Again, Linux NEEDS a unified desktop. I can't say it more. It may sound sad, but it has to be done.
I don't think that is going to help as much as some other features might.
I recently began tinkering with RH7.0, happend to have a copy kicking around. And ran into a huge mess.
My intention is to get it up and running as both a Web and Mail server, its not going to be the most powerful server in the world, but its mostly going to serve only me. Well enough, this is the type of thing *nix OS's are for right? They make good servers, right? Well, I'm not sure yet, I made the mistake of buying a Linksys NIC.
Alright, install hardware, boot machine on CD, install OS with server packages, and... Hmm, not getting a IP address from the DHCP server. Ok, check network settings in linuxconf, looks Ok. Check cable, try NIC in another machine, works there.
After a bit of web searching I noticed that there seems to be a bit of a problem with this generation of card, and the default driver. No problem, there's a new driver out, all I have to do is install it and I'm off to the races. Better yet, its on the driver disk that came with the card.
Ok, copy the driver over to the HD, and try to compile it. (Some gcc -blah -blah -blah command.) Ok, open the man page and try to figure it out (BTW I am not, nor do I have any wish to be a programmer.) After about 15 min. I close the man page and go back to the web. (10 trying to figure out what the hell I was being told, and 5 searching for the asparin bottle.)
Thank God, there are poeple out there with knowledge, who are willing to share. Ok, run the command as I found it on a message board. Hmm, says something is missing. Go back to message board, and look for more info. Ok, got it, this is a common problem too. Get more files, and try to compile those, damn something more is missing. At this point it was 1 in the morning, and I gave up and went to bed, I've not been back to it yet.
The moral of all this is that driver installation in RH seems to be hell if you are unlucky. This is not the way to attract users. Before Linux has any hope of becomeing the mainstream desktop OS, it needs to handle drivers in a better way. I can see 2 things that would have to be done.
1. If a driver is going to have a dependency that may not be in the OS by default, include it with the driver. Sure, it'll bloat the download a bit, but it will save the user from a headache. People like simple things, that's the draw of Windows, simplicity. Consider the last time you updated a driver in Windows, how many dependancies did you have to pull down off the web, do I hear none? This is one area where MS has done a pretty good job, there isn't the need to go running down dependecies, they are just there, and like most users want, "it just works."
2. Click, Click, oohh pretty pictures, hey cool its installed. Yes, its brainless, yes it puts stuff on which you have no clue about, but its what the end user wants. This is what is needed for both programs and drivers, simplicity. Again, this is somthing that MS has exceled at. Though it is partly why people hate Windows, no control, and no clue what is going on. Probably the best thing to do would be to have a "pretty picture" setting as default, and then let those people that want to, switch over to the full control interface. Again, it goes back to what the author of one of the articles said, "it just works". That is what Linux is going to have to acheive if it wants to be the desktop OS of choice for Joe and Jane user.
In closing, as much as I hear about it on slashdot, I don't think that the OSS community really wants to make a desktop for the average user. They want to have thier own "Uber-Desktop" (what is with the German usage anyhow?). They want to live in thier ivory tower and proclaim the rest of the world idiots for not joining them, but at the same time making it impossible for the average user. It reminds me of a time not long past, and an OS that has come and almost gone, DOS. The DOS aficiandos adopted an elietist attitude, and so the average home user bought a Mac. It wasn't until Windows that the basic home user started buying PC's. This is about where Linux is now, its like DOS with Win 3.1 as compared to Mac. Except, in this case its Linux and KDE/Gnome trying to oust Windows. Its not there yet, and won't be without some serious dumbing-down tools built into it. And, from what I have heard from the OSS community, they just aren't interested in doing that, so it will remain an OS for geeks and programmers, and will remain as nothing more that a footnote in computing history.
P.S. Flame away, though I challenge anyone to post a good couter argument.
If a country decides that it wants to do X, and the US says that if it does, then the US will apply pressure on the country, then the US is oging to be seen as a bully.
This brings up a question I have had for a while. Assuming that a country doesn't want to follow the US in whatever ideal, what does the US govenment do to pressure that country into submission?
This is a serious question, I've never quite understood how the US can have that much power with other governments, I can think of the following, but nothing quite works out:
1. Military power. Sure its massive, but the US wouldn't be stupid enough to start a war with the whole world.
2. Financial. I know the US hands out monetary support to a number of nations, and could threaten to suspend that aid, but I can't belive that there are many, if any, EU nations that receive support of this kind.
