"... I think the parent's point about "Reset Safari" is that the language used doesn't mean anything to the average user...."
Maybe. But it's right there in the main menu: File: Private Browsing... followed by: Reset Safari... followed by Empty Cache
If you click on Private Browsing, you get: Are you sure you want to turn on private browsing? When private browsing is turned on, webpages are not added to the history, items are automatically removed from the Downloads window, information isn't saved for AutoFill (including names and passwords), and searches are not added to the pop-up menu in the Google search bar. Until you close the window, you can still click the Back and Forward buttons to return to webpages you have opened.
[Cancel] [[OK]]
Clicking on: File: Reset Safari gets you this dialog:
Are you sure you want to reset Safari? Select the items you want to reset, then click Reset. You cannot undo this operation. X Clear history X Empty the cache X Clear the Downloads window X Remove all cookies X Remove all website icons X Remove saved names and passwords X Remove other AutoFill form text X Clear Google searches X Close all Safari Windows
[Cancel] [[Reset]]
Clicking on: File: Empty Cache gets you:
Are you sure you want to empty the cache? Safari saves contents of webpages in a cache so it's faster to view them again.
[Cancel] [[Empty]]
Now, all this is also available from the Help files, so there's not much excuse for not knowing what to do. And, as is the norm with long-standing Apple User Interface guidelines, you cannot do something dangerous without being given a chance to back out.
Having used Windows for many years, I can understand if Windows users never use Help, since Microsoft's help is often less than useless. Apple's OSX Help is much better, and OSX's help is not nearly as good as the Help in the old Mac System 7.5~OS9, the likes of which we probably will never see again in a mainstream OS. Which is a shame.
But, It goes against all evidence to suggest there is anything easier or more intuitive to the Firefox methods of doing the same things, and I know for a fact that FireFox (Mozilla) doesn't explain what is going to happen next nor does Mozilla's Help system get many points for clarity.
As for the rest of the admittedly on-topic discussion (login button or method) it wasn't part of the post I addressed.
But, since you bring it up I'll be happy to give my 2 cents: for me, it's a non issue because I never access the iDisk from the web and I don't know why you would want to when it's easily accessible from the desktop. And the very same issues the original post is all about plague all WebDAV access via all browsers in all OS's.
I must disagree with your conclusions as to what is more or less user friendly.
You probably just are not familiar with the applications. Both browsers are available for Windows and OSX and both work essentially the same for these particular options on both OSs.
If you're a Windows user and you're curious, you could download Safari 3 for Windows or FireFox 3 for Windows. In my experience people tend to prefer whatever browser they are most familiar with, so I don't expect any converts, but certainly you can find out more about a browser by using it for a bit.
FireFox's "clear private data" must be set up via a multi-step process. It clears private data after the browsing session ends.
Safari's "Reset Safari" also clears the same cached data, at any time during the session. People who are security-aware would restart the browser to end the session, but you don't have to.
Naturally, in either case the data remains on the drive; a proper secure erase is still required for true security.
"Reset Safari" is accessible with one click at: File: Reset Safari
Safari also has a pre-session privacy setting, also accessible with one click at: File: Private Browsing... which doesn't retain the data in the first place. This is much better than just erasing pointers to data written to disk.
File: Private Browsing immediately precedes File: Reset Safari... giving you two useful options: not retaining data or removing it if you forget to tell it not to retain the data first.
To use "clear private data" in Firefox is hardly "pretty straightforward" in comparison:
[Menu] FireFox: Preferences: Privacy Tab:... at "Clear Private Data tool... " select [Settings]... where you get to the place where this can be enabled. A number of checkboxes need to be configured, followed by clicking [OK] You will also get a dialog when you quit Firefox asking you to confirm. At this point you need to specifically allow the removal of the private data or it is retained. If the browser or the OS crashes, if there is a hard restart, or you fail to quit FireFox for whatever reason, you won't see the dialog.
If you've set up Clear Private Data and you didn't get a chance to view the dialog at the end of your session and agree to remove it, you will get the dialog when FireFox is launched the next time. Needless to say, that doesn't help you if you're long gone from the Internet Cafe and someone else sees it.
RE (parent): 1) If existing OS: run complete antivirus scan and clean existing install, fix everything. Then run a GOOD antivirus scanner (I like Kaspersky), and do it right. 2) Format system disk.
(your comment) #2 makes #1 completely redundant, doesn't it?
I read into the parent that there were files, etc that needed to be migrated to the new OS.
I know he didn't say that out loud, and I know many users who just throw everything away and start over, but people who do Real Work (TM) on their computers, regardless of the OS, need to migrate their files. What was on the box last week is pretty much guaranteed to be the stuff we'll be looking for on the main computer's HD next week.
Thus, clean thoroughly, [backup], format, install, [restore]. [backup] might be a given if he's doing nightlies like everyone should, so including that as a step could be redundant.
The AV step was indicative that he wants to insure clean files for the restore, rather than simply move last week's problems to next week's desktop.
Domain hijackers rely on your unique need for the domain to earn their money.
In particular with domains that have a specific value to you and you alone, if you don't need it, no-one does and there's no means to profit.
There is a mechanism whereby domains can be reserved by a registrar for a short period of time, at what amounts to no cost to them. After this short period (I don't remember how long, but think "a few weeks") they will be faced with a decision: register it for themselves for a fee or let it revert to unallocated status at no further cost to themselves.
If they believe you want the domain, they may well register it for themselves. You need to make them conclude that it will be a waste of money to snag the domain in the hope of re-selling it to you.
The key here is how they know someone wants the domain. And the answer... a domain name availability search. Read those two lines again.
You must not search for the domain name, unless you are absolutely prepared to register it that very moment with the registrar you've chosen to do the search.
What happens is the name must be sent to various registrars to see if it's taken; the registrars who do this watch the search queries and snap up any domain that isn't actually bought by the person doing the search that moment. They know that someone wants the domain, and that person failed to register it when they had the chance.
It may well be the very registrar you use to initiate the search who does this. They then hold the domain in this limbo state for a period (whatever that time limit is; you'll have to search for it as I forget).
You need to make them think no-one wants the domain. Find out how long they can hold it without actually paying for it, and after that period do a search with some confidence it's been released and snap it up when you do find it available.
This is delicate work; if you've been checking to see if it's available, you in essence have been bidding the price up. Stop doing that and feign disinterest instead.
If your queries have convinced them to actually pay for the domain instead of letting it revert, you're screwed.
This reactor is a critical source of necessary nuclear medical material. The material has a very short life, requiring a relatively fresh and constantly replenished supply for it to be of any use in diagnosis; basically measured in days.
Somebody at the Nuclear Regulatory agency figured out that the reactor was never designed to survive earthquakes, and the catastrophic fires that such earthquakes often cause. They decided that this is, at this very moment and not a second later, a critical safety feature that must be implemented without delay in this reactor that makes critical medical isotopes and has for many years, with an enviable safety record. This despite the area where the reactor is located is, at least from the geological record, the seismic data, and the reasonable predictions based on both sets of data, in an area where earthquakes are, to put it mildly, rare.
One could argue that these unlikely events are none the less critical, and merit the shutdown of the reactor for immediate remedial work. Safety first, and all that.
This leaves the question as to why such a critical source of critical medical material would be ordered shut down without notifying anyone in the entire nation of Canada who happens to be in the medical field, which is what happened.
Health Canada found out about the lack of isotopes when the doctors of the nation's hospitals called and asked what the hell is going on.
The doctors in the nation's hospitals found out about the lack of isotopes when they walked into the nations hospitals, viewed the nation's patients wearing the nation's hospital gowns, and asked where this morning's delivery of the nation's isotopes were. They asked the nation's delivery people. They said they didn't get any to deliver.
So, a few weeks before Christmas the nation's sick took off the hospital gowns and headed home, no diagnosis in hand. No problem; most of these people are only worried about Cancer. There's plenty of time to get started on that, maybe next year.
The Ottawa region also happens to be where the National Government is located, which gives rise to a certain conflict; on one hand I wish the certain bureaucrats within the government would suffer the consequences of a huge shakeup, so to speak, yet that may damage the reactor. If you understand the phrase "be careful what you ask for, because you might get it" then we're on the same page.
Alas, even the omnipotent must sometimes admit defeat. So, no orders for earthquakes will come from the heavens today. Sigh.
But they explicitly state they do collect it. The partner sites send everything, including the data from opt-out users, to Facebook. Partner sites are not privy to Facebook users' preferences; only Facebook knows that. So, in every case, they send it to Facebook. (Were it not such, then an even greater privacy issue develops; why does Facebook rely on a thousand retailers to do the right thing and why doses even more information have to be disseminated to even more entities for this to work? Answer: they don't, and it doesn't, so the retailer has no idea which Beacon user opts in or out and treats them all equally by sending all the data to Facebook to sort out).
All I'm saying is that is collecting anyway you play it. We don't need sinister 3rd party plots to make it so; it is so already.
