I hate it when companies say, "We like to think that our presence in China is helping to spread democracy there." Nope - not if the company is helping the Chinese government repress people.
Many U.S. and European companies sell technology to regimes that violate human rights, and if this case goes to trial and Cisco loses, they may think twice, said EFF Staff Attorney Sophia Cope.
I hope someone will compile a list of these companies and technologies, and and I hope this list is widely publicized. Boycotts and/or congressional actions against these sales might result from the list.
The ScanSnap SV600 looks good, but you'll have to keep something in mind: The web page for this link says, "* Maximum document scanning thickness is 30 mm (1.18 in.)"
A maximum thickness of 1.18 inches would limit the books you can scan, unless you break apart a thick book, and scan it in sections.
If the Zuckerbergs give their money to organizations that help people directly, then good. But I wonder if they plan to give part of their money to lobbying organizations, including organizations that push for more immigration. From their letter to our daughter:
Can we build inclusive and welcoming communities?
Can we nurture peaceful and understanding relationships between people of all nations?
Can we truly empower everyone -- women, children, underrepresented minorities, immigrants and the unconnected?
Maybe they mean just that and nothing more, but maybe they're preparing to push for freer immigration into the US.
Apple fans... could stop using the word "podcast", and admit that this piece of branding was a crass and cynical attempt by Apple to re-brand the internet.
According to Wikipedia,"The term "podcasting" was first mentioned by Ben Hammersley in The Guardian newspaper in a February 2004 article, along with other proposed names for the new medium." Apple didn't make up the word.
If Apple users stopped using the word podcast, the word would still be used. A Google search of "podcast" says Google found "About 277,000,000 results".
Suppose a company bids $x on a new government project. The government should state that the bid is not complete unless it includes information about the company's track record of previous government projects:
1) List all government projects in the last 10 years, for which the company got paid at least $x/2. This list must include the name and contact information of the project customers (the government organizations that paid the company for the projects).
2) How did each of these projects turn out? Was the product or service delivered, on time and within budget? (The government organization that's receiving the current bid should also ask the customers how the projects turned out.)
3) If the project did not complete successfully, on time and within budget, then why not?
4) If the project did not complete successfully, on time and within budget, then did the company warn the customer, before the contract was signed, that there might be problems?
5) In each of the listed projects, what did the company do to protect the project from loss of power and communications, flooding, hackers, etc.?
Governments should consider this information, when they decide on which company to award a new contract. And this information should be made publicly available - both as a public service, and to shame companies that have a bad track record.
I just played with the beta a bit on Mac OS X 10.8.5.
The good: A respectable score of 521 in html5test.com.
The bad:
1) Bookmarklets apparently aren't supported in the beta. I created one javascript:alert("bye"); which works fine on Safari, but which gives me an error message "Inalid URL." when I define it.
And according the discussion here, other users can't do bookmarklets either.
2) I also wish they'd have a way for me to request a peaceful, quiet, calm, whatever you want to call it, mode. No sound, no movies played, no animated gifs, no carousels that automatically play. Of course, no blinking or marquee. Even better, run only JavaScript from the web page's site and bookmarklets. Don't run JavaScript from adware sites.
In a larger more populated area this kind of solution just wouldn't work, where a corporation would be doing the bureaucratic legwork and infrastructure maintenance required for a large scale operation.
If he'd tried to do this project in SanFrancisco, the project would have been tied up for years in red tape and citizen protests.
If the voters voted to spend a certain amount of money for the bullet train, and if the actual cost is way more, and if the trains will be slower than a bullet train, then does CA have the legal authority to go ahead with the project?
The voters voted for X, and the state is doing Y. Seems to me that the state wouldn't have the authority to do Y, only to do X.
Just because hunter-gatherers may not have slept much, that doesn't necessarily mean it's "good for you". They also got a lot of snake bites. Does that mean snake bites are good for you?
Exactly. How much time do these hunter-gatherers spend each day, doing survival tasks? If they spend 18 hours a day hunting, gathering, preparing food, etc. then they'll only have 6 hours a day to sleep, even if they're tired and want to sleep more.
Mark Twain wrote a hilarious short story called "The McWilliamses And The Burglar Alarm". In this story, a malfunctioning burglar alarm kept waking Mr. and Mrs. McWilliams. From the story:
Well, this catastrophe happened every morning regularly at five o'clock, and lost us three hours sleep; for, mind you, when that thing wakes you, it doesn't merely wake you in spots; it wakes you all over, conscience and all, and you are good for eighteen hours of wide-awakeness subsequently--eighteen hours of the very most inconceivable wide-awakeness that you ever experienced in your life.