I just don't see how its done. While I will admit that the US can influence the nations it is sending aid to, by threating to suspend that aid, I can't see this as the only way it gets done. Moreover, I somewhat understand the US not wanting to send money to nations that are not friendly to the US. Though with the budget shortfalls and problems the US has, I question whether or not we should be looking to fix the worlds problems, before getting out our country in order.
I don't understand this whole "backup" arguement. I play many games on PC and Consoles and never had one "go bad" (and I also lend out my games).
I'm not so worried about "going bad" as I am about theft, real theft. I lost a lot of CDs a while back when I had my truck broken into, made me really wish I had backed them up and used the backups in my truck, instead of the originals.
I've had several friends have thier house/apartment broken into and computer equipment taken, including games that were readily accessable. Again, if they had been using backups and had the original tucked away in a closet (which didn't seem to get searched) they would not have been out a couple hundred in computer software.
Sadly, myself and my friends had to learn the hard way, that there are some very good reasons not to use the originals. I've also fallen victim to leaving my CD carrier in my car in the summer, its amazing what can happen. I know it was my own stupidity that caused it, but if I had taken precautions well in advance, it would not have been a big deal.
I now like to use backups whenever possible, and keep my originals tucked away, nice and safe.
So when Ashcroft ignores California's legalization of medicinal marijuana or Oregon's legalization of euthanasia by sending in federal agents to stop it, is he doing his job?
Um, actually, yes. The Constitution actually has provisions in it for when State and Federal law come into conflict. Guess which one wins...Federal.
California legalizing Marijuana was in conflict with Federal drug laws, as such the California law was really nothing more that the people making a political statement. If you get arrested for drug violations you get to go to federal court and the judge is going to laugh at you when you bring up a State law that tried to countermand the Federal law.
As for the Oregon law for euthanasia, again, Murder is a Federal law. Again conflict in law, and again the Federal law wins.
The only time this pattern doesn't hold true, is when Congress makes a law, which violates the provisions which dicate that States have control over certain areas. But Drug laws and Murder don't seem to fall in those defined State's responsibilites.
I will agree that Ashcroft ignoring a Supreme Court descion would be stepping out of bounds for him, but I doubt he would actually do it. Afterall, all it would accomplish is having a bunch of cases thrown out of court. And possibly lead to some sort of censure of Ashcroft.
I would hate to sell like one cd and have 2 more unpaid for copies floating around. That's like giving away 2 apples for every one you sell! Kind of a sad business model..
I take it you've never heard of a loss leader? Moreover, that the best type of advertising you can get is word of mouth. Sure, people are going to pirate your CD, thats a risk of doing business. But, if you can generate enough interest in your band you are likely to sell more copies of your next CD, and also to get more people to come to live shows, and more places looking to book you for a live show.
While I will not advocate piracy as a good thing, it is wrong, sometimes you have to learn to let it go and use it to turn a profit later. Look at Microsoft, while they would never openly admit it, they allowed 95 and 98 to be pirated for years, just to innundate the market. Your pirated CDs may work in that way for you, if they help generate interest in your music, that otherwise would not have existed, it can drive future profits. Keep in mind, that someone listening to a pirate copy of your CD might not have ever heard of you, if they had not pirated the CD. Again, this does not justify piracy, but it does go to show that whining about it only makes you look short-sighted and greedy.
Personally, I tend towards the Republican views, though not always. I think in the end I would like to have a Republican congress with a Democrat as a president. With one minor cavet on the D-Pres. I like having a president that served in the military, I feel that it usually gives them a better perspective on how to use the military.
But that's just my 2 cents.
So you're locked in a room with Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, and a lawyer. You have a gun, but only two bullets. What do you do?
Simple, bludgeon them all to death with the gun. You wouldn't want to waste perfectly good bullets. Those should be saved for good old Jack "The Boston Stangler of our Rights" Valenti!
(temps up --> ice melts --> atlantic currents change --> temps down...)
I like those three little dots on the end, they leave off at the worst point and try to make the reader assume that only horrible things happen after that. Problem is, logically one would assume that we should continue the above strain as such:
(..temps down --> Water Re-freezes --> atlantic currents shift back)
In all I would bet that this is simply some natural cycle that we are seeing and, and once again out of arrogance, attributing to human activity. Yes, things are currently warmer than they were 100 years ago. Though most of the warming happend due to the Pacific Decadial Occillation.