Facebook then compares the data after collection to the user's preferences, and then either uses it as they intended in the first place, or throws it away. (And although I'm cynical and I'm by no means going to go out on a limb here to defend the morality of a company I know nothing, when it comes right down to it, about, I'm at this point willing to concede they might do what they say and leave it at that. You see, trust is an essential part of the whole transaction, and Facebook is very, very wary of generating any more mistrust, since a lack of trust goes right to the bottom line and costs them money; in fact it goes straight to the viability of the whole business model itself. No trust? No users. No users? No data. No data? No income).
Opt-out is preferred to Opt-in simply because Opt-in costs money to police while opt-out is either generating thousandths of a cent, or nothing, with 100% reliability with no work whatsoever verifying anything. But, in either case, it's critical that you, the user, do the work because at 1/1000 a cent (or whatever it actually is; we know it's definitely a micro-payment level thing) per user per income instance, it just ain't worth it to chase you. Which is why companies like FaceBook set these stupid things up this way in the first place.
Maybe it's just semantics, but I can't really agree with your conclusion.
"... they won't collect info..." does not equal "... won't store those actions... " in my understanding of the English language.
As I read it, what happens is first they collect the identifiable data, then they might do some real-time stuff with it, then they throw the identifiable data away, probably keeping whatever aggregate info they glean from the real-time processing.
Essentially they promise to not store it but they most certainly do admit they will continue to collect it, and they are silent on whether they do anything with it as far as compiling non-identifiable statistics with it.
In other words, does your local education board subscribe to the idea that you are supposed to be churning out a surplus of candidates ( surplus = lower wages) who can jump into the work-a-day world right out of high school with no training (= lower wages) and minimal real job experience ( = company can bend them to it's will)? If so, then you will be expected to train them in the routine use of the modern industry tools; ie PhotoShop, etc.
Note that, as anyone who has been out of computing for a period will readily attest, everything you know about applications has a shelf life of perhaps three years. Someone who knows this year's version well but is weak on job experience (read: high school grads) has the more marketable job skills in entry level positions compared to someone who may have been running PhotoShop since dad had a copy of version 3 but has never run CS or better (as a totally random example). But, the latter will pick up the concepts as soon as that latest version is installed on his system and have the more satisfying career.
This window is very much more evident and for lack of a better term, compressed (or maybe better: "accelerated"), with commercial software than Open Source and UNIX/Linux. No one ever forgets what cd and ls means, but if you know OSX 10.3 like the back of your hand, well, most of those applications don't even run on later versions of Mac OSX (some significant changes in the underlying architecture happened with 10.4x). (Creative shops are still largely Mac shops, although it's not really an issue either way). PhotoShop is the kind of application that needs significant compatibility tweaks to work with the various OS flavors, on Windows as well.
On the other hand (and I won't make any attempt to hide that this is own personal preference if you are teaching my kids) if you are supposed to be turning out well-rounded citizens who can adapt and grow rather than perform by rote, then by all means use whatever tools you see fit to use and have on hand; they actually matter little to what you are trying to convey and hopefully, teach.
If you are trying to get students in a creative field to express, and learn to express without fear, their own creativity, one might even be able to make a very good argument that you should not use the conventional tools... after all you can get PhotoShop at any store and there is quite frankly too much help available on how to use the application, not the least of which is the very tutorials that come with the application that no-one who knows a previous version ever uses, but everyone who "knows it like the back of their hand" could learn from. On the other hand, new tools in the creative fields often encourage new ways to see and use those tools. A true artist can draw on the sidewalk with a chunk of broken drywall. I would suggest you are supposed to be looking for that student; slick applications can sometimes make slick results in untalented hands, but the untalented will never touch a creative app outside of class again. Give 'em a tolerably decent grade that represents the attendance record and how they listen, and give the A's to the ones who really apply themselves.
I say go with whatever and teach them to use the concepts they're going to be using five years from now, or the day after graduation in a creative field that doesn't involve making logos at the newspaper... maybe they want to be cartoonists, or game designers, or design can openers or tapered roller bearings. There is only one way to do that, since neither you or I know what that programs will look like. Teach them the concepts, the differences between the napkin and the drawing board versus the mouse and the graphics tablet. In every case, there has to be a visualization; a transfer from the human mind to the intellectual property.
Like all skills, creative skills can be nurtured, and creative skills can atrophy. Focusing on the tools themselves tends to encourage the latter, as they surely wil
This hasn't even been tabled yet. There is a minority government in power; the opposition can shoot down anything it wants and there's nothing the government can do about it. It hasn't got to second reading, it hasn't got to the Senate, it's pure speculation at worst and in need of some rather improbable help at best. Most of the bills this government tabled in the last session (a year ago) died on the order paper (means nothing happened and can ever happen with them).
"... Besides the fact that in the US all code, as well as anything you right, is AUTOMATICALLY covered under copyright...."
As far as I know, the US was the only jurisdiction that ever had the requirement that a copyright be registered before it could be asserted. Elsewhere in the world it's always been automatic and exists from the time an original creative work is made in a fixed form. Now that the US has abandoned the registration requirement, it's in step with most other nations on Earth.
* "most" as in those nations that have any respect for international or IP laws at all. In North Korea they probably throw you in jail for not infringing.
Some might call it nit-picking (and I have no issue with your points, which are well taken), but the distinction is critically important, so...
"... Copyright happens on an original work from the time it's published...."
Actually, it "happens" as soon as the original work is placed in "a fixed form". This does not mean published, per se; it could be scribbled on a napkin which now lies under the bed with the other dust bunnies. Of course, publishing it is also a kind of "fixed form", it's just not the only kind.
"... and foreign airlines fly in US airspace all the time but just aren't allowed to go between two US destinations...."
The US does prevent foreign firms from controlling many aspects but as you pointed out, not through formal laws for the most part, but by informal arrangements or case-by-case barriers that arise when a situation calls for it (depending on your perspective, of course). Airlines may be a weaker argument than Aircraft manufacturers, but that's not the point.
Less convincing is the argument regarding flights between domestic points by foreign airlines. This is a restriction that exists essentially worldwide, and has for a very long time indeed. The rare exception: Canada and the US, which since the early 1990's have the right to make intercity flights on international routes (eg: Minneapolis to Chicago to Toronto, or Saskatoon to Regina to Minneapolis, both are actual scheduled routes). Currently there are few such agreements but after watching a decade's worth of the experiences with the Canada-US Open Skies Agreement, Asian countries and European nations are ready to sign or negotiate with certain foreign carriers.
Perhaps even more on topic (and addressing replies to your post, rather than your post itself), the recent news regarding the US's control of the Internet Domain system indicates to the extent, and the means employed, to create real barriers to control by foreign entities without resorting to explicit barring legislation and is typical of the US approach. Another good example of the process, in this case one where the outcome was in favor of foreign control is the history of Rupert Murdoch's Fox network.
Traditionally a non-explicit bar existed in television broadcasting existed, which is hardly a secret as it was explicitly stated by US administrators from time to time over the previous 60 years when the topic reared it's head. CBS was purchased by GE, a company that can be properly described as a Defense Contractor. Consolidation was considered preferable to any foreign ownership at all.
In the case of Fox, the bar was lifted but certainly not without considerable lobbying, hand-wringing, and specific concessions not to further interfere by US lawmakers. The history of Television networks in the US, including Fox, clearly shows that Foreign Control of any industry rests on the prerogative of lawmakers and is not 'wide open" as some would suggest.
If you don't like that example, there are many, many others. Chrysler was baled out to prevent foreign ownership once, (while the takeover by Daimler was quite deliberately portrayed as a merger, to enable it to go through). One could also look at the bailout of Harley-Davidson, which included legislated trade barriers to insure it's success. To say such barriers to foreign ownership don't exist in the US is simply incorrect.
To hold the successful takeover by foreigners of certain companies is proof such barriers does not exist is also erroneous logic: if such barriers did not exist the examples would not be needed, and any research into those successful takeovers reveal the very barriers that needed to be overcome. If the US were as open as some hold, there would be none beyond perhaps anti-competitive ones.
As it is, anticompetitive behavior is encouraged as a reasonable alternative to foreign ownership. An obvious example from the endless list of candidates is Aircraft Manufacturing. The industry is nothing if not a history of bankruptcy and merger, but ignoring all but the most recent examples, we have Northrop purchased by Mcdonnell-Douglas purchased by Boeing; all three were at one time during the Cold War and later, competitive bidders on military aircraft contracts and it was the established doctrine that competitive bidding was essential to national security. Now one-source bidding by Boeing is de rigueur.
To suggest that "everyone else does it" is, well, I hope everyone knows the fallacy here. Those who take the moral high ground message to others have to practice what they preach at home, or they find no-one will take them seriously. On second thought, perhaps that does bear being spelled out after all.
"... Any arrest is generally for at least a 'serious misdemeanor'. Minor misdemeanors get a ticket and a court date...."
The US considers any Canadian Criminal Code conviction as "equivalent to Felony" (since "Felony" is a phrase that describes a class of crime in the US but that particular phrase is not used elsewhere). Canada considers any "Serious Misdemeanor" and any "Felony" as equivalent to a Criminal Code conviction. The same language is never used to describe crime or to form statutes in each country.
