank. I just "got over it".
First, sure Diebold has its issues, but aren't these people the people that make most of the ATMs in either the US or the World? I have yet to of heard of or experienced an ATM mistake for or against the customer or bank. I'm sure there will be a flood of counter examples to follow.
But even if the machine has this "serious" flaw of booting an unknown image or OS via a dipswitch, what is the likelihood of this a) happening and b) happening AND changing the results of an election?
Its already known that dead people vote, and all of the other games that people play to skew elections, but even in a close election, some very motivated hackers would have to physically change a significant number of voting machines in multiple key states without any of them being noticed with a small window of time to even change the electoral college by a potential of a couple of votes.
Personally, my beef behind the whole electronic vs paper voting systems is the lack of a paper trail in the electronic methods.
Yes, I realize that correlation does not mean causation, but correlations are worthy nonetheless.
Humor is generally believed to be a part of healthy and balanced individuals.
Also, TDS and late night comedy programs are watched by younger, more open-minded kinds of audiences.
I've also heard of comedians and people that write for and host such shows as late night ones express their responsibility to their audiences because they often have to some degree an influence on their social and political outlook on life.
I could be ignorant/paranoid here, but I'm under the suspicion that main stream media is more concerned about ratings and $$$ over social influence.
Trust me, there is still fringe stuff out there, but the current trend is for there to be fringe stuff that gets bought out by some big corp and then converted into a brand name, rounding off the edges, and then selling said brand name to the masses. Yes, Rolling Stone is a perfect example. To some degree, Netscape and Napster are other more recent examples. All three of these really only have one thing in common with the original -- the name.
Also, its a bit of a misperception of people to believe that the popular dominance is new and ruining everything. There is always going to be popular, trendy crap for the masses, and there always is going to be fringe and stuff for "those in the know", and the interesting thing is how pervasive the latter lasts over the popular.
Being a kid of the 80s and a stoner/hippie wannabe, I liked a bunch of the psychedelic rock of the 60s and 70s (and still do:), but what amazed me was my perception vs reality of the times. I was looking at a billboard to 100 or so list from that era, and the amount of crap, including stuff I either vaguely heard of mixed with the "one hit wonders" was on the top 100 list at the time, and often not the stuff that has endured and is now played on the "classic" rock channels today. Even those classic rock stations are watered down and don't go deep into the tracks and albums of many artists and other great, but not as popular artists.
I think one could argue pretty persuasively that Steven Colbert does Gonzo Journalism every night on Colbert Report. But Colbert Report is considered satire, not journalism and is largely dismissed by mainstream media. Ditto John Stewart, of course.
I can't find a cite right now, but a coworker and I were talking some time back and he said that he read somewhere that people that got their political news from The Daily Show were more informed than those who got their "journalism" from mainstream media.
How can I, as an American, support sending another American to die in a foreign land yet refuse to make any sacrifice for the war?
Good, bad, or indifferent, all of those guys who went over there and were killed or wounded volunteered for such work, and they should have understood the consequences of such a decision. You and I did not volunteer for such a job. AFAIK, the military tries to filter out people that are not of sound mind or body to take such a job.
I've talked with such people, and they know the consequences, and believe that they are making a sacrifice for the greater good.
Now, the people making the decisions to send them over there to be killed typically have not made such sacrifices in the past, nor are they currently making such a sacrifice (aside from karma, soul, or whatever else you or they may or may not believe in).
It's incredible how seedy the dark underbelly of the internet has become. I'm sorry, but the videorecording of such events, and posting them on websites for all the world to see, is truly a new low in the conduct of the human race.
I believe that it is not a new low, but rather a new hope for human change.
The smartbombs blowing up buildings on CNN was supposedly real, but I took from it, "Damn, we are good!" Seeing an internet video of an Apache helicopter crew taking out some Iraqis in cold blood made me say, "Damn, we are bad!" And I see the latter as being more real, honest, and hope for change. The torture stuff such as this is a good thing to have this exposed. Compare that to the Google.cn search results for Tiananmen Square vs Google.com's searches is not a good thing.