The burglar alarm kept The McWilliamses awake for 18 hours a day, leaving 6 hours for sleep. The alarm "lost us three hours sleep", meaning they normally slept 9 hours a day.
So in this story, which I guess was written in the 1800's, before TV, Internet, etc., it was normal to sleep 9 hours a day.
The fact that your senses crave the smells, taste, and texture of meat means... your body wants meat.
I crave lots of things that aren't good for me - Twinkies, ice cream, french fries, pie, thick malted milk, etc. Just because we want to eat something doesn't mean it's necessarily good for us.
Here's my best advice to Tim Cook: Make Apple as independent of China as possible. Some day the Chinese government will make a demand to which Mr. Cook will not comply (because of his conscience), or can not comply (because of US laws).
What's the worst thing China can do, in response to Apple's refusal? Apple makes most of its money from selling hardware, so the worst thing China could do would be to stop or severely limit Apple's manufacturing in China.
So I recommend that Mr. Cook and Jeff Williams work to find more manufacturing locations outside of Apple (they have a few now), and find more non-Chinese parts suppliers.
They might even want to buy a shuttered factory, and start getting it ready to make Apple products if necessary. It would cost some money, but it would be insurance against the possibility of a severe crimp in manufacturing.
Google "Yale University had posted online 170,000 Library of Congress photographs taken in the United States from 1935 to 1945.", and you'll get links to pages that have some of the photos. For example, this page has some good photos.
In that web page, I'm struck the most by the picture whose caption is "Farm machinery buried in drifting soil...". Wow, look at that sand! It looks like they're at the beach.
And in the bottom picture "Bed on the porch, Newport, Oklahoma..." - look at how the corner and edges of the house are held up by bricks and rocks. I guess the soil that used to support that part of the house blew away.
Sorry about the off-topic mention of the F-35. I wasn't trying to astroturf. I was just feeling discouraged about our non-functional federal government. (disfunctional? unfunctional?)
When demonstrated for General Omar Bradley, he was impressed enough to order them built in quantity for the tanks. Eventually the prototype became an engineered product (dubbed the “Culin Rhino Device”) that was fitted to many tanks before being shipped over from England.
I wonder how long it took, from the demo for Gen. Bradley, until the device was fitted on tanks sent over from England. Hopefully not too long. Imagine the tanks being made in the US today. How long would it take before they were outfitted with the "tusks"? Senator #1: "I demand that the tusks be made in my state." Senator #2: "No - make them in my state, or I'll vote against them being made at all!"
I would donate money to an organization that freely distributed birth control devices. Overpopulation strains the supply of natural resources like water, strains the food supply (farms being bought to put in housing), increases pollution, etc. And parents that don't have huge numbers of children can better care for their children. Lessen overpopulation -> help with many other problems.
Only if they used this new technology for transferring good for first year at least.
Do you mean Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) transporting mail, packages, etc. instead of people for at least the first year? That's a good idea! If an HTT train has a problem, I'd rather have packages be in it than people.
If it's cheap enough, then the USPS, FedEx and UPS might want to use HTT transportation. Not moving companies. I'd hate to have a heavy sofa come loose and punch a hole in a moving HTT train.
I guess I feel like people felt when the train, car and airplane first came out. The hyperloop (like those earlier inventions) sounds like a wonderful idea, but it's a little dangerous. I want to ride on one eventually, but not on the first few runs. Let them work out any early problems with other, more daring riders.
The Bloomberg article says, "The cheapest of its five new printers starts at about $379...". I wonder if it's an all-in-one.
Personally, I don't like all-in-ones. I don't need scanning, faxing, or wireless or photo-quality printing. I just need a printer that does color text printing, like my two Epson Stylus Color 740 printers, which have lasted 16 years between them. Also I want it to be small enough to fit on a shelf in my computer table.
If anyone from Epson (or any other printer company) is reading this, please take note. If you put out a small, simple, reliable color text printer, which lasts for several years like the Epson Stylus Color 740, I'll buy it.
it removed my start page, failed to import my bookmarks, and immediately decided it would become the default browser instead of Chrome.
According to this article, Mozilla is complaining that Windows 10 makes it harder to make non-Microsoft software be the default software.
Microsoft has altered Windows 10 so that users have to explicitly set a default app for applications like mail, calendar, or web browsers. The change means the setup installers for Chrome and Firefox can no longer set themselves as the default browser during the install process.
In speech it is easy to distinguish between the two meanings, but the difference is in intonation that doesn't translate directly to writing.
