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User: Richthofen80

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  1. Re:For something that cannot work... on Philadelphia Considering Municipal Wi-Fi · · Score: 1

    Yes, changing your channel can be difficult. Someday, when you move out of your parents basement, you might move into an urban area.

    Right now in boston where I work there are eight wireless networks within range. At home in my six-apartment rowhouse there are four wireless networks. Some people live in an area so saturated with wireless networks that changing channels are the only way to go. Some people have subtle interference problems which mean they have to switch channels to get more than five feet of range.

    Its not that it takes less than thirty seconds, its that it just isn't an option for saturated areas. The problem will get worse, not better.

    Not to mention the fact that currently the 2.4 GHZ spectrum is being beaten like a rented mule.

  2. this is nothing new, punishments don't fit crimes. on Copyright Infringement and Shoplifting Contrasted · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Punishments aren't meted out to fit crimes, they are created to compensate for enforceability. It is MUCH easier to enforce shoplifting at a retail store than it is to enforce filesharing copyrights.

    The idea behind this is that while punishments are low for shoplifting, the chance of getting caught is high. In the filesharing situation, the chance of getting caught is low, so they try and jack up the punishment to make it that more serious if you do get caught.

    Also, it is interesting to note ownership of property at time of theft for these crimes, as a comparison. In shoplifting, the retail chain has paid a distributor, record label, or movie production firm for the merchandise. The theft of a product still benefits those distributors. However the theft of a movie before a retail establishment purchases it means it hits the bottom line of the distributor directly. Personally, I bet the distributors couldn't give a rat's ass whether you shoplifted, since that copy was already paid for, and now the retail store has to buy another copy to replace the one you stole.

    But copyright-infringement means that demand for the items on the shelf don't change. IE the retailer doesn't need to reorder another copy to fill the empty shelf.

    PS don't take my observation as a support for copyright-infringement. I don't believe it to be right.

  3. Re:Injustice on iPod Shuffle RAID · · Score: 1

    You cheap bastard. Buy her at LEAST the iPod Mini. you can get them at best buy.

  4. yeah, don't want to mess Mars up! on NASA Proposes Warming Mars · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I wonder how much simulation and testing you need before we feel safe about affecting an entire planet.

    Yeah, because if we screw it up, we might turns mars into an inhospitable desert!

    Oh wait.

  5. Re:Its a TRAIN STATION for crying out loud... on How to Take Over a Train Station · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The MBTA (not MTA, which is New York's Public Transit Authority) probably doesn't really even know that the wireless network exists.

    Chances are, the Wireless Internet is a service of Amtrak's Acela Lounge. There is a business lounge with net access and coffee and newspapers, and it probably bleeds over. The name is South Station because that's where it is.

    The MBTA doesn't provide wireless at any other station , to my knowledge. (which i'd like to think is good, I ride the Red Line into South Station every day.)

    Truth is, stations like South Station aren't wholly owned government agencies, like the trains that another poster mentioned in Australia. Its a government and business venture. Amtrak and the MBTA are government-sponsored, but operate independently, as does the management of the major transit points like South Station. The management of South Station or the Acela Lounge / Amtrak group hired a company to set up the wireless, probably just to bring in a few bucks and offer convienence to travelers. This is the same group that collects rent checks from the businesses in the food court, kicks the homeless out of the doorways, and makes sure the escalators never work. Don't expect them to have an IT department. They probably have one or two electricians who fix the arrival/departure electronic systems, but no IT staff.

  6. Re:limiting free speech. on US ISP Terminates Iranian News Website · · Score: 1

    FYI, the reason I classified the military targets as civilian, such as the Cole or the barracks of Lebanon, is that we were not actively at war with the nation hosting our troops, and they were there in a civilian or protection role, not as soldiers fighting a war. I would categorize any attacks that occour against U.N. forces providing aid to Tsunami victims as terrorism against civilians. You may not agree, but thus was my context, to prevent confusion.

