Greetings and Salutations;
Yes I was going to bring this up, if no one else mentioned it. It was quite an interesting concept, and, for the beta testing period was hugely popular. However, as a business model it was a massive fail. The day that World's Chat closed its free access and required a paid registration it lost about 99% of its customer base, and, I suspect that shortly thereafter it reached 100%.
It was my understanding that their picture of reality was that businesses would set up conferences in their 3d VR world, and use that as a way of getting inexpensive "face time". This was a total failure. I suspect that at least three of the reasons were that there WERE speed issues, and, perhaps more importantly, it was too strange for upper level management to get their heads around. Adding to that the cost of the subscriptions and it was dead man walking.
The same issues plagued the virtual world that they created. If they had worked on generating a revenue stream outside of user subscriptions perhaps they would have been successful.. In this case, the problem was that they were trying to get revenue from a world that had no point, except to allow the users to build amazingly elaborate world. Again, when it was free they had a fair number of users. once the charges started, folks disappeared in droves....
Greetings and Salutations.
I realize you are probably nothing more than a troll, but, since you bring up some interesting points, I am willing to ride the carousel ONE cycle with you.
let us consider the issue of sexual contact between an adult and a child, and, why it is not a good thing. It is true enough that children have a sexual nature early on in their development. After all, the nerves are there and the programming is in place. However, my issue with adult/child sex has more to do with power than sex. By definition, a child is unable to give informed consent to an action. That has been proved time and time again through history and is one reason that most societies have laws that require that the parents make any such contracts. So...by definition, adult/child sex is a form of rape and, can have serious, long-term injury to the child's self-image and sense of worth. These scars can lead to self-destructive behavior later in life. Also, there is the fact that sex is more than just the physical connection - it is an emotional sharing on an equal basis - and that is not possible between an adult and a child. This factor leads to the child being treated as nothing more than an object for stimulation. Since the kids are in their formative years, this objectification will be incorporated in the child's self image, leaving them feeling worthless.
As for the adults that get involved in that sort of interaction, it has been my observation that they are often developmentally stunted and so unable to involve themselves in a "normal" adult relationship. They are cutting out the emotional sharing and closeness of an adult relationship, and substituting the immature, physical sensation only, relationship of youth. Either that, or they are in a very dark place, and are using their relationship with a much younger person to attain a level of power and control that they feel they do not have in other parts of their life. In either case, it is a negative thing for both parties.
As regards any interaction with the police - I would tend to agree with you and other posters, who recommend that staying under the radar is far better than stepping out of the way once it is focused on you. While many policemen are humans of good will, many of them ARE out to push and agenda and work out their own anger and such by nailing members of the public. I remember a saying from many years ago that went "to a cop there are only three types of people: Cops, Family of Cops and Perps". This, alas, tends to remain true today. Cops are, generally, very aware of the political tides in their department. So, when the hint is dropped that the prosecutors are not seeing enough cases in a particular area, or that the elected DA needs a high-profile, slam-dunk now that it is a few months before election time, they will start keeping their eyes open for any behavior that will match those needs. It is human nature, and, should not be a surprise.
One problem with this case is that, as the tenor of the comments attached to the story show, this guy is now tarred for life, whether he is a paedophile or not. Even with no charged brought, and no indication that there was any history of child abuse, the fact that CPS has put up walls around his daughter will be enough proof that they just could not catch him, but he really is one. In America, we have a national registry of sex offenders. While that sounds like a good idea, it has proven to do little good, because the 18 year old who was sleeping with his 16 year old girlfriend is listed right next to the evil fellow who just got out of prison for raping a dozen 1 year old babies. Without nuance, there is no way to make an informed judgement about a given person's actual threat.
In closing, I have to say that I do believe that sex is som
Greetings and Salutations.
I suspect you would be comfortable in my ICF Octagon then. It is 6" of extra strength concrete, re-enforced with #4 rebar in vertical sticks, and three, complete circles horizontally. The roofing system is engineered I-beams, bolted to 1/4" steel brackets that are bolted to the walls with 8" concrete screws. The guys building it with me rapidly started calling it "the bunker", amusingly enough. pleasant dreams dave mundt
Greetings and Salutations....
I have not read every comment, so I beg pardon if I am rehashing points already made, also, IANAL - this is all just somewhat paranoid opinion. That having been said, I think that it is a really bad business decision for Paypal to move further away from its original role as a simple, money-transferring service. By involving itself in that censorship, it seems to me that it is taking on partial responsibility for the content. That will open up a huge can of worms, and, expose them to massive liability that could destroy the company in the long run. For example, if they start censoring content with questionable language or sexual content that falls into the extreme areas, then, what happens when other religions and cults put pressure on them to censor content that might reflect badly on THEM (And yes, I am looking at you, Radical Islamists and Scientologists). What happens if the Anti-Abortion groups start pressuring PayPal to censor content that discusses abortion in an objective manner? I am sure we all can come up with other examples where once the door is opened, it is easy to see how the fences will creep slowly in.
The concept of Freedom of Speech (in any form) as expressed in the first amendment to the US Constitution is not there to protect speech that everyone approves of. It is there to protect speech which some folks might find objectionable.
That having been said, I wish there was a viable alternative to PayPal that goes back to the service's original roots - that of inexpensive, easy micro-transactions over the Internet, and, is not willing to evolve into the unregulated bank that PayPal has become.
Pleasant dreams
dave mundt
Right with you on this. If people paid more attention to driving there would be fewer accidents. All the technology in the world will not fix THAT problem.
Greetings and Salutations.
Nothing surprising about this. Containers of radioactive materials, and nuclear weapons have been trucked around the country for decades. Please note that in that time, There have been a total of three accidents with zero loss of nuclear materials. The bottom line is that the nuclear materials have to be moved somehow, and, overall the current transport system has proved to be safe and effective.
The world is a dangerous place, but, before we run about screaming that the sky is falling, perhaps we should look at the probabilities of a given disaster. There is always a non-zero chance that any disaster can happen - for that matter quantum theory tells us that there is a non-zero chance that all the oxygen molecules in a room will end up on the left half of the room, leaving nothing but nitrogen on the right half. However, in many cases (like these) the probability of a disaster that releases radiation or puts significant amounts of it in an enemy's hands (or moves all the oxygen out of half of a room) actually happening is so low that it might happen once in the entire lifetime of the universe.
