Profanity being available to children -- I was really hoping the V-chip (and similar technologies) would get rid of this crap. It's really just a smokescreen to cover the next item
The V-chip is not very effective because not all programs are actually rated. I have young children, and I use the V-chip on my cable box to lock out programming that is above the "G" or "TV-Y" ratings. This is mostly just to keep them from being exposed to stuff as I flip through the channels. V-chip is obviously no substitute for careful monitoring by the parent. Anyway, there are many programs on during daytime hours with either no rating or an incorrect rating.
Profanity being available to adults -- It makes some people nuts to think that, somewhere, someone is doing something they don't approve of. Maybe it's "godlessness" or "immoral", but mostly it's just a religious nut wanting to control everyone else
Not even close to the truth. As a member of the "religious community" that you so despise, I'll admit that I don't approve of profanity (even if guilty of it from time to time myself). However, I would never under any circumstances try to control what you (or others) expose yourself to (no pun intended). In fact, I'd defend your right to do so, if for no other reason than to protect my own rights. If you want over the top profanity and X-rated programming on the TV, fix the problem in your first point above. You can do anything you want to do, but don't make me participate in it with you. One of the primary points of the article was that the FM modulation used to retransmit an XM signal to listeners radio is transmitting that signal to the radio of all the cars (and houses) around them. In this case, people trying to listen to NPR were being forced to endure Howard Stern.
Interference -- Sometimes highly powered transmitters bleed over onto other frequencies. My neighbor used to have an illegal CB antenna that would broadcast on every TV channel below five, including channel 3, which made VCRs and video game systems not work as well as they could have. If these transmitters are interfering with wireless networks, cell phones, television signals, or CB signals used by emergency vehicles then people have a right to complain.
These signals are interfering with other legitimate radio stations and those stations are receiving complaints about what the listeners are hearing. Both the stations and the listeners have perfect right to complain. At this point, I think the right thing to do is fine the manufacturers for FCC violations, demand that owners of such sets have them replaced with sets that don't require the FM modulator (or use one that can't transmit outside of the vehicle in which it is installed), and then provide a reasonable grace period during which the owners can get them replaced. After the grace period, start fining the owners for broadcasting without an FCC license.
I don't see what's so damn hard about putting that in their TOS, it's not like that can't add to it whenever they want.
And even better, they didn't completely disconnect them. They moved them to an isolated subnet until they could get their PC cleaned up. Maybe they are still doing this, but I'm not a Comcast customer so I don't really know.
Why would anybody want to buy these domains unless they are the bank themselves -- or a phishing scammer?
One other possibility. Cybersquatting...the online equivalent of extortion. Anyway, the practice of registering these "typo" domains shouldn't be illegal. But they should be an automatic trigger for a detailed investigation by the justice department. It's like criminals hanging a sign on their front door announcing their intentions to commit a crime. The DoJ should be loving it....
Until we secure the majority of home PCs this problem will only get worse:(
In the meantime, it would be nice if the DSL and Cable Modem providers would provide some feedback to their customers.... I think Comcast tried to do this once and got in trouble because they were disconnecting customers who failed to clean up their machines.
I actually like the Fusion. I laughed when I saw it in the stores, but when I got a trial in the mail, I decided it wouldn't hurt to give it a whirl. For quite a while I've been using the Gillette Sensor 3. I like the triple blade, not so much because it has three instead of two, but because of the distance between the blades -- it's easier to wash out. However, anything over three blades was too "tall" and difficult to shave with. The Fusion changes that. With the five blades, it's a much smoother shave than the Sensor was, and the sixth "precision" blade solves the "tallness" problem while at the same time making it a snap to keep sideburns trimmed and get rid of stray hairs around beards and mustaches. Now, the ultimate question will be around price. I'm perfectly satisfied with the Sensor 3, but I'm willing to pay just a little more for the Fusion. I'll find out on my next trip to the store.