This article is simply scarist propaganda. While the underlying research may be valid (the salinity of the artic might be incresing) I think its a bit much to suddenly assume that this is caused by humans. We have known for years that the Earth goes through cycles, and these certainly inclued hot and cold periods. So why is it, whenever we find something happening, the first thing we do is assume its human induced? Especially when we can show that it has been happening, all on its own, for millions of years. Ice ages happened before humans started driving cars. Ice ages are going to continue to happen. The only thing useful about this article was that it pointed to one of the reasons they happen. But like any good little greeny the author went on to insist that it had to be humans causing it. Bullshit, when someone can actually show that humans are the only cause behind global warming, and prove that it is happening (by the way, take a look at NASA's satellite data sometime, we haven't been warming much since the 70's. Guess what happened about that time, the Pacific Decadal Occilation. Before that, people were worried about global cooling!) The only "proof" I have seen of global warming are nicely averaged numbers since the 1800's. And guess what, we are comming out of an ice age (That little ice age back a few hundred years.) Also, they smooth over the huge jump that happened back in the 70's. So personally, I'd say take this article with a grain of salt, yup, there is something happening here, but like most climate articles they make wild assumptions about the significance of human activity. Sure, we should probably dump some money into studying this, but that's about all we should do for the moment.
Odd, I seem to recall that the SR-71's fuel tanks also leaked at low temperature. That'd make it a real pain to keep the liquid cooled. Though not outside the realm of posibillity.
Hmm, didn't know that about light aircraft. How does the vent system prevent spillage during manuvering? Also, wouldn't that be a bit of danger in a Fighter craft? I mean, 1 good bullet could ignite a fuel tank, especially if it is a tracer round.
As for the burning "like" kerosene, I know, I was just making a bit of a joke out of it. Sorry, guess I failed.
Hey dude, it's a WEAPON. That means it's SUPPOSED to cause damage... so blinding some enemy troops isn't such a bad thing.
Shh, don't burst his reality. He's probably also one of those people that want to outlaw weapons in war because they are too effective at killing people. Let him go about his dreams of Nerf warfare.
Watts is a measure of power, i.e. energy per unit time.
Oops, good point, been out of school too long, I'm used to hearing laser power in terms of Joules, which necessates the type of question I asked. Sorry, didn't engage brain fully.
guess they forgot about the "splash" dammage effet of a "laser". If this device were to hit any sort of reflective material, the potential to permenently blind large ammounts of people is great.
Hey, even better. Not only do you take the tank out, you blind the infantry that is near it!
I'm no "nuclear genius" but that doesn't sound like the safest proposition to me. I wouldn't want to try dissapating 900kw of heat into my car's gas tank... but, best of luck to you.
I would imagine that the fuel is stored in a sealed tank, with no oxygen in it. Making it much safer. Sure jet fuel burns like kerosene, but like kerosene, it needs oxygen to burn. So, put it in a sealed environment, with no air, and you can heat it up without risk of combustion.
This could be a hell of a weapon system, if they can get it to work right. Also, I wonder what the time period is for the 100KW to be transfered to the target? If this is a pulsed laser, that'd be great, but if its a continious laser, I wonder how well it'll really work against a manuvering aircraft. Still, 5 miles up and destroying ground based vehilces would be a nice way to do things.
You're right on though with the analysis that you can't just go making new laws because the old laws don't work efficiently enough. Why doesn't the government just slap a *REQUEST DENIED* sticker on this whole thing and tell those a$$es to use the current laws like everyone else has to.
I belive that the answer to your question was contained within the question itself:
$$
The congress-critters like money, and the RIAA/MPAA gives it to them.
What it needs is a series of PSAs (Public Service Announcements) or similar ads that reach the general public...
And how, exactly, do you expect to get the to the public? Buy airtime on TV networks? I'm sure Ted Turner would be all giddy to run your ads.
The problem with fighting the people that control the media in the US, is that they can keep you from getting your message out. And don't be fooled for a second that the news organizations will do much to help your cause. That's the one flaw in this whole protest the DMCA idea, the news people covering it. They are going to spin it right into the dirt. I can hear it now, "Today, 300 people were arrested for illegal hacking. They were protesting laws that were enacted to protect computer systems from the threat of cyberterrorism." at this point they roll the interview with the geekiest looking 16 year old they could find, who, of course, is missing half his brain that day and says, "We're fighting the Man! They're trying to keep us down! Hacking Rulez!" Back to the reporter, "This just goes to show how widespread this problem really is. The children of today belive that stealing and trespassing are ok, and its all being done on the internet." Camera pans protest area, "The protest was held here, and was largly a forum for trading illegally coppied CDs and movies. Just about anything you want could be had here, and of course, in the spirit of this hacking fest, it was all free." Roll film of someone handing out burned DVDs "Any film you wanted could be had either free or very cheap. We even found videos of movies that are still in theaters, like this summers blockbuster (insert big movie here)." Back to reporter, "in all this was less a protest and more a meeting place of pirates and hackers."
