So, you want the DD-WRT people to email you when a bug is discovered? Cisco would not email you either.. Neither does Microsoft, Adobe or... ANYONE.
Umm, what? Cisco emails me all the time about bugs. Granted, they email me about larger equipment. I don't have anything as small as a Linksys router associated with my CCO ID, but Cisco most certainly has the capability to send out notifications whenever there is a bug discovered in a piece of hardware or software they sell.
I don't deal with Microsoft or Adobe so I can't speak to them, but email notifications when bugs are found are hardly an uncommon idea. I can only conclude that your comment is based out of ignorance. You act like the idea of email notification of bugs is some exotic idea that could never happen when in fact it's day to day business as usual for lots of companies.
Why do they need to enter into an agreement with anybody to publish (in print or digitally) books in the public domain?
Because Amazon doesn't have the books and presumably the U of Michigan library doesn't want to be in the business of reproducing (either physically or electronically) the books that they have on their shelves.
Just because you happen to have a rare out of print book on shelf in your living room doesn't entitle me to come barging in your front door with my photocopier or scanner to make myself a copy, nor does it obligate you to hand out copies to everybody who walks by. However, we could enter into an agreement where you let me come into your living room at a convenient time and make a copy of your rare out of print book at my own expense. We could not legally enter into that agreement regarding the latest bestseller that you picked bought yesterday because copyright law prohibits me from copying it and you from inviting me in to copy it.
I've never used Google Apps, but I've used Gmail and it doesn't hold a candle to Outlook in terms of features. The ability to search all mail quickly is a great feature, but that's just one feature compared to dozens if not hundreds of features that Outlook has that Gmail lacks.
There is no free mail client that comes anywhere close to the configurability of Outlook. I use Outlook at work and Thunderbird at home and I'm constantly frustrated by the unconfigurable straitjacket of Thunderbird. I suppose the classic open source answer is that if Thunderbird doesn't do what I want I should shut up and code the features myself or write a mail client from scratch. The non-zealot answer is just to use Outlook because it works well and is extremely configurable.
Also, if you take any of these pills and then drive your car into a telephone pole or across the median of a highway you could die. Also, if you don't take any of these pills and then drive your car into a telephone pole or across the median of a highway you could die. I think this is a classic case of "don't do that, stupid"
Slashdot tends to attract a lot of technophobic posters who cling to "conventional wisdom" and reject new technologies and research which is weird given that it originated as a technology discussion forum.
The most common response to an article like this is "nothing new can ever be done, eat less excercise more you fat jerk".
I wonder why there is no discussion of biotechnology and "futuristic" developments. For example, why are my fingers numb most of the time I'm in the office? Why do I have to bundle up in so many layers in the winter and still I'm miserable for half the year? I've got plenty of food available so where is the research that biologists and doctors ought to be doing on getting my body to turn that food into heat?
My motorcycle has a little knob on the side that I adjust ever spring and fall. When the weather gets cold I have to turn it up or the bike stalls whenever I release the throttle. When the weather gets warm I turn it back down because the bike burns more gas with it turned up.
So where's my little knob to adjust my own body's temperature regulation? I'm supposed to be warm blooded aren't I? Why should my body pack on pounds when I'm sitting in a 65 degree room feeling miserable and wishing I weren't so cold? And how about those muscles, why do they increase in strength so slowly as I lift weights regularly but lose strength so quickly?
It took several months of doing squats to increase my ability from 135 to 205 but then I got busy for two weeks and I lost practically all the gains I made over 3+ months. Where's the research into engineering the human body to make better use of the ample food supply? Why is it considered "normal" for my body to behave like a prehistoric cave man packing on every ounce of fat possible at the expense of comfort despite the fact that I haven't faced a lack of food or risk of starvation in 30+ years.
Why are so many Slashdot posters so eager to accept the status quo and think that the human body can never be improved and we're stuck with these prehistoric "verge of starvation" responses to caloric intake and expenditure.