I believe that although there are tons of bad stuff coming from the internet, the good vastly outweighs the bad. The amount of information out there and the latency between the event and the vast amounts of coverage for such a thing is absolutely amazing. Even the wacko conspiracy stuff is still a good thing because it at least makes people question what is real vs just taking whatever CNN and Fox or whoever tells us is "news".
I see the internet as one of the biggest boom to human development since other landmarks. So, Pentagon keep monitoring us, because we are monitoring you too. Oh yeah, and there is more of us than you Pentagon guys.
Slashdot Mirror
On the somewhat off-topic of dark matter, what is the big deal with scientists searching for all this matter that we can't see? Perhaps I'm missing something really important here, but why is it so important that there might be all this matter in the universe that we can't currently detect?
Well, being that it is currently believed that 90% of the universe is made up of the stuff, it seems like a great place to start looking...
And what really cracks me up is they think that, not only will I want to buy new music in this format, but that I'm going to rush out and replace my existing CDs.
The beauty of DVDs is that they are backwards compatible with CDs. I actually believe its in the spec that this is a requirement for the DVD logo and terms of the licensing. So, no, you don't have to rebuy your CDs, but I would quickly replace key albums in 24bit goodness as soon as they are available.
As a music freak, I'm pissed that there has been almost no progress beyond the mid 80s in consumer available media for music. For the most part, I have to make my own or get some other homemade recordings to get 24bit PCM material. Sure, there is some DVD-Audio out there, but not worth the investment of upgrading my car stereo and company. It kills me that DVD video is about 10 years old and commonplace. To the point I can watch DVDs in my car and kill myself and others, but I can't get an upgrade of the tons of recorded music out there.
I've said for years, instead of suing the pants off of people downloading poor quality MP3s, why doesn't the infinite wisdom RIAA members produce products that are new like the CD was in the 80s, and then it will make it more of a PITA for people to make MP3s from the stuff and there will be such a significant difference between the MP3 and the real deal that maybe, just maybe people would fork over the cash for something new besides a mid-80s plastic disk with a listing of the songs on a piece of paper if your lucky.
I'm a firm believer that the RIAA backed companies have really lost their touch with reality in providing goods that customers want. Hell, even MP3s are still practically a crime to own.
When you have 3rd party hardware you will often need drivers that don't come with the O/S.
:)
Yes, I know this, and I had to choose whether or not to include this caveot in my post, but I left it out under the guise of saying "IMNSHO, for average use, computers are black boxes..."
I have 3rd party hardware on my Mac, and it absolutely sucks. It reminds me of "the good old days" and that is not good. It breaks frequently between minor OS upgrades. Customer support is an oxymoron. All in all, the driver software is very immature and I feel very ripped off of the $6,000+ that is centered around said hardware and related software. But, I will also say that an average or even above average computer user does not invest over $6k on a computer system, and from my experience, neither will I until things have matured.
Now, with "normal" stuff like graphics cards, network cards, and things that come with 95+% of computers there simply is no excuse for the search for the killer driver, reboot, and settle for less mantra. To me, a "desktop" or whatever kind of computer is simply undefined in 2006 without a working keyboard, pointer, monitor, sound, and basic IO like a CDROM, you know, the basic crap that comes with a basic computer in 2006. And in 2006 all of this junk should just work.
I'm a Linux freak. I've used it for well over 10 years now and Linux basically pays for my food, place to live (and my Mac!) But Linux has a looong way to go to meet my recommendations for a "normal" person to use for normal computing tasks. Current and even future Windows offerings do not meet my standards either. When people know that "I'm a computer guy", and they start with Windows problems and advice and whatnot, I simply say that I am not an expert in that area of computing. Recently, I helped a "PC" user purchase hardware based on his needs and he said that he also needed Windows, and I said that I could help him with the hardware specs and found a killer system for him for a damn good price. I also clearly told him that I was doing the best I could under his desires, and that I could not help him with the software in any shape or form. What more could I do? Nada.