Back to the studio "Wow. Thank you Jan, amazing how so many young people can be so misguided. And in other news..."
I wish people luck, but, other than Alan Greespan, they are fighting one of the most powerful forces in the US today.
Shit, Ive lived in california all my life (desert) and I didnt know doors COULD stick:)
You must live in a newer house, the house I live in has one door that sticks like mad, though its more from the ground shifting durning earthquakes, than it is from humidity/heat.
Another fun demonstartion of termal expantion is the old ball and ring trick. You have a ball that is just slighty too big to fit through a ring, you heat the ring and the ball, then try passing the ball through the ring again, and bingo it goes through. Of course, its a bit eaiser if they are of different materials, and the ring has a higher rate of expansion.
Actually have done some of the stuff you suggest. I know why I work late, I actually take pride in my job and getting it done on time. As for whining to get the schedules fixed, it is working, albiet slowly, but, as I said in my previous post, this company is run by people with no clue about the technology, and they can't comprehend what is wrong with the scheduling, so they are only changing because we have missed a few of the deadlines.
Do I like working long hours? Well, in truth, sort of yes. I'm not one of the engineers, I just take thier stuff and apply it to the real world (They write the propritary software, I configure the networks its going onto). And, I'm currently on hourly pay, meaning I get time and a half for those extra hours, which goes a long way to upgrading my paintball gun.
So in the end, I do kinda like my job, in a masochistic way. But I still don't like dealing with engineers that don't see the train comming until its on top of them. I'd rather have the kind that can see far enough ahead, and is willing to do what it takes to deal with it, before it becomes an emergency.
No, I just get regularly victimized by it. My company is run by marketers, and you would be amazed at what the salesmen are allowed to get away with. Not a month goes by that some salesman promises a feature that we don't currently have, and puts a date on it without consulting anybody with any sort of technical knowledge.
It wouldn't be so bad, but our upper managment insists that we make those dates, no matter how screwed up they are. Moreover, the upper managment does nothing to stop and/or punish the salesmen that do this. So, those of us that actually do the work, get to work horrendious overtime to make those deadlines, while the salesmen get thier fat commision for screwing the rest of us.
Its not that I don't like marketers or salesmen, but I think the lot of them should be hung from the rafters, without benift of a neck-breaking knot.
I see this everyday where I work. The good engineers think they are breaking new ground and working all the hours to achieve this. The few experienced engineers go home at 5 and always hit their deadlines.
Must be nice, around here all of the experienced and good engineers work long hours and hit thier deadlines. The rest of the hacks work thier 8 and leave, only sticking around late when they are up against a deadline, then they whine until the deadline gets pushed back. Topping it all off by taking time off to make up for the long hours they put it to try and make the first deadline.
Give me an engineer that is willing to stay late and get the job done. And do so before the night of the dealine.
To bring this post back to the article at hand, it sounds like your average old foggie rant. "back in my day we had to (insert hardship here). And things were better, grass was greener the sky was bluer, (insert more ramblings here)."
Get off it, it felt better back then because you were still young and idealistic. Not to mention that you fit better with the technology and society. Yup, getting old sucks, as I'm sure I'll find out some day, but that does not mean that the world as a whole was better.
Whether or not it's censorship, lack of free-speech, whatever. THEY HAVE THE WORK COPYRIGHTED.
Mod me down, but this has to be said.
Copyright laws exist to protect the authors -- they might be using the law pretty heavy-handedly, but it's the law, they can use it.
You are right, the law applies to everyone, including the fair-use doctrine. I have every right to quote parts of a copyrighted, written, work for editorial purposes. As long as I properly cite the source, this is allowed by copyright law. As such, if I put up a web site and slam scientology, using exceprts from thier books, this is allowed, and legal. Just because my site is negitive about thier cult, doesn't mean that they can deny me fair-use.
No, these crack-pots are simply using the threat of lawsuits to silence critics. Almost makes me wish I was German, they recognized the Cult of Scientology for what it was, a huge pyramid scheme that brainwashes people, and banned it. Hell, they even went so far as to force Microsoft to give them a way to strip Diskeeper out of Win2k because the company that made it has strong ties to the Cult of Scientology.
Slashdot Mirror
Again, Linux NEEDS a unified desktop. I can't say it more. It may sound sad, but it has to be done.
I don't think that is going to help as much as some other features might.