Right. Suppose I ask you if x > y, and you reply, "I think so." That sounds straightforward. But consider the way you say it. If you're 90% sure that x > y, then you'll say "I think so" quickly, in a higher-pitched voice. But if you're only 60% sure, then you'll say "I think so" slower, in a lower-pitched voice.
Regarding the "Damn the torpedoes" quote: According to this military.com article,
The heavily guarded bay entrance was filled with mines, then known as torpedoes. Farragut's cry of "Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!" is now the stuff of legend, but it was also good tactics. All but one of the fleet's 18 ships passed safely through the channel...
I heard a speech by a military historian, who said that "Damn the torpedoes!" did not mean "to heck with the mines, let's ignore them". The historian said that Farragut was cursing the mines, like he was saying, "Damn those torpedoes". Then he ordered his men to go full speed ahead, to get out of the dangerous minefield ASAP, before a mine blew up a ship.
Obama does not read/. but you could email your representatives or even email him and an aide will likely read it. If you write it well enough there is a slim chance that he may read it after it has gone through his aides.
Good idea. I'll also email my US senators and representative.
A California utility has not only replaced citzens/green card holders with offshore labor, but they've handed control of critical infrastructure to foreign nationals. ATM, India is a friendly nation, but that is not guaranteed to last beyond their next election.
I agree. Re. the California utility, are you talking about Southern California Edison (SCE)? According to these twoarticles, a US senator and two US representatives are upset about replacing the American SCE workers.
I'm not a lawyer, but I've read that Disney's aborted replacement of US workers was legal. If so, then let's change the law. President Obama, please show us just how "troubled" about the law you are, and work to fix the law.
According to this article, Robert R. Doggart posted a Facebook item, which asked other people to join him in burning down a mosque in New York state. He was arrested in April.
Court documents say Doggart talked with a confidential source and with others on a cellphone the FBI was monitoring, saying he wanted to firebomb several buildings, including the mosque, a school and the cafeteria.
I'm glad the FBI was monitoring his phone calls. And I'm glad someone reported the Facebook item to the FBI.
Slashdot Mirror
I hate it when companies say, "We like to think that our presence in China is helping to spread democracy there." Nope - not if the company is helping the Chinese government repress people.
Many U.S. and European companies sell technology to regimes that violate human rights, and if this case goes to trial and Cisco loses, they may think twice, said EFF Staff Attorney Sophia Cope.
I hope someone will compile a list of these companies and technologies, and and I hope this list is widely publicized. Boycotts and/or congressional actions against these sales might result from the list.
We should praise and cheer people like those three, not the latest sports star or "celebrity".
The IndieGogo project is just a clone of something that already exists:
http://scanners.fcpa.fujitsu.com/scansnap11/features_sv600.html
The ScanSnap SV600 looks good, but you'll have to keep something in mind: The web page for this link says, "* Maximum document scanning thickness is 30 mm (1.18 in.)"
A maximum thickness of 1.18 inches would limit the books you can scan, unless you break apart a thick book, and scan it in sections.
If the Zuckerbergs give their money to organizations that help people directly, then good. But I wonder if they plan to give part of their money to lobbying organizations, including organizations that push for more immigration. From their letter to our daughter:
Can we build inclusive and welcoming communities?
Can we nurture peaceful and understanding relationships between people of all nations?
Can we truly empower everyone -- women, children, underrepresented minorities, immigrants and the unconnected?
Maybe they mean just that and nothing more, but maybe they're preparing to push for freer immigration into the US.
Apple fans ... could stop using the word "podcast", and admit that this piece of branding was a crass and cynical attempt by Apple to re-brand the internet.
According to Wikipedia,"The term "podcasting" was first mentioned by Ben Hammersley in The Guardian newspaper in a February 2004 article, along with other proposed names for the new medium." Apple didn't make up the word.
If Apple users stopped using the word podcast, the word would still be used. A Google search of "podcast" says Google found "About 277,000,000 results".
Suppose a company bids $x on a new government project. The government should state that the bid is not complete unless it includes information about the company's track record of previous government projects:
1) List all government projects in the last 10 years, for which the company got paid at least $x/2. This list must include the name and contact information of the project customers (the government organizations that paid the company for the projects).
2) How did each of these projects turn out? Was the product or service delivered, on time and within budget? (The government organization that's receiving the current bid should also ask the customers how the projects turned out.)
3) If the project did not complete successfully, on time and within budget, then why not?
4) If the project did not complete successfully, on time and within budget, then did the company warn the customer, before the contract was signed, that there might be problems?