You hardly need comments if you write clean HTML. Most of the complicated stuff that makes the web slow is the super convoluted javascript and flash garbage that is mostly intended to hamper users from accessing content. The sort of people/companies that produce these sites aren't really concerned about their vistors' convenience. They're interested in controlling and monitoring their visitors. I'm having trouble believing these people care much about how slow and miserable their sites are.
If you're one of these people I don't much care about your inconvenience in managing comments that help you manage your own convoluted nightmare.
Is Verizon really that lovable? I know all the iPhone haters are quick to point to AT&T as the worst cell phone carrier, but is there really so much love out there for Verizon?
For every AT&T phone I've had that supported bluetooth I've never had any trouble moving ringtones and pictures on and off the phone directly from my computer. I had heard that Verizon pretty much always disables features like that in order to force you to use their fee based options. I've never understood how someone who dislikes AT&T could have any love for Verizon.
I totally understand people rooting for the underdog, but loving Verizon and hating Sprint I just don't understand. Every time a new smartphone comes out it seems there's a huge clamor to use it on some carrier other than the one who's got an exclusive deal for the new phone.
Are there really any wireless carriers out there that are super awesome great companies who just unfortunately only offer crap phones?
M3U files have a trivially simple format, and were standard a long time before itunes came on the scene. What benefits does itunes XML file offer over and above this format?
Walking barefoot is a trivially simple means of transportation. What benefits does a Boeing 747 offer over and above this means of transportation?
An M3U file is a list of filenames and bears about as much resemblance to a media management database as a barefoot homeless person does to a skilled professional in a successful industry. Now I'm not suggesting that there's anything wrong with being barefoot and homeless, but you seem to be suggesting that everyone on the entire planet should abandon their jobs and all the modern conveniences and go live under a bridge.
Come to think of it, it make a sort of sense that a troll would want to see the entire world reduced to living under bridges.
On my playlist, I only have songs I rate at 5 stars.
You only have one playlist? That's the source of your confusion. Because your tastes are so simple you fail to comprehend people who are more complex. I have dozens of playlists. My tastes while at the gym are different than while running outdoors, driving, working all day, relaxing in the evening. I even have these things called "moods" that you might not be familiar with. People who actually have a personality may want to listen to a different sort of music right now than they did 24 hours ago even if they're in the exact same place.
My 5 star playlist has 191 songs in it and I'd be bored out of my head if I only listened to the same 191 songs day after day, month after month. That playlist is only 12.6 hours of music, I'd go through the whole thing every day if that was the only playlist I listened to.
Thank goodness for all the playlists I've created that let me select a genre and hear songs that I haven't played for at least a month.
I like my iPhone and I have 70+ apps installed but most of them are free apps that I'd live without if I had to pay for them. Only a dozen or so are paid apps that I actively tell people "you should get this, it's outstanding". I've paid for a couple of games but I would be really upset if I "accidentally" purchased something even if it's only a couple of dollars.
I hope Apple makes very sure that "micro-transactions" don't let developers try to keep slipping their fingers into my wallet quietly.
If we are to consider gambling as an addiction, are you also a proponent of allowing other kinds of addicts to go untreated?
Untreated? No. Un-"illegalized" yes. I can't think of any case where I'd approve of passing a law against an addiction. Laws against certain behaviours of addicts, yes, but not because the actions are performed by addicts. Murder, burglary, auto theft, bank robbery, all sorts of things should be illegal regardless of whether they are done because you're a pot head, a heroin fiend, a sociopath or an asshole.
I've got a simple way to deal with online gambling without banning it. Just put in place limits on the financial liability. If it's really "think of the children" then just make it like contracts. A minor can enter into a contract but the contract isn't enforceable, so who in their right mind would bother?
If the law makes it clear that an online casino can't collect from a minor then there's no motivation for them to try to get a minor hooked so the whole "think of the children" argument falls apart.