How many people honestly have a set they can watch something like that in all its glory on?
The 1080p sets have hit the market at a much lower price than their lower resolution siblings did. Just glancing at the typical retailer... a decent 42" plasma set is about $2000. A 42" LCD 1080p set is about $2700. I don't know about you, but the choice would be pretty easy for me. Expect all the HDTV holdouts (like me) to be picking up the higher resolution sets within the next year.
After all if they sought to do no evil either they would leave the blogs online no matter what, or they would remove them no matter what.
Now that you've met the colors black and white, I'd like to introduce you to gray.;) If they seek to do no evil, they first must determine what evil is. In this case, not even Slashdotters can agree which one of the two is evil. I would expect the same disagreements within the management at Google. Why would they take any "do no evil" action if they aren't sure what that is? In a rather charged issue like this which has roughly equal advocates for both sides, doesn't it make better sense to wait for the opinion of the courts in the country in question? After all, the law ought to follow more or less the consensus of the people that live there (although that isn't always the case).
Let me know when you figure out who to sue. I want to be ready just in case I have the same problem. Maybe I'll go ahead and fill out the court papers ahead of time so that I can be completely prepared.
I've always said that we should just chain them up in a basement until they're 18.
I've just made an appointment to have both my children encased in lucite. That way, I can put them on the mantel and admire how perfect they are each time I see them.
I live in the Midwest and we purchase unpasteurized cream locally. It tastes great, it's healthier, and it's cheaper.
OK, please educate me. How can you say that unpasteurized cream is healthier? I agree that it tastes better and ought to be cheaper because there is less work to be done before the cream makes it to the consumer. However, in my understanding, the pasteurization process involves heating the cream to a high enough temperature to kill most of the bacteria in it. Although this process impacts the taste, it ought to make the resulting product healthier... unless you subscribe to the philosophy that ingesting some of the bacteria improves your immune system.
Seriously, if these kids posted from a library (not outside of possibility), would she sue the library?
No, she would probably still sue the parents. Although in this case she might have a choice. A victim of an automobile accident caused by a teenage driver could choose between suing the owner of the car involved in the accident and the parents of the teen who was driving, even if the car did not belong to the teen or his/her parents.
At that age kids are too independent minded to say the parents are liable.
18, unless the child is legally emancipated or the parent takes some measures to continue assuming financial responsibility (for example including their child on their auto insurance policy).
I have two kids. Thinking back as a teen and the shit I said, I hope I'm not held responsible for everything that comes out of their mouth when they are teenagers.
You absolutely can be held responsible for everything that comes out of your kids' mouths. But generally the consequences of something your kids say are far less severe than other actions. In the case that this article is about, the kids impersonated the plaintiff (electronically) and published false and damaging information under the auspices that such information was coming directly from the plaintiff. The net result was a ruined reputation for the plaintiff (people she didn't know were making rude remarks to her as they passed by) that may ultimately impact her ability to keep her job or obtain a new one. If your children do something like this, you should expect to be held responsible. If you don't want your children to do something so stupid, you should make sure they know that you'd probably be forced to take measures that would make their lives equally miserable.
Now, sexual orientation used a reason not to hire someone would be considered as discriminatory...
And yet it's still a problem. After all, it's not too difficult to come up with some non-descriminatory reason to not hire someone even when the real reason is discriminatory.
...but the issue here is less a criminal matter than a civil one. It's not "involuntary manslaughter," it's "involuntary libel"... or "negligent defamation". Is that really something we want to introduce as a matter of law?
I would think it's already a matter of law. In a civil lawsuit, the plaintiff generally seeks the biggest pool of available funds to go after. So for example, if there's an injury and the defendant has an umbrella policy, the plaintiff's attorney will go after the umbrella policy because it has a larger pool to draw from. In the case of children, their legal guardians are held at least partly responsible for their actions. If my child was throwing rocks at cars and ended up causing an accident, you can bet that I would be the one held responsible for the damage. It should come as absolutely no surprise that libel, slander or defamation suits work in the same way.