I would prefer it that we lived in a world where nuclear energy was only used for peaceful purposes, so we did not have to have nuclear weapons to shuffle around the countryside. However, that is not the case. In addition, I want to remind y'all that the US has been transporting those stores of nuclear devices to a secure facility where they are being disassembled. Would you prefer that the DOD build a recycling plant a few blocks down from the local high-school and do the work at the storage location of the warheads? I would think not....I would rather see them transported to a recycling facility that is experienced and out of the population dense areas of the USA. pleasant dreams
It's not the failure of science, personal flying vehicles have been around for quite a while. The problems are the costs and government regulations.
Not only that...it is bad enough to have to dodge the room-temperature IQs blasting along the road in 2d. Imagine the joys of having to watch for burning debris falling from the sky too! There is a reason that it is not easy to get a pilot's license...and it is not just because the government gets a chunk of funds from the fees.
Unless of course they were the "founding fathers" who never did any wrong. I remain amazed by how often the anachronistic laws set by a group of largely uneducated men over 200 years ago are defended as being untouchable.
Greetings and Salutations...
Hum, I take it you mean the Constitution of the U.S.? If so...exactly what clauses from this would you erase? And...more importantly, how would you justify your decision?
To put it simply enough that it is clear (I hope)...the Constitution is vital to the structure of the country and its government because it clearly defines and limits the powers of the Federal Government has over its citizens. If you think today's losses of freedom are bad, you should consider what it would be like without the Constitution and its defenders to at least TRY to keep it in check.
If, though, you mean something else, then, please, enlighten me about these laws, and, again, both why they are bad and why you would eliminate them.
as for the educational level of the founding fathers of the country....I suspect that, in a general sense, their level of education would be the equal to, or possibly superior to, the state of education in America today. They might not have known about computers and software and such, but I would not be surprised to find that many of them were flexible enough of mind that they could pick it up quickly.
pleasant dreams
dave mundt
Greetings and Salutations.
I suspect that almost all the people who call for such an open book are quite young and likely far too innocent. Already though, there are tales floating around the net about how facebook postings, and, other social site postings that have come back to bite the poster on the ass, causing them to not get jobs, or lose jobs, or screw up relationships. Beyond that how can anyone feel comfortable with someone staring over their shoulder all the time. Up to recently, the only people that had that lack of privacy were high-security prisoners...
Pleasant dreams
xmundt
I am impressed...something from Ayn Rand that I can actually agree with. i suppose that this is an example of how a lotus blossom can grow from a river of feces. Not that I am unimpressed by her writings...or ANY THING like that pleasant dreams xvart
Greetings and salutations.....
My first reaction is "well, why are they going to college in the first place??" For much of their existence, colleges existed to provide a safe haven for the free flow of ideas and alternative theories. Many times, I, and a number of other students, would end up sitting around a table discussing a new theory in computer science, or, cosmology, or political science. We debated topics such as the morality of War (When I was in college, the Vietnam War was in full swing, so it was a topic near and dear to those of us that were classed 1A, and, had selection numbers in the single and double digits), and what America's place in the world should be. There was always a collection of quite divergent views at the table, and more often than not, little or no agreement. However, we all listened to the arguments of the other person, debated points about them, and thought about their point of view. The only folks that were not welcome were the extremists who would degenerate into screaming matches and insist that it was "their way or the highway".
WHile the education we received from the faculty was important, even there, some of the most important lessons learned came not from the lectures, but, the discussion in class and in meetings with the professor, where disagreements about the interpretation of some facts were expected, and, debated when they arose.
From a personal example, when I was taking some history classes ranging from the colonization of America and the spread Westward, to the massive social upheaval of the early 1900s in Russia, I ran into problems with my professors over my analysis of the events. Why? Well, at the time most of them held onto the concept of "manifest destiny" - the divine right of Americans to roll across the middle and Western united stats, crushing the native population under them, or, of the people to rise up and overthrow their government. I, however, was more a follower of "Economic Determanism" - holding that the best way to explain large scale actions of society was to follow the money. I could, without too much trouble, find what I felt to be an obvious and strong economic pressure that caused these changes in society. Needless to say, my papers discussing social trends were not received well by the professors. In order to get even an adequate grade, I had to provide at least twice the foundation for my arguments that other students (who DID toe the party line) had to include. Even in the best case, though, my papers were, typically, marked down by a half to full grade simply because I disagreed with their point of view. However, I did not get into a huff and walk out of class, or boycott anything. Rather, I worked twice as hard to justify my point of view, and, to ensure that my arguments were clear and well supported. I did pass the classes, but only just, but, the lessons I learned there both about life in general, and, the nitty-gritty of organizing supporting points for a given argument were a valuable addition to my life and remain so today, some 30 years later.
regards
dave mundt
Greetings and Salutations.
FWIIW, Pioneer makes a really slick product, called the "AVIC" which addresses pretty much all these complaints. It slots into the dash and replaces the radio, and, includes a nice, large GPS screen that pops out, and also provides sophisticated but easy to use controls for video and audio components. It is not cheap at close to $1000.00 but the GPS unit in it works quite well and is accurate.
Regards
Dave Mundt
Greetings and Salutations....
Some good points here. I would give it a try, actually, if for no other reason, to see if cultured meat has a different texture. Also, what about fat content? It seems to me that this would be pure protein, which could make it great for use in sausages, etc.
Regards
dave mundt
Greetings and Salutations....
Ageism has been, and continues to be, a serious problem in the IT profession. It does not apply to just coders either, as it seems that being over the age of 50 is a kiss of death for system administrators, DBAs, analysts, etc. I suspect that the issues that control this are (in no particular order)
1) Folks doing the hiring assume that anyone over the age of 50 is so stuck in their rut that they are out of touch with the newer technologies. Actually the cut off age here seems to be closer to 30....
2) The younger a hire is the cheaper they will be for the company. Most companies would rather pay a kid $40K a year and not worry about the fact that it might take him a week to do what a $100K a year hire could do in a day or even a few hours.