It would also be helpful if you knew that there are misdemeanors in Canada, but they are in essence minor traffic violations only. Serious traffic violations are Criminal Code[Felony] convictions. There is also no means or provisions to reduce any Criminal Code [Felony] sentence to misdemeanor in Canada. Shoplifting is a Criminal Code offense, and there is no way to reduce that to anything other than a Criminal Code [Felony] conviction. The same goes for all offenses in Canada that are not extremely minor (no court appearance-pay-the-fine types). Assault is always Criminal Code; Theft of any kind or any amount; Impaired Driving; etc. They simply cannot be misdemeanors under any circumstances in Canada.
So, it's not only possible, but fairly common for convictions in the US to be reduced to a level of misdemeanor that would be Criminal Code convictions in Canada, and could not be anything but Criminal Code convictions under any circumstances. Thus, "serious misdemeanor" is the cutoff but it still misses some convictions that would be flagged going the other way.
The US has access to the same information on Canadians as Canada has on US citizens, and this has been going on for almost three decades, back when "there's no reason why anyone would want a computer in their home" seemed a reasonable statement by the CEO of a computer company to make.
Yeah, that one jumped out at me on first read, and I was looking for a comment (wasn't finding any... a bit of a surprise) when I found yours near the bottom (earlier) posts.
In other times, he would have been branded a Communist for such a statement; it is the clearest, most anti-free market statement I've heard coming from a corporate executive in years. (Not that I didn't say it's the only one... corporations always revert to anti-competitiveness when competition doesn't generate the profits they deem are their birthright).
I'm going to paraphrase it so others can clearly see what you and I did: "... charging that the [other company's product] was undermining the ability of [my company] to [charge higher prices] for [my product].
[Original:] charging that the digital download service was undermining the ability of traditional media companies to set profitable rates for their content online...."
In fact, Company A undermining Company B's ability to charge higher prices is practically the definition of the object of capitalism and free market economies. It clearly shows how coddled and sheltered these media companies have become. They have a "right" to fix market prices? Time for a wake-up call.
"... We suffer so Apple can make a few more bucks, when Apple is clearly not hurting for money.'"..."
We what? Suffer? Because you want an iPhone?
Earth to child-in-adult-sized-body: Get old, at least old enough so your maturity is within perhaps a decade of your real age, son.
Suffer? Over a gadget? Well, I hate to see anyone or anything suffer.
Let's all throw money at whomever the parent poster is, because I know money will solve his "suffering". We could pay to have his current contract cancelled, buy him an expensive gadget, and help him do whatever it takes to END HIS SUFFERING, PEOPLE!!!
Oh, Pshaw. Vacuum tubes are not inherently unreliable nor particularly difficult to make (toxic chemicals and heavy metals aside; but those hazards are in the transistor, diode, rectifier, and transmitter factories too).
When was the last time you heard of a microwave oven failing? How about the radar systems at your airport?
When the old US telephone network equipment (the "Bell System") built by Bell and it's Western Electric subsidiary was finally dismantled there were vacuum tube repeaters that were pulled, fully operational, after having been in service for more than 50 years.
If anyone knows about vacuum tube reliability it's Bell Labs; they invented or developed most of the vacuum tube equipment used in telephone systems and sound reproduction, and they invented the transistor. On the fifth anniversary marking the transistor's invention, Bell had found only one use for the transistor (as a photo diode in the card translator used in telephone exchanges for automatic routing in toll dialing).
RADAR is extremely powerful transmission, requiring large, specialized vacuum tubes to create the necessary high frequency/high power transmission.
By way of example, OHSA requirements backed by law prohibit any civilian or military from being within the beam area dozens to hundreds of meters from certain RADAR transmitters operating in certain modes (eg aircraft landing assistance in low visibility conditions). Those same rules, on the other hand, allows humans to be within a few feet of the beam of a cell tower operating with all channels transmitting at maximum allowable power, an extremely unlikely extreme case operating condition according to the FCC (the beam will be narrow and parallel to the ground; you would have to be hovering above the ground. Yet military personnel get burns from RADAR while in tents 50 meters away when a sweep of a fraction of a second goes across their backsides). I think you're reaching here.
An excellent overview of the health effects of RF transmission can be found in the paper cited below.
First of all, there is no shortage of uranium suitable for nuclear fuel. Secondly, no reactor comes on stream without securing a supply of uranium for the life of the reactor; all sales are long-term contracts.
The spot price for uranium varies a bit, but the mines themselves sell at roughly $10 a pound, and they are selling it at that price as we speak, because they signed the supply contracts 10 and 20 years ago.
So, whatever and wherever the world's reactors are, they have enough fuel to run to decommission. Let's get that right out of the way now.
There was a flood at the mine sitting on top of the world's richest uranium deposit. This single mine has easy access to what amounts to 20% of current production. When it comes back on stream in 2010, all of a sudden uranium will be oh-so-plentiful again.
There is a short-term shortage for reactors that are coming on stream right now. Some of the players in the uranium generating industry are stockpiling their uranium fuel, in order to create an artificial shortage and drive up the spot price, and then are selling it at these amazing spot prices.
You know, greed, speculation, regular human behavior stuff, and whatever a human might do to exploit a profit opportunity a corporation damn well can be counted on to do. According to security laws, it's more-or-less illegal not to; shareholder can sue you for not being greedy when the opportunity presents itself. Go figure.
There is huge, and I mean huge, exploration activity for uranium right now, because companies can point to the $100+ spot price and get money from the usual risky stock markets. Spend it while you can get it but in the long run these shareholders probably will be looking at penny stocks once the dust settles.
There are a couple of new mines coming on stream in the next few years; they all have outrageous reserves.
Once Cameco's Cigar Lake mine fixes it's flooding problem, there will be way too much uranium around. The uranium producers would like to sign some long-term contracts for a number between the $10 it's been since forever and the $100 it is now, but they know damn well it won't be $100, and so do the people who own the reactors. Both are sitting it out, waiting for the dust to settle, to see exactly what yellocake is going to cost them in 2011.
And it will settle, make no mistake. If you are in a speculating mood, you now know enough to get started fleecing those who believe the lies. Be sure to get out in time.
When a Professional Engineer (PE) "signs off on a project", they are certifying that they accept liability for the failure of said project/part/building/blueprint/specification/etc.
Software Engineers don't have to worry about that, I guess, because the legalese says there is no liability, mostly, for failure, and warnings about relying on said software for life and limb are common.
It might come into play with medical or some other designed-for-critical application, but otherwise there's no need for PE status for a Software Engineer.
Not to take away anything from what you said, because you are completely right about journalism school and it's spawn. But, I also saw CNN, and I remember them saying that they were able to maintain flight control and basic navigation on a limited set of analog instruments, which makes sense since pretty much every airplane has a very basic backup set of these and they pretty much always work as they're powered by simple principles (air pressure, gravity, etc).
To get these particular planes on this particular mission out of trouble a clock that can count by the second and is good for a few minutes' accuracy plus a turn and bank indicator (powered by gravity; it's a ball in a very simply calibrated, curved tube glued somewhere in the cockpit) is all they would need to do a known good 180, even with zero visibility, and point back home. Not only that, but we've just described the most basic, drilled into you until you can do it in your sleep, safety procedure when encountering almost any irregular flying or weather situation. I'm pretty sure they could pull it off.
Now, currently there are a few aircraft that according to the usual reliable sources (Jane's, etc) have no analog backup, and the F-22 is one of those (the others are F-2, F-35, and JAS 39C/D). However, I would be surprised to learn that a set of the four basic instruments were not fitted on an airplane with little or no weapons onboard (plenty of weight allowance) and mid-air refueling support for it's inaugural transoceanic flight. I think there is a strong possibility that was the case here.
There is even the "1-instrument nav system" which consists of a tennis ball and a string taped to the ceiling or canopy; it provides a remarkable range of useful flight condition information, and it's easy to retrofit;-)
"Out" as in on Parole. The penalty for murder in Canada is life in prison without parole eligibility for 25 years (first degree) and between 10 and 25 years (second degree) according to what the sentencing judge orders.
"... Offenders who are paroled while serving life sentences remain on parole for life, unless parole is revoked. Without a grant of parole, the offender remains imprisoned for life...." -Corrections Service Canada (the federal prison system).
In Canada, any sentence of two years or more is automatically Federal custody, and sentences of less than two years custody means serving time in a provincial jail.
I'm not familiar with the "serial killer" case you mention. Do you have a name?
As for the FLQ, I don't know whom you refer to when you say "... murderers out in less than ten (FLQ)"; perhaps you are referring to Jacques Rose who was convicted of accessory to murder and sentenced to eight years. He served five years in prison and successfully completed 3 years on parole without incident. He was acquitted of charges of murder and kidnapping. His lawyer, Robert Lemieux, was convicted of contempt of court over numerous courtroom incidents and sentenced to two and one half years in prison.
Pierre-Paul Geoffroy was arrested for the 1969 bombing of the Montreal Stock Exchange, which injured numerous persons. He pled guilty to every bombing believed to be the work of the FLQ, some 129 charges in all, and was sentenced to 124 terms of life in prison.