As for people over 18, screw 'em. If they want to dig their own grave then let them lie in it. I wish the government would get out of the business of protecting people from their own stupidity. It's a losing battle.
No, network effect is correct as described in that Wikipedia article. The more people that buy iPhones, the larger the target market for iPhone app developers. Using totally made up numbers which are probably totally wrong, consider the following decision.
Decision: You have limited time available to you and your skills will allow you to choose one of the following options. Which is most likely to be rewarding to you.
1) Develop a great application for one smartphone platform 2) Develop an "ok" application for two smartphone platform 3) Develop a mediocre application for three or more smartphone platforms and spend more time chasing platform specific bugs than core functionality and constantly having one or more versions outdated relative to the others.
Note that if you're a one in a million rock star programmer your answer will probably be different than if you're a 500,000 in a million "pretty good but not great programmer" with a family and social obligations.
The benefit to the user is the total number of useful applications. It makes no difference to the user if their applications are the product of a small effort from a rock star programmer or the 100% dedication of an "ok" programmer who only has enough time and skill to develop a single application for a single platform as long as that single platform is the one the user has.
Perhaps it failed to make money, but is making money the only definition of success? I watched the Sarah Connor Chronicles for and enjoyed it. It was well written and well acted. The production values were high and I think everyone associated with the show can be proud of their work.
I don't think the storyline was suited to a long running show. It would reach Gilligan's Island levels of absurdity to have them constantly trying to prevent an apocalypse that keeps getting delayed more and more. But as a snapshot of some additional events after the movies and leading up to the apocalypse it was well done. if you think that any show with only two seasons is a failure then I disagree with you, two seasons of TV is far more screen hours than any movie.
There are lots of web servers for the iPhone. Lots of audio recording applications use a web server to allow you to transfer recordings off the iPhone. I'd suspect there are other categories of applications that also provide a web server.
Not sure you'd want to us the iPhone as a general purpose web server though. That seems dumb.
Does society collapse when a hooker gets beaten up by a weirdo? Does society collapse when a bunch of Chinese girls get brought over in a shipping crate to work in a brothel? Does society collapse when a college girl's boyfriend tells her that if she wants to keep the coke coming she needs to turn a few tricks, and it will only be just once or twice?
I'm not sure about your Chinese girls in a shipping crate example, I think that's more of a customs issue than anything else. It shouldn't be permitted to ship human beings in a crate regardless of why you're doing it.
As for the hooker getting beat up by a weirdo, if prostitution is legal she would call the cops just like anybody else who got beaten up by a weirdo during the course of their job.
As for the college girl, if her coke was available for a reasonable price at the local pharmacy then it's just her choice whether she has sex for money or gets a job in the dining hall or the student center. If her boyfriend is pressuring her into prostitution she can certainly say no. If he uses force she could just call the cops. If she knows that her prostitution and coke use are perfectly legal why wouldn't she call the cops about her abusive boyfriend. Its the wars on drugs and prostitution that keep her more afraid of the cops than of her abusive boyfriend.
Of course it wouldn't be a bad idea to spend some tax money on offering free rehab clinics for people who want to quit using drugs (or indeed cigarettes or alcohol). You could pay for a heck of a lot of rehab clinics with the money saved by not running the police departments as paramilitary organizations engaged in a permanent war with heavily armed drug dealers.
I personally have no interest in using drugs. I don't like anything stronger than ibuprofen and I'll often just put up with a headache rather than taking a tylenol. But I don't like the government prohibiting people from voluntarily taking whatever drugs they wish. It's one thing if somebody slips something in your drink, then you should be able to press charges and have them thrown in jail. But if you put the pill in your own mouth or the needle in your own arm it's none of the government's damn business.
You've perfectly captured the reason why the current options for wireless IP cameras suck.
How much did you pay for this camera that forces you to run 104 bit WEP? Did you buy a dedicated wireless access point to support this camera or did you compromise the security on your pre-existing network? If you use the streaming video features, particularly if you stream it to a recording system as part of a security system that's sure to please anyone who is trying to capture enough frames to crack your 104 bit WEP.
