OK, so there are lot of very practical people here suggesting you should not go. Not surprising I suppose. It's a very logical conclusion.
I wanted to be a voice of encouragement for you and your group. I have participated in numerous mission trips. One such trip my church makes regularly is with a group called the Appalachia Service Project. Often these trips for us involve groups up to 50 people and end up costing as much as $10,000.
I've often been asked if it would have been smarter to just send a check for the $10K to the local department of social services, or some in-place mission group (someone here used the term "professionals"). The money might be more efficiently used that way; you might get more for your money--a "better deal." My reply to that way of thinking is, simply, what's a good price on changing someone's heart? In my way of thinking, while you go on the trip ostensibly to meet some physical needs of the people there, you end up meeting much more than that in the way of built relationships, emotional and spiritual needs. And you'll come away feeling like YOU were the one receiving the gifts, not giving them.
Now, the point is not that we go for our own benefit, please don't misread. We go truly out of a sense of responsibility to help our neighbors--for Christians, this is a duty. We don't go to convert anyone to Christianity (so, forget about that stereotype if you can). But I can tell you first hand that the people who go on trips like this--even if they go reluctantly--come back changed. And these people are more likely to do similar things in the future, or even make generous donations to the Red Cross when that is the best option.
My most practical advice for you is to bring everything you need to be 100% self-sufficient. Bring tents, sleeping bags, Colemen stoves and food. Bring tools (especially cordless drills, tape measures and circular saws), a generator if you can, and anything you would use to clean your apartment after a world class frat party:-) (seriously). Bring rubber gloves, boots and clothes you don't mind not ever wearing again.
Good luck, go with God.
I spent the weekend helping a friend remove various viruses and spyware from her (Windows) machine. A common theme in these is that they write values to the HKLM\Software\Micro$oft\Windows\Run or RunServices entries of the Registry.
Some of these even have background process that will restore their original entry to the registry if you try to delete it. (Of course, once you end the background process, you are able to modify the registry).
My question is: Why isn't writing to the Run or RunServices a restricted privilege? Like when my firewall software detects an unknown process trying to write to a port...a Registry Firewall could warn me about it and let me choose whether to allow such an action or not.
Think of the way air travel advanced. From the first flights measured in seconds aloft, to longer flights and even daring flights across oceans, air travel had a vision for cicumnavigating the globe. That vision came to pass because people saw it, and worked toward it.
Space exploration thus far has lacked any serious vision. The U.S.'s forays to the moon and back, while technologically admirable, were not viewed in the context of a larger vision, but only as singular achievements. If the pioneers of air travel had been so short-sighted, we'd still be flying short distances over land.
So, we got to earth orbit, made it to the moon, and no one had the vision to see what the next step would be. The next step, of course, is manned exploration of our own solar system, followed by exploration of other systems. Don't flame me--I know we don't know how to do this now. Neither could the Wright's conceive of flying out over the ocean to Europe.
Unfortunately, the U.S. space program is so ill conceived, that we launch a huge craft, incapable of achieving more than a low-earth orbit, and in doing so, chunks of debris fly off and we can't even explain why. This program has lacked meaning and purpose since 1969.
We should either have a complete vision (without time-dated milestones!) for space exploration, or spend the considerable greenbacks on other things.
i watched the video and i have to tell you that it doesn't look like 186 mph to me. the ball gets there in maybe.5 or.75 seconds, and it's traveling maybe 6 feet. i dunno, someone else can do the math, but the ball is not going anywhere near the speed they are claiming.
R U kidding me? Football causes real injuries and encourages agression, so it's worse than having kids play shooter games? Jeez.
Look, football is real. What you see on TV, what you do if you play it happens in reality. If you go and try to tackle the biggest guy on the field, well, your behavior is influenced by the consequences that may occur.
In a shooter game, the player suffers no consequences, and gets to enjoy the "thrill" if waxing as many opponents as possible. The problem for kids is that this is not real--there are no consequences. Some kids who play these games will act out what they do...even in small ways.