Two others were convicted of murder (Paul Rose, Francis Simmered) and sentenced to life in prison, and a third (Bernard Sortie) sentenced to 20 years for kidnapping. During the 1970 crisis, simply being a member of the FLQ became a crime punishable by five years imprisonment. In total, 46 people were charged with crimes related to the kidnappings. Five persons were charged with kidnapping but escaped prosecution for a time; they were discovered to be living in Paris (Marc Carbonneau, Jacques Lanctôt, and Jacques and Louise Cossette-Trudel, who were given passage to Cuba in exchange for releasing British Diplomat James Cross, whom they had held for 60 days) as well as fugitives Yves Langlois. All faced outstanding charges in Canada. French authorities indicated they would refuse a request to extradite them.
All five would voluntarily return to Canada during the early 1980's and receive relatively light sentences (in the range of two years), but they had not murdered anyone; they released their hostage, James Cross unharmed. The light sentences were party because much of the evidence required to obtain a conviction was missing; the files held by the Quebec department of justice disappeared on the night of the election of the Parti Québécois, on November 15, 1976.
Comparing justice in the US is difficult, as there are essentially 51 jurisdictions; some are sentenced to long, harsh sentences while others get a "slap on the wrist". In Utah, the parole board has the power to alter the sentence itself, so that one cannot be sure that a harsh sentence will actually be served by the offender; while in Louisiana currently there are cases of murder that go unprosecuted, with the offender being released without trial. See: The Times-Picayune: Crime Thrives Under 60 Day Rule: http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/ base/news-7/11712631133140.xml&coll=1/
Often a harsh sentence is given but offenders are released after serving relatively brief periods of incarceration. Certainly there are many examples of both harsh and lax sentences in the US, and I'm sure every nation has it's share of outraged citizens who decry sentences that they feel are too easy on offenders.
I suppose this is news to some people, but this is ancient history. About 5 years ago (December 3, 2001) they signed a formal agreement that essentially legitimized what had been an ad hoc but non formal arrangement; ie you had to jump through a little hoop but access was never denied; it was referred then as "sharing". Once the agreement was signed, you don't have to ask; it's the same as accessing the domestic database; it's full unrestricted access for authorized personnel, which includes any bona fide law enforcement officer in either nation.
I guarantee you that, as a US citizen, if you have ever been stopped by a Canadian police officer, he had full access to whatever the State Police would have access to if you were home; and if he had your ID and sat in the car, he checked you; and he also ran your plate to check who the vehicle is registered to.
The same would happen to any Canadian traveling in the US, provided the officer had access to the FBI database in-car (all State Troopers could, I know for sure, but 10 or 15 years ago some local police might not have the gear in-car. They could call it in and the station would have access, though). Others with direct, seamless access to Canadian records are the US Border Patrol, US Customs Service, and the DEA.
I don't know the details of the US database except that it's operated by the FBI and was originally the Fingerprints Database which J Edgar Hoover started in the 1920's. the Canadian Police Information Centre http://www.cpic-cipc.ca/English/index.cfm?CFID=645 919&CFTOKEN=76404916&jsessionid=1e3013767811722888 47363/, which is a branch of the RCMP, runs the Canadian one. It's one of the older computerized databases in the world, it became fully operational in 1967. If you know the correct access information (and I guarantee your local US police does) you can access CPIC online via the link I just gave you, and even members of the public can have limited access (check for stolen vehicles or bicycles by license plate number, and check for recovered stolen property). By the way, your IP will be logged;-)
There is also sharing of data between the Insurance Bureau Of Canada and the US-based National Insurance Crime Bureau (both combat insurance fraud).
This has nothing to do with 9/11 or anything else; it's been going on for at least 40 years, but the formal agreement was hastily signed to make everything nice and legal during the very first meeting after 9/11 between Attorney General Ashcroft and Solicitor General McAuley. Shortly afterward (2002), another agreement formalized the merger of the two nations visa, customs, and immigration databases.
There are also FBI and DEA agents permanently staffed in Canada, and there are RCMP officers who are stationed throughout the US on a permanent basis. Most major airports in Canada and the US have Customs Agents from the other country on staff and secure areas where you are considered to be essentially on foreign soil: they can and will arrest you and you are in their custody.
There is some sharing of data with European Databases but not the kind of cooperation that exists between Canada and the US; the European Parliament has not agreed to the same level of access and it's supposed to be limited to information on suspected terrorism or drug trafficking.
For a couple of years you've been able to use applications that create mathematical models of music with applications like I Eat Brainz (Mac OSX) and MusicBrainz (Windows); they create a pattern and use that to search for and identify the music. Since the pattern can account for things like slight differences in speed, my guess is they used those apps or similar (the database is important and takes time to build, so perhaps they did use the Brainz database) to confirm their suspicions, if not to identify the similarities in the first place.
That's not to say Gracenote or CDDB or iTunes did not play a role: they too are good at cataloging music in a different way than 'Brainz, which is a useful feature when you are trying to confirm your suspicions. Normally you use both to manually enter the metadata for those "Unknown Artist/Unknown Album" songs that creep into the hard drive over time.
In this case, used together they could probably make a very convincing case: the patterns are not easily fooled; two sessions of the same song by the same artist appearing on two CDs (for example) can be identified as either unique or identical.
"... If you're including satellite systems, then yeah, broadband access is pretty much everywhere. But if you're including satellite systems, then it's pretty much everywhere in the United States, too, since everyone has access to DirecTv or Dish Network...."
If you count subscribers, it matters.
But, few Canadians have to resort to sat. It's been available for 12 years, the subscriber numbers are going down, not up, as traditional hi-speed becomes available to more areas. Almost everyone, no matter where in the country you are, can get microwave-based hispeed, which has no lag, so why go sat?
Every school in Canada had internet access before Y2K rolled around. Every school in Canada had hispeed before 2002 rolled around. Then the goal became every classroom with hispeed. And so on.
Canada has always been gung-ho crazy about communications; it's considered fundamental to the nation's well being. It's all done with private money and private, for profit companies, but the regulatory framework, even thought the companies complain about it, is all about maximizing access and competition.
Phone companies, and now cable companies, have to allow others to use their pipes at cost. It's the law. Unused sat channels must be made available to the competition; it's a use-it-or-someone-will approach. You can't hog the pipe; it's illegal. So, there's an incentive to go out and get customers, to expand the infrastructure, to fill the pipe. If you don't, well, someone will and that someone will be in competition with you. It's a tremendous incentive.
I'll give a recent example. The big telecos (there's 5 of 'em) can offer VoIP. But, they have to ask for regulatory approval for rates, because they are monopolies. They happened to ask for approval for "X" dollars a couple of years ago, and were granted that rate.
Last year, they asked to lower the rate. They were told "sorry, you have to keep that rate. You still have most of the telephone customers; the cable companies, the Vonages of the world, they haven't got enough subscribers yet. When you lose 25% of your customers to the competition, you get to set your own rates. Until then, you must use the rate you asked us to approve initially."
There's a rather long history of comm in Canada; the world's first commercial communications satellite, back when the Mercury program was still active. The world's largest microwave network, before that. Rural telephones were encouraged; if a teleco asked for a rate, they would allow a higher urban rate if you expanded your rural telephone base and charged them a little less. If not, well, you can do what you want, but they would approve another teleco in your backyard if you didn't start building rural lines. They take the whole thing seriously, and they do it all with private companies that make a very nice profit, and always have.
The approach in the US is more along the lines of "what does business need" first and unfortunately the telecos in the US have a rather long history of promising one thing and delivering another. There is no communications watchdog, there are a bunch of unrelated regulators who fight for jurisdiction and are powerless when innovation comes faster than regulation. In some ways this helps, but you have to be willing to consider the possibility that in some ways it harms as well. Broadband penetration to more residents is a casualty of that approach.
Whether you want to change or not (there are calls for an overall comm strategy in the US, witness the net neutrality debate) the short answer is there is a reason for the access or lack of it, and it's not by accident, and if there is the political will to do it, it can change. But, there are huge armies of lobbyists from all over the industry and beyond that will do anything, and I mean anything, to either stop it or warp it to their own advantage. So, people have to really want change for there to be change. I personally don't see the effort being likely to emerge.
They passed a law, that says the phone company must provide access to it's infrastructure on a cost-plus basis. The cable company runs it's cable on the phone company's poles, and pays the same price that it costs the phone company itself to build and maintain the poles, plus a fixed % for a small, reasonable profit.
If you want access to a fat pipe on the all-fiber network, you pay a wholesale price for it, again based on cost plus, and again the phone company cannot impede it with an artificial barrier of some sort.
Then the cable company competes with the phone company for internet business and now telephone business, while the phone company competes with the cable company for television (they both provide TV and have both rolled out HDTV, one over cable, one over IP).
No subsidies required. Plenty of competition, not a tremendous barrier to entry, and prices reflect what things cost. Broadband everywhere, telephone everywhere, TV everywhere, HDTV everywhere. The companies all make profits, too, and no tax dollars required; just the guts to sign some legislation.
Slashdot Mirror
" ... I think the parent's point about "Reset Safari" is that the language used doesn't mean anything to the average user. ..."
... followed by: ... followed by
Maybe. But it's right there in the main menu:
File:
Private Browsing
Reset Safari
Empty Cache
If you click on Private Browsing, you get:
Are you sure you want to turn on private browsing?