I mean, would YOU enjoy it if someone brought suit against you, personally, for not restraining or even becoming involved with what your brother or sister said about someone? Although the legal responsibility is different from parent to child, it still takes a "personal" civil offense and makes it a "group" offense. I find that scary.
As you said, the parent/child legal responsibility is different than that between siblings. If my brother did some horrible thing to someone, the victim wouldn't dare try to sue me unless I was somehow complicit in what my brother did. While it would be perfectly legal to open a lawsuit against me, such would generally considered to be frivolous and could be countered with a harassment suit. But as a parent or guardian, I am responsible (at least in part) for my child's behavior while he or she is a minor. That's part of my responsibility and accountability as a parent. If I were named legal guardian of my brother, I would expect similar issues (although complicated by the fact that my brother would treat me more as a peer than a parent). Do I find this scary? Just scary enough to make me do my best to raise my children right.
That only occurs if the toolbar in question disables it.
Not true. It happens because the user asks Windows to allow installation. The action that Windows takes is to turn off the protection mode. It then FAILS to turn it back on after installation is complete. It has absolutely nothing to do with the toolbar itself, and is most likely a bug or oversight on the part of Microsoft. But if not fixed, it will be a rather nasty "hole" just waiting to catch all but the most cautious users. I would expect Microsoft to fix it either before final release or in a security update shortly afterwards.
Buy a house that you like, not one that you think will gain the most value in 3 years so you can sell it and upgrade.
Sorry, but I think you are a bit off base here. Very few people buy a house entirely for an investment. Most people in the USA buy WHAT THEY CAN AFFORD (well maybe a little more than what they can afford). They buy a house that they like and is (arguably) within their budget. It's reasonable to assume that when children come along, they will want to move to a larger house, and usually by this time they have a higher income and can afford to do so. When they go to sell their small home and move to a larger home, they want to get the best price for the old home so that they have a better chance of getting something they will like in the newer home.
And what about job changes or transfers? If you have to move, you don't want your neighbor's lime green windmill scaring off prospective buyers. Also, take a look at what it actually costs to buy a house when it is amortized over 30 years at, say, 6%. For the amount of money you are throwing into it, it had darn well better be a good investment. And finally, having to live next to a neighbor whose house or property is a real eyesore will turn the house that I liked at one time into one I don't like very much.
Skype doesn't use a lot of bandwidth, so even if you're running in supernode mode it's not going to make a big difference, except maybe if you're on a home DSL with 128kbps upstream bottleneck, and the FUD's targeted at businesses and universities that have much larger connections (i.e. places that make decent supernodes.)
Uh, if the supernode mode is enough to cause performance problems with a single user over a 128kbps upstream connection, it's likely to cause some noticeable problems at a business with thousands of users running Skype -- even if the connection to the internet that they share is a very large one.
Where I work, we have an average of about 1. and sonme of us think that that's too many
Where can I send my resume? Just reviewing the past few days shows no fewer than 6 meetings since Monday for projects that are all related to each other. I also have weekly team meetings and daily systems stability meetings. It has gotten to the point that I have to reserve slots on my calendar to get work done. To be fair, though, I am an architect now and no longer strictly a developer, so I am forced to have a little more exposure to those business meetings....
They ARE muslims. Religion is a belief in irrational, supernatural, non-existing things. Therefore, the sole standard is: if they BELIEVE that they are, they ARE.
I completely agree with your assessment of being what they believe, but your definition of religion is not correct at all. A religion is a set of beliefs that are more or less agreed upon by a group of people. While religion frequently consists of supernatural beliefs, this is not always the case. And the beliefs are certainly not restricted to irrational and non-existing things, although very frequently the beliefs are based on faith without burden of proof.