This seems to be because the games trigger the same physiological response as real-life danger situations, (adrenaline, etc.) without any real-life means for expelling it. There is no fight to "fight or flight" from. What's reinforced is that when you feel that adrenaline rush (next time maybe in real-life) that there are no consequences. Eventually, some people act out on that.
Goes without saying that its not the games' fault, and not everyone acts out. In moderation this probably isn't harmful. Problem is that some kids play without supervision or moderation.
You said he takes hundreds of thousands of pictures per year, and you're worried about scripting?
Presumably, he'd be looking for a way to store, catalog and retrieve these photos in the future. Seems to me that if I were building a custom system for a client and s/he had a requirement to store hundreds of thousands of new records every year--not to mention the fact that each "record" would be a 5+ gigapixel image, I'd be worried about how he'd find that one picture that he took for a customer 3 years ago in such database. Not to mention storage, performance, multi-user access among other things.
It doesn't seem like scripting is your biggest challenge here IMHO.
There once was a boy named Billy Who's friends all thought he was silly For spending his time writing line after line of code in hopes he'd make a milli--
There once was a man named Bill what he couldn't buy he would steal as his company grew he wound up in a stew yet somehow he maintained his zeal.
There once was a man named Gates Said he never made any mistakes Through security flaws and cheesy firewalls His Windows my machine overtakes.
First you should look up the definition of fascism and you'll find it cannot possibly be applied to America or Americans.
Secondly, I find it quite hypocritical that you pour your personal resources into your "nice neighborhood," while at the same time decrying poverty and suffering of the masses. Since you seem to have a heart for to see this suffering, you should become a peace corp worker, or better yet, an anglo-christian missionary.
Let's play this out. The U.N. takes over assigning TLDs, etc. How long would it be before someone at the U.N. (Kofi Annan) is accepting bribes, or he hires his son, or daugther, or the son of the guy who cuts the grass at the U.N. to oversee this. And then $$$ or euro's if you prefer start getting redirected to someone's personal account.
As a forum for international discussion, dialog and negotiation, the U.N. is a fine organization. The U.N. as a body is, though, not actually accountable to anyone. This is why the U.N. should not be thought of as a government, or even a meta-government (a government of governments). Any body that is not accountable to (as in, risks being voted out of office or power), eventually becomes corrupt.
How much money went to Sadaam Hussein in the oil for food program? How much was actually used for food? Little if any. How much money was skimmed off the top by people at the U.N.? A lot, but we can never know how much because these people neither represent my (or your) interests, nor are they accountable to me (or you)!
From a user's perspective, a site with links to pirated files is the same as a site with pirated files. If I say click here to download Star Wars RotS, it doesn't matter where the file is located...I've enabled piracy. Obviously that was this guys intention.
What if I create a web site called www.stolencreditcardnumbers.com, and using DHTML or PHP, list credit card numbers from some other source (a cracked bank site say, or someone who has a bunch of stolen numbers), shouldn't I face some kind of penalty for that.
This has nothing to do with "Your Rights Online," by the way. Stealing is a crime. Aiding someone in the commission of a crime is also a crime. Criminals should be caught, stopped and punished.
Let me first say I appreciate the honesty of your question. I am a Christian. It seems that there are some misconceptions that are peeking thru in your question. Let me talk to those first:
Judgement. The Bible is crystal-clear that we are not to be in judgement of others. Jesus tells this story of noticing a spec in your neighbors eye, while ignoring the log in your own. People who judge others to be (your words here) "heretic" "sinner" "unholy" are wrong to do so. That is not my judgement of them, it is what Jesus and others in the Bible teach. Yes, I know you can point to plenty of examples of Christians judging others. Even "famous" Christians. I'm simply saying they are wrong to do so.
The trick is we are to use good judgement in living our lives. But (and this is where many people slip up) putting someone else down is really just a way of trying to prop myself up. Its really that transparent when you think about it. If you want to understand this without reading the whole dag-gone Bible, read the book of James (about 5 pages in most Bibles).
So your question is how have I experienced God in my own life. In truth, my experience is much like yours: I experience the God-like in everyday things and experience. The Bible and religious teaching help me learn more about it, and to be more "in touch" with how I can experience God. And it helps me figure out how to live my life.