When private browsing is turned on, webpages are not added to the history, items are automatically removed from the Downloads window, information isn't saved for AutoFill (including names and passwords), and searches are not added to the pop-up menu in the Google search bar. Until you close the window, you can still click the Back and Forward buttons to return to webpages you have opened.
[Cancel] [[OK]]
Clicking on: File: Reset Safari gets you this dialog:
Are you sure you want to reset Safari?
Select the items you want to reset, then click Reset. You cannot undo this operation.
X Clear history
X Empty the cache
X Clear the Downloads window
X Remove all cookies
X Remove all website icons
X Remove saved names and passwords
X Remove other AutoFill form text
X Clear Google searches
X Close all Safari Windows
[Cancel] [[Reset]]
Clicking on: File: Empty Cache gets you:
Are you sure you want to empty the cache?
Safari saves contents of webpages in a cache so it's faster to view them again.
[Cancel] [[Empty]]
Now, all this is also available from the Help files, so there's not much excuse for not knowing what to do. And, as is the norm with long-standing Apple User Interface guidelines, you cannot do something dangerous without being given a chance to back out.
Having used Windows for many years, I can understand if Windows users never use Help, since Microsoft's help is often less than useless. Apple's OSX Help is much better, and OSX's help is not nearly as good as the Help in the old Mac System 7.5~OS9, the likes of which we probably will never see again in a mainstream OS. Which is a shame.
But, It goes against all evidence to suggest there is anything easier or more intuitive to the Firefox methods of doing the same things, and I know for a fact that FireFox (Mozilla) doesn't explain what is going to happen next nor does Mozilla's Help system get many points for clarity.
As for the rest of the admittedly on-topic discussion (login button or method) it wasn't part of the post I addressed.
But, since you bring it up I'll be happy to give my 2 cents: for me, it's a non issue because I never access the iDisk from the web and I don't know why you would want to when it's easily accessible from the desktop. And the very same issues the original post is all about plague all WebDAV access via all browsers in all OS's.
I must disagree with your conclusions as to what is more or less user friendly.
... which doesn't retain the data in the first place. This is much better than just erasing pointers to data written to disk.
... giving you two useful options: not retaining data or removing it if you forget to tell it not to retain the data first.
... ... " select [Settings] ... where you get to the place where this can be enabled. A number of checkboxes need to be configured, followed by clicking [OK]
You probably just are not familiar with the applications. Both browsers are available for Windows and OSX and both work essentially the same for these particular options on both OSs.
If you're a Windows user and you're curious, you could download Safari 3 for Windows or FireFox 3 for Windows. In my experience people tend to prefer whatever browser they are most familiar with, so I don't expect any converts, but certainly you can find out more about a browser by using it for a bit.
FireFox's "clear private data" must be set up via a multi-step process. It clears private data after the browsing session ends.
Safari's "Reset Safari" also clears the same cached data, at any time during the session. People who are security-aware would restart the browser to end the session, but you don't have to.
Naturally, in either case the data remains on the drive; a proper secure erase is still required for true security.
"Reset Safari" is accessible with one click at: File: Reset Safari
Safari also has a pre-session privacy setting, also accessible with one click at: File: Private Browsing
File: Private Browsing immediately precedes File: Reset Safari
To use "clear private data" in Firefox is hardly "pretty straightforward" in comparison:
[Menu] FireFox: Preferences: Privacy Tab:
at "Clear Private Data tool
You will also get a dialog when you quit Firefox asking you to confirm. At this point you need to specifically allow the removal of the private data or it is retained. If the browser or the OS crashes, if there is a hard restart, or you fail to quit FireFox for whatever reason, you won't see the dialog.
If you've set up Clear Private Data and you didn't get a chance to view the dialog at the end of your session and agree to remove it, you will get the dialog when FireFox is launched the next time. Needless to say, that doesn't help you if you're long gone from the Internet Cafe and someone else sees it.
RE (parent):
1) If existing OS: run complete antivirus scan and clean existing install, fix everything. Then run a GOOD antivirus scanner (I like Kaspersky), and do it right.
2) Format system disk.
(your comment)
#2 makes #1 completely redundant, doesn't it?
I read into the parent that there were files, etc that needed to be migrated to the new OS.
I know he didn't say that out loud, and I know many users who just throw everything away and start over, but people who do Real Work (TM) on their computers, regardless of the OS, need to migrate their files. What was on the box last week is pretty much guaranteed to be the stuff we'll be looking for on the main computer's HD next week.
Thus, clean thoroughly, [backup], format, install, [restore].
[backup] might be a given if he's doing nightlies like everyone should, so including that as a step could be redundant.
The AV step was indicative that he wants to insure clean files for the restore, rather than simply move last week's problems to next week's desktop.
Domain hijackers rely on your unique need for the domain to earn their money.
... a domain name availability search. Read those two lines again.
In particular with domains that have a specific value to you and you alone, if you don't need it, no-one does and there's no means to profit.
There is a mechanism whereby domains can be reserved by a registrar for a short period of time, at what amounts to no cost to them. After this short period (I don't remember how long, but think "a few weeks") they will be faced with a decision: register it for themselves for a fee or let it revert to unallocated status at no further cost to themselves.
If they believe you want the domain, they may well register it for themselves. You need to make them conclude that it will be a waste of money to snag the domain in the hope of re-selling it to you.
The key here is how they know someone wants the domain. And the answer
You must not search for the domain name, unless you are absolutely prepared to register it that very moment with the registrar you've chosen to do the search.
What happens is the name must be sent to various registrars to see if it's taken; the registrars who do this watch the search queries and snap up any domain that isn't actually bought by the person doing the search that moment. They know that someone wants the domain, and that person failed to register it when they had the chance.
It may well be the very registrar you use to initiate the search who does this. They then hold the domain in this limbo state for a period (whatever that time limit is; you'll have to search for it as I forget).
You need to make them think no-one wants the domain. Find out how long they can hold it without actually paying for it, and after that period do a search with some confidence it's been released and snap it up when you do find it available.
This is delicate work; if you've been checking to see if it's available, you in essence have been bidding the price up. Stop doing that and feign disinterest instead.
If your queries have convinced them to actually pay for the domain instead of letting it revert, you're screwed.
This reactor is a critical source of necessary nuclear medical material. The material has a very short life, requiring a relatively fresh and constantly replenished supply for it to be of any use in diagnosis; basically measured in days.
Somebody at the Nuclear Regulatory agency figured out that the reactor was never designed to survive earthquakes, and the catastrophic fires that such earthquakes often cause. They decided that this is, at this very moment and not a second later, a critical safety feature that must be implemented without delay in this reactor that makes critical medical isotopes and has for many years, with an enviable safety record. This despite the area where the reactor is located is, at least from the geological record, the seismic data, and the reasonable predictions based on both sets of data, in an area where earthquakes are, to put it mildly, rare.
One could argue that these unlikely events are none the less critical, and merit the shutdown of the reactor for immediate remedial work. Safety first, and all that.
This leaves the question as to why such a critical source of critical medical material would be ordered shut down without notifying anyone in the entire nation of Canada who happens to be in the medical field, which is what happened.
Health Canada found out about the lack of isotopes when the doctors of the nation's hospitals called and asked what the hell is going on.
The doctors in the nation's hospitals found out about the lack of isotopes when they walked into the nations hospitals, viewed the nation's patients wearing the nation's hospital gowns, and asked where this morning's delivery of the nation's isotopes were. They asked the nation's delivery people. They said they didn't get any to deliver.
So, a few weeks before Christmas the nation's sick took off the hospital gowns and headed home, no diagnosis in hand. No problem; most of these people are only worried about Cancer. There's plenty of time to get started on that, maybe next year.
The Ottawa region also happens to be where the National Government is located, which gives rise to a certain conflict; on one hand I wish the certain bureaucrats within the government would suffer the consequences of a huge shakeup, so to speak, yet that may damage the reactor. If you understand the phrase "be careful what you ask for, because you might get it" then we're on the same page.
Alas, even the omnipotent must sometimes admit defeat. So, no orders for earthquakes will come from the heavens today. Sigh.
But they explicitly state they do collect it. The partner sites send everything, including the data from opt-out users, to Facebook. Partner sites are not privy to Facebook users' preferences; only Facebook knows that. So, in every case, they send it to Facebook. (Were it not such, then an even greater privacy issue develops; why does Facebook rely on a thousand retailers to do the right thing and why doses even more information have to be disseminated to even more entities for this to work? Answer: they don't, and it doesn't, so the retailer has no idea which Beacon user opts in or out and treats them all equally by sending all the data to Facebook to sort out).
All I'm saying is that is collecting anyway you play it. We don't need sinister 3rd party plots to make it so; it is so already.
Facebook then compares the data after collection to the user's preferences, and then either uses it as they intended in the first place, or throws it away. (And although I'm cynical and I'm by no means going to go out on a limb here to defend the morality of a company I know nothing, when it comes right down to it, about, I'm at this point willing to concede they might do what they say and leave it at that. You see, trust is an essential part of the whole transaction, and Facebook is very, very wary of generating any more mistrust, since a lack of trust goes right to the bottom line and costs them money; in fact it goes straight to the viability of the whole business model itself. No trust? No users. No users? No data. No data? No income).