    I think using fear as a weapon during wartime is valid, and I know you won't agree. However, I will submit that major conflicts such as the first two world wars used fear to try and turn the populace against their government. I believe that the U.S. and the U.K. firebombed entire German cities, annihiliating civilians specifically targeted. The United States specifically practically eliminated an entire two cities with atomic weapons. These were attacks designed to induce fear. What justified such attacks, and you also may not agree, was the context of action and the state's declaration of war. I won't provide a full justification, but I believe you and I can agree that these actions were not terrorism. There is another factor besides 'fear' that needs to be analyzed, and I believe it is the absense of a state to be accountable, for justified war to be declared. How do you declare war on a stateless entity ? You can't. Therefore that is the difference between terrorism and, say, nazism. Nazism has a state to preserve, therefore can be motivated by attacks that instill fear. Terrorists have no such fear and operate without self-preservation. So I still contend that terrorism is an action of a stateless entity made to instill fear (I said, attack civilians, but one can equate the goals of attacking civilians to instilling fear).

    anyways, this is offtopic as it is.

  7. Re:limiting free speech. on US ISP Terminates Iranian News Website · · Score: 1

    No, just like I didn't include the larger number of Iraqi civilians killed by Saddam Huissein. Terrorism, while sometimes sponsored by states, is largely a state-less activity. Meaning, when I calculated the death-tolls proscribed above, those tolls were attacks:

    done by a stateless entity and done with the intent of targeting specifically civilians.

    However, you get an A+ for attempted moral equivalency.

  8. Re:limiting free speech. on US ISP Terminates Iranian News Website · · Score: 1

    wow. I think you missed the point.

    First of all, sheer numerical success of murder doesn't change that terrorism, like nazism, is an ideology of murder. An effectiveness quotient shouldn't be the deterrent; the evilness of an ideology should be.

    Second of all, 3,000 people died on 9/11. However, this excludes the thousands of people since the 1960s and 1970s who have died from terrorism, from the olympic massacre of the Israeli atheletes to the bombing of the Lebanon marine barracks to the FIRST world trade center attack to the attack on the cole... I don't mean to ramble on and on, but I think its a little foolish to assume that only 3,000 people are victims of terrorism.

  9. Re:ISNA has well-known links to terror on US ISP Terminates Iranian News Website · · Score: 1

    Feel free to host it on your own internet connection as a Mirror.

    Oh wait... you don't want to pay for it? Neither did ' the Planet', I suspect.

    Also, it is interesting to note, but offtopic to this comment, that France and Germany's governments forbid the sale of Nazi related merchandise and prevent people from publishing ideas from Nazi literature. The choice of one business' decision, contrasted with the force of one government. While I am not criticising the law against Nazi ideas (which are despicable), understand that had the US administration placed pressure on this company, it still goes less far than the European banning of Nazi party.

  10. Re:Original Study? on A Countdown To Global Catastrophe? · · Score: 1

    I disagree. For instance, a planet 200 degrees celsius hotter than ours right now is no more healthy or unhealthy if you take away the idea that our idea of current life cannot typically survive such tempatures.

    I pose to you, why would a planet two hundred degrees hotter than our current tempatures be 'unhealthy', and the tempatures today or one thousand years ago be considered 'healthy'? Why is a certain amount of carbon or ozone or any other material healthy? Answer this question non-egoistically.

    Or, answer another question: is the mars ecosystem healthy?

    In my post, I tried to emphasize that the answer always comes back to 'because it supports the living things on our planet'. To me, that reflects as in: 'Life is good, non-life is bad.' And a healthy ecosystem supports life. To even think in terms of healthy and unhealthy, we have to think in terms of what is the normal state of affairs, and what is a deviation from that. the normal state of affairs, for as long as humans could think of such things, is that Earth supports life. That is its 'healthy' position. (this also means that the earth was unhealthy at inception and was so for millions of years)

    if I'm being unclear, what does the word 'healthy' even mean? 'A condition of optimal well-being' according to dictionary.reference.com . What is optimal for earth? Is it an average of all tempatures of all planets universe-wide?