I recently began tinkering with RH7.0, happend to have a copy kicking around. And ran into a huge mess.
My intention is to get it up and running as both a Web and Mail server, its not going to be the most powerful server in the world, but its mostly going to serve only me. Well enough, this is the type of thing *nix OS's are for right? They make good servers, right? Well, I'm not sure yet, I made the mistake of buying a Linksys NIC.
Alright, install hardware, boot machine on CD, install OS with server packages, and... Hmm, not getting a IP address from the DHCP server. Ok, check network settings in linuxconf, looks Ok. Check cable, try NIC in another machine, works there.
After a bit of web searching I noticed that there seems to be a bit of a problem with this generation of card, and the default driver. No problem, there's a new driver out, all I have to do is install it and I'm off to the races. Better yet, its on the driver disk that came with the card.
Ok, copy the driver over to the HD, and try to compile it. (Some gcc -blah -blah -blah command.) Ok, open the man page and try to figure it out (BTW I am not, nor do I have any wish to be a programmer.) After about 15 min. I close the man page and go back to the web. (10 trying to figure out what the hell I was being told, and 5 searching for the asparin bottle.)
Thank God, there are poeple out there with knowledge, who are willing to share. Ok, run the command as I found it on a message board. Hmm, says something is missing. Go back to message board, and look for more info. Ok, got it, this is a common problem too. Get more files, and try to compile those, damn something more is missing. At this point it was 1 in the morning, and I gave up and went to bed, I've not been back to it yet.
The moral of all this is that driver installation in RH seems to be hell if you are unlucky. This is not the way to attract users. Before Linux has any hope of becomeing the mainstream desktop OS, it needs to handle drivers in a better way. I can see 2 things that would have to be done.
1. If a driver is going to have a dependency that may not be in the OS by default, include it with the driver. Sure, it'll bloat the download a bit, but it will save the user from a headache. People like simple things, that's the draw of Windows, simplicity. Consider the last time you updated a driver in Windows, how many dependancies did you have to pull down off the web, do I hear none? This is one area where MS has done a pretty good job, there isn't the need to go running down dependecies, they are just there, and like most users want, "it just works."
2. Click, Click, oohh pretty pictures, hey cool its installed. Yes, its brainless, yes it puts stuff on which you have no clue about, but its what the end user wants. This is what is needed for both programs and drivers, simplicity. Again, this is somthing that MS has exceled at. Though it is partly why people hate Windows, no control, and no clue what is going on. Probably the best thing to do would be to have a "pretty picture" setting as default, and then let those people that want to, switch over to the full control interface. Again, it goes back to what the author of one of the articles said, "it just works". That is what Linux is going to have to acheive if it wants to be the desktop OS of choice for Joe and Jane user.
In closing, as much as I hear about it on slashdot, I don't think that the OSS community really wants to make a desktop for the average user. They want to have thier own "Uber-Desktop" (what is with the German usage anyhow?). They want to live in thier ivory tower and proclaim the rest of the world idiots for not joining them, but at the same time making it impossible for the average user. It reminds me of a time not long past, and an OS that has come and almost gone, DOS. The DOS aficiandos adopted an elietist attitude, and so the average home user bought a Mac. It wasn't until Windows that the basic home user started buying PC's. This is about where Linux is now, its like DOS with Win 3.1 as compared to Mac. Except, in this case its Linux and KDE/Gnome trying to oust Windows. Its not there yet, and won't be without some serious dumbing-down tools built into it. And, from what I have heard from the OSS community, they just aren't interested in doing that, so it will remain an OS for geeks and programmers, and will remain as nothing more that a footnote in computing history.
P.S. Flame away, though I challenge anyone to post a good couter argument.
Thank you, that helps a lot. I hadn't really considered how the UN politics work.
If a country decides that it wants to do X, and the US says that if it does, then the US will apply pressure on the country, then the US is oging to be seen as a bully.
This brings up a question I have had for a while. Assuming that a country doesn't want to follow the US in whatever ideal, what does the US govenment do to pressure that country into submission?
This is a serious question, I've never quite understood how the US can have that much power with other governments, I can think of the following, but nothing quite works out:
1. Military power. Sure its massive, but the US wouldn't be stupid enough to start a war with the whole world.
2. Financial. I know the US hands out monetary support to a number of nations, and could threaten to suspend that aid, but I can't belive that there are many, if any, EU nations that receive support of this kind.
I just don't see how its done. While I will admit that the US can influence the nations it is sending aid to, by threating to suspend that aid, I can't see this as the only way it gets done. Moreover, I somewhat understand the US not wanting to send money to nations that are not friendly to the US. Though with the budget shortfalls and problems the US has, I question whether or not we should be looking to fix the worlds problems, before getting out our country in order.