Opt-out is preferred to Opt-in simply because Opt-in costs money to police while opt-out is either generating thousandths of a cent, or nothing, with 100% reliability with no work whatsoever verifying anything. But, in either case, it's critical that you, the user, do the work because at 1/1000 a cent (or whatever it actually is; we know it's definitely a micro-payment level thing) per user per income instance, it just ain't worth it to chase you. Which is why companies like FaceBook set these stupid things up this way in the first place.
Maybe it's just semantics, but I can't really agree with your conclusion.
... they won't collect info ..." does not equal " ... won't store those actions ... " in my understanding of the English language.
"
As I read it, what happens is first they collect the identifiable data, then they might do some real-time stuff with it, then they throw the identifiable data away, probably keeping whatever aggregate info they glean from the real-time processing.
Essentially they promise to not store it but they most certainly do admit they will continue to collect it, and they are silent on whether they do anything with it as far as compiling non-identifiable statistics with it.
In other words, does your local education board subscribe to the idea that you are supposed to be churning out a surplus of candidates ( surplus = lower wages) who can jump into the work-a-day world right out of high school with no training (= lower wages) and minimal real job experience ( = company can bend them to it's will)? If so, then you will be expected to train them in the routine use of the modern industry tools; ie PhotoShop, etc.
... after all you can get PhotoShop at any store and there is quite frankly too much help available on how to use the application, not the least of which is the very tutorials that come with the application that no-one who knows a previous version ever uses, but everyone who "knows it like the back of their hand" could learn from. On the other hand, new tools in the creative fields often encourage new ways to see and use those tools. A true artist can draw on the sidewalk with a chunk of broken drywall. I would suggest you are supposed to be looking for that student; slick applications can sometimes make slick results in untalented hands, but the untalented will never touch a creative app outside of class again. Give 'em a tolerably decent grade that represents the attendance record and how they listen, and give the A's to the ones who really apply themselves.
... maybe they want to be cartoonists, or game designers, or design can openers or tapered roller bearings. There is only one way to do that, since neither you or I know what that programs will look like. Teach them the concepts, the differences between the napkin and the drawing board versus the mouse and the graphics tablet. In every case, there has to be a visualization; a transfer from the human mind to the intellectual property.
Note that, as anyone who has been out of computing for a period will readily attest, everything you know about applications has a shelf life of perhaps three years. Someone who knows this year's version well but is weak on job experience (read: high school grads) has the more marketable job skills in entry level positions compared to someone who may have been running PhotoShop since dad had a copy of version 3 but has never run CS or better (as a totally random example). But, the latter will pick up the concepts as soon as that latest version is installed on his system and have the more satisfying career.
This window is very much more evident and for lack of a better term, compressed (or maybe better: "accelerated"), with commercial software than Open Source and UNIX/Linux. No one ever forgets what cd and ls means, but if you know OSX 10.3 like the back of your hand, well, most of those applications don't even run on later versions of Mac OSX (some significant changes in the underlying architecture happened with 10.4x). (Creative shops are still largely Mac shops, although it's not really an issue either way). PhotoShop is the kind of application that needs significant compatibility tweaks to work with the various OS flavors, on Windows as well.
On the other hand (and I won't make any attempt to hide that this is own personal preference if you are teaching my kids) if you are supposed to be turning out well-rounded citizens who can adapt and grow rather than perform by rote, then by all means use whatever tools you see fit to use and have on hand; they actually matter little to what you are trying to convey and hopefully, teach.
If you are trying to get students in a creative field to express, and learn to express without fear, their own creativity, one might even be able to make a very good argument that you should not use the conventional tools
I say go with whatever and teach them to use the concepts they're going to be using five years from now, or the day after graduation in a creative field that doesn't involve making logos at the newspaper
Like all skills, creative skills can be nurtured, and creative skills can atrophy. Focusing on the tools themselves tends to encourage the latter, as they surely wil
WHAT new law?
This hasn't even been tabled yet. There is a minority government in power; the opposition can shoot down anything it wants and there's nothing the government can do about it. It hasn't got to second reading, it hasn't got to the Senate, it's pure speculation at worst and in need of some rather improbable help at best. Most of the bills this government tabled in the last session (a year ago) died on the order paper (means nothing happened and can ever happen with them).
Sorry, I'm calling you on this.
BULLSHIT
" ... Besides the fact that in the US all code, as well as anything you right, is AUTOMATICALLY covered under copyright. ..."
As far as I know, the US was the only jurisdiction that ever had the requirement that a copyright be registered before it could be asserted. Elsewhere in the world it's always been automatic and exists from the time an original creative work is made in a fixed form. Now that the US has abandoned the registration requirement, it's in step with most other nations on Earth.
* "most" as in those nations that have any respect for international or IP laws at all. In North Korea they probably throw you in jail for not infringing.
Some might call it nit-picking (and I have no issue with your points, which are well taken), but the distinction is critically important, so ...
... Copyright happens on an original work from the time it's published. ..."
"
Actually, it "happens" as soon as the original work is placed in "a fixed form". This does not mean published, per se; it could be scribbled on a napkin which now lies under the bed with the other dust bunnies. Of course, publishing it is also a kind of "fixed form", it's just not the only kind.
" ... and foreign airlines fly in US airspace all the time but just aren't allowed to go between two US destinations. ..."
The US does prevent foreign firms from controlling many aspects but as you pointed out, not through formal laws for the most part, but by informal arrangements or case-by-case barriers that arise when a situation calls for it (depending on your perspective, of course). Airlines may be a weaker argument than Aircraft manufacturers, but that's not the point.
Less convincing is the argument regarding flights between domestic points by foreign airlines. This is a restriction that exists essentially worldwide, and has for a very long time indeed. The rare exception: Canada and the US, which since the early 1990's have the right to make intercity flights on international routes (eg: Minneapolis to Chicago to Toronto, or Saskatoon to Regina to Minneapolis, both are actual scheduled routes). Currently there are few such agreements but after watching a decade's worth of the experiences with the Canada-US Open Skies Agreement, Asian countries and European nations are ready to sign or negotiate with certain foreign carriers.
Perhaps even more on topic (and addressing replies to your post, rather than your post itself), the recent news regarding the US's control of the Internet Domain system indicates to the extent, and the means employed, to create real barriers to control by foreign entities without resorting to explicit barring legislation and is typical of the US approach. Another good example of the process, in this case one where the outcome was in favor of foreign control is the history of Rupert Murdoch's Fox network.
Traditionally a non-explicit bar existed in television broadcasting existed, which is hardly a secret as it was explicitly stated by US administrators from time to time over the previous 60 years when the topic reared it's head. CBS was purchased by GE, a company that can be properly described as a Defense Contractor. Consolidation was considered preferable to any foreign ownership at all.
In the case of Fox, the bar was lifted but certainly not without considerable lobbying, hand-wringing, and specific concessions not to further interfere by US lawmakers. The history of Television networks in the US, including Fox, clearly shows that Foreign Control of any industry rests on the prerogative of lawmakers and is not 'wide open" as some would suggest.
If you don't like that example, there are many, many others. Chrysler was baled out to prevent foreign ownership once, (while the takeover by Daimler was quite deliberately portrayed as a merger, to enable it to go through). One could also look at the bailout of Harley-Davidson, which included legislated trade barriers to insure it's success. To say such barriers to foreign ownership don't exist in the US is simply incorrect.
To hold the successful takeover by foreigners of certain companies is proof such barriers does not exist is also erroneous logic: if such barriers did not exist the examples would not be needed, and any research into those successful takeovers reveal the very barriers that needed to be overcome. If the US were as open as some hold, there would be none beyond perhaps anti-competitive ones.
As it is, anticompetitive behavior is encouraged as a reasonable alternative to foreign ownership. An obvious example from the endless list of candidates is Aircraft Manufacturing. The industry is nothing if not a history of bankruptcy and merger, but ignoring all but the most recent examples, we have Northrop purchased by Mcdonnell-Douglas purchased by Boeing; all three were at one time during the Cold War and later, competitive bidders on military aircraft contracts and it was the established doctrine that competitive bidding was essential to national security. Now one-source bidding by Boeing is de rigueur.
To suggest that "everyone else does it" is, well, I hope everyone knows the fallacy here. Those who take the moral high ground message to others have to practice what they preach at home, or they find no-one will take them seriously. On second thought, perhaps that does bear being spelled out after all.
" ... Any arrest is generally for at least a 'serious misdemeanor'. Minor misdemeanors get a ticket and a court date. ..."
The US considers any Canadian Criminal Code conviction as "equivalent to Felony" (since "Felony" is a phrase that describes a class of crime in the US but that particular phrase is not used elsewhere). Canada considers any "Serious Misdemeanor" and any "Felony" as equivalent to a Criminal Code conviction. The same language is never used to describe crime or to form statutes in each country.