    Even more interesting... say that if the planet was 200 degrees hotter, it would support more life. However, we could not survive it. Should we strive for that goal of a more-life-containing planet, with a healthier ecosystem, albeit without human life?

    a 'heathly' ecosystem is one which supports and promotes life, especially human life. There's no other way to think of it.

  11. Re:Original Study? on A Countdown To Global Catastrophe? · · Score: 1

    your definition of a 'healthy' biosphere is dependant on the notion of 'healthy, to whom'. For instance, one might say that Titan's biosphere of liquid methane is completely healthy and normal to all its inhabitants. There is no standard of normalcy, or health, of a biosphere unless we regarded it as beneficial or healthy FOR someone or something. The value we assign to life and to Earth in general is a reflection of the value we place on ourselves, our species, and life in general. Without life, the value of any number of planets, galaxies, or anything else is zero. Its why no one protests the creation of black holes, which annihilate any number of worlds and portions of existence.

    What the poster meant is that our very notion and language of healthy, proper, right, correct... all the terms we use to describe how the earth should be... all need to be defined in terms of humans. that's the only reference we have.

    There's no such thing as 'healthy' biosphere or a 'correct' balance of any atmospheric things without saying 'healthy, to whom'.

  12. Re:Doom for Social Security on Do You Want to Live Forever? · · Score: 1

    Actually, most of that 'stuff' is things we need to make life easier. I contend that people would actually be working longer with less material stuff and less places to go and people to see. I think the evidence of the evolution of work from an all day, every day affair (see farming) to an eight hour-5 day dynamic is a result of the productivity of labor going up. this happened when people strived for more. they worked more, which in turn meant we could work less.

    this really started with the division of labor. As tools and technologies grew, people could specialize. This specialization in turn acted exponetially towards worker productivity.

    In the end, if we all did what you say, what's the fun of life? we should love and want to work, it brings us cool things that make us happy. People will tell you that the simple things will make you happy. I disagree.

  13. Re:State Schools are cheap, spend the money on a B on How Important is a Well-Known CS Degree? · · Score: 1

    Working at a gas station doing overnight shifts, plus graduation money and such. Let me re-phrase:

    I had no debt after college, so I could assume the debt of a car loan :)

  14. State Schools are cheap, spend the money on a BMW on How Important is a Well-Known CS Degree? · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I spent less than 4k per year going to U-Mass Lowell instead of a 30k/ year Northeastern or such.

    I bought a brand new subaru impreza WRX when I got out of school with the money I saved. I have no debt from college.

    It took me a year to get a job, but I blame that on my poor planning (I didn't have an internship) and crappy market (got out of school 2002). Now I've been working in the Boston area as a software engineer writing web-based apps for about a year.

    Keys to a good job are usually location (Boston, great; Boise, eh), interview / personal skills, and prior experience. No one ever really asks about college so much, as long as they know I did my time.

    As far as what you get from the quality of professors, I find that varies. There were great professors and horrible ones. What I did learn is that if you put in the extra effort, you'll get way more out of it.

  15. Re:Christopher Reeve on Paralyzed Woman Walks Again · · Score: 1

    The current US government is to blame, but not the president's office.

    Most likely the FDA is to blame. to Perform any new therapy or try out any new drugs, you need to wait for government approval. Bet its just a shorter / nonexistant line in South Korea.

  16. Re:write your congressman on Air Force Orders Up A Custom Windows Monoculture · · Score: 1

    The government didn't convict Microsoft. Microsoft I'm pretty sure settled. Even if they did convict them, the only reason why is because microsoft wasn't 'playing ball'. They didn't put enough money back and were making too much. Just like other industries who are marginalized and stolen from, like the tobacco industry. There's too much money being made in the software sector so the government punishes microsoft. Its seen as a popular move for a bunch of lawyers and politicians. They get the brownie points, plus extra cash in the coffers to buy votes with the social program de jure (or military pork, depending on the side of the aisle you're on.)

