OK, maybe I was thinking of the little firewall that was already in XP. I thought I had heard that the new one still just blocked inbound. If it is as you say, then I retract my criticism.
As far as I can tell, that's the case. Though it didn't try to block FireFox. I'm going to do more testing. As far as I can tell, the app I referred to in my previous post doesn't open any listening sockets. I could be wrong. It also wanted to block my IRC client.
I could be wrong, of course. It is Windows, after all.
(I've got a 15 gig partition on this machine just waiting for a Linux distro just as soon as I feel like I'll get good battery life and a cool CPU with it.)
I noticed the same thing! It just says Windows XP instead of Windows XP Pro. If I am going to pay hundreds of bucks for an operating system I sure as hell should see "Pro" on bootup. Not too much to ask.
Hah, I got the better end of the deal. I had Home Edition. Now I've got just plain old XP. Noone will ever know. (Mostly because I don't normally admit to having XP on one of my machines.)
What? Like the ones that actually block outbound connections too?
Actually, I run XP on my laptop (way more battery life than Linux, and no missing functionality... Linux is catching up, however...), and after I installed SP2, the first thing it did was offer to block a vendor-provided 'call-home' application.
If you want winter experience, learn from Finnish, Norwegian or Swedish soldiers.
Ahh, you have never heard of Fort Drum, New York Don't let the average weather chart fool you. The average low temperature in January is -10 C (I was kind enough to do the conversion for you)... but it wasn't uncommon to get several days to several weeks of weather far colder than that. city-data.com pins it at -13 C.
The average snowfall in December is listed as below a meter... but I don't think that's accurate at all. We got several 2-meter snowfalls, and it simply snowed a lot.
We called it the "Land of the Frozen Chosen."
Advantages: You learn to handle extreme cold. It's easy to dig trenches and to camouflage the tent.
"Ground's frozen, Sergeant." "Good. I'll ask for heavy equipment to dig us in."
We had white camo netting for the tents. It was just as annoying to put up as the green/brown stuff we used during summer.
When asked to elaborate the officer said something like: "Well, we are not allowed to say who the enemy is, but we can say this much: It's not the Swedes"
I wonder if that counts us Swedish-Americans, too...
My wife had a Washington Mutual account. We closed it because their customer service was crap and there were service charges for everything that the credit union does for free.
I bet you have to swipe your ATM card and suffer a service charge when you put your kids in the play area, etc.
encription in EVERY protocol layer and then some encription in the software, that's runing trhu ssh... so i can safely read my mail that i protected with my birtday as the password.
I'd say your spelling problems provide enough encryption at the user level.
The difference is (quite obviously), none of the groups you listed are in a legal position of authority over the average citizen (e.g. me), whereas the local police are.
You are comparing mistrust of potentially corrupt legal authority to racism, etc. Apples - oranges.
What do you think is running through the average woman's mind whenever some of our local police here pull them over, since the facts about the two officers in the articles I linked became known?
Ah well, I don't agree with all that Jim has to say, I am somewhat close to his campaign and spoken with him on quite a few occasions. He's not a perfect candidate, but the alternative (keeping Peter DeFazio around) is very distasteful to me.
I think we should abandon the party system and elect individuals.
With the exception of the President, we *do* elect individuals in the general election. Unlike many other countries, you are voting for an actual person named on the ballot, not a political party. Just because the ballot says what party they are a member of doesn't mean anything if you choose to ignore it. When voting for the President, on the other hand, you are voting for a slate of pledged electors chose by that individual's campaign (for independents) or their political party.
Almost every country on the planet uses a party system in some form or another, and in some countries, when you vote, you vote for your party, and the percentage of the popular vote determines the allocation of seats to each party in the parlaiment. You don't even get to decide who gets to sit there. The party does. That's the system that got Hitler into power, remember.
Parties in the United States, when it really comes down to it, are rather centered in their overall membership and ideology, since they need to attract as many voters as they can to their candidates. That's why a lot of people don't see much difference between major-party Presidential candidates. However, their party membership will tell you a lot about their supporters, their organization, and who might be pulling the strings. It can also give you a 'safe bet' if you don't know much about a candidate, but are registered with the same party as that candidate. It's much more likely that they think similarly on a lot of issue.