It would also be helpful if you knew that there are misdemeanors in Canada, but they are in essence minor traffic violations only. Serious traffic violations are Criminal Code[Felony] convictions. There is also no means or provisions to reduce any Criminal Code [Felony] sentence to misdemeanor in Canada. Shoplifting is a Criminal Code offense, and there is no way to reduce that to anything other than a Criminal Code [Felony] conviction. The same goes for all offenses in Canada that are not extremely minor (no court appearance-pay-the-fine types). Assault is always Criminal Code; Theft of any kind or any amount; Impaired Driving; etc. They simply cannot be misdemeanors under any circumstances in Canada.
So, it's not only possible, but fairly common for convictions in the US to be reduced to a level of misdemeanor that would be Criminal Code convictions in Canada, and could not be anything but Criminal Code convictions under any circumstances. Thus, "serious misdemeanor" is the cutoff but it still misses some convictions that would be flagged going the other way.
The US has access to the same information on Canadians as Canada has on US citizens, and this has been going on for almost three decades, back when "there's no reason why anyone would want a computer in their home" seemed a reasonable statement by the CEO of a computer company to make.
Yeah, that one jumped out at me on first read, and I was looking for a comment (wasn't finding any ... a bit of a surprise) when I found yours near the bottom (earlier) posts.
... corporations always revert to anti-competitiveness when competition doesn't generate the profits they deem are their birthright).
...
..."
In other times, he would have been branded a Communist for such a statement; it is the clearest, most anti-free market statement I've heard coming from a corporate executive in years. (Not that I didn't say it's the only one
I'm going to paraphrase it so others can clearly see what you and I did:
"
charging that the [other company's product] was undermining the ability of [my company] to [charge higher prices] for [my product].
[Original:]
charging that the digital download service was undermining the ability of traditional media companies to set profitable rates for their content online.
In fact, Company A undermining Company B's ability to charge higher prices is practically the definition of the object of capitalism and free market economies. It clearly shows how coddled and sheltered these media companies have become. They have a "right" to fix market prices? Time for a wake-up call.
" ... We suffer so Apple can make a few more bucks, when Apple is clearly not hurting for money.'" ..."
We what? Suffer? Because you want an iPhone?
Earth to child-in-adult-sized-body: Get old, at least old enough so your maturity is within perhaps a decade of your real age, son.
Suffer? Over a gadget? Well, I hate to see anyone or anything suffer.
Let's all throw money at whomever the parent poster is, because I know money will solve his "suffering". We could pay to have his current contract cancelled, buy him an expensive gadget, and help him do whatever it takes to END HIS SUFFERING, PEOPLE!!!
The mind boggles.
Oh, Pshaw. Vacuum tubes are not inherently unreliable nor particularly difficult to make (toxic chemicals and heavy metals aside; but those hazards are in the transistor, diode, rectifier, and transmitter factories too).
When was the last time you heard of a microwave oven failing? How about the radar systems at your airport?
When the old US telephone network equipment (the "Bell System") built by Bell and it's Western Electric subsidiary was finally dismantled there were vacuum tube repeaters that were pulled, fully operational, after having been in service for more than 50 years.
If anyone knows about vacuum tube reliability it's Bell Labs; they invented or developed most of the vacuum tube equipment used in telephone systems and sound reproduction, and they invented the transistor. On the fifth anniversary marking the transistor's invention, Bell had found only one use for the transistor (as a photo diode in the card translator used in telephone exchanges for automatic routing in toll dialing).
RADAR is extremely powerful transmission, requiring large, specialized vacuum tubes to create the necessary high frequency/high power transmission.
u mes/occ_health/OHch15.pdf
By way of example, OHSA requirements backed by law prohibit any civilian or military from being within the beam area dozens to hundreds of meters from certain RADAR transmitters operating in certain modes (eg aircraft landing assistance in low visibility conditions). Those same rules, on the other hand, allows humans to be within a few feet of the beam of a cell tower operating with all channels transmitting at maximum allowable power, an extremely unlikely extreme case operating condition according to the FCC (the beam will be narrow and parallel to the ground; you would have to be hovering above the ground. Yet military personnel get burns from RADAR while in tents 50 meters away when a sweep of a fraction of a second goes across their backsides). I think you're reaching here.
An excellent overview of the health effects of RF transmission can be found in the paper cited below.
For reference (pdf, 680 pages):
http://www.bordeninstitute.army.mil/published_vol
FCC:
http://www.fcc.gov/oet/rfsafety/cellpcs.html
First of all, there is no shortage of uranium suitable for nuclear fuel. Secondly, no reactor comes on stream without securing a supply of uranium for the life of the reactor; all sales are long-term contracts.
The spot price for uranium varies a bit, but the mines themselves sell at roughly $10 a pound, and they are selling it at that price as we speak, because they signed the supply contracts 10 and 20 years ago.
So, whatever and wherever the world's reactors are, they have enough fuel to run to decommission. Let's get that right out of the way now.
There was a flood at the mine sitting on top of the world's richest uranium deposit. This single mine has easy access to what amounts to 20% of current production. When it comes back on stream in 2010, all of a sudden uranium will be oh-so-plentiful again.
There is a short-term shortage for reactors that are coming on stream right now. Some of the players in the uranium generating industry are stockpiling their uranium fuel, in order to create an artificial shortage and drive up the spot price, and then are selling it at these amazing spot prices.
You know, greed, speculation, regular human behavior stuff, and whatever a human might do to exploit a profit opportunity a corporation damn well can be counted on to do. According to security laws, it's more-or-less illegal not to; shareholder can sue you for not being greedy when the opportunity presents itself. Go figure.
There is huge, and I mean huge, exploration activity for uranium right now, because companies can point to the $100+ spot price and get money from the usual risky stock markets. Spend it while you can get it but in the long run these shareholders probably will be looking at penny stocks once the dust settles.
There are a couple of new mines coming on stream in the next few years; they all have outrageous reserves.
Once Cameco's Cigar Lake mine fixes it's flooding problem, there will be way too much uranium around. The uranium producers would like to sign some long-term contracts for a number between the $10 it's been since forever and the $100 it is now, but they know damn well it won't be $100, and so do the people who own the reactors. Both are sitting it out, waiting for the dust to settle, to see exactly what yellocake is going to cost them in 2011.
And it will settle, make no mistake. If you are in a speculating mood, you now know enough to get started fleecing those who believe the lies. Be sure to get out in time.
When a Professional Engineer (PE) "signs off on a project", they are certifying that they accept liability for the failure of said project/part/building/blueprint/specification/etc.
Software Engineers don't have to worry about that, I guess, because the legalese says there is no liability, mostly, for failure, and warnings about relying on said software for life and limb are common.
It might come into play with medical or some other designed-for-critical application, but otherwise there's no need for PE status for a Software Engineer.
Not to take away anything from what you said, because you are completely right about journalism school and it's spawn. But, I also saw CNN, and I remember them saying that they were able to maintain flight control and basic navigation on a limited set of analog instruments, which makes sense since pretty much every airplane has a very basic backup set of these and they pretty much always work as they're powered by simple principles (air pressure, gravity, etc).
;-)
To get these particular planes on this particular mission out of trouble a clock that can count by the second and is good for a few minutes' accuracy plus a turn and bank indicator (powered by gravity; it's a ball in a very simply calibrated, curved tube glued somewhere in the cockpit) is all they would need to do a known good 180, even with zero visibility, and point back home. Not only that, but we've just described the most basic, drilled into you until you can do it in your sleep, safety procedure when encountering almost any irregular flying or weather situation. I'm pretty sure they could pull it off.
Now, currently there are a few aircraft that according to the usual reliable sources (Jane's, etc) have no analog backup, and the F-22 is one of those (the others are F-2, F-35, and JAS 39C/D). However, I would be surprised to learn that a set of the four basic instruments were not fitted on an airplane with little or no weapons onboard (plenty of weight allowance) and mid-air refueling support for it's inaugural transoceanic flight. I think there is a strong possibility that was the case here.
There is even the "1-instrument nav system" which consists of a tennis ball and a string taped to the ceiling or canopy; it provides a remarkable range of useful flight condition information, and it's easy to retrofit
"Out" as in on Parole. The penalty for murder in Canada is life in prison without parole eligibility for 25 years (first degree) and between 10 and 25 years (second degree) according to what the sentencing judge orders.
... Offenders who are paroled while serving life sentences remain on parole for life, unless parole is revoked. Without a grant of parole, the offender remains imprisoned for life. ..." -Corrections Service Canada (the federal prison system).
... murderers out in less than ten (FLQ)"; perhaps you are referring to Jacques Rose who was convicted of accessory to murder and sentenced to eight years. He served five years in prison and successfully completed 3 years on parole without incident. He was acquitted of charges of murder and kidnapping. His lawyer, Robert Lemieux, was convicted of contempt of court over numerous courtroom incidents and sentenced to two and one half years in prison.
/ base/news-7/11712631133140.xml&coll=1/
"
In Canada, any sentence of two years or more is automatically Federal custody, and sentences of less than two years custody means serving time in a provincial jail.
I'm not familiar with the "serial killer" case you mention. Do you have a name?
As for the FLQ, I don't know whom you refer to when you say "
Pierre-Paul Geoffroy was arrested for the 1969 bombing of the Montreal Stock Exchange, which injured numerous persons. He pled guilty to every bombing believed to be the work of the FLQ, some 129 charges in all, and was sentenced to 124 terms of life in prison.