I will say that things have gotten better in the Windows world since Windows 95 when I officially ditched Windows for my personal and over 95% of my professional computing experience, but there are many, many issues I have with the platform that makes me stand by my stance of "If your software needs are only available with the Windows platform, then use Windows, but do not ask me for help because I simply am not much help in that area of computing".
Now, are OS X and Macs perfect? Hell no. But in my narrow minded point of view, there is no second place, and if you differ in opinion, thats more than fine by me. I've used Linux and Windows for years and I despised Macs up until a few years ago due to their "under the hood" inadequacies that were fixed with putting BSD under the hood. I believe Linux has a great under the hood and will probably gain a better polished UI in 10 or so years. Personally, I believe that Windows is ugly under underneath and from an "Aero" POV as well
Was Division Bell the final cut, or is there more to come?
Careful, careful, careful with that axe, Eugene....
I can take the pain of a troll or flamebait mod, but from memory, this search for the killer driver, reboot, and settle for the disappointment is what Windows has been like since 95. It kills me when I'm having Linux issues that are oftentimes obscure and rare and I'm talking with people that come from Windows backgrounds, they say, "Did you download the latest drivers?" "Did you reboot?" I bite my tongue and think to myself, "Real operating systems come with drivers and don't need chronic reboots for them to run. Rebooting means, not running".
Maybe I'm just getting old or spoiled by Macs, but is there an end in sight to the mantra of fetch driver and reboot and accept things as they are?
I don't reboot my car, and don't chronically have to update it, and search the web to drive it. I don't have to screw around with my timed thermostat for my house, search the web, reboot, and screw with it. I don't have to do this with my DVR which is a computer and works well. I don't have to do this with my Mac either.
IMNSHO, for average use, computers are black boxes that just work like microwaves, car stereos, cars, and everything else. They are not a religion or a cult, they are appliances that do stuff.
I guess I am getting old, and I'll gladly take my sysadmin paycheck for monkeying with Linux, Solaris, BSD, and any other *NIX variant that gets the job done, but for general stuff, I'll just buy a computer that just works. No spyware, no viruses, no popups, none of that crap.
the US Patent office is supposed to exercise judgement in determining what is patentable. That they may choose not to is, in and of itself, poor judgment.
"Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment."
-- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
From what I know, there is something like a 60% annual turnover rate in the USPO. The only exception is the "other" office that patents porn and dildos.
Patents started as a good theory turned into yet another form of payola and big business practice.
I'm a SpamAssasin fan, and it works VERY well for me.
Yes, I use custom rules and RulesEmporium rules, and I have private HAM rules that give negative points to things that are indicators that mail was sent by a human who knows my organization, which in turn trains the bayes filter to learn HAM automagically.
The thing is that spammers read the spamassasin mailinglist and others, but they can NEVER learn the intricacies of every organization to send blanket mails that will escape all of these custom HAM rules.
Unfortunately, we cannot talk about these HAM rules specifically. Its up to every human mail admin to add these things in the privacy of their own computer system.
spam is funded by idiots. we will never run out of idiots on the net.
Also, there are idiots that are independent of computers, email, etc.
I recently read about how 3 states in the US have loopholes in the credit laws, and how people who have the same personality of a successful spammer (yes, many are multi millionaires) where they are loaning people small amounts of money when they are desperate with up to a 25% initial fee, and the APR is over 300%.
There will always be profit in getting money from those who have it and are ignorant about the scam. Its amazing how almost all scams are pretty much unchanged from the beginning of scamming history, yet they still work. NIGERIAN scams are variations of the age old con of "I have come upon X, but can't collect on it because of Y, so if you help me, with little effort on your part, I'll give you some fraction of X, and we both win. Thanks for your help, and God bless".
Snake oil scams, work at home scams, FREE!!!! stuff scams, the list goes on and on. The best defense is always, "If it seems too good to be true, odds are it is".
However, I don't see scams stopping any time soon.
