When I have a computer I don't want anymore, I leave it on the sidewalk with a sign that says "FREE". Yeah, I do the same thing with all the crap I don't want anymore. Old car batteries, used oil, broken refrigerators. Out of sight, out of mind...
Consumers ultimately get the tab for manufacturers' costs...
I think that's exactly the point - the manufacturers and users(comsumers) of these products should be the ones bearing the cost of their disposal. To do this the users are charged for the disposal costs at the time of purchase. Right now the costs of disposal are hidden in the form of taxes in the places where recycling takes place and pollution where these products are dumped in a landfill. It's only fair that those who get the benefit of the product bear all (or most) of the cost of that product.
I recently ran Ad-Aware on my windows box and was surprised to find there were 4 spyware programs installed and running, and remnants of 3 more existed in the registry. And I thought I was being careful...
Sorry, you've lost me. How is it something to take pride in to not have fast food to buy, or a store with very low prices? You take pride in buying slow food, or paying high prices?
Perhaps this person is taking pride in living in a community that does not value having a McDonalds and/or Walmart. Taking pride in the fact that their community chooses to spend their money in locally owned and managed establishments rather than franchises of global concerns. Perhaps they are proud that a company with such a poor environmental record does not do business in their hometown.
Don't you think that there is room for the possibility of this condition being real? I'll bet there isn't much evidence or clinical data to back up these people's claims, but there's probably no evidence to refute it either. People are allergic or sensitive to all sorts of things. Some people are allergic to pencillin. Some people with asthma are really sensitive to car exhaust. Some people get a sunburn from being in the sun for short periods of time. Are all these people crazy?
Was relativity "quackery" before Einstein & Co figured out all the math? Or observations were made to back up that math? Was the earth's orbit around the sun "quackery" before Galileo and Copurnicus?
I'm not saying these people are for real, I have no idea. But just becuase there is no proof (yet) doesn't mean that it can't be real.
Believe it or not, those "evil" SUVs are relatively clean compared to motorcycles. Yes, that's right. If you want to emit less pollution, a LOT less, get rid of your Honda motorcycle and get into an Explorer. Admittedly, SUVs will still output more carbon dioxide, but I'd rather have more inert gas than more pollution.
That article on motorcycles only compares the hydrocarbon emissions of a motorcycle with a Toyota Prius. It doesn't mention how much hydrocarbons a SUV spits out. I'd be interested to see how that compares to a typical motorcycle. I'd be surpised if a SUV is less polluting than a motorcycle, especially taking into account other emissions and pollution caused by the production & transportation of the extra gasoline used by the SUV.
My bank uses a PIN which is a minimum of 4 digits long. I believe the maximum is 12. This solves the length problem.
My old bank would let you set a pin that was 4-8 digits long. My pin was 6 digits, but one day I tried just punching in the first 4. It worked - turns out only the first 4 digits were significant. I guess they were using the method described here: How do PIN numbers work.
Logitech and Labtec both make 3D input devices (I think they may be the same company now). These both work very well for manipulating 3d objects, since you can rotate & translate around multiple axes at the same time. They aren't useful with current GUIs and are expensive, but they work well in CAD software.
Before Labtec bought Spaceball IMC, Spaceball made a ~$100 SpaceOrb 360 which is great for first person shooter games. I'm pretty sure they've been discontinued, though.
...the ``Pause Patent,'' was originally filed in 1992 and issued in 1995. In 1996, a re-examination was requested, and on August 1, 2000 the patent was reissued by the Patent Office with the same filing date and additional claim coverage.
TiVo was notified on April 4th, 2000 and again on May 23, 2001 that it was infringing on the patent and an offer to discuss licensing terms was extended.
It looks like this patent was finalized in Aug 2000, and this company has been trying to negotiate with TiVo since then. I imagine it's hard if not impossible to enforce a patent that is still being approved. TiVo and other vendors must have (or at least should have) known about this patent while they were developing their product. I suppose they think this patent won't hold up in court or they'd have settled by now.
Read the article before posting your knee-jerk "patents are bad" response.
Maybe a geek could set aside "geek-goodies envy" and take a moment to consider whether a G3 cell phone is really worth the $400+ price tag. Maybe a good old PCS phone is sufficient and the price difference could be donated to a group dedicated to helping those that go hungry or lack basic shelter.
I'm not saying that you shouldn't want better for yourself or you shouldn't get a $400 phone. But there is an alternative that can make a difference for someone.
If you remember, when Microsoft dropped Java support, people voiced the opinion that all people would have to do is download the Sun Java plug-in. It now turns out that Microsoft won't let you.
Sun's Java Plugin that comes with the downloadable JRE is implemented as an ActiveX component. It does not use the nescape plugin API when running in IE, so it will still work in IE 5.5 SP2.
While I don't think the DMCA is a good thing, your "20-second explanations" are as biased as Adobe's press release.
Dmitry Sklyarov wasn't arrested for finding a security flaw or "doing PhD work in computer security" or "tak[ing] things apart to see how they work". He was arrested because he held the copyright on a product that was for sale that allows people to, among other things, pirate copyrighted works.
This in itself is frightening enough - it doesn't do any good to obfuscate the facts.
There was once a study done that showed every person in the world (this study was done between 1900-idon'tknow) could have a full acre in Texas.
According to National Geographic, Texas is 267,277 sqare miles or 171,057,280 acres. At the Current World Population of about 6.16 Billion that works out to 0.0277 acres or about 1200 square feet per person.