If every office in the U.S. was elected on a nonpartisan ballot, it'd be really difficult to sort that out.
The party system needs to go.
If that were to happen 'officially', do you not think that that we would still have a defacto party system? Or would you propose to make it illegal for a candidate to say anything about themselves, because everytime they say they believe something, they align themselves to a particular group with the same viewpoint.
Even if it's not listed on the ballot, everyone will *know* that a candidate is conservative/liberal/etc.
Well, what if the parties, each year, let anyone vote in their primaries? That way, independents could vote in either one...
Some states do allow this, it's called the "open primary system" where basically when you arrive at the polls you get to choose (no matter who you are or are not registered with) any party's primary ballot, or a no-party ballot, and get to vote that one ballot.
What isn't liked about this system is that it enables "crossover voting", especially where one party has a major candidate without any primary opponents, and the other party has multiple candidates for the same position. A bunch of members of the first party may get the opposite party's ballot and vote a certain way, and spoil the selection of a primary candidate that the bulk of the second party's members would support.
It kind of destroys the whole idea and relationship of political parties and the primary process.
You are misinterpreting that part of the Constitution, which is referring to the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court.
In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.
There are two kinds of jurisdiction mentioned here, Original and Appellate. Original jurisdiction means that you can bring the case directly to that court. Appellate, of course, means a case can only get the that court on appeal.
The part that you highlighted says that Congress can make exceptions to the Supreme Court's appellate jurisdiction and allow certain kinds of cases not listed in this clause to also have original jurisdiction in the Supreme Court.
The other major thing that has been faced is large cuts to state aid - states which have been having major problems of their own. Consequently, college tuitions have been skyrocketing, local taxes on average have increased a lot - more than the average american got back from the Bush budget, despite the huge defecit increases, etc.
That's the problem with grants to states, especially one with strings attached.
The Federal government should only collect enough taxes to support itself. If states need more money for local programs and local problems, they should collect their own money through their own tax system.
The only grants I see as being useful are highway funds (trade and defense reasons), and they are so loaded with mandates and requirements to get the money that it is effectively extorting the states into making laws that the people would otherwise not support.
I've never understood why people register for a party....most people I know don't like everything one party does, etc. I can't imagine just voting a 'party line' on all issues and candidates. To me that just shows no thought process or consideration at all. I say bravo to the grandparent of the thread saying he votes here at there even though a registered party person, but, I'm curious why register to a party at all?
Why register with a party? Here are a few reasons I can think of:
* MOST IMPORTANT: Being registered with a party lets you vote in the party primary in states that do not have an open primary. YOU SHOULD ALWAYS VOTE IN THE PRIMARY!!! If most of the Republican-leaning independents would register with the party, for example, and choose primary candidates that were more moderate, there would be less idiots like Hatch in the upper ranks. * If you want to run for office, long standing in the party will equate to added support for you. * All of the organization of the party starts at elected Precint Committeeperson (PCP) positions (in the major parties, anyway). Being registered with a party allows you to be elected to one of these positions. Getting elected to a PCP position means having some amount of say on party policy, especially at the local level. * Being involved in the party by participating at the local level allows you to meet all of the candidates running in your area, and you can do your part to help the one you agree with the best to get elected. If none of them are good enough, run for office yourself.
FWIW, I'm a Republican, my wife and I both hold Precinct Committeeperson positions, and I am involved with the party a lot at the local level. I run the network at the central committee office and volunteer time here and there on various campaigns. I also contribute actual dollars to some of the candidates I like.
Knowing and volunteering for candidates is important if you really care about issues like this. You know what you get with your vote, and should that person be elected, they'll remember who you are when you want them to listen to why you think this latest bill is a bad idea.
Small wonder. Why would we want to if that's the attitude to which we will be subjected should we venture there?
Sorry. It's just that since moving to the Valley, I've noticed that a lot of people on this side of the mountains don't give a rat's ass about Oregon's needs on the other side of the mountains. I've gotten a bit pessimistic and cynical about the whole thing.