Besides, who really thought that the idea of a memorial for the victims of a terrorist attack that encouraged visitors to see the whole thing from the terrorists' points of view would really fly?
Excellent point. But I would have come to that conclusion for a mere $500 million, saving the US population $1.5 billion and 4.99 years.
Or a sticky, pinned, or something special attached to a post like this.
Did the poster write, posit, or add anything? No, it was merely an observation from an outsider that basically says, WTF????
I'm sure everybody has heard the crap from older people about "Back in the good ol days..." and "its surely not like it used to be..." and similar, but I do live here in the US, and I am witnessing a digression right in front of my eyes.
Yes, we do have issues with our police force, our elections, and our "free" press. Also, to date, our police, our elections, and our press are still better than probably 90+% of the world's population, but its the systematic demoralization of said institutions that is bothering me and others.
This trend appears to have begun in this country after WWII, when we began thinking that we were "the shit", the bully on the block, the world police, NATO, the economic center, or however you want to phrase it (all have truths to them).
Since WWII, we have been in a state of chronic war and debt. Kinda like a macrocosm of the population inside, eh?
Oh, and I read yesterday where the organization that was set up to rebuild the WTC complex after the 9/11/01 attacks was calling it quits after 5 years of nothing. Well, lets rephrase the nothing. More like after spending $2 billion dollars of our money with nothing in return. Yes, that is $400 million dollars a year. To put this on a scale that people can relate to. The WTC complex was insured for $3.5 billion, and Silverstein tried to get $7.0 billion because 2 buildings were demolished (actually 3, but who's counting?)
I saw a Penn and Teller episode about this same thing, and they were comparing this lack of rebuilding and everything to how casinos in Las Vegas can get torn down and rebuilt overnight, yet the financial center of the US can't get anything besides nothing after spending over $2 billion?
Makes me think anyway...
Gee, where can I find him, I've got a whole lot of air he can buy or cease using if he feels it doesnt cost enough.
c id=15831233
:), but there are unwritten rules for being "in the club" that are almost universally adhered to.
Its not that simple, and the parent post is pretty much right on. Or at least, I posted almost he same thing in this slashdot article here:
http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=192866&
As with 99.99% of all other arguments by analogy, we will now digress into where the analogy is not sufficient for such an argument.
No, there are no absolutes in the human adventure, but there are definitely common trends. Sure, air is free (today
Take a salesman for example. There are tons of different salesmen that sell basically everything that anyone can buy. But there is an unwritten dress code for such sales people. A $50 hooker on the street corner dresses different than the $300 hooker on the next corner and they both dress different than the $2,000 "escort". And sure, there are many other variables, but even a non-hooker expert gets the point.
The same goes with something like a car salesman. There are the used car salesmen that don't dress that nice, and usually their cars are a little less expensive and of lesser quality than a new car salesman that sells higher end cars like Lexus or Acura, and the Lexus or Acura salesmen are going to look different than the Rolls Royce or Lamborghini salesmen. The likelihood of the salesman wearing gold cufflinks is directly proportional to dollar amount of the cars they sell and their income. Is it correlation? Yes. Is there some degree of causation? Sure.
The same goes with software. I did not understand this for years. I did not understand why someone on a multi-million dollar install paid for a retail box of RedHat vs just letting me download the same thing for free. I mean, come on, why spend $60 dollars when its not needed, right?
Well, the millionaire heading the thing is looking out for others like him, and he could give a flying fuck about my lowly opinion besides that I could set up the software and make him more millions, and I would stay at my same salary wondering why I don't have millions.
He should probably go back and read a few books on economy again.
The proper economic term is called the "sliding scale". Free or zero does not fit on that scale unless there is some advertising or marketing behind it. Its probably in the books that the CEO read.
Agreed... a lot of businesses won't use free stuff because, if it breaks, who can they blame and order to fix it?
I hear this all the time, so it must be true, right?
Personally, I don't believe the underlying belief is no pay == no accountability. I believe its, no pay for X == no pay for me either.