Microsoft® Word (Conversion to the Reader-requires Word installed on your PC)
Big as life.
Translation: It doesn't support.DOC, but if you _buy_ another application, you can use it to convert the files to a supported format. And before someone else mentions it, I doubt this would work on Linux without some hacking.
I'm getting one for my house. I can buy all the electricity I use in a day at off peak rates, store it in the ultracap and use it throughout the day.
The payback time for the ultracap is less than 2 years in my area.
I like this idea. Even with peak rates disappearing, it would still help to avoid brownouts and such if customers could "stagger" their power usage. Something like this would also be EXTREMELY useful in parts of India where they only have electricity available during certain times of the day.
The federal budget has been online for a long time.
Forget the budget. I want to be able to browse the general ledger and drill into the general journal. You can "hide" the stuff for CIA and FBI, but I want to see all the other junk. I'm less interested in what the budget is than I am in where the money is actually being spent.
Yeah, but how do I know that capacitors that perform at the $9 per 500 miles aren't exponentially more expensive?
You don't. But in general, once demand rises for something and manufacturing processes are in place, the cost begins to fall closer to that of the raw materials. I somehow doubt that the raw materials for these capacitors will be more expensive than Li-Ion and Li-Polymer materials.
How well do these capacitors retain their charge?
Significantly better than batteries.
How many charges are they good for?
A whole lot more than batteries.
The biggest concern I've heard of against fuel cell cars is that their cells are worthless after five years or so.
I doubt this would need to be a concern. The biggest concern is how to get the electricity into the capacitor safely in an acceptable amount of time.
I'm not trying to rain on your parade, just pointing out that it's not going to be adopted by everyone in the United States unless it's obviously cheaper than the current method.
I think the best method would be to include two separate charging technologies. The first could be a rapid charger that works at a fuel station, and would obviously have to involve thick, well-insulated cables. (although I doubt 5 minutes would be considered safe) The second could be a "residential" charging system that allows you to plug your car into a normal outlet and charge up slowly overnight. In the previous life of this submission (see all the dup notifications), someone mentioned a special charging system that draws on energy during non-peak hours, and then can delivery the charge to the car quickly. I don't feel that a quick charge like that would be very safe at my house, but you never know what new ideas may be developed. However, we could still draw during non-peak hours and then use the electricity to top off the car or charge it over a longer period of time.
You can achieve this with 60 MV at 1A, 1V at 60MA or anything in between. If you use a high voltage, you minimize current and therefore minimize transmission losses.
At 60 MV, you're likely to have arcing between the transmission line and almost every conductive object on the block.
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I actually like the Fusion. I laughed when I saw it in the stores, but when I got a trial in the mail, I decided it wouldn't hurt to give it a whirl. For quite a while I've been using the Gillette Sensor 3. I like the triple blade, not so much because it has three instead of two, but because of the distance between the blades -- it's easier to wash out. However, anything over three blades was too "tall" and difficult to shave with. The Fusion changes that. With the five blades, it's a much smoother shave than the Sensor was, and the sixth "precision" blade solves the "tallness" problem while at the same time making it a snap to keep sideburns trimmed and get rid of stray hairs around beards and mustaches. Now, the ultimate question will be around price. I'm perfectly satisfied with the Sensor 3, but I'm willing to pay just a little more for the Fusion. I'll find out on my next trip to the store.
Can you be specific? I'd never heard that it gets rid of anything. I know that it changes some of the molecules (adding energy will do that).
While this is true, you have to balance this against what happens when a particular nasty bacteria gets into you.
And what about job changes or transfers? If you have to move, you don't want your neighbor's lime green windmill scaring off prospective buyers. Also, take a look at what it actually costs to buy a house when it is amortized over 30 years at, say, 6%. For the amount of money you are throwing into it, it had darn well better be a good investment. And finally, having to live next to a neighbor whose house or property is a real eyesore will turn the house that I liked at one time into one I don't like very much.