For instance, Bend is the largest city (pop. ~52,000) on on the west coast that does not have at least a bus system. Portland spends millions of dollars on light rail.
There are also issues of agriculture, land use, highways, etc. It just seems to me that most of the people I'm around, at least, don't care about much beyond their back yard. Not just Portlanders, really.
Even growing up in Central OR and now living in Portland, I know that no self-respecting Portlander uses an umbrella. I call Shill! Shill, I say!
I got one when I moved from Bend to Eugene. I don't really use it anymore... just one winter makes your webfeet grow, but I still recommend one when wearing a suit.
What part of Central OR did you grow up in? I'm a Redmond High grad, and my wife's a Bend High grad.
Huh? I spent lots of time wandering around downtown Portland at all hours of the night and day (and lived at 16th and Yamhill for a year) in the early ninetees, and can't think of anything that would prompt this comment. It didn't look much different when I visted there last summer.
I can't find an article reference to it on google news (might be too long ago), but a few months back there was an incident where a guy jumped off a Tri-Met bus and shot someone in broad daylight downtown.
My sister lives downtown near PSU, and she feels pretty safe in that area, and I agree that Portland isn't the most dangerous city around, but it's still a rough city.
According to city-data.com's Portland info Portland has a pretty high crime rate, the index being 569.9 (~330 is average for a U.S. city). Someone in another part of the thread mentioned feeling much less safe in Seattle. Seattle's crime index is about 580, not much higher than Portland. The murder rates of Portland and Seattle are essentially the same (about 4 per 100,000). Portland has a higher crime index than Los Angeles (553.3), but it's a lot lower than Oakland, CA (657.9).
the ride operators deal drugs? that was two guys, busted today, for the first time that I can remember in 25 + years. get the hell over it.
Hey, I'm just poking fun at Portland's flaws. You'll never be as safe in Portland as I was in Redmond, Oregon, when I was growing up.
Since that incident was so recent, I decided to throw that in.
bring a concealed carry permit and your gun downtown? oh my god, that's the last thing we need, some freaking wack with a gun. oh sure he's licenced to cary it, so that means he know's how to use it? uh yeah sure...
I can't find a better source right now than the University of Oregon's Daily Emerald dated January 23, 2004, but the fact is that the only group of citizens that commits less gun crime and has less gun incidents than concealed carry permit holders are senior citizens.
And yes, any given permit holder "know's how to use it"... they all have to take a firearms class (Lane Community College has a good one), and must pass a background check. The same as a cop.
In general the service is quite good, we go to a few of their places fairly often and the food always comes pretty fast. Of course, there are always isolated incidents, but don't let that discourage anyone from trying the restaurants.
Well, most of my experiences with any McMenamin's have been the pubs in Eugene. The food is damned good, the beer is good, but there have been many times where I've gone into one of them, it's taken 20 minutes for a server to get around. When they finally take my order, it comes fast, which is good, but after that, you never see your server again, even if you want another beer. That really sucks when you want to leave because you have somewhere to be, because sometimes it becomes difficult to pay the tab.
Though, to be completely honest, the service in most pubs and restaurants in Eugene sucks. However, the only place I refuse to go to anymore is the McMenamin's High Street Brewery, where I've gotten dirty silverware on multiple occasions. The other place I stopped going to went out of business, for some reason. (It wasn't a McMenamins.)
You must work for them, or something. Real Portlanders don't have umbrellas.:)
I'm from Eastern Oregon. We don't have rain. When I moved to the Willamette Valley, I got an umbrella.
But I'll admit that my web feet have grown in just fine, and I almost never use it, the exceptions being when I happen to be in a suit or my wife is wearing something she wants to stay dry in.
Slashdot Mirror
OK, maybe I was thinking of the little firewall that was already in XP. I thought I had heard that the new one still just blocked inbound. If it is as you say, then I retract my criticism.
As far as I can tell, that's the case. Though it didn't try to block FireFox. I'm going to do more testing. As far as I can tell, the app I referred to in my previous post doesn't open any listening sockets. I could be wrong. It also wanted to block my IRC client.