3) Again, because of the incorrect perception that IT people are an expense rather than an asset, HR hires the kid who knows how to do ONE thing, instead of the older, more experienced person that knows how to do a dozen things, and can likely apply that knowledge to find a way to make the company more efficient, using the excuse that the older hire is going to be "too expensive".
I will agree that, in the short term, the older hire requires a larger check...but in the long term, is likely to more than pay that back with the increases in efficiency and the savings he or she can bring to the company. This makes no difference, though, because these days, short-term profit is the only goal that companies can look for.
4) most management knows that the older hire is going to be more of a pain for them, because experience brings understanding of exactly how poorly most management runs things, and, a considerably lower tolerance for that sort of nonsense. The "fresh face" just out of school is willing to put up with a lot more crap that we, with that experience, are not. The kid actually believes management's vague, hand-waving promises of great rewards later on for 80 plus hours of work now!
Greetings and salutations....
I do not know that I anthropomorphise the USA enough so that in my own head I hear it as being male or female. However, at least these days, I do look upon it as the world's largest kindergarten, considering the childish way that so many "adults" act.
As for for the name of the security theatre, while I think it is a cute idea to change their emblem/patch to a "HS" logo, I suspect it would be simpler and more accurate to change its name to "Safety and Security". That way, the patch could be a simple and alliterative "SS". That should not be a problem should it???? While there are quite a few good folks in the organization, the overall tactics and goals of the bureaucracy are scarily close to that of the OTHER "SS".
For what it is worth, there is precedent for this. At the University of Tennessee, the campus cops had the official title of "Safety and security". However, whoever ran it was smart enough that their patches spelled it out - no lightning shaped pairs of letters there. However, they did wear brown uniforms (which was an unfortunate choice) and, a fair number of them were so taken up with their "power" that they were bad for lording it over the students.
regards
dave
Greetings and Salutations.....
A couple of thoughts here. First off, people mature at different rates. Society has picked arbitrary, chronological points in life to define what phase of that maturing process a given person is at. With luck, those magical dates are generated by observing the population as a whole, and, picking a time that covers 85%-90% or more of the population. However, because it is a spectrum, there are some people who have an amazing level of maturity at the age of 12, and some who are still adolescent at the age of 30. We have to look at the actions and attitudes of each individual to truly know how mature they are. That having been said...recent studies, using MRI and other scanning technologies have discovered that there IS a difference between the wiring of an adult brain and a teen age brain... Also, having interacted with quite a number of youth and young adults in my life, I have seen that difference high-lighted by the younger brains being willing to take greater risks, either because of a limited ability to model consequences, or a stronger spirit of adventure, than a fully mature brain. This argument would not be as likely if she had been scanned and the structure of her brain analyzed. The simple answer is that, at the time, she was 16, and, therefore generally looked up as a child by the law. Elsewhere in this lengthy thread, the point is made that society does try younger folks as adults, if the crime is "bad enough". I would submit that the driving force there has nothing to do with the person on trial, or their actual maturity and understanding, but, rather has almost everything to do with the political pressures put upon the prosecutors by the public.
Secondly...I finally did watch the entire video, and, it is hardly shocking or unusual (sadly enough), but it sure looks like the event went well beyond discipline and descended into abuse. It also appears from various data sources that the judge had a long history of abusing the women in his family, so, this is hardly a surprising result.I was spanked a few times when I was growing up, because I never have been good at dealing with the strictures and rules of society. In all cases, my father limited the paddling to a few strokes and made it a point to never administer the punishment if he was angry. He also took time to make it very clear WHY I was being spanked. As for why the young lady published the video - I question whether it was for blackmail purposes, although even if it was, that does not mitigate the nature of the problem. I did see part of an interview with her where she categorically denied that blackmail was involved. My take on it is that she is trying to get the baggage that this and other abuse left with her, and, the only way to do it is to talk about it. I suspect that this sort of situation was the "elephant in the living room" that everyone knew they must not talk about. The usual result of such denial is a growth of darkness in the victim that will eventually destroy them, if it is not dealt with.
The folks in this thread that have casually dismissed her chronic MD show a sad lack of education in the area. The problem with diseases like that is that one tends to look perfectly normal for much of the time. However, beyond the surface, there is pain, weakness and often some overwhelming, negative, emotional pressures that suck one's energies. I would say to those folks dismissing the illness - pray to whatever God you follow that you are never struck down with such a condition.
Finally, it would be interesting to look at the judge's record and see how he handles similar family situations. It would be the height of hypocrisy for him to come down hard on alleged abusers with this kind of situation. In any case, while it sounds like the family is too broken to be repaired, if there is a sincere interest in it, I hope they agree to (and stick to) a schedule of work with a family councilor who may be able to help them work out the festering rot that has caused this.
Greetings and Salutations...
As I have said for years....like it or not the speed limit is a law, not a suggestion, so, the best course of action is to adhere to it. If nothing else you will really piss off the guy with the testosterone overload behind you that is trying to blast by.
I have suggested that perhaps the best course of action would be for us to have regular tests to see how good a driver we are, and, set the maximum speed limit we can drive at. This info could be picked up by RFID readers posted along the roads and used to fire cameras if necessary. It should be easy enough to make it hard enough to bypass that the ordinary driver would not bother. There could be severe penalties set up for folks that DO bypass the system.
Also, we could force autonomous cars on folks, that could know the appropriate speed limit and limit the speed to that....
Or, for that matter we could simply remove all speed limits and accept the fact that there will be some collateral damage. Think of it as simply putting a bit of bleach in the gene pool to clean it up.
Or, for that matter we could make sure that all American drivers are well educated and trained on safe driving techniques...therefore removing much of the problems with speed limits, etc.
Greetings and salutations..... WHY do I suspect that porges is on their way towards 100 and, like me, waving goodbye to 50 as it recedes behind???? My comment was brief, but, alas, a bit imprecise....perhaps it would have been more accurate to say "as one's age gets closer to passing 50..." G.D.R - Dave mundt
Greetings and Salutations...