Two others were convicted of murder (Paul Rose, Francis Simmered) and sentenced to life in prison, and a third (Bernard Sortie) sentenced to 20 years for kidnapping. During the 1970 crisis, simply being a member of the FLQ became a crime punishable by five years imprisonment. In total, 46 people were charged with crimes related to the kidnappings. Five persons were charged with kidnapping but escaped prosecution for a time; they were discovered to be living in Paris (Marc Carbonneau, Jacques Lanctôt, and Jacques and Louise Cossette-Trudel, who were given passage to Cuba in exchange for releasing British Diplomat James Cross, whom they had held for 60 days) as well as fugitives Yves Langlois. All faced outstanding charges in Canada. French authorities indicated they would refuse a request to extradite them.
All five would voluntarily return to Canada during the early 1980's and receive relatively light sentences (in the range of two years), but they had not murdered anyone; they released their hostage, James Cross unharmed. The light sentences were party because much of the evidence required to obtain a conviction was missing; the files held by the Quebec department of justice disappeared on the night of the election of the Parti Québécois, on November 15, 1976.
Comparing justice in the US is difficult, as there are essentially 51 jurisdictions; some are sentenced to long, harsh sentences while others get a "slap on the wrist". In Utah, the parole board has the power to alter the sentence itself, so that one cannot be sure that a harsh sentence will actually be served by the offender; while in Louisiana currently there are cases of murder that go unprosecuted, with the offender being released without trial. See: The Times-Picayune: Crime Thrives Under 60 Day Rule: http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?
Often a harsh sentence is given but offenders are released after serving relatively brief periods of incarceration. Certainly there are many examples of both harsh and lax sentences in the US, and I'm sure every nation has it's share of outraged citizens who decry sentences that they feel are too easy on offenders.
I suppose this is news to some people, but this is ancient history. About 5 years ago (December 3, 2001) they signed a formal agreement that essentially legitimized what had been an ad hoc but non formal arrangement; ie you had to jump through a little hoop but access was never denied; it was referred then as "sharing". Once the agreement was signed, you don't have to ask; it's the same as accessing the domestic database; it's full unrestricted access for authorized personnel, which includes any bona fide law enforcement officer in either nation.
5 919&CFTOKEN=76404916&jsessionid=1e3013767811722888 47363/, which is a branch of the RCMP, runs the Canadian one. It's one of the older computerized databases in the world, it became fully operational in 1967. If you know the correct access information (and I guarantee your local US police does) you can access CPIC online via the link I just gave you, and even members of the public can have limited access (check for stolen vehicles or bicycles by license plate number, and check for recovered stolen property). By the way, your IP will be logged ;-)
I guarantee you that, as a US citizen, if you have ever been stopped by a Canadian police officer, he had full access to whatever the State Police would have access to if you were home; and if he had your ID and sat in the car, he checked you; and he also ran your plate to check who the vehicle is registered to.
The same would happen to any Canadian traveling in the US, provided the officer had access to the FBI database in-car (all State Troopers could, I know for sure, but 10 or 15 years ago some local police might not have the gear in-car. They could call it in and the station would have access, though). Others with direct, seamless access to Canadian records are the US Border Patrol, US Customs Service, and the DEA.
I don't know the details of the US database except that it's operated by the FBI and was originally the Fingerprints Database which J Edgar Hoover started in the 1920's. the Canadian Police Information Centre http://www.cpic-cipc.ca/English/index.cfm?CFID=64
There is also sharing of data between the Insurance Bureau Of Canada and the US-based National Insurance Crime Bureau (both combat insurance fraud).
This has nothing to do with 9/11 or anything else; it's been going on for at least 40 years, but the formal agreement was hastily signed to make everything nice and legal during the very first meeting after 9/11 between Attorney General Ashcroft and Solicitor General McAuley. Shortly afterward (2002), another agreement formalized the merger of the two nations visa, customs, and immigration databases.
There are also FBI and DEA agents permanently staffed in Canada, and there are RCMP officers who are stationed throughout the US on a permanent basis. Most major airports in Canada and the US have Customs Agents from the other country on staff and secure areas where you are considered to be essentially on foreign soil: they can and will arrest you and you are in their custody.
There is some sharing of data with European Databases but not the kind of cooperation that exists between Canada and the US; the European Parliament has not agreed to the same level of access and it's supposed to be limited to information on suspected terrorism or drug trafficking.
For a couple of years you've been able to use applications that create mathematical models of music with applications like I Eat Brainz (Mac OSX) and MusicBrainz (Windows); they create a pattern and use that to search for and identify the music. Since the pattern can account for things like slight differences in speed, my guess is they used those apps or similar (the database is important and takes time to build, so perhaps they did use the Brainz database) to confirm their suspicions, if not to identify the similarities in the first place.
That's not to say Gracenote or CDDB or iTunes did not play a role: they too are good at cataloging music in a different way than 'Brainz, which is a useful feature when you are trying to confirm your suspicions. Normally you use both to manually enter the metadata for those "Unknown Artist/Unknown Album" songs that creep into the hard drive over time.
In this case, used together they could probably make a very convincing case: the patterns are not easily fooled; two sessions of the same song by the same artist appearing on two CDs (for example) can be identified as either unique or identical.
" ... If you're including satellite systems, then yeah, broadband access is pretty much everywhere. But if you're including satellite systems, then it's pretty much everywhere in the United States, too, since everyone has access to DirecTv or Dish Network. ..."
If you count subscribers, it matters.
But, few Canadians have to resort to sat. It's been available for 12 years, the subscriber numbers are going down, not up, as traditional hi-speed becomes available to more areas. Almost everyone, no matter where in the country you are, can get microwave-based hispeed, which has no lag, so why go sat?
Every school in Canada had internet access before Y2K rolled around. Every school in Canada had hispeed before 2002 rolled around. Then the goal became every classroom with hispeed. And so on.
Canada has always been gung-ho crazy about communications; it's considered fundamental to the nation's well being. It's all done with private money and private, for profit companies, but the regulatory framework, even thought the companies complain about it, is all about maximizing access and competition.
Phone companies, and now cable companies, have to allow others to use their pipes at cost. It's the law. Unused sat channels must be made available to the competition; it's a use-it-or-someone-will approach. You can't hog the pipe; it's illegal. So, there's an incentive to go out and get customers, to expand the infrastructure, to fill the pipe. If you don't, well, someone will and that someone will be in competition with you. It's a tremendous incentive.
I'll give a recent example. The big telecos (there's 5 of 'em) can offer VoIP. But, they have to ask for regulatory approval for rates, because they are monopolies. They happened to ask for approval for "X" dollars a couple of years ago, and were granted that rate.
Last year, they asked to lower the rate. They were told "sorry, you have to keep that rate. You still have most of the telephone customers; the cable companies, the Vonages of the world, they haven't got enough subscribers yet. When you lose 25% of your customers to the competition, you get to set your own rates. Until then, you must use the rate you asked us to approve initially."
There's a rather long history of comm in Canada; the world's first commercial communications satellite, back when the Mercury program was still active. The world's largest microwave network, before that. Rural telephones were encouraged; if a teleco asked for a rate, they would allow a higher urban rate if you expanded your rural telephone base and charged them a little less. If not, well, you can do what you want, but they would approve another teleco in your backyard if you didn't start building rural lines. They take the whole thing seriously, and they do it all with private companies that make a very nice profit, and always have.
The approach in the US is more along the lines of "what does business need" first and unfortunately the telecos in the US have a rather long history of promising one thing and delivering another. There is no communications watchdog, there are a bunch of unrelated regulators who fight for jurisdiction and are powerless when innovation comes faster than regulation. In some ways this helps, but you have to be willing to consider the possibility that in some ways it harms as well. Broadband penetration to more residents is a casualty of that approach.
Whether you want to change or not (there are calls for an overall comm strategy in the US, witness the net neutrality debate) the short answer is there is a reason for the access or lack of it, and it's not by accident, and if there is the political will to do it, it can change. But, there are huge armies of lobbyists from all over the industry and beyond that will do anything, and I mean anything, to either stop it or warp it to their own advantage. So, people have to really want change for there to be change. I personally don't see the effort being likely to emerge.
I"ll tell you how they do it where I live.
You are right, the government had a hand in it.
They passed a law, that says the phone company must provide access to it's infrastructure on a cost-plus basis. The cable company runs it's cable on the phone company's poles, and pays the same price that it costs the phone company itself to build and maintain the poles, plus a fixed % for a small, reasonable profit.
If you want access to a fat pipe on the all-fiber network, you pay a wholesale price for it, again based on cost plus, and again the phone company cannot impede it with an artificial barrier of some sort.
Then the cable company competes with the phone company for internet business and now telephone business, while the phone company competes with the cable company for television (they both provide TV and have both rolled out HDTV, one over cable, one over IP).
No subsidies required. Plenty of competition, not a tremendous barrier to entry, and prices reflect what things cost. Broadband everywhere, telephone everywhere, TV everywhere, HDTV everywhere. The companies all make profits, too, and no tax dollars required; just the guts to sign some legislation.