And then, in addition to lots of weakly encrypted frames for curious wardrivers to chew on it forces you to run windows and IE while on or accessing your compromised network. Got to wonder if this camera was designed intentionally by the bad guys. Does it at least support https?
Wouldn't it be nice if government organizations would stop wasting money when the economy is a mess? Is there really so little real crime for them to deal with? Are all the victims so satisfied that this sheriff's department has completely solved their crimes? Exactly how many people does this sheriff's department have who aren't working on solving actual crimes with actual victims who have actually been harmed?
I've always been under the impression that the cops are constantly understaffed, but it looks like this particular sheriff's department has people with too much time on their hands.
I'm baffled by this comment. It seems to imply that the font is somehow intrinsic to the particular book rather than being configurable to use whatever fonts are installed on the device. My brain isn't capable of grasping idiocy of that level. I've known some stupid programmers but I just can't wrap my head around the idea of someone being so stupid as to create ebook software that doesn't allow the user to change the font.
I mean I could understand if the app was so bare bones that there was only one font and they just hadn't programmed any support for multiple fonts. That would be an understandable way of shipping a dirt cheap application. But to support a variety of fonts but not support switching between them . . . My brain just refuses to accept that someone that stupid is able to feed them self and go to the bathroom without assistance.
The problem there is that most modern jet craft move faster than your average office building.
Actually that depends on whether they're going east to west or west to east. Of course that's only considering the rotational speed of the Earth. If you also take into account the orbital velocity and the rotation of the Milky Way modern jet craft are moving at exactly the same velocity as your average office building, at least to any reasonable number of decimal places.
The only ebook reader program that I ever liked was "readthemall" for PalmOS. I saw a TV commercial for an iPhone ebook application with animated page turning as you slide your finger across the screen and I though it was the stupidest idea imaginable. Brains backwardly locked on an inappropriate old way of doing things.
The program "readthemall" would display one line new line at a time progressing down the screen and when it got to the bottom it would start overwriting old lines at the top. As long as the pace was reasonable your it would never change the part of the screen your eye was looking at and when your eye reached the bottom of the screen there would already be new lines at the top waiting for you.
The controls were up and down buttons. The down button incremented the lines/minute rate. The up button paused the display at the first press and decreased the lines/minute rate on subsequent presses. These two buttons allowed you to fine tune the rate. Once you got the right rate you could read for long periods of time without touching a button simply by scanning your eye from top to bottom of the screen over and over.
Any ebook reader where you have to take some action to "turn the page" is enormously inferior in my opinion. Turning the page is an outdated idea dictated by paper media.
Sorry I haven't been paying close enough attention. What did you say your senior project was? I assume it was a lot more impressive, but I just don't recall what you said it was.
You forgot to preface your comment with the phrase "around here" or "in my town".
The cheapest broadband available where I live is a bit over $50/month assuming you have cable TV. Without the cable TV service it's a bit more.
You also said "in addition to the cost of the landline phone". Are you assuming thes people don't have telephones? I can't remember a time when we didn't have a telephone. I'm pretty sure my parents had a telephone before I was born. But we never ever considered a dedicated phone line for the Internet.
I used the Internet or BBSs for at least 6-8 years without any "cost of the landline phone" in excess of what my parents paid for the black rotary dial device that we talked on. When I bought my own place I got one phone line and used that to talk on and connect to the Internet.
Eventually the cable company started offering Internet service and I subscribed, but you're much mistaken if you think that dialup Internet access has a mandatory "landline phone" cost.
Dialup Internet access can be had for very nearly zero cost.
Slashdot Mirror
So, you want the DD-WRT people to email you when a bug is discovered? Cisco would not email you either.. Neither does Microsoft, Adobe or... ANYONE.