    If microsoft accepted the premise of the government and shut down their operation, the government would beg for them to come back. They never wanted to shut down microsoft. they just wanted them to play ball.

  17. Re:how is that different from other companies on NYT on EA Games · · Score: 1

    I'm a software engineer at a small company. I'm not a manager. I have a bachelors in computer science.

    I can be an employee and still respect the people who put the jobs together for me to work.

  18. Re:how is that different from other companies on NYT on EA Games · · Score: 1

    You're a goddamn toolbox.

    Labor doesn't mystically coagulate together and happen on its own. Companies form direction and make decisions based on management. the right managers have the foresight and vision to take companies from the red to the black and beyond. They save jobs where they wouldn't even exist.

    The right managers who do this well are in high demand. There aren't a lot of them. They command high salaries because board directors and shareholders want their company to do well. They want a steady ship and they hire the right captain. They know that if they don't pay Lawrence Probst 1.7 Million a year, someone else will and he will be making their company money. Which, by the way, ends up providing all those jobs.

    As a member of upper management, you do not, generally, perform any of the duties that actual make the company run on a day to day basis.

    What the fuck planet are you from? Do you think the developers all got together some day and said 'lets make another madden game'? The management are the ones who provides direction to the entire company. Don't think shareholders or the board, if they didn't think the management pulled their share, or were unnecessary, wouldn't be canned in a second. Name one major company who pays their CEO a pittance and thinks their position is merely anncillary.

  19. Re:hmm... on Writing Code for Spacecraft · · Score: 3, Insightful

    thiers might be more reliable, but at a huge cost.

    Probably not as big a cost as losing a Mars rover because your OS wasn't reliable enough.

  20. Re:What has our fascist consumer state done since? on Apollo 12 at 35 · · Score: 1

    don't feed the trolls please.

  21. whats wrong with... on Senate May Rush Copyright Legislation · · Score: 1

    The bill would also punish people "who bring a video camera into a movie theater to make a copy of the film for distribution" with up to three years imprisonment and fines.

    Good. Why would anybody in the world be against this? These people are stealing movies. You can pose and say that 'movies' are some sort of ethereal work of art and no one is arrested for taking a picture of the mona lisa, or some other bullshit, but in the end, these are the same kiddiez inventing little transparent graphics to overlay movies in premeir so that people know the l33t hax0r that ripped the movie. And subsequently ripped off all those trying to make a living and create something.

  22. Re:In the Money on RFID Labels On Prescription Drug Bottles · · Score: 1

    5 or 6 perscription you woule have saved enough get a cheap bottle of wine.


    Don't most medications recommend you NOT consume alcohol while on them?

    Except Viagra, which I think, its a GOOD IDEA to drink a bit before getting a little randy.

  23. Re:The real reason it's not a threat on Microsoft Says Firefox Not a Threat to IE · · Score: 1

    I haven't tried crack, but I know its bad for me.

    *ducks*

  24. Re:Hydrogen Power. on Combined Gasoline/Hydrogen Fuel Station Opens · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yes, but in retrieving the energy from Hydrogen, we let a lot less bad crap out into the air. Also, It takes a lot of resources and power to retrieve and transport oil. Hydrogen can be produced locally and requires less energy overhead to transport.

    There are real reasons to move from gasoline to hydrogen even if we make hydrogen using conventional fuels. Its a better storage medium. Then coal can be phased out by nuclear and other energy mediums.

    Its a step in the right direction. The key is to make it cost less to power a car by hydrogen. make hydrogen cars comparibly priced. I think shell is doing a good thing.

  25. Here's a question for the waste disposal on Could Nuclear Power Wean the U.S. From Oil? · · Score: 1

    WHERE DO THE FRENCH STORE THEIR WASTE. From what I understand a large portion of their energy is generated from Nuclear power (86%). They have to put the waste somewhere.

    France is traditionally further left than the US, so if they can have an expansive nuclear program, I believe so can we. It just has to be economically viable.