Doable, I suppose. But what about the
(white in every board I know) silkscreen?
I would imagine that they would change the silkscreen ink to black. Can't be all that hard.
I don't understand this whole "backup" arguement. I play many games on PC and Consoles and never had one "go bad" (and I also lend out my games).
I'm not so worried about "going bad" as I am about theft, real theft. I lost a lot of CDs a while back when I had my truck broken into, made me really wish I had backed them up and used the backups in my truck, instead of the originals.
I've had several friends have thier house/apartment broken into and computer equipment taken, including games that were readily accessable. Again, if they had been using backups and had the original tucked away in a closet (which didn't seem to get searched) they would not have been out a couple hundred in computer software.
Sadly, myself and my friends had to learn the hard way, that there are some very good reasons not to use the originals. I've also fallen victim to leaving my CD carrier in my car in the summer, its amazing what can happen. I know it was my own stupidity that caused it, but if I had taken precautions well in advance, it would not have been a big deal.
I now like to use backups whenever possible, and keep my originals tucked away, nice and safe.
So when Ashcroft ignores California's legalization of medicinal marijuana or Oregon's legalization of euthanasia by sending in federal agents to stop it, is he doing his job?
Um, actually, yes. The Constitution actually has provisions in it for when State and Federal law come into conflict. Guess which one wins...Federal.
California legalizing Marijuana was in conflict with Federal drug laws, as such the California law was really nothing more that the people making a political statement. If you get arrested for drug violations you get to go to federal court and the judge is going to laugh at you when you bring up a State law that tried to countermand the Federal law.
As for the Oregon law for euthanasia, again, Murder is a Federal law. Again conflict in law, and again the Federal law wins.
The only time this pattern doesn't hold true, is when Congress makes a law, which violates the provisions which dicate that States have control over certain areas. But Drug laws and Murder don't seem to fall in those defined State's responsibilites.
I will agree that Ashcroft ignoring a Supreme Court descion would be stepping out of bounds for him, but I doubt he would actually do it. Afterall, all it would accomplish is having a bunch of cases thrown out of court. And possibly lead to some sort of censure of Ashcroft.
I would hate to sell like one cd and have 2 more unpaid for copies floating around. That's like giving away 2 apples for every one you sell! Kind of a sad business model..
I take it you've never heard of a loss leader? Moreover, that the best type of advertising you can get is word of mouth. Sure, people are going to pirate your CD, thats a risk of doing business. But, if you can generate enough interest in your band you are likely to sell more copies of your next CD, and also to get more people to come to live shows, and more places looking to book you for a live show.
While I will not advocate piracy as a good thing, it is wrong, sometimes you have to learn to let it go and use it to turn a profit later. Look at Microsoft, while they would never openly admit it, they allowed 95 and 98 to be pirated for years, just to innundate the market. Your pirated CDs may work in that way for you, if they help generate interest in your music, that otherwise would not have existed, it can drive future profits. Keep in mind, that someone listening to a pirate copy of your CD might not have ever heard of you, if they had not pirated the CD. Again, this does not justify piracy, but it does go to show that whining about it only makes you look short-sighted and greedy.
Personally, I tend towards the Republican views, though not always. I think in the end I would like to have a Republican congress with a Democrat as a president. With one minor cavet on the D-Pres. I like having a president that served in the military, I feel that it usually gives them a better perspective on how to use the military.
But that's just my 2 cents.
So you're locked in a room with Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, and a lawyer. You have a gun, but only two bullets. What do you do?
Simple, bludgeon them all to death with the gun. You wouldn't want to waste perfectly good bullets. Those should be saved for good old Jack "The Boston Stangler of our Rights" Valenti!
(temps up --> ice melts --> atlantic currents change --> temps down...)
I like those three little dots on the end, they leave off at the worst point and try to make the reader assume that only horrible things happen after that. Problem is, logically one would assume that we should continue the above strain as such:
(..temps down --> Water Re-freezes --> atlantic currents shift back)
In all I would bet that this is simply some natural cycle that we are seeing and, and once again out of arrogance, attributing to human activity. Yes, things are currently warmer than they were 100 years ago. Though most of the warming happend due to the Pacific Decadial Occillation.