Umm, what? Cisco emails me all the time about bugs. Granted, they email me about larger equipment. I don't have anything as small as a Linksys router associated with my CCO ID, but Cisco most certainly has the capability to send out notifications whenever there is a bug discovered in a piece of hardware or software they sell.
I don't deal with Microsoft or Adobe so I can't speak to them, but email notifications when bugs are found are hardly an uncommon idea. I can only conclude that your comment is based out of ignorance. You act like the idea of email notification of bugs is some exotic idea that could never happen when in fact it's day to day business as usual for lots of companies.
Why do they need to enter into an agreement with anybody to publish (in print or digitally) books in the public domain?
Because Amazon doesn't have the books and presumably the U of Michigan library doesn't want to be in the business of reproducing (either physically or electronically) the books that they have on their shelves.
Just because you happen to have a rare out of print book on shelf in your living room doesn't entitle me to come barging in your front door with my photocopier or scanner to make myself a copy, nor does it obligate you to hand out copies to everybody who walks by. However, we could enter into an agreement where you let me come into your living room at a convenient time and make a copy of your rare out of print book at my own expense. We could not legally enter into that agreement regarding the latest bestseller that you picked bought yesterday because copyright law prohibits me from copying it and you from inviting me in to copy it.
I've never used Google Apps, but I've used Gmail and it doesn't hold a candle to Outlook in terms of features. The ability to search all mail quickly is a great feature, but that's just one feature compared to dozens if not hundreds of features that Outlook has that Gmail lacks.
There is no free mail client that comes anywhere close to the configurability of Outlook. I use Outlook at work and Thunderbird at home and I'm constantly frustrated by the unconfigurable straitjacket of Thunderbird. I suppose the classic open source answer is that if Thunderbird doesn't do what I want I should shut up and code the features myself or write a mail client from scratch. The non-zealot answer is just to use Outlook because it works well and is extremely configurable.
Also, if you take any of these pills and then drive your car into a telephone pole or across the median of a highway you could die. Also, if you don't take any of these pills and then drive your car into a telephone pole or across the median of a highway you could die. I think this is a classic case of "don't do that, stupid"
Slashdot tends to attract a lot of technophobic posters who cling to "conventional wisdom" and reject new technologies and research which is weird given that it originated as a technology discussion forum.
The most common response to an article like this is "nothing new can ever be done, eat less excercise more you fat jerk".
I wonder why there is no discussion of biotechnology and "futuristic" developments. For example, why are my fingers numb most of the time I'm in the office? Why do I have to bundle up in so many layers in the winter and still I'm miserable for half the year? I've got plenty of food available so where is the research that biologists and doctors ought to be doing on getting my body to turn that food into heat?
My motorcycle has a little knob on the side that I adjust ever spring and fall. When the weather gets cold I have to turn it up or the bike stalls whenever I release the throttle. When the weather gets warm I turn it back down because the bike burns more gas with it turned up.
So where's my little knob to adjust my own body's temperature regulation? I'm supposed to be warm blooded aren't I? Why should my body pack on pounds when I'm sitting in a 65 degree room feeling miserable and wishing I weren't so cold? And how about those muscles, why do they increase in strength so slowly as I lift weights regularly but lose strength so quickly?
It took several months of doing squats to increase my ability from 135 to 205 but then I got busy for two weeks and I lost practically all the gains I made over 3+ months. Where's the research into engineering the human body to make better use of the ample food supply? Why is it considered "normal" for my body to behave like a prehistoric cave man packing on every ounce of fat possible at the expense of comfort despite the fact that I haven't faced a lack of food or risk of starvation in 30+ years.
Why are so many Slashdot posters so eager to accept the status quo and think that the human body can never be improved and we're stuck with these prehistoric "verge of starvation" responses to caloric intake and expenditure.
You hardly need comments if you write clean HTML. Most of the complicated stuff that makes the web slow is the super convoluted javascript and flash garbage that is mostly intended to hamper users from accessing content. The sort of people/companies that produce these sites aren't really concerned about their vistors' convenience. They're interested in controlling and monitoring their visitors. I'm having trouble believing these people care much about how slow and miserable their sites are.