Think about it. We are in a payola society. Get busted doing what everybody else does and show up with a fee lawyer, good luck. Get busted doing what everybody else does and show up with a known high dollar team of lawyers, well, we could make an exception this time Mr. Simpson.
There is some sense of value, right, wrong, or irrational, when something is paid for vs received for free. Most suits are familiar with "free" software that gives them viruses, spyware, or is just junk. Now, with running an enterprise level server, why would 3.2 mil/year CEO base his company on Linux downloaded for free and leave the RedHat CEO hungry? He would be cutting off his nose to spite his face.
Other evidence of my payola theory is the amount of software and hardware that is either 100% or severely discounted for non-profit entities. These organizations are not necessarily a part of the payola business world, but they use the same equipment, maybe even more of it with much higher volumes than many for-profit organizations. An example of this is computing at the university level. Highly discounted, with large, enterprise level installations with a large userbase and a very dynamic number of users coming and going. I've worked for branches of Fortune 100 companies, and their eyes were wide open when I talked about normal business at a major university compared to their little military projects. But, they paid out the yazoo for software and hardware, and loved it!
Too bad there is no Top Web results for "fucking".
What is this world coming to?
But how will you know, the actual machine in front of you is running the software examined?
Of course it will have a sha1 signature (eg, d46b82a7f4dad427760124c777c0b56fe642afbc) of the binary similar to a BSOD error message so that every grandmother will clearly know that the same code was used.
What did you think?!?
Sarcasm aside, I'm a fan of either paper or lever systems. Simple, reliable, accountable, proven, inexpensive, and hard to hack.
My iMac at home has a power cord, wireless keyboard, mouse, internet, the computer is the size of the display, variable speed CPU and fans, and comes with a good OS.
"Normal" people look at my computer and its simplicity and the beauty of the OS and whatnot, and say "WOW!"
I proudly claim ignorance of the solo, duo, 2, duo 2, solo 2 stuff.
The Intel marketing people should be drowned in Sun's java.
In related news, a reed is much more resistant to hurricanes than a large oak tree.
Do a simple sed substitution for rigid human beliefs.
When it comes to server applications, does AMD's technology (HyperTransport etc) make it that much more desirable? Or will/should Conroe gain more market share back to Intel?
First, HyperTransport is an open standard, not an AMD technology, and from what I know, it kicks ass.
AMD has gained recently, especially in the server/HPC market because of a few things. Price, performance, power consumption, backwards compatibility, and 64bit offerings. These are the key variables for server/HPC computing. Power consumption and to some degree 64bit-ness are newer and these variables have increasing weights in today's markets.
Personally, I'm not a fan of the EM64T or other hacks for providing 64bit capabilities over a native 64bit architecture, but then again I've never dealt with these x86 extensions first hand, so I could change my opinion with new information. From what I know the original Intel Core was only 32bit, but the core duo included 64bit abilities.
Here's a hint for politicians: If in a population of 300,000,000 only 1,000,000 are capable of understanding how the voting system works, and if only 1,000 people are actually allowed to see how it works, and if there's no verifiable paper trail or any simple and legitimate verification system, then democracy is a farce.
First, democracy may not be a farce, but it is clearly an ideal that is nowhere close to a reality.
Good, bad, indifferent, look at the current ratings of the guy who is the President of the US. Also, remember the interesting events that led to him obtaining office.
Now, I'm fairly paranoid. I mean, I felt like I was about to have sex with a known whore with HIV w/o a condom when I used a PC at my bank to access my bank records to dispute some charges by my bank. I just "got over it".
First, sure Diebold has its issues, but aren't these people the people that make most of the ATMs in either the US or the World? I have yet to of heard of or experienced an ATM mistake for or against the customer or bank. I'm sure there will be a flood of counter examples to follow.
But even if the machine has this "serious" flaw of booting an unknown image or OS via a dipswitch, what is the likelihood of this a) happening and b) happening AND changing the results of an election?