Actually, this pretty much applies to ALL businesses in the USA. There is a strong undercurrent of age prejudice that, like racism in the 1940s is very real but never mentioned. It is a fact that for many professions, the closer one's age is to 50, then, the lower the chance that one will get hired, or even considered for a job. There are several reasons for this, including the fact that a 50 year old worker will not put up with nearly the level of abuse from management that an 19-20 year old will, and will insist on NOT being underpaid. The fact that a more mature employee has a lot of experience and knowledge about dead-ends in the process and ways to do the job correctly, and, will be far better at handling those cusp conditions where the general rules break down seems to make no difference these days. I have even heard some employers saying that an older employee will not stay with the company long enough - in spite of the fact that the average stay at a given position these days is about five years. The days of a person staying with a company for decades, and, working their way up through the ranks appear to be gone for good pleasant dreams dave mundt
Greetings and Salutations....
According to the story, the student told her it was broken, and he had been given a new one. It also states that she had to get it fixed. There are no details on HOW it was broken or fixed, alas. Add to that the concept of a "good faith purchase" that can be at least a partial shield against prosecution. Putting all this together, it is possible that she "should have known" it was stolen, and, perhaps in a perfect world, she would have contacted the parents to find out if the student's story was true. However, it is not completely implausible that the story went down exactly as she said, and, there was no indication that the laptop was stolen. I have had a number of clients that I have credited similar amounts when I transferred their data from their "dead' laptop to the replacement they have purchased so the amount is not QUITE low enough to be questionable. In return, I would keep the "dead" computer. It works out well for both of us, as they don't have to deal with having it around the house, and disposing of it, and, I can usually get some useful hardware to fix something else, or sell. Sometimes, simply wiping the setup EEPROM. replacing the hard drive and installing Linux is all that is needed to get it back up and running happily.
I have to say, though, that treating her data in such a casual fashion is a bad thing and leaves the security company and the police in a position where they SHOULD have their hands smacked. Nude photos are one thing, but, what if there had been significant amounts of financial information on the hard drive? Would it have been "OK" if the security company's lack of care and assumption that she was guilty resulted in identity theft and the associated complications and emotional pain it brings?
Another point that seems to have fallen by the wayside is the concept of "innocent until proven guilty". Since the charges against the young woman were eventually dropped, either the prosecutors felt that there was insufficient evidence to convict her of knowingly receiving stolen property, or she cut a deal with them to roll on the student she bought the laptop from (it would be interesting to know how far the prosecutors are willing to go for a laptop that MIGHT have a value of $500) In any case, at this point she is innocent but gullible..and has learned a painful lesson about privacy on the Internet. Perhaps next time she will be wise enough to encrypt private data with PGP!
greetings and salutations.... 800 million years is only a slight tick of the clock in geological terms....Now. on my part, I saw the headline and before I expanded the article and saw it was about volcanoes.... I found myself wondering if it was open, used WEP (almost open) or WPA(2) for security, and, if I put a Yagi on my systerm, or hooked it up to a big dish (I have a spare 8' one kicking around), could I get a decent signal? I kind of figured it had to be faster than Verizon's air card these days....
Greetings and Salutations....
Why does this seem like one of those "feel good" laws that politicians pass to get brownie points with their followers, rather than to actually address and fix a problem?
I am more and more convinced that attempts to regulate the Net are a bad idea, and, any official that attempts to do this should be voted out of office or recalled.
Greetings and Salutations...
I want to draw attention to the suite of programs by sausage.com out of Australia. I used to use their HotDog editor and, found it a really good tool for moderately sized websites. I liked it well enough that I actually paid the $100 license fee (which, at the time, was a pretty good chunk of change). They were very good with customer support, too, as I had a couple of questions that ended up being answered by one of the developers. It is still around, and, they have continued to add tools that can be integrated into the basic editor to extend its capabilities. I would still likely use it if I were pumping out websites still.
regards
dave
A good thought there, but, of course, a pipe dream, because there are so many lawyers making laws that it is exactly like putting a fox in charge of the chicken coop. Having said that, though, I have advocated for years that the only amendments to a law should be something that directly applies to and changes the law itself.
Part of the problem with the white elephant of legislation these days is that it is far too easy, and far too common to have a collection of totally non-related laws attached to a law that a lot of people want, to ensure that they all will get passed. We have all seen it happen, and, that is one of the reason we have laws that are 1000+ pages long...
The system is certainly off balance, if not completely broken...yet every side wants to keep it because they can leverage it to their advantage, no matter what might be best for the country...
Hum...this sort of comment reminds me of a client I used to support. They built a new building, and asked me to design a computer room that would meet their current needs and give them room to expand. I put together a fairly simple proposal for an area of about 400 square feet, broken up into two sections. One was the "server room", which had security, cooling and power conditioning. This took most of the space. I allocated a small office area with some storage for software, and to give the system administrator a place to work. Well, several weeks later, I stopped by the new building, at the client's request, so, I could see their new computer room. The president of the company was really proud of himself, as he had found some excess space in my design and had changed it a bit. He took me upstairs and into what I thought was a coat closet, next to a bathroom! It was a space about eight feet by twelve feet! It had no air conditioning, so, the only way to keep it cool was to leave the door open. How had he gotten this size? He had gone into the computer room at the old building, and measured the foot print of each computer in the room, and, added them all up! It was true enough that there was room to get all the computers from the old site into the new area, but, in terms of sanity or usefulness, or anything ELSE positive...not so much. Oh yea...to top it off, I came back a couple of weeks later to get some racks installed and talk with the cabling guys about network cables, and, found that the contractor had installed an air handler for the upstairs A/C and a 40 gallon water heater in the computer room!
Now...as for the number of people the earth can support...most of the analysis I have seen is as simplistic as my example above. The fact of the matter is that people are complicated, and, while there are a large percentage of folks who are perfectly happy to be packed in like sardines, and can co-exist quite well that way, there are also a lot of folks who find that closeness intolerable, or, see that closeness as an opportunity to prey on their fellow citizens. While it is true that socio-economic factors may be more important in determining crime rates, it is also true that the greater the number of folks packed into an area, the greater the chance that there will be a person who is going to be a predator.