If you're one of these people I don't much care about your inconvenience in managing comments that help you manage your own convoluted nightmare.
I don't have a USB stick handy but I just tried the VirtualBox image and it didn't work. The errors aren't very kid friendly. Kernel Panic.
jump onto Verizon's network
Is Verizon really that lovable? I know all the iPhone haters are quick to point to AT&T as the worst cell phone carrier, but is there really so much love out there for Verizon?
For every AT&T phone I've had that supported bluetooth I've never had any trouble moving ringtones and pictures on and off the phone directly from my computer. I had heard that Verizon pretty much always disables features like that in order to force you to use their fee based options. I've never understood how someone who dislikes AT&T could have any love for Verizon.
I totally understand people rooting for the underdog, but loving Verizon and hating Sprint I just don't understand. Every time a new smartphone comes out it seems there's a huge clamor to use it on some carrier other than the one who's got an exclusive deal for the new phone.
Are there really any wireless carriers out there that are super awesome great companies who just unfortunately only offer crap phones?
M3U files have a trivially simple format, and were standard a long time before itunes came on the scene. What benefits does itunes XML file offer over and above this format?
Walking barefoot is a trivially simple means of transportation. What benefits does a Boeing 747 offer over and above this means of transportation?
An M3U file is a list of filenames and bears about as much resemblance to a media management database as a barefoot homeless person does to a skilled professional in a successful industry. Now I'm not suggesting that there's anything wrong with being barefoot and homeless, but you seem to be suggesting that everyone on the entire planet should abandon their jobs and all the modern conveniences and go live under a bridge.
Come to think of it, it make a sort of sense that a troll would want to see the entire world reduced to living under bridges.
On my playlist, I only have songs I rate at 5 stars.
You only have one playlist? That's the source of your confusion. Because your tastes are so simple you fail to comprehend people who are more complex. I have dozens of playlists. My tastes while at the gym are different than while running outdoors, driving, working all day, relaxing in the evening. I even have these things called "moods" that you might not be familiar with. People who actually have a personality may want to listen to a different sort of music right now than they did 24 hours ago even if they're in the exact same place.
My 5 star playlist has 191 songs in it and I'd be bored out of my head if I only listened to the same 191 songs day after day, month after month. That playlist is only 12.6 hours of music, I'd go through the whole thing every day if that was the only playlist I listened to.
Thank goodness for all the playlists I've created that let me select a genre and hear songs that I haven't played for at least a month.
I like my iPhone and I have 70+ apps installed but most of them are free apps that I'd live without if I had to pay for them. Only a dozen or so are paid apps that I actively tell people "you should get this, it's outstanding". I've paid for a couple of games but I would be really upset if I "accidentally" purchased something even if it's only a couple of dollars.
I hope Apple makes very sure that "micro-transactions" don't let developers try to keep slipping their fingers into my wallet quietly.
If we are to consider gambling as an addiction, are you also a proponent of allowing other kinds of addicts to go untreated?
Untreated? No. Un-"illegalized" yes. I can't think of any case where I'd approve of passing a law against an addiction. Laws against certain behaviours of addicts, yes, but not because the actions are performed by addicts. Murder, burglary, auto theft, bank robbery, all sorts of things should be illegal regardless of whether they are done because you're a pot head, a heroin fiend, a sociopath or an asshole.
I've got a simple way to deal with online gambling without banning it. Just put in place limits on the financial liability. If it's really "think of the children" then just make it like contracts. A minor can enter into a contract but the contract isn't enforceable, so who in their right mind would bother?
If the law makes it clear that an online casino can't collect from a minor then there's no motivation for them to try to get a minor hooked so the whole "think of the children" argument falls apart.