Better car performance is cool, but this doesn't have any environmental benefits.
If you scroll down a bit on AC Propulsion's page you'll find an
energy efficiency comparison which shows that the tzero is slightly more efficient that a Honda Insight. The
Honda's a gas-electric hybrid but uses the gas engine to charge the batteries. So, no, this electrically powered
car is not necessarily cleaner than a really efficient gas powered car. But it's certainly cleaner that my
Volkswagen, which is probably a step in the right direction.
I mean, Napster & it's distributed filesharing equivalents are _insanely popular._ If the laws are, supposedly, by the People and for the People -- shouldn't these People decide whether or not the copyright laws are valid?
I wonder though if Good Old American Apathy will set in, again... I mean, how many Napster users will stand up and say, "I believe this activity is moral and should be legalised." Or, just as everything else from speeding to marijuana, will we simply keep breaking the rules rather than reforming them?
I think a majority of the people who use napster realize, at least on some level, that they are getting something for nothing and that's not the way things work. There is a vocal minority that thinks it isn't fair that they can't get any song they want at any time for free.
Most people accept speed limits because they realize that you can get killed by the guy in the camaro who thinks he's a good enough driver to go 150 around the corners on the interstate. I think most people also realize that people work to create music and most people prefer to get paid for their work. If someone wants to produce music and give it away for free, more power to them. Most bands and all record companies make a living by selling music. It's logical these people want to promote a new technology that will help them do that.
Maybe it's not "Good Old American Apathy" that keeps these laws around, maybe (just maybe) people actually agree with them.
While there may be many ridiculous and counterproductive patents out there, one shouldn't forget that without legitimate patents (and the business models supported by them) a lot of us would be out of work. I would like to think these frivolous patents are the exception, not the rule.
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When I have a computer I don't want anymore, I leave it on the sidewalk with a sign that says "FREE".
Yeah, I do the same thing with all the crap I don't want anymore. Old car batteries, used oil, broken refrigerators. Out of sight, out of mind...
I recently ran Ad-Aware on my windows box and was surprised to find there were 4 spyware programs installed and running, and remnants of 3 more existed in the registry. And I thought I was being careful...
Perhaps this person is taking pride in living in a community that does not value having a McDonalds and/or Walmart. Taking pride in the fact that their community chooses to spend their money in locally owned and managed establishments rather than franchises of global concerns. Perhaps they are proud that a company with such a poor environmental record does not do business in their hometown.
Don't you think that there is room for the possibility of this condition being real? I'll bet there isn't much evidence or clinical data to back up these people's claims, but there's probably no evidence to refute it either. People are allergic or sensitive to all sorts of things. Some people are allergic to pencillin. Some people with asthma are really sensitive to car exhaust. Some people get a sunburn from being in the sun for short periods of time. Are all these people crazy?
Was relativity "quackery" before Einstein & Co figured out all the math? Or observations were made to back up that math? Was the earth's orbit around the sun "quackery" before Galileo and Copurnicus?
I'm not saying these people are for real, I have no idea. But just becuase there is no proof (yet) doesn't mean that it can't be real.
That article on motorcycles only compares the hydrocarbon emissions of a motorcycle with a Toyota Prius. It doesn't mention how much hydrocarbons a SUV spits out. I'd be interested to see how that compares to a typical motorcycle. I'd be surpised if a SUV is less polluting than a motorcycle, especially taking into account other emissions and pollution caused by the production & transportation of the extra gasoline used by the SUV.
My old bank would let you set a pin that was 4-8 digits long. My pin was 6 digits, but one day I tried just punching in the first 4. It worked - turns out only the first 4 digits were significant. I guess they were using the method described here: How do PIN numbers work.
Logitech and Labtec both make 3D input devices (I think they may be the same company now). These both work very well for manipulating 3d objects, since you can rotate & translate around multiple axes at the same time. They aren't useful with current GUIs and are expensive, but they work well in CAD software.
Before Labtec bought Spaceball IMC, Spaceball made a ~$100 SpaceOrb 360 which is great for first person shooter games. I'm pretty sure they've been discontinued, though.
Maybe a geek could set aside "geek-goodies envy" and take a moment to consider whether a G3 cell phone is really worth the $400+ price tag. Maybe a good old PCS phone is sufficient and the price difference could be donated to a group dedicated to helping those that go hungry or lack basic shelter. I'm not saying that you shouldn't want better for yourself or you shouldn't get a $400 phone. But there is an alternative that can make a difference for someone.
Dmitry Sklyarov wasn't arrested for finding a security flaw or "doing PhD work in computer security" or "tak[ing] things apart to see how they work". He was arrested because he held the copyright on a product that was for sale that allows people to, among other things, pirate copyrighted works.
This in itself is frightening enough - it doesn't do any good to obfuscate the facts.
There was once a study done that showed every person in the world (this study was done between 1900-idon'tknow) could have a full acre in Texas. According to National Geographic, Texas is 267,277 sqare miles or 171,057,280 acres. At the Current World Population of about 6.16 Billion that works out to 0.0277 acres or about 1200 square feet per person.
John Heilemann, the author of this book, is on the NPR talk show The Connection today. The website lists times and stations.
There's also Compaq's Tru64 UNIX which they inherited from Digital.
While there may be many ridiculous and counterproductive patents out there, one shouldn't forget that without legitimate patents (and the business models supported by them) a lot of us would be out of work. I would like to think these frivolous patents are the exception, not the rule.