You didn't say, but I hope that in your life and experience, you have a place to turn to reach deeper understandings, to keep growing, and to figure out how to live. Even if you don't choose Christianity, I suggest the book of James to you as a place to start.
OK, so, taking you up on your suggestion: "show me what proof you have" for evolution.
Please be sure to explain interdependent systems (circulation, respiration, digestion, etc.) of complex creatures evolving thru incremental adaptations.
While you're at it, please explain how organisms evolved from asexual to sexual reproduction? What adaptation or mutation can explain splitting and recombining of DNA that we see in sexual reproduction?
Hey, if you can figure out how RNA became DNA, that would be great too.
Darwin looked at ecosystems and organisms and, in essence, realized they have many things in common. One explanation for this, his, is that all of these organisms evolved from a single source.
Another explanation for the commonality is that they were designed/created by the same Source. This is a reasonable and logical possibility.
No question that adaptation and natural selection are present in our world. Whether this explains *everything* in our world is really the crux of the question.
Now, here's where it gets interesting for those of you who contend that evolution has been "proven time and time again." Can you explain any of the following:
1. Just how did organisms go from asexual to sexual reproduction? For sexual reproduction you need two asexual creatures to mutate, one mutating as a male and the other as a female. You also need splitting and recombining of chromosomes, etc. To say that natural selection and mutation is responsible for this requires some plausible explanation. Any takers?
2. What about going from single-celled to multi-celled organisms? This raises similar questions. It might be easy to imagine that a single-celled creature evolved (thru mutation) to a multi-celled creature. But, then, can we really argue that, for example, respiration and circulation (independent, and, yet interdependent systems) evolved thru mutation? All of the systems of vertabrates are both independent and interdependent. This creates a bit of a problem for evolutionary theory that talks about incremental mutations. How is it that all vertabrates evolved digestive, endocrin, respiratory, circulatory, excretory, metabolic, nervous, etc. systems that are all interdependent on one another?
Alright, everyone take a deep breath here. The idea of a fingerprint to sign in at the gym is there as a customer convenience You don't have to carry a membership card into the place, and then find somewhere to stash it while you're exercising. This is actually a good thing.
And, as someone pointed out already, there is no security concern to be worried about. Even if someone copied their thumbprint database, I mean, what could you do with that? Nada...
Music is a communion that every should share? Really?
Dude, what do you do for a living? Whatever your answer (software developer, network engineer, burger flipper), the absurd thing would be for me to suggest that what you do is a communion that all should be able to share for free.
So, if you flip burgers for a living, I should be able to eat all the burgers I want for free. And so should everybody (call it McCommunion). So, then, you don't get paid for flipping 'em, the burger joint doesn't get paid for their trouble, but at least I'm fat and happy.
How much sense does that make?
Musicians, and, yes, people who work for record companies provide a service, a (flawed) distribution mechanism. It takes a great deal of talent to write music--it is a truly rare skill (compare this to whatever it is you do), and they deserve to be paid for it.
It is arrogant and naive of you to think that the *people* who write, perform and distribute music should do so for free.
Here's an idea: why don't you quit your burger flipping job and becoming a performing musician and do it for free. I'll come to all of your gigs. Really, I will.
Here's the thing kiddies: the music industry tried a solution to provide content with no DRM (it was called CDs). Some enterprising folks figured out how to rip CDs into digital audio. Then, "services" like Napster and Kazaa sprung up whereby the people who PAID FOR the CDs allowed others to copy the music for free.
So, all of you wanting a DRM-free world, the fact is you had one and you f---ed it up. Thanks a lot.
The current DRM restrictions on digital media aren't really that bad. If you don't like them, you can always buy CDs and rip them, like we used to do.
I for one, think that a buck a song is a bargain (I don't have to buy a whole album if I don't want to), and the DRM restrictions are not a limitation--especially if you consider the fact that under the DRM restrictions you can burn an audio CD, and, duh, once you have an audio CD, there are no more DRM restrictions. You can make archival back ups, etc. etc.
Unless what you really want is the old napster back where you get music for free and the people who produce it don't get paid.