As for people over 18, screw 'em. If they want to dig their own grave then let them lie in it. I wish the government would get out of the business of protecting people from their own stupidity. It's a losing battle.
No, network effect is correct as described in that Wikipedia article. The more people that buy iPhones, the larger the target market for iPhone app developers. Using totally made up numbers which are probably totally wrong, consider the following decision.
Market Share
iPhone: 50%
WinMo: 15%
Blackberry: 15%
Android: 10%
Palm: 5%
All others combined: 5%
Decision: You have limited time available to you and your skills will allow you to choose one of the following options. Which is most likely to be rewarding to you.
1) Develop a great application for one smartphone platform
2) Develop an "ok" application for two smartphone platform
3) Develop a mediocre application for three or more smartphone platforms and spend more time chasing platform specific bugs than core functionality and constantly having one or more versions outdated relative to the others.
Note that if you're a one in a million rock star programmer your answer will probably be different than if you're a 500,000 in a million "pretty good but not great programmer" with a family and social obligations.
The benefit to the user is the total number of useful applications. It makes no difference to the user if their applications are the product of a small effort from a rock star programmer or the 100% dedication of an "ok" programmer who only has enough time and skill to develop a single application for a single platform as long as that single platform is the one the user has.
Perhaps it failed to make money, but is making money the only definition of success? I watched the Sarah Connor Chronicles for and enjoyed it. It was well written and well acted. The production values were high and I think everyone associated with the show can be proud of their work.
I don't think the storyline was suited to a long running show. It would reach Gilligan's Island levels of absurdity to have them constantly trying to prevent an apocalypse that keeps getting delayed more and more. But as a snapshot of some additional events after the movies and leading up to the apocalypse it was well done. if you think that any show with only two seasons is a failure then I disagree with you, two seasons of TV is far more screen hours than any movie.
I think it was a successful show.
There are lots of web servers for the iPhone. Lots of audio recording applications use a web server to allow you to transfer recordings off the iPhone. I'd suspect there are other categories of applications that also provide a web server.
Not sure you'd want to us the iPhone as a general purpose web server though. That seems dumb.
Does society collapse when a hooker gets beaten up by a weirdo? Does society collapse when a bunch of Chinese girls get brought over in a shipping crate to work in a brothel? Does society collapse when a college girl's boyfriend tells her that if she wants to keep the coke coming she needs to turn a few tricks, and it will only be just once or twice?
I'm not sure about your Chinese girls in a shipping crate example, I think that's more of a customs issue than anything else. It shouldn't be permitted to ship human beings in a crate regardless of why you're doing it.
As for the hooker getting beat up by a weirdo, if prostitution is legal she would call the cops just like anybody else who got beaten up by a weirdo during the course of their job.
As for the college girl, if her coke was available for a reasonable price at the local pharmacy then it's just her choice whether she has sex for money or gets a job in the dining hall or the student center. If her boyfriend is pressuring her into prostitution she can certainly say no. If he uses force she could just call the cops. If she knows that her prostitution and coke use are perfectly legal why wouldn't she call the cops about her abusive boyfriend. Its the wars on drugs and prostitution that keep her more afraid of the cops than of her abusive boyfriend.
Of course it wouldn't be a bad idea to spend some tax money on offering free rehab clinics for people who want to quit using drugs (or indeed cigarettes or alcohol). You could pay for a heck of a lot of rehab clinics with the money saved by not running the police departments as paramilitary organizations engaged in a permanent war with heavily armed drug dealers.
I personally have no interest in using drugs. I don't like anything stronger than ibuprofen and I'll often just put up with a headache rather than taking a tylenol. But I don't like the government prohibiting people from voluntarily taking whatever drugs they wish. It's one thing if somebody slips something in your drink, then you should be able to press charges and have them thrown in jail. But if you put the pill in your own mouth or the needle in your own arm it's none of the government's damn business.
You've perfectly captured the reason why the current options for wireless IP cameras suck.