Slashdot Mirror
Greetings and Salutations;
Yes I was going to bring this up, if no one else mentioned it. It was quite an interesting concept, and, for the beta testing period was hugely popular. However, as a business model it was a massive fail. The day that World's Chat closed its free access and required a paid registration it lost about 99% of its customer base, and, I suspect that shortly thereafter it reached 100%.
It was my understanding that their picture of reality was that businesses would set up conferences in their 3d VR world, and use that as a way of getting inexpensive "face time". This was a total failure. I suspect that at least three of the reasons were that there WERE speed issues, and, perhaps more importantly, it was too strange for upper level management to get their heads around. Adding to that the cost of the subscriptions and it was dead man walking.
The same issues plagued the virtual world that they created. If they had worked on generating a revenue stream outside of user subscriptions perhaps they would have been successful.. In this case, the problem was that they were trying to get revenue from a world that had no point, except to allow the users to build amazingly elaborate world. Again, when it was free they had a fair number of users. once the charges started, folks disappeared in droves....
Greetings and Salutations.
I realize you are probably nothing more than a troll, but, since you bring up some interesting points, I am willing to ride the carousel ONE cycle with you.
let us consider the issue of sexual contact between an adult and a child, and, why it is not a good thing. It is true enough that children have a sexual nature early on in their development. After all, the nerves are there and the programming is in place. However, my issue with adult/child sex has more to do with power than sex. By definition, a child is unable to give informed consent to an action. That has been proved time and time again through history and is one reason that most societies have laws that require that the parents make any such contracts. So...by definition, adult/child sex is a form of rape and, can have serious, long-term injury to the child's self-image and sense of worth. These scars can lead to self-destructive behavior later in life. Also, there is the fact that sex is more than just the physical connection - it is an emotional sharing on an equal basis - and that is not possible between an adult and a child. This factor leads to the child being treated as nothing more than an object for stimulation. Since the kids are in their formative years, this objectification will be incorporated in the child's self image, leaving them feeling worthless.
As for the adults that get involved in that sort of interaction, it has been my observation that they are often developmentally stunted and so unable to involve themselves in a "normal" adult relationship. They are cutting out the emotional sharing and closeness of an adult relationship, and substituting the immature, physical sensation only, relationship of youth. Either that, or they are in a very dark place, and are using their relationship with a much younger person to attain a level of power and control that they feel they do not have in other parts of their life. In either case, it is a negative thing for both parties.
As regards any interaction with the police - I would tend to agree with you and other posters, who recommend that staying under the radar is far better than stepping out of the way once it is focused on you. While many policemen are humans of good will, many of them ARE out to push and agenda and work out their own anger and such by nailing members of the public. I remember a saying from many years ago that went "to a cop there are only three types of people: Cops, Family of Cops and Perps". This, alas, tends to remain true today. Cops are, generally, very aware of the political tides in their department. So, when the hint is dropped that the prosecutors are not seeing enough cases in a particular area, or that the elected DA needs a high-profile, slam-dunk now that it is a few months before election time, they will start keeping their eyes open for any behavior that will match those needs. It is human nature, and, should not be a surprise.
One problem with this case is that, as the tenor of the comments attached to the story show, this guy is now tarred for life, whether he is a paedophile or not. Even with no charged brought, and no indication that there was any history of child abuse, the fact that CPS has put up walls around his daughter will be enough proof that they just could not catch him, but he really is one. In America, we have a national registry of sex offenders. While that sounds like a good idea, it has proven to do little good, because the 18 year old who was sleeping with his 16 year old girlfriend is listed right next to the evil fellow who just got out of prison for raping a dozen 1 year old babies. Without nuance, there is no way to make an informed judgement about a given person's actual threat.
In closing, I have to say that I do believe that sex is som
Greetings and Salutations.
I suspect you would be comfortable in my ICF Octagon then. It is 6" of extra strength concrete, re-enforced with #4 rebar in vertical sticks, and three, complete circles horizontally. The roofing system is engineered I-beams, bolted to 1/4" steel brackets that are bolted to the walls with 8" concrete screws. The guys building it with me rapidly started calling it "the bunker", amusingly enough.
pleasant dreams
dave mundt
Greetings and Salutations....
I have not read every comment, so I beg pardon if I am rehashing points already made, also, IANAL - this is all just somewhat paranoid opinion. That having been said, I think that it is a really bad business decision for Paypal to move further away from its original role as a simple, money-transferring service. By involving itself in that censorship, it seems to me that it is taking on partial responsibility for the content. That will open up a huge can of worms, and, expose them to massive liability that could destroy the company in the long run. For example, if they start censoring content with questionable language or sexual content that falls into the extreme areas, then, what happens when other religions and cults put pressure on them to censor content that might reflect badly on THEM (And yes, I am looking at you, Radical Islamists and Scientologists). What happens if the Anti-Abortion groups start pressuring PayPal to censor content that discusses abortion in an objective manner? I am sure we all can come up with other examples where once the door is opened, it is easy to see how the fences will creep slowly in.
The concept of Freedom of Speech (in any form) as expressed in the first amendment to the US Constitution is not there to protect speech that everyone approves of. It is there to protect speech which some folks might find objectionable.
That having been said, I wish there was a viable alternative to PayPal that goes back to the service's original roots - that of inexpensive, easy micro-transactions over the Internet, and, is not willing to evolve into the unregulated bank that PayPal has become.
Pleasant dreams
dave mundt
Right with you on this. If people paid more attention to driving there would be fewer accidents. All the technology in the world will not fix THAT problem.
Greetings and Salutations.
Nothing surprising about this. Containers of radioactive materials, and nuclear weapons have been trucked around the country for decades. Please note that in that time, There have been a total of three accidents with zero loss of nuclear materials. The bottom line is that the nuclear materials have to be moved somehow, and, overall the current transport system has proved to be safe and effective.
The world is a dangerous place, but, before we run about screaming that the sky is falling, perhaps we should look at the probabilities of a given disaster. There is always a non-zero chance that any disaster can happen - for that matter quantum theory tells us that there is a non-zero chance that all the oxygen molecules in a room will end up on the left half of the room, leaving nothing but nitrogen on the right half. However, in many cases (like these) the probability of a disaster that releases radiation or puts significant amounts of it in an enemy's hands (or moves all the oxygen out of half of a room) actually happening is so low that it might happen once in the entire lifetime of the universe.