I recently deposited a fairly large check at my bank. The check, the result of a cash-out refinance of my mortgage, was directly from another bank. I didn't have access to the funds for 5-7 business days. Obviously, this is in an effort to defeat fraud attempts.
So, wouldn't it stand to reason that any large transfers of funds (even electronic) would be followed up before they were made? I mean, even if the bank president authorized a $20M transfer, would there be some sort of mandatory, signature in blood, or phone call or something? Or a holding period?
I just can't believe that this type of transaction could be authorized electronically without some sort of personal verification. How many times is a $20M transfer of funds to a single individual account going to happen, even at the largest bank?
Gosh, maybe I should quit my IT job and try to become a bank president...in Switzerland or the Caymen Islands.
OK, so human activity (fossil involving fuels, principally) are to blame for so-called global warming. This leads to some interesting questions: What caused the end of the last ice age? Cavemen and campfires?
A Canadian economist a few years ago reviewed the data that the first guy (OK, I'm a little short on details) who postulated global warming. He (the economist) found there were errors in the data and the methodology, and when the errors were corrected, the warmest time on record was in the middle ages.
Finally, to say the global temperature is warming is a dramatic and ridiculous oversimplification of the facts. Unless you can compare every temperature from every day (or hour!) of the year, from a very large number of points on Earth to some historical baseline, how can one even suggest any kind of trend.
This continues to be JUNK SCIENCE of the highest (lowest?) order....and if anyone is experiencing global warming in their area, please turn on a fan and point it in the direction of the northeastern U.S. It's cold as hell here!
Slashdot Mirror
Firefox 8: "The Ocho"
An obvious question that no one has asked yet: What myths are you testing in the next season?
I wanted to be a voice of encouragement for you and your group. I have participated in numerous mission trips. One such trip my church makes regularly is with a group called the Appalachia Service Project. Often these trips for us involve groups up to 50 people and end up costing as much as $10,000.
I've often been asked if it would have been smarter to just send a check for the $10K to the local department of social services, or some in-place mission group (someone here used the term "professionals"). The money might be more efficiently used that way; you might get more for your money--a "better deal." My reply to that way of thinking is, simply, what's a good price on changing someone's heart? In my way of thinking, while you go on the trip ostensibly to meet some physical needs of the people there, you end up meeting much more than that in the way of built relationships, emotional and spiritual needs. And you'll come away feeling like YOU were the one receiving the gifts, not giving them.
Now, the point is not that we go for our own benefit, please don't misread. We go truly out of a sense of responsibility to help our neighbors--for Christians, this is a duty. We don't go to convert anyone to Christianity (so, forget about that stereotype if you can). But I can tell you first hand that the people who go on trips like this--even if they go reluctantly--come back changed. And these people are more likely to do similar things in the future, or even make generous donations to the Red Cross when that is the best option.
My most practical advice for you is to bring everything you need to be 100% self-sufficient. Bring tents, sleeping bags, Colemen stoves and food. Bring tools (especially cordless drills, tape measures and circular saws), a generator if you can, and anything you would use to clean your apartment after a world class frat party :-) (seriously). Bring rubber gloves, boots and clothes you don't mind not ever wearing again.
Good luck, go with God.
Interestingly, today the U.N. said that the Ozone hole is actually shrinking now, and should continue to do so.
I spent the weekend helping a friend remove various viruses and spyware from her (Windows) machine. A common theme in these is that they write values to the HKLM\Software\Micro$oft\Windows\Run or RunServices entries of the Registry.
Some of these even have background process that will restore their original entry to the registry if you try to delete it. (Of course, once you end the background process, you are able to modify the registry).
My question is: Why isn't writing to the Run or RunServices a restricted privilege? Like when my firewall software detects an unknown process trying to write to a port...a Registry Firewall could warn me about it and let me choose whether to allow such an action or not.
Think of the way air travel advanced. From the first flights measured in seconds aloft, to longer flights and even daring flights across oceans, air travel had a vision for cicumnavigating the globe. That vision came to pass because people saw it, and worked toward it.
Space exploration thus far has lacked any serious vision. The U.S.'s forays to the moon and back, while technologically admirable, were not viewed in the context of a larger vision, but only as singular achievements. If the pioneers of air travel had been so short-sighted, we'd still be flying short distances over land.