How much did you pay for this camera that forces you to run 104 bit WEP? Did you buy a dedicated wireless access point to support this camera or did you compromise the security on your pre-existing network? If you use the streaming video features, particularly if you stream it to a recording system as part of a security system that's sure to please anyone who is trying to capture enough frames to crack your 104 bit WEP.
And then, in addition to lots of weakly encrypted frames for curious wardrivers to chew on it forces you to run windows and IE while on or accessing your compromised network. Got to wonder if this camera was designed intentionally by the bad guys. Does it at least support https?
Wouldn't it be nice if government organizations would stop wasting money when the economy is a mess? Is there really so little real crime for them to deal with? Are all the victims so satisfied that this sheriff's department has completely solved their crimes? Exactly how many people does this sheriff's department have who aren't working on solving actual crimes with actual victims who have actually been harmed?
I've always been under the impression that the cops are constantly understaffed, but it looks like this particular sheriff's department has people with too much time on their hands.
I'm baffled by this comment. It seems to imply that the font is somehow intrinsic to the particular book rather than being configurable to use whatever fonts are installed on the device. My brain isn't capable of grasping idiocy of that level. I've known some stupid programmers but I just can't wrap my head around the idea of someone being so stupid as to create ebook software that doesn't allow the user to change the font.
I mean I could understand if the app was so bare bones that there was only one font and they just hadn't programmed any support for multiple fonts. That would be an understandable way of shipping a dirt cheap application. But to support a variety of fonts but not support switching between them . . . My brain just refuses to accept that someone that stupid is able to feed them self and go to the bathroom without assistance.
The problem there is that most modern jet craft move faster than your average office building.
Actually that depends on whether they're going east to west or west to east. Of course that's only considering the rotational speed of the Earth. If you also take into account the orbital velocity and the rotation of the Milky Way modern jet craft are moving at exactly the same velocity as your average office building, at least to any reasonable number of decimal places.
The only ebook reader program that I ever liked was "readthemall" for PalmOS. I saw a TV commercial for an iPhone ebook application with animated page turning as you slide your finger across the screen and I though it was the stupidest idea imaginable. Brains backwardly locked on an inappropriate old way of doing things.
The program "readthemall" would display one line new line at a time progressing down the screen and when it got to the bottom it would start overwriting old lines at the top. As long as the pace was reasonable your it would never change the part of the screen your eye was looking at and when your eye reached the bottom of the screen there would already be new lines at the top waiting for you.
The controls were up and down buttons. The down button incremented the lines/minute rate. The up button paused the display at the first press and decreased the lines/minute rate on subsequent presses. These two buttons allowed you to fine tune the rate. Once you got the right rate you could read for long periods of time without touching a button simply by scanning your eye from top to bottom of the screen over and over.
Any ebook reader where you have to take some action to "turn the page" is enormously inferior in my opinion. Turning the page is an outdated idea dictated by paper media.
Sorry I haven't been paying close enough attention. What did you say your senior project was? I assume it was a lot more impressive, but I just don't recall what you said it was.
Google seems to do all right for me:
Flipflop
AJAX
Maybe you just need to learn how to use it correctly.
You forgot to preface your comment with the phrase "around here" or "in my town".
The cheapest broadband available where I live is a bit over $50/month assuming you have cable TV. Without the cable TV service it's a bit more.
You also said "in addition to the cost of the landline phone". Are you assuming thes people don't have telephones? I can't remember a time when we didn't have a telephone. I'm pretty sure my parents had a telephone before I was born. But we never ever considered a dedicated phone line for the Internet.
I used the Internet or BBSs for at least 6-8 years without any "cost of the landline phone" in excess of what my parents paid for the black rotary dial device that we talked on. When I bought my own place I got one phone line and used that to talk on and connect to the Internet.
Eventually the cable company started offering Internet service and I subscribed, but you're much mistaken if you think that dialup Internet access has a mandatory "landline phone" cost.
Dialup Internet access can be had for very nearly zero cost.