This article is simply scarist propaganda. While the underlying research may be valid (the salinity of the artic might be incresing) I think its a bit much to suddenly assume that this is caused by humans. We have known for years that the Earth goes through cycles, and these certainly inclued hot and cold periods. So why is it, whenever we find something happening, the first thing we do is assume its human induced? Especially when we can show that it has been happening, all on its own, for millions of years. Ice ages happened before humans started driving cars. Ice ages are going to continue to happen. The only thing useful about this article was that it pointed to one of the reasons they happen. But like any good little greeny the author went on to insist that it had to be humans causing it. Bullshit, when someone can actually show that humans are the only cause behind global warming, and prove that it is happening (by the way, take a look at NASA's satellite data sometime, we haven't been warming much since the 70's. Guess what happened about that time, the Pacific Decadal Occilation. Before that, people were worried about global cooling!) The only "proof" I have seen of global warming are nicely averaged numbers since the 1800's. And guess what, we are comming out of an ice age (That little ice age back a few hundred years.) Also, they smooth over the huge jump that happened back in the 70's. So personally, I'd say take this article with a grain of salt, yup, there is something happening here, but like most climate articles they make wild assumptions about the significance of human activity. Sure, we should probably dump some money into studying this, but that's about all we should do for the moment.
Odd, I seem to recall that the SR-71's fuel tanks also leaked at low temperature. That'd make it a real pain to keep the liquid cooled. Though not outside the realm of posibillity.
Hmm, didn't know that about light aircraft. How does the vent system prevent spillage during manuvering? Also, wouldn't that be a bit of danger in a Fighter craft? I mean, 1 good bullet could ignite a fuel tank, especially if it is a tracer round.
As for the burning "like" kerosene, I know, I was just making a bit of a joke out of it. Sorry, guess I failed.
Hey dude, it's a WEAPON. That means it's SUPPOSED to cause damage... so blinding some enemy troops isn't such a bad thing.
Shh, don't burst his reality. He's probably also one of those people that want to outlaw weapons in war because they are too effective at killing people. Let him go about his dreams of Nerf warfare.
intentionally blinding people with lasers is against the Geneva convention.
So is torture, and of course, we haven't seen that in war since the Geneva convention.
Watts is a measure of power, i.e. energy per unit time.
Oops, good point, been out of school too long, I'm used to hearing laser power in terms of Joules, which necessates the type of question I asked. Sorry, didn't engage brain fully.
guess they forgot about the "splash" dammage effet of a "laser". If this device were to hit any sort of reflective material, the potential to permenently blind large ammounts of people is great.
Hey, even better. Not only do you take the tank out, you blind the infantry that is near it!
I'm no "nuclear genius" but that doesn't sound like the safest proposition to me. I wouldn't want to try dissapating 900kw of heat into my car's gas tank... but, best of luck to you.
I would imagine that the fuel is stored in a sealed tank, with no oxygen in it. Making it much safer. Sure jet fuel burns like kerosene, but like kerosene, it needs oxygen to burn. So, put it in a sealed environment, with no air, and you can heat it up without risk of combustion.
This could be a hell of a weapon system, if they can get it to work right. Also, I wonder what the time period is for the 100KW to be transfered to the target? If this is a pulsed laser, that'd be great, but if its a continious laser, I wonder how well it'll really work against a manuvering aircraft. Still, 5 miles up and destroying ground based vehilces would be a nice way to do things.
You're right on though with the analysis that you can't just go making new laws because the old laws don't work efficiently enough. Why doesn't the government just slap a *REQUEST DENIED* sticker on this whole thing and tell those a$$es to use the current laws like everyone else has to.
I belive that the answer to your question was contained within the question itself:
$$
The congress-critters like money, and the RIAA/MPAA gives it to them.
What it needs is a series of PSAs (Public Service Announcements) or similar ads that reach the general public...
And how, exactly, do you expect to get the to the public? Buy airtime on TV networks? I'm sure Ted Turner would be all giddy to run your ads.
The problem with fighting the people that control the media in the US, is that they can keep you from getting your message out. And don't be fooled for a second that the news organizations will do much to help your cause. That's the one flaw in this whole protest the DMCA idea, the news people covering it. They are going to spin it right into the dirt. I can hear it now, "Today, 300 people were arrested for illegal hacking. They were protesting laws that were enacted to protect computer systems from the threat of cyberterrorism." at this point they roll the interview with the geekiest looking 16 year old they could find, who, of course, is missing half his brain that day and says, "We're fighting the Man! They're trying to keep us down! Hacking Rulez!" Back to the reporter, "This just goes to show how widespread this problem really is. The children of today belive that stealing and trespassing are ok, and its all being done on the internet." Camera pans protest area, "The protest was held here, and was largly a forum for trading illegally coppied CDs and movies. Just about anything you want could be had here, and of course, in the spirit of this hacking fest, it was all free." Roll film of someone handing out burned DVDs "Any film you wanted could be had either free or very cheap. We even found videos of movies that are still in theaters, like this summers blockbuster (insert big movie here)." Back to reporter, "in all this was less a protest and more a meeting place of pirates and hackers."