5) In each of the listed projects, what did the company do to protect the project from loss of power and communications, flooding, hackers, etc.?
Governments should consider this information, when they decide on which company to award a new contract. And this information should be made publicly available - both as a public service, and to shame companies that have a bad track record.
I just played with the beta a bit on Mac OS X 10.8.5.
The good: A respectable score of 521 in html5test.com.
The bad:
1) Bookmarklets apparently aren't supported in the beta. I created one
javascript:alert("bye");
which works fine on Safari, but which gives me an error message "Inalid URL." when I define it.
And according the discussion here, other users can't do bookmarklets either.
2) I also wish they'd have a way for me to request a peaceful, quiet, calm, whatever you want to call it, mode. No sound, no movies played, no animated gifs, no carousels that automatically play. Of course, no blinking or marquee. Even better, run only JavaScript from the web page's site and bookmarklets. Don't run JavaScript from adware sites.
In a larger more populated area this kind of solution just wouldn't work, where a corporation would be doing the bureaucratic legwork and infrastructure maintenance required for a large scale operation.
If he'd tried to do this project in San Francisco, the project would have been tied up for years in red tape and citizen protests.
If the voters voted to spend a certain amount of money for the bullet train, and if the actual cost is way more, and if the trains will be slower than a bullet train, then does CA have the legal authority to go ahead with the project?
The voters voted for X, and the state is doing Y. Seems to me that the state wouldn't have the authority to do Y, only to do X.
Just because hunter-gatherers may not have slept much, that doesn't necessarily mean it's "good for you". They also got a lot of snake bites. Does that mean snake bites are good for you?
Exactly. How much time do these hunter-gatherers spend each day, doing survival tasks? If they spend 18 hours a day hunting, gathering, preparing food, etc. then they'll only have 6 hours a day to sleep, even if they're tired and want to sleep more.
Mark Twain wrote a hilarious short story called "The McWilliamses And The Burglar Alarm". In this story, a malfunctioning burglar alarm kept waking Mr. and Mrs. McWilliams. From the story:
Well, this catastrophe happened every morning regularly at five o'clock, and lost us three hours sleep; for, mind you, when that thing wakes you, it doesn't merely wake you in spots; it wakes you all over, conscience and all, and you are good for eighteen hours of wide-awakeness subsequently--eighteen hours of the very most inconceivable wide-awakeness that you ever experienced in your life.
The burglar alarm kept The McWilliamses awake for 18 hours a day, leaving 6 hours for sleep. The alarm "lost us three hours sleep", meaning they normally slept 9 hours a day.
So in this story, which I guess was written in the 1800's, before TV, Internet, etc., it was normal to sleep 9 hours a day.
The fact that your senses crave the smells, taste, and texture of meat means... your body wants meat.
I crave lots of things that aren't good for me - Twinkies, ice cream, french fries, pie, thick malted milk, etc. Just because we want to eat something doesn't mean it's necessarily good for us.
Here's my best advice to Tim Cook: Make Apple as independent of China as possible. Some day the Chinese government will make a demand to which Mr. Cook will not comply (because of his conscience), or can not comply (because of US laws).
What's the worst thing China can do, in response to Apple's refusal? Apple makes most of its money from selling hardware, so the worst thing China could do would be to stop or severely limit Apple's manufacturing in China.
So I recommend that Mr. Cook and Jeff Williams work to find more manufacturing locations outside of Apple (they have a few now), and find more non-Chinese parts suppliers.
They might even want to buy a shuttered factory, and start getting it ready to make Apple products if necessary. It would cost some money, but it would be insurance against the possibility of a severe crimp in manufacturing.
Google "Yale University had posted online 170,000 Library of Congress photographs taken in the United States from 1935 to 1945.", and you'll get links to pages that have some of the photos. For example, this page has some good photos.
In that web page, I'm struck the most by the picture whose caption is "Farm machinery buried in drifting soil ...". Wow, look at that sand! It looks like they're at the beach.
And in the bottom picture "Bed on the porch, Newport, Oklahoma ..." - look at how the corner and edges of the house are held up by bricks and rocks. I guess the soil that used to support that part of the house blew away.
How in the world did those people survive?
Sorry about the off-topic mention of the F-35. I wasn't trying to astroturf. I was just feeling discouraged about our non-functional federal government. (disfunctional? unfunctional?)
From the article:
When demonstrated for General Omar Bradley, he was impressed enough to order them built in quantity for the tanks. Eventually the prototype became an engineered product (dubbed the “Culin Rhino Device”) that was fitted to many tanks before being shipped over from England.