So, we got to earth orbit, made it to the moon, and no one had the vision to see what the next step would be. The next step, of course, is manned exploration of our own solar system, followed by exploration of other systems. Don't flame me--I know we don't know how to do this now. Neither could the Wright's conceive of flying out over the ocean to Europe.
Unfortunately, the U.S. space program is so ill conceived, that we launch a huge craft, incapable of achieving more than a low-earth orbit, and in doing so, chunks of debris fly off and we can't even explain why. This program has lacked meaning and purpose since 1969.
We should either have a complete vision (without time-dated milestones!) for space exploration, or spend the considerable greenbacks on other things.
i watched the video and i have to tell you that it doesn't look like 186 mph to me. the ball gets there in maybe .5 or .75 seconds, and it's traveling maybe 6 feet. i dunno, someone else can do the math, but the ball is not going anywhere near the speed they are claiming.
You suck.
Missed me.
Missed me.
Damn, you're slow.
R U kidding me? Football causes real injuries and encourages agression, so it's worse than having kids play shooter games? Jeez.
Look, football is real. What you see on TV, what you do if you play it happens in reality. If you go and try to tackle the biggest guy on the field, well, your behavior is influenced by the consequences that may occur.
In a shooter game, the player suffers no consequences, and gets to enjoy the "thrill" if waxing as many opponents as possible. The problem for kids is that this is not real--there are no consequences. Some kids who play these games will act out what they do...even in small ways.
This seems to be because the games trigger the same physiological response as real-life danger situations, (adrenaline, etc.) without any real-life means for expelling it. There is no fight to "fight or flight" from. What's reinforced is that when you feel that adrenaline rush (next time maybe in real-life) that there are no consequences. Eventually, some people act out on that.
Goes without saying that its not the games' fault, and not everyone acts out. In moderation this probably isn't harmful. Problem is that some kids play without supervision or moderation.
You said he takes hundreds of thousands of pictures per year, and you're worried about scripting?
Presumably, he'd be looking for a way to store, catalog and retrieve these photos in the future. Seems to me that if I were building a custom system for a client and s/he had a requirement to store hundreds of thousands of new records every year--not to mention the fact that each "record" would be a 5+ gigapixel image, I'd be worried about how he'd find that one picture that he took for a customer 3 years ago in such database. Not to mention storage, performance, multi-user access among other things.
It doesn't seem like scripting is your biggest challenge here IMHO.
There once was a boy named Billy
Who's friends all thought he was silly
For spending his time
writing line after line
of code in hopes he'd make a milli--
There once was a man named Bill
what he couldn't buy he would steal
as his company grew
he wound up in a stew
yet somehow he maintained his zeal.
There once was a man named Gates
Said he never made any mistakes
Through security flaws and cheesy firewalls
His Windows my machine overtakes.
First you should look up the definition of fascism and you'll find it cannot possibly be applied to America or Americans.
Secondly, I find it quite hypocritical that you pour your personal resources into your "nice neighborhood," while at the same time decrying poverty and suffering of the masses. Since you seem to have a heart for to see this suffering, you should become a peace corp worker, or better yet, an anglo-christian missionary.
Let's play this out. The U.N. takes over assigning TLDs, etc. How long would it be before someone at the U.N. (Kofi Annan) is accepting bribes, or he hires his son, or daugther, or the son of the guy who cuts the grass at the U.N. to oversee this. And then $$$ or euro's if you prefer start getting redirected to someone's personal account.
As a forum for international discussion, dialog and negotiation, the U.N. is a fine organization. The U.N. as a body is, though, not actually accountable to anyone. This is why the U.N. should not be thought of as a government, or even a meta-government (a government of governments). Any body that is not accountable to (as in, risks being voted out of office or power), eventually becomes corrupt.
How much money went to Sadaam Hussein in the oil for food program? How much was actually used for food? Little if any. How much money was skimmed off the top by people at the U.N.? A lot, but we can never know how much because these people neither represent my (or your) interests, nor are they accountable to me (or you)!