Back to the studio "Wow. Thank you Jan, amazing how so many young people can be so misguided. And in other news..."
I wish people luck, but, other than Alan Greespan, they are fighting one of the most powerful forces in the US today.
Shit, Ive lived in california all my life (desert) and I didnt know doors COULD stick :)
You must live in a newer house, the house I live in has one door that sticks like mad, though its more from the ground shifting durning earthquakes, than it is from humidity/heat.
Another fun demonstartion of termal expantion is the old ball and ring trick. You have a ball that is just slighty too big to fit through a ring, you heat the ring and the ball, then try passing the ball through the ring again, and bingo it goes through. Of course, its a bit eaiser if they are of different materials, and the ring has a higher rate of expansion.
Actually have done some of the stuff you suggest. I know why I work late, I actually take pride in my job and getting it done on time. As for whining to get the schedules fixed, it is working, albiet slowly, but, as I said in my previous post, this company is run by people with no clue about the technology, and they can't comprehend what is wrong with the scheduling, so they are only changing because we have missed a few of the deadlines.
Do I like working long hours? Well, in truth, sort of yes. I'm not one of the engineers, I just take thier stuff and apply it to the real world (They write the propritary software, I configure the networks its going onto). And, I'm currently on hourly pay, meaning I get time and a half for those extra hours, which goes a long way to upgrading my paintball gun.
So in the end, I do kinda like my job, in a masochistic way. But I still don't like dealing with engineers that don't see the train comming until its on top of them. I'd rather have the kind that can see far enough ahead, and is willing to do what it takes to deal with it, before it becomes an emergency.
Sounds like you advocate poor planning, then.
No, I just get regularly victimized by it. My company is run by marketers, and you would be amazed at what the salesmen are allowed to get away with. Not a month goes by that some salesman promises a feature that we don't currently have, and puts a date on it without consulting anybody with any sort of technical knowledge.
It wouldn't be so bad, but our upper managment insists that we make those dates, no matter how screwed up they are. Moreover, the upper managment does nothing to stop and/or punish the salesmen that do this. So, those of us that actually do the work, get to work horrendious overtime to make those deadlines, while the salesmen get thier fat commision for screwing the rest of us.
Its not that I don't like marketers or salesmen, but I think the lot of them should be hung from the rafters, without benift of a neck-breaking knot.
I see this everyday where I work. The good engineers think they are breaking new ground and working all the hours to achieve this. The few experienced engineers go home at 5 and always hit their deadlines.
Must be nice, around here all of the experienced and good engineers work long hours and hit thier deadlines. The rest of the hacks work thier 8 and leave, only sticking around late when they are up against a deadline, then they whine until the deadline gets pushed back. Topping it all off by taking time off to make up for the long hours they put it to try and make the first deadline.
Give me an engineer that is willing to stay late and get the job done. And do so before the night of the dealine.
To bring this post back to the article at hand, it sounds like your average old foggie rant. "back in my day we had to (insert hardship here). And things were better, grass was greener the sky was bluer, (insert more ramblings here)."
Get off it, it felt better back then because you were still young and idealistic. Not to mention that you fit better with the technology and society. Yup, getting old sucks, as I'm sure I'll find out some day, but that does not mean that the world as a whole was better.
Whether or not it's censorship, lack of free-speech, whatever. THEY HAVE THE WORK COPYRIGHTED.
Mod me down, but this has to be said.
Copyright laws exist to protect the authors -- they might be using the law pretty heavy-handedly, but it's the law, they can use it.
You are right, the law applies to everyone, including the fair-use doctrine. I have every right to quote parts of a copyrighted, written, work for editorial purposes. As long as I properly cite the source, this is allowed by copyright law. As such, if I put up a web site and slam scientology, using exceprts from thier books, this is allowed, and legal. Just because my site is negitive about thier cult, doesn't mean that they can deny me fair-use.
No, these crack-pots are simply using the threat of lawsuits to silence critics. Almost makes me wish I was German, they recognized the Cult of Scientology for what it was, a huge pyramid scheme that brainwashes people, and banned it. Hell, they even went so far as to force Microsoft to give them a way to strip Diskeeper out of Win2k because the company that made it has strong ties to the Cult of Scientology.