I could be wrong, of course. It is Windows, after all.
(I've got a 15 gig partition on this machine just waiting for a Linux distro just as soon as I feel like I'll get good battery life and a cool CPU with it.)
I noticed the same thing! It just says Windows XP instead of Windows XP Pro. If I am going to pay hundreds of bucks for an operating system I sure as hell should see "Pro" on bootup. Not too much to ask.
Hah, I got the better end of the deal. I had Home Edition. Now I've got just plain old XP. Noone will ever know. (Mostly because I don't normally admit to having XP on one of my machines.)
What? Like the ones that actually block outbound connections too?
Actually, I run XP on my laptop (way more battery life than Linux, and no missing functionality... Linux is catching up, however...), and after I installed SP2, the first thing it did was offer to block a vendor-provided 'call-home' application.
That application only makes outbound connections.
If you want winter experience, learn from Finnish, Norwegian or Swedish soldiers.
Ahh, you have never heard of Fort Drum, New York Don't let the average weather chart fool you. The average low temperature in January is -10 C (I was kind enough to do the conversion for you)... but it wasn't uncommon to get several days to several weeks of weather far colder than that. city-data.com pins it at -13 C.
The average snowfall in December is listed as below a meter... but I don't think that's accurate at all. We got several 2-meter snowfalls, and it simply snowed a lot.
We called it the "Land of the Frozen Chosen."
Advantages: You learn to handle extreme cold. It's easy to dig trenches and to camouflage the tent.
"Ground's frozen, Sergeant." "Good. I'll ask for heavy equipment to dig us in."
We had white camo netting for the tents. It was just as annoying to put up as the green/brown stuff we used during summer.
When asked to elaborate the officer said something like: "Well, we are not allowed to say who the enemy is, but we can say this much: It's not the Swedes"
I wonder if that counts us Swedish-Americans, too...
20,000 nerds are going to have to find something else to do for three hours...
My wife had a Washington Mutual account. We closed it because their customer service was crap and there were service charges for everything that the credit union does for free.
I bet you have to swipe your ATM card and suffer a service charge when you put your kids in the play area, etc.
encription in EVERY protocol layer and then some encription in the software, that's runing trhu ssh... so i can safely read my mail that i protected with my birtday as the password.
I'd say your spelling problems provide enough encryption at the user level.
[major snip]
The difference is (quite obviously), none of the groups you listed are in a legal position of authority over the average citizen (e.g. me), whereas the local police are.
You are comparing mistrust of potentially corrupt legal authority to racism, etc. Apples - oranges.
What do you think is running through the average woman's mind whenever some of our local police here pull them over, since the facts about the two officers in the articles I linked became known?
Ah well, I don't agree with all that Jim has to say, I am somewhat close to his campaign and spoken with him on quite a few occasions. He's not a perfect candidate, but the alternative (keeping Peter DeFazio around) is very distasteful to me.
Police are here to protect me.
It must be nice to live in your town.
Something tells me that the local police officers in my town are not about protecting anyone.
Some of the cops are worse than the local thugs. Not all of them, but as long as there are a few like this, I won't trust a cop, EVER.
I think we should abandon the party system and elect individuals.
With the exception of the President, we *do* elect individuals in the general election. Unlike many other countries, you are voting for an actual person named on the ballot, not a political party. Just because the ballot says what party they are a member of doesn't mean anything if you choose to ignore it. When voting for the President, on the other hand, you are voting for a slate of pledged electors chose by that individual's campaign (for independents) or their political party.
Almost every country on the planet uses a party system in some form or another, and in some countries, when you vote, you vote for your party, and the percentage of the popular vote determines the allocation of seats to each party in the parlaiment. You don't even get to decide who gets to sit there. The party does. That's the system that got Hitler into power, remember.
Parties in the United States, when it really comes down to it, are rather centered in their overall membership and ideology, since they need to attract as many voters as they can to their candidates. That's why a lot of people don't see much difference between major-party Presidential candidates. However, their party membership will tell you a lot about their supporters, their organization, and who might be pulling the strings. It can also give you a 'safe bet' if you don't know much about a candidate, but are registered with the same party as that candidate. It's much more likely that they think similarly on a lot of issue.