I wonder how long it took, from the demo for Gen. Bradley, until the device was fitted on tanks sent over from England. Hopefully not too long. Imagine the tanks being made in the US today. How long would it take before they were outfitted with the "tusks"? Senator #1: "I demand that the tusks be made in my state." Senator #2: "No - make them in my state, or I'll vote against them being made at all!"
In related news, U.S. Air Force instructs airmen on exactly how to praise the F-35. The Air Force should reject the F-35 for its many flaws, and demand their money back. Sigh. Some things really were better back in the past.
I would donate money to an organization that freely distributed birth control devices. Overpopulation strains the supply of natural resources like water, strains the food supply (farms being bought to put in housing), increases pollution, etc. And parents that don't have huge numbers of children can better care for their children. Lessen overpopulation -> help with many other problems.
Only if they used this new technology for transferring good for first year at least.
Do you mean Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) transporting mail, packages, etc. instead of people for at least the first year? That's a good idea! If an HTT train has a problem, I'd rather have packages be in it than people.
If it's cheap enough, then the USPS, FedEx and UPS might want to use HTT transportation. Not moving companies. I'd hate to have a heavy sofa come loose and punch a hole in a moving HTT train.
I guess I feel like people felt when the train, car and airplane first came out. The hyperloop (like those earlier inventions) sounds like a wonderful idea, but it's a little dangerous. I want to ride on one eventually, but not on the first few runs. Let them work out any early problems with other, more daring riders.
The Bloomberg article says, "The cheapest of its five new printers starts at about $379 ...". I wonder if it's an all-in-one.
Personally, I don't like all-in-ones. I don't need scanning, faxing, or wireless or photo-quality printing. I just need a printer that does color text printing, like my two Epson Stylus Color 740 printers, which have lasted 16 years between them. Also I want it to be small enough to fit on a shelf in my computer table.
If anyone from Epson (or any other printer company) is reading this, please take note. If you put out a small, simple, reliable color text printer, which lasts for several years like the Epson Stylus Color 740, I'll buy it.
it removed my start page, failed to import my bookmarks, and immediately decided it would become the default browser instead of Chrome.
According to this article, Mozilla is complaining that Windows 10 makes it harder to make non-Microsoft software be the default software.
Microsoft has altered Windows 10 so that users have to explicitly set a default app for applications like mail, calendar, or web browsers. The change means the setup installers for Chrome and Firefox can no longer set themselves as the default browser during the install process.
In speech it is easy to distinguish between the two meanings, but the difference is in intonation that doesn't translate directly to writing.
Right. Suppose I ask you if x > y, and you reply, "I think so." That sounds straightforward. But consider the way you say it. If you're 90% sure that x > y, then you'll say "I think so" quickly, in a higher-pitched voice. But if you're only 60% sure, then you'll say "I think so" slower, in a lower-pitched voice.
Regarding the "Damn the torpedoes" quote: According to this military.com article,
The heavily guarded bay entrance was filled with mines, then known as torpedoes. Farragut's cry of "Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!" is now the stuff of legend, but it was also good tactics. All but one of the fleet's 18 ships passed safely through the channel ...
I heard a speech by a military historian, who said that "Damn the torpedoes!" did not mean "to heck with the mines, let's ignore them". The historian said that Farragut was cursing the mines, like he was saying, "Damn those torpedoes". Then he ordered his men to go full speed ahead, to get out of the dangerous minefield ASAP, before a mine blew up a ship.
So Farragut was being prudent, not reckless.
Obama does not read /. but you could email your representatives or even email him and an aide will likely read it. If you write it well enough there is a slim chance that he may read it after it has gone through his aides.
Good idea. I'll also email my US senators and representative.
A California utility has not only replaced citzens/green card holders with offshore labor, but they've handed control of critical infrastructure to foreign nationals. ATM, India is a friendly nation, but that is not guaranteed to last beyond their next election.
I agree. Re. the California utility, are you talking about Southern California Edison (SCE)? According to these two articles, a US senator and two US representatives are upset about replacing the American SCE workers.
I'm not a lawyer, but I've read that Disney's aborted replacement of US workers was legal. If so, then let's change the law. President Obama, please show us just how "troubled" about the law you are, and work to fix the law.
According to this article, Robert R. Doggart posted a Facebook item, which asked other people to join him in burning down a mosque in New York state. He was arrested in April.
Court documents say Doggart talked with a confidential source and with others on a cellphone the FBI was monitoring, saying he wanted to firebomb several buildings, including the mosque, a school and the cafeteria.
I'm glad the FBI was monitoring his phone calls. And I'm glad someone reported the Facebook item to the FBI.