I would prefer it that we lived in a world where nuclear energy was only used for peaceful purposes, so we did not have to have nuclear weapons to shuffle around the countryside. However, that is not the case. In addition, I want to remind y'all that the US has been transporting those stores of nuclear devices to a secure facility where they are being disassembled. Would you prefer that the DOD build a recycling plant a few blocks down from the local high-school and do the work at the storage location of the warheads? I would think not....I would rather see them transported to a recycling facility that is experienced and out of the population dense areas of the USA.
pleasant dreams
It's not the failure of science, personal flying vehicles have been around for quite a while. The problems are the costs and government regulations.
Not only that...it is bad enough to have to dodge the room-temperature IQs blasting along the road in 2d. Imagine the joys of having to watch for burning debris falling from the sky too! There is a reason that it is not easy to get a pilot's license...and it is not just because the government gets a chunk of funds from the fees.
Unless of course they were the "founding fathers" who never did any wrong. I remain amazed by how often the anachronistic laws set by a group of largely uneducated men over 200 years ago are defended as being untouchable.
Greetings and Salutations...
Hum, I take it you mean the Constitution of the U.S.? If so...exactly what clauses from this would you erase? And...more importantly, how would you justify your decision?
To put it simply enough that it is clear (I hope)...the Constitution is vital to the structure of the country and its government because it clearly defines and limits the powers of the Federal Government has over its citizens. If you think today's losses of freedom are bad, you should consider what it would be like without the Constitution and its defenders to at least TRY to keep it in check.
If, though, you mean something else, then, please, enlighten me about these laws, and, again, both why they are bad and why you would eliminate them.
as for the educational level of the founding fathers of the country....I suspect that, in a general sense, their level of education would be the equal to, or possibly superior to, the state of education in America today. They might not have known about computers and software and such, but I would not be surprised to find that many of them were flexible enough of mind that they could pick it up quickly.
pleasant dreams
dave mundt
Greetings and Salutations.
I suspect that almost all the people who call for such an open book are quite young and likely far too innocent. Already though, there are tales floating around the net about how facebook postings, and, other social site postings that have come back to bite the poster on the ass, causing them to not get jobs, or lose jobs, or screw up relationships. Beyond that how can anyone feel comfortable with someone staring over their shoulder all the time. Up to recently, the only people that had that lack of privacy were high-security prisoners...
Pleasant dreams
xmundt
I am impressed...something from Ayn Rand that I can actually agree with. i suppose that this is an example of how a lotus blossom can grow from a river of feces.
Not that I am unimpressed by her writings...or ANY THING like that
pleasant dreams
xvart
Greetings and salutations.....
My first reaction is "well, why are they going to college in the first place??" For much of their existence, colleges existed to provide a safe haven for the free flow of ideas and alternative theories. Many times, I, and a number of other students, would end up sitting around a table discussing a new theory in computer science, or, cosmology, or political science. We debated topics such as the morality of War (When I was in college, the Vietnam War was in full swing, so it was a topic near and dear to those of us that were classed 1A, and, had selection numbers in the single and double digits), and what America's place in the world should be. There was always a collection of quite divergent views at the table, and more often than not, little or no agreement. However, we all listened to the arguments of the other person, debated points about them, and thought about their point of view. The only folks that were not welcome were the extremists who would degenerate into screaming matches and insist that it was "their way or the highway".
WHile the education we received from the faculty was important, even there, some of the most important lessons learned came not from the lectures, but, the discussion in class and in meetings with the professor, where disagreements about the interpretation of some facts were expected, and, debated when they arose.
From a personal example, when I was taking some history classes ranging from the colonization of America and the spread Westward, to the massive social upheaval of the early 1900s in Russia, I ran into problems with my professors over my analysis of the events. Why? Well, at the time most of them held onto the concept of "manifest destiny" - the divine right of Americans to roll across the middle and Western united stats, crushing the native population under them, or, of the people to rise up and overthrow their government. I, however, was more a follower of "Economic Determanism" - holding that the best way to explain large scale actions of society was to follow the money. I could, without too much trouble, find what I felt to be an obvious and strong economic pressure that caused these changes in society. Needless to say, my papers discussing social trends were not received well by the professors. In order to get even an adequate grade, I had to provide at least twice the foundation for my arguments that other students (who DID toe the party line) had to include. Even in the best case, though, my papers were, typically, marked down by a half to full grade simply because I disagreed with their point of view. However, I did not get into a huff and walk out of class, or boycott anything. Rather, I worked twice as hard to justify my point of view, and, to ensure that my arguments were clear and well supported. I did pass the classes, but only just, but, the lessons I learned there both about life in general, and, the nitty-gritty of organizing supporting points for a given argument were a valuable addition to my life and remain so today, some 30 years later.
regards
dave mundt
Greetings and Salutations.
FWIIW, Pioneer makes a really slick product, called the "AVIC" which addresses pretty much all these complaints. It slots into the dash and replaces the radio, and, includes a nice, large GPS screen that pops out, and also provides sophisticated but easy to use controls for video and audio components. It is not cheap at close to $1000.00 but the GPS unit in it works quite well and is accurate.
Regards
Dave Mundt
Greetings and Salutations....
Some good points here. I would give it a try, actually, if for no other reason, to see if cultured meat has a different texture. Also, what about fat content? It seems to me that this would be pure protein, which could make it great for use in sausages, etc.
Regards
dave mundt
Greetings and Salutations....
Ageism has been, and continues to be, a serious problem in the IT profession. It does not apply to just coders either, as it seems that being over the age of 50 is a kiss of death for system administrators, DBAs, analysts, etc. I suspect that the issues that control this are (in no particular order)
1) Folks doing the hiring assume that anyone over the age of 50 is so stuck in their rut that they are out of touch with the newer technologies. Actually the cut off age here seems to be closer to 30....
2) The younger a hire is the cheaper they will be for the company. Most companies would rather pay a kid $40K a year and not worry about the fact that it might take him a week to do what a $100K a year hire could do in a day or even a few hours.