If every office in the U.S. was elected on a nonpartisan ballot, it'd be really difficult to sort that out.
The party system needs to go.
If that were to happen 'officially', do you not think that that we would still have a defacto party system? Or would you propose to make it illegal for a candidate to say anything about themselves, because everytime they say they believe something, they align themselves to a particular group with the same viewpoint.
Even if it's not listed on the ballot, everyone will *know* that a candidate is conservative/liberal/etc.
Well, what if the parties, each year, let anyone vote in their primaries? That way, independents could vote in either one...
Some states do allow this, it's called the "open primary system" where basically when you arrive at the polls you get to choose (no matter who you are or are not registered with) any party's primary ballot, or a no-party ballot, and get to vote that one ballot.
What isn't liked about this system is that it enables "crossover voting", especially where one party has a major candidate without any primary opponents, and the other party has multiple candidates for the same position. A bunch of members of the first party may get the opposite party's ballot and vote a certain way, and spoil the selection of a primary candidate that the bulk of the second party's members would support.
It kind of destroys the whole idea and relationship of political parties and the primary process.
There are two kinds of jurisdiction mentioned here, Original and Appellate. Original jurisdiction means that you can bring the case directly to that court. Appellate, of course, means a case can only get the that court on appeal.
The part that you highlighted says that Congress can make exceptions to the Supreme Court's appellate jurisdiction and allow certain kinds of cases not listed in this clause to also have original jurisdiction in the Supreme Court.
The other major thing that has been faced is large cuts to state aid - states which have been having major problems of their own. Consequently, college tuitions have been skyrocketing, local taxes on average have increased a lot - more than the average american got back from the Bush budget, despite the huge defecit increases, etc.
That's the problem with grants to states, especially one with strings attached.
The Federal government should only collect enough taxes to support itself. If states need more money for local programs and local problems, they should collect their own money through their own tax system.
The only grants I see as being useful are highway funds (trade and defense reasons), and they are so loaded with mandates and requirements to get the money that it is effectively extorting the states into making laws that the people would otherwise not support.
I've never understood why people register for a party....most people I know don't like everything one party does, etc. I can't imagine just voting a 'party line' on all issues and candidates. To me that just shows no thought process or consideration at all. I say bravo to the grandparent of the thread saying he votes here at there even though a registered party person, but, I'm curious why register to a party at all?
Why register with a party? Here are a few reasons I can think of:
* MOST IMPORTANT: Being registered with a party lets you vote in the party primary in states that do not have an open primary. YOU SHOULD ALWAYS VOTE IN THE PRIMARY!!! If most of the Republican-leaning independents would register with the party, for example, and choose primary candidates that were more moderate, there would be less idiots like Hatch in the upper ranks.
* If you want to run for office, long standing in the party will equate to added support for you.
* All of the organization of the party starts at elected Precint Committeeperson (PCP) positions (in the major parties, anyway). Being registered with a party allows you to be elected to one of these positions. Getting elected to a PCP position means having some amount of say on party policy, especially at the local level.
* Being involved in the party by participating at the local level allows you to meet all of the candidates running in your area, and you can do your part to help the one you agree with the best to get elected. If none of them are good enough, run for office yourself.
FWIW, I'm a Republican, my wife and I both hold Precinct Committeeperson positions, and I am involved with the party a lot at the local level. I run the network at the central committee office and volunteer time here and there on various campaigns. I also contribute actual dollars to some of the candidates I like.
Knowing and volunteering for candidates is important if you really care about issues like this. You know what you get with your vote, and should that person be elected, they'll remember who you are when you want them to listen to why you think this latest bill is a bad idea.
and pay to get laid
*ANYONE* can get it for free. Why the hell would you pay for it when you can go to the bar...
It's not like the hookers are better looking or less diseased than what you can find in a bar in a college town...
All non black things are not ravens.
Oh yeah?