Its already known that dead people vote, and all of the other games that people play to skew elections, but even in a close election, some very motivated hackers would have to physically change a significant number of voting machines in multiple key states without any of them being noticed with a small window of time to even change the electoral college by a potential of a couple of votes.
Personally, my beef behind the whole electronic vs paper voting systems is the lack of a paper trail in the electronic methods.
OK, my memory is now refreshed.
Yes, I realize that correlation does not mean causation, but correlations are worthy nonetheless.
Humor is generally believed to be a part of healthy and balanced individuals.
Also, TDS and late night comedy programs are watched by younger, more open-minded kinds of audiences.
I've also heard of comedians and people that write for and host such shows as late night ones express their responsibility to their audiences because they often have to some degree an influence on their social and political outlook on life.
I could be ignorant/paranoid here, but I'm under the suspicion that main stream media is more concerned about ratings and $$$ over social influence.
So, were hippies as common as Joe Sixpack today?
I don't think so.
Trust me, there is still fringe stuff out there, but the current trend is for there to be fringe stuff that gets bought out by some big corp and then converted into a brand name, rounding off the edges, and then selling said brand name to the masses. Yes, Rolling Stone is a perfect example. To some degree, Netscape and Napster are other more recent examples. All three of these really only have one thing in common with the original -- the name.
Also, its a bit of a misperception of people to believe that the popular dominance is new and ruining everything. There is always going to be popular, trendy crap for the masses, and there always is going to be fringe and stuff for "those in the know", and the interesting thing is how pervasive the latter lasts over the popular.
Being a kid of the 80s and a stoner/hippie wannabe, I liked a bunch of the psychedelic rock of the 60s and 70s (and still do
I think one could argue pretty persuasively that Steven Colbert does Gonzo Journalism every night on Colbert Report. But Colbert Report is considered satire, not journalism and is largely dismissed by mainstream media. Ditto John Stewart, of course.
I can't find a cite right now, but a coworker and I were talking some time back and he said that he read somewhere that people that got their political news from The Daily Show were more informed than those who got their "journalism" from mainstream media.
How can I, as an American, support sending another American to die in a foreign land yet refuse to make any sacrifice for the war?
Good, bad, or indifferent, all of those guys who went over there and were killed or wounded volunteered for such work, and they should have understood the consequences of such a decision. You and I did not volunteer for such a job. AFAIK, the military tries to filter out people that are not of sound mind or body to take such a job.
I've talked with such people, and they know the consequences, and believe that they are making a sacrifice for the greater good.
Now, the people making the decisions to send them over there to be killed typically have not made such sacrifices in the past, nor are they currently making such a sacrifice (aside from karma, soul, or whatever else you or they may or may not believe in).
It's incredible how seedy the dark underbelly of the internet has become. I'm sorry, but the videorecording of such events, and posting them on websites for all the world to see, is truly a new low in the conduct of the human race.
I believe that it is not a new low, but rather a new hope for human change.
The smartbombs blowing up buildings on CNN was supposedly real, but I took from it, "Damn, we are good!" Seeing an internet video of an Apache helicopter crew taking out some Iraqis in cold blood made me say, "Damn, we are bad!" And I see the latter as being more real, honest, and hope for change. The torture stuff such as this is a good thing to have this exposed. Compare that to the Google.cn search results for Tiananmen Square vs Google.com's searches is not a good thing.
I believe that although there are tons of bad stuff coming from the internet, the good vastly outweighs the bad. The amount of information out there and the latency between the event and the vast amounts of coverage for such a thing is absolutely amazing. Even the wacko conspiracy stuff is still a good thing because it at least makes people question what is real vs just taking whatever CNN and Fox or whoever tells us is "news".
I see the internet as one of the biggest boom to human development since other landmarks. So, Pentagon keep monitoring us, because we are monitoring you too. Oh yeah, and there is more of us than you Pentagon guys.
Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre minds.
-- Albert Einstein
I'm sorry to say, that you were a statistical outlier that simply does not compute with a mediocre bean counter.
It works at both ends of the bell curve too. Have fun!