3) Again, because of the incorrect perception that IT people are an expense rather than an asset, HR hires the kid who knows how to do ONE thing, instead of the older, more experienced person that knows how to do a dozen things, and can likely apply that knowledge to find a way to make the company more efficient, using the excuse that the older hire is going to be "too expensive".
I will agree that, in the short term, the older hire requires a larger check...but in the long term, is likely to more than pay that back with the increases in efficiency and the savings he or she can bring to the company. This makes no difference, though, because these days, short-term profit is the only goal that companies can look for.
4) most management knows that the older hire is going to be more of a pain for them, because experience brings understanding of exactly how poorly most management runs things, and, a considerably lower tolerance for that sort of nonsense. The "fresh face" just out of school is willing to put up with a lot more crap that we, with that experience, are not. The kid actually believes management's vague, hand-waving promises of great rewards later on for 80 plus hours of work now!
Greetings and salutations....
I do not know that I anthropomorphise the USA enough so that in my own head I hear it as being male or female. However, at least these days, I do look upon it as the world's largest kindergarten, considering the childish way that so many "adults" act.
As for for the name of the security theatre, while I think it is a cute idea to change their emblem/patch to a "HS" logo, I suspect it would be simpler and more accurate to change its name to "Safety and Security". That way, the patch could be a simple and alliterative "SS". That should not be a problem should it???? While there are quite a few good folks in the organization, the overall tactics and goals of the bureaucracy are scarily close to that of the OTHER "SS".
For what it is worth, there is precedent for this. At the University of Tennessee, the campus cops had the official title of "Safety and security". However, whoever ran it was smart enough that their patches spelled it out - no lightning shaped pairs of letters there. However, they did wear brown uniforms (which was an unfortunate choice) and, a fair number of them were so taken up with their "power" that they were bad for lording it over the students.
regards
dave
Greetings and Salutations.....
A couple of thoughts here. First off, people mature at different rates. Society has picked arbitrary, chronological points in life to define what phase of that maturing process a given person is at. With luck, those magical dates are generated by observing the population as a whole, and, picking a time that covers 85%-90% or more of the population. However, because it is a spectrum, there are some people who have an amazing level of maturity at the age of 12, and some who are still adolescent at the age of 30. We have to look at the actions and attitudes of each individual to truly know how mature they are. That having been said...recent studies, using MRI and other scanning technologies have discovered that there IS a difference between the wiring of an adult brain and a teen age brain... Also, having interacted with quite a number of youth and young adults in my life, I have seen that difference high-lighted by the younger brains being willing to take greater risks, either because of a limited ability to model consequences, or a stronger spirit of adventure, than a fully mature brain. This argument would not be as likely if she had been scanned and the structure of her brain analyzed. The simple answer is that, at the time, she was 16, and, therefore generally looked up as a child by the law. Elsewhere in this lengthy thread, the point is made that society does try younger folks as adults, if the crime is "bad enough". I would submit that the driving force there has nothing to do with the person on trial, or their actual maturity and understanding, but, rather has almost everything to do with the political pressures put upon the prosecutors by the public.
Secondly...I finally did watch the entire video, and, it is hardly shocking or unusual (sadly enough), but it sure looks like the event went well beyond discipline and descended into abuse. It also appears from various data sources that the judge had a long history of abusing the women in his family, so, this is hardly a surprising result.I was spanked a few times when I was growing up, because I never have been good at dealing with the strictures and rules of society. In all cases, my father limited the paddling to a few strokes and made it a point to never administer the punishment if he was angry. He also took time to make it very clear WHY I was being spanked. As for why the young lady published the video - I question whether it was for blackmail purposes, although even if it was, that does not mitigate the nature of the problem. I did see part of an interview with her where she categorically denied that blackmail was involved. My take on it is that she is trying to get the baggage that this and other abuse left with her, and, the only way to do it is to talk about it. I suspect that this sort of situation was the "elephant in the living room" that everyone knew they must not talk about. The usual result of such denial is a growth of darkness in the victim that will eventually destroy them, if it is not dealt with.
The folks in this thread that have casually dismissed her chronic MD show a sad lack of education in the area. The problem with diseases like that is that one tends to look perfectly normal for much of the time. However, beyond the surface, there is pain, weakness and often some overwhelming, negative, emotional pressures that suck one's energies. I would say to those folks dismissing the illness - pray to whatever God you follow that you are never struck down with such a condition.
Finally, it would be interesting to look at the judge's record and see how he handles similar family situations. It would be the height of hypocrisy for him to come down hard on alleged abusers with this kind of situation. In any case, while it sounds like the family is too broken to be repaired, if there is a sincere interest in it, I hope they agree to (and stick to) a schedule of work with a family councilor who may be able to help them work out the festering rot that has caused this.
Greetings and Salutations...
As I have said for years....like it or not the speed limit is a law, not a suggestion, so, the best course of action is to adhere to it. If nothing else you will really piss off the guy with the testosterone overload behind you that is trying to blast by.
I have suggested that perhaps the best course of action would be for us to have regular tests to see how good a driver we are, and, set the maximum speed limit we can drive at. This info could be picked up by RFID readers posted along the roads and used to fire cameras if necessary. It should be easy enough to make it hard enough to bypass that the ordinary driver would not bother. There could be severe penalties set up for folks that DO bypass the system.
Also, we could force autonomous cars on folks, that could know the appropriate speed limit and limit the speed to that....
Or, for that matter we could simply remove all speed limits and accept the fact that there will be some collateral damage. Think of it as simply putting a bit of bleach in the gene pool to clean it up.
Or, for that matter we could make sure that all American drivers are well educated and trained on safe driving techniques...therefore removing much of the problems with speed limits, etc.
Regards
Dave Mundt
Greetings and salutations.....
WHY do I suspect that porges is on their way towards 100 and, like me, waving goodbye to 50 as it recedes behind????
My comment was brief, but, alas, a bit imprecise....perhaps it would have been more accurate to say "as one's age gets closer to passing 50..."
G.D.R -
Dave mundt
Greetings and Salutations...