Hotels do not place bibles in the rooms, the Gideons do.
So you'd have to wait for them to visit the place and put some bibles there first.
Small wonder. Why would we want to if that's the attitude to which we will be subjected should we venture there?
Sorry. It's just that since moving to the Valley, I've noticed that a lot of people on this side of the mountains don't give a rat's ass about Oregon's needs on the other side of the mountains. I've gotten a bit pessimistic and cynical about the whole thing.
For instance, Bend is the largest city (pop. ~52,000) on on the west coast that does not have at least a bus system. Portland spends millions of dollars on light rail.
There are also issues of agriculture, land use, highways, etc. It just seems to me that most of the people I'm around, at least, don't care about much beyond their back yard. Not just Portlanders, really.
Even growing up in Central OR and now living in Portland, I know that no self-respecting Portlander uses an umbrella. I call Shill! Shill, I say!
I got one when I moved from Bend to Eugene. I don't really use it anymore... just one winter makes your webfeet grow, but I still recommend one when wearing a suit.
What part of Central OR did you grow up in? I'm a Redmond High grad, and my wife's a Bend High grad.
Huh? I spent lots of time wandering around downtown Portland at all hours of the night and day (and lived at 16th and Yamhill for a year) in the early ninetees, and can't think of anything that would prompt this comment. It didn't look much different when I visted there last summer.
I can't find an article reference to it on google news (might be too long ago), but a few months back there was an incident where a guy jumped off a Tri-Met bus and shot someone in broad daylight downtown.
My sister lives downtown near PSU, and she feels pretty safe in that area, and I agree that Portland isn't the most dangerous city around, but it's still a rough city.
According to city-data.com's Portland info Portland has a pretty high crime rate, the index being 569.9 (~330 is average for a U.S. city). Someone in another part of the thread mentioned feeling much less safe in Seattle. Seattle's crime index is about 580, not much higher than Portland. The murder rates of Portland and Seattle are essentially the same (about 4 per 100,000). Portland has a higher crime index than Los Angeles (553.3), but it's a lot lower than Oakland, CA (657.9).
the ride operators deal drugs? that was two guys, busted today, for the first time that I can remember in 25 + years. get the hell over it.
Hey, I'm just poking fun at Portland's flaws. You'll never be as safe in Portland as I was in Redmond, Oregon, when I was growing up.
Since that incident was so recent, I decided to throw that in.
bring a concealed carry permit and your gun downtown? oh my god, that's the last thing we need, some freaking wack with a gun. oh sure he's licenced to cary it, so that means he know's how to use it? uh yeah sure...
I can't find a better source right now than the University of Oregon's Daily Emerald dated January 23, 2004, but the fact is that the only group of citizens that commits less gun crime and has less gun incidents than concealed carry permit holders are senior citizens.
And yes, any given permit holder "know's how to use it"... they all have to take a firearms class (Lane Community College has a good one), and must pass a background check. The same as a cop.
In general the service is quite good, we go to a few of their places fairly often and the food always comes pretty fast. Of course, there are always isolated incidents, but don't let that discourage anyone from trying the restaurants.
Well, most of my experiences with any McMenamin's have been the pubs in Eugene. The food is damned good, the beer is good, but there have been many times where I've gone into one of them, it's taken 20 minutes for a server to get around. When they finally take my order, it comes fast, which is good, but after that, you never see your server again, even if you want another beer. That really sucks when you want to leave because you have somewhere to be, because sometimes it becomes difficult to pay the tab.
Though, to be completely honest, the service in most pubs and restaurants in Eugene sucks. However, the only place I refuse to go to anymore is the McMenamin's High Street Brewery, where I've gotten dirty silverware on multiple occasions. The other place I stopped going to went out of business, for some reason. (It wasn't a McMenamins.)
You must work for them, or something. Real Portlanders don't have umbrellas. :)
I'm from Eastern Oregon. We don't have rain. When I moved to the Willamette Valley, I got an umbrella.
But I'll admit that my web feet have grown in just fine, and I almost never use it, the exceptions being when I happen to be in a suit or my wife is wearing something she wants to stay dry in.