Actually, this pretty much applies to ALL businesses in the USA. There is a strong undercurrent of age prejudice that, like racism in the 1940s is very real but never mentioned. It is a fact that for many professions, the closer one's age is to 50, then, the lower the chance that one will get hired, or even considered for a job. There are several reasons for this, including the fact that a 50 year old worker will not put up with nearly the level of abuse from management that an 19-20 year old will, and will insist on NOT being underpaid. The fact that a more mature employee has a lot of experience and knowledge about dead-ends in the process and ways to do the job correctly, and, will be far better at handling those cusp conditions where the general rules break down seems to make no difference these days. I have even heard some employers saying that an older employee will not stay with the company long enough - in spite of the fact that the average stay at a given position these days is about five years. The days of a person staying with a company for decades, and, working their way up through the ranks appear to be gone for good
pleasant dreams
dave mundt
Greetings and Salutations....
According to the story, the student told her it was broken, and he had been given a new one. It also states that she had to get it fixed. There are no details on HOW it was broken or fixed, alas. Add to that the concept of a "good faith purchase" that can be at least a partial shield against prosecution. Putting all this together, it is possible that she "should have known" it was stolen, and, perhaps in a perfect world, she would have contacted the parents to find out if the student's story was true. However, it is not completely implausible that the story went down exactly as she said, and, there was no indication that the laptop was stolen. I have had a number of clients that I have credited similar amounts when I transferred their data from their "dead' laptop to the replacement they have purchased so the amount is not QUITE low enough to be questionable. In return, I would keep the "dead" computer. It works out well for both of us, as they don't have to deal with having it around the house, and disposing of it, and, I can usually get some useful hardware to fix something else, or sell. Sometimes, simply wiping the setup EEPROM. replacing the hard drive and installing Linux is all that is needed to get it back up and running happily.
I have to say, though, that treating her data in such a casual fashion is a bad thing and leaves the security company and the police in a position where they SHOULD have their hands smacked. Nude photos are one thing, but, what if there had been significant amounts of financial information on the hard drive? Would it have been "OK" if the security company's lack of care and assumption that she was guilty resulted in identity theft and the associated complications and emotional pain it brings?
Another point that seems to have fallen by the wayside is the concept of "innocent until proven guilty". Since the charges against the young woman were eventually dropped, either the prosecutors felt that there was insufficient evidence to convict her of knowingly receiving stolen property, or she cut a deal with them to roll on the student she bought the laptop from (it would be interesting to know how far the prosecutors are willing to go for a laptop that MIGHT have a value of $500) In any case, at this point she is innocent but gullible..and has learned a painful lesson about privacy on the Internet. Perhaps next time she will be wise enough to encrypt private data with PGP!
greetings and salutations....
800 million years is only a slight tick of the clock in geological terms....Now. on my part, I saw the headline and before I expanded the article and saw it was about volcanoes.... I found myself wondering if it was open, used WEP (almost open) or WPA(2) for security, and, if I put a Yagi on my systerm, or hooked it up to a big dish (I have a spare 8' one kicking around), could I get a decent signal? I kind of figured it had to be faster than Verizon's air card these days....
Greetings and Salutations....
Why does this seem like one of those "feel good" laws that politicians pass to get brownie points with their followers, rather than to actually address and fix a problem?
I am more and more convinced that attempts to regulate the Net are a bad idea, and, any official that attempts to do this should be voted out of office or recalled.
Greetings and Salutations...
I want to draw attention to the suite of programs by sausage.com out of Australia. I used to use their HotDog editor and, found it a really good tool for moderately sized websites. I liked it well enough that I actually paid the $100 license fee (which, at the time, was a pretty good chunk of change). They were very good with customer support, too, as I had a couple of questions that ended up being answered by one of the developers. It is still around, and, they have continued to add tools that can be integrated into the basic editor to extend its capabilities. I would still likely use it if I were pumping out websites still.
regards
dave
A good thought there, but, of course, a pipe dream, because there are so many lawyers making laws that it is exactly like putting a fox in charge of the chicken coop. Having said that, though, I have advocated for years that the only amendments to a law should be something that directly applies to and changes the law itself.
Part of the problem with the white elephant of legislation these days is that it is far too easy, and far too common to have a collection of totally non-related laws attached to a law that a lot of people want, to ensure that they all will get passed. We have all seen it happen, and, that is one of the reason we have laws that are 1000+ pages long...
The system is certainly off balance, if not completely broken...yet every side wants to keep it because they can leverage it to their advantage, no matter what might be best for the country...
Hum...this sort of comment reminds me of a client I used to support. They built a new building, and asked me to design a computer room that would meet their current needs and give them room to expand. I put together a fairly simple proposal for an area of about 400 square feet, broken up into two sections. One was the "server room", which had security, cooling and power conditioning. This took most of the space. I allocated a small office area with some storage for software, and to give the system administrator a place to work. Well, several weeks later, I stopped by the new building, at the client's request, so, I could see their new computer room. The president of the company was really proud of himself, as he had found some excess space in my design and had changed it a bit. He took me upstairs and into what I thought was a coat closet, next to a bathroom! It was a space about eight feet by twelve feet! It had no air conditioning, so, the only way to keep it cool was to leave the door open. How had he gotten this size? He had gone into the computer room at the old building, and measured the foot print of each computer in the room, and, added them all up! It was true enough that there was room to get all the computers from the old site into the new area, but, in terms of sanity or usefulness, or anything ELSE positive...not so much. Oh yea...to top it off, I came back a couple of weeks later to get some racks installed and talk with the cabling guys about network cables, and, found that the contractor had installed an air handler for the upstairs A/C and a 40 gallon water heater in the computer room!
Now...as for the number of people the earth can support...most of the analysis I have seen is as simplistic as my example above. The fact of the matter is that people are complicated, and, while there are a large percentage of folks who are perfectly happy to be packed in like sardines, and can co-exist quite well that way, there are also a lot of folks who find that closeness intolerable, or, see that closeness as an opportunity to prey on their fellow citizens. While it is true that socio-economic factors may be more important in determining crime rates, it is also true that the greater the number of folks packed into an area, the greater the chance that there will be a person who is going to be a predator.