From a user's perspective, a site with links to pirated files is the same as a site with pirated files. If I say click here to download Star Wars RotS, it doesn't matter where the file is located...I've enabled piracy. Obviously that was this guys intention.
What if I create a web site called www.stolencreditcardnumbers.com, and using DHTML or PHP, list credit card numbers from some other source (a cracked bank site say, or someone who has a bunch of stolen numbers), shouldn't I face some kind of penalty for that.
This has nothing to do with "Your Rights Online," by the way. Stealing is a crime. Aiding someone in the commission of a crime is also a crime. Criminals should be caught, stopped and punished.
You mean, unless I pay, I'll miss out on the NYT's insightful *cough* balanced *cough cough* and savvy *a-a-a-achoo* editorials? Makes me feel sick...
"Trust me, honey, you'll actually be smarter when you're lying down."
Let me first say I appreciate the honesty of your question. I am a Christian. It seems that there are some misconceptions that are peeking thru in your question. Let me talk to those first:
Judgement. The Bible is crystal-clear that we are not to be in judgement of others. Jesus tells this story of noticing a spec in your neighbors eye, while ignoring the log in your own. People who judge others to be (your words here) "heretic" "sinner" "unholy" are wrong to do so. That is not my judgement of them, it is what Jesus and others in the Bible teach. Yes, I know you can point to plenty of examples of Christians judging others. Even "famous" Christians. I'm simply saying they are wrong to do so.
The trick is we are to use good judgement in living our lives. But (and this is where many people slip up) putting someone else down is really just a way of trying to prop myself up. Its really that transparent when you think about it. If you want to understand this without reading the whole dag-gone Bible, read the book of James (about 5 pages in most Bibles).
So your question is how have I experienced God in my own life. In truth, my experience is much like yours: I experience the God-like in everyday things and experience. The Bible and religious teaching help me learn more about it, and to be more "in touch" with how I can experience God. And it helps me figure out how to live my life.
You didn't say, but I hope that in your life and experience, you have a place to turn to reach deeper understandings, to keep growing, and to figure out how to live. Even if you don't choose Christianity, I suggest the book of James to you as a place to start.
OK, so, taking you up on your suggestion: "show me what proof you have" for evolution.
Please be sure to explain interdependent systems (circulation, respiration, digestion, etc.) of complex creatures evolving thru incremental adaptations.
While you're at it, please explain how organisms evolved from asexual to sexual reproduction? What adaptation or mutation can explain splitting and recombining of DNA that we see in sexual reproduction?
Hey, if you can figure out how RNA became DNA, that would be great too.
Thanks for playing...
Darwin looked at ecosystems and organisms and, in essence, realized they have many things in common. One explanation for this, his, is that all of these organisms evolved from a single source.
Another explanation for the commonality is that they were designed/created by the same Source. This is a reasonable and logical possibility.
No question that adaptation and natural selection are present in our world. Whether this explains *everything* in our world is really the crux of the question.
Now, here's where it gets interesting for those of you who contend that evolution has been "proven time and time again." Can you explain any of the following:
1. Just how did organisms go from asexual to sexual reproduction? For sexual reproduction you need two asexual creatures to mutate, one mutating as a male and the other as a female. You also need splitting and recombining of chromosomes, etc. To say that natural selection and mutation is responsible for this requires some plausible explanation. Any takers?
2. What about going from single-celled to multi-celled organisms? This raises similar questions. It might be easy to imagine that a single-celled creature evolved (thru mutation) to a multi-celled creature. But, then, can we really argue that, for example, respiration and circulation (independent, and, yet interdependent systems) evolved thru mutation? All of the systems of vertabrates are both independent and interdependent. This creates a bit of a problem for evolutionary theory that talks about incremental mutations. How is it that all vertabrates evolved digestive, endocrin, respiratory, circulatory, excretory, metabolic, nervous, etc. systems that are all interdependent on one another?
Alright, everyone take a deep breath here. The idea of a fingerprint to sign in at the gym is there as a customer convenience You don't have to carry a membership card into the place, and then find somewhere to stash it while you're exercising. This is actually a good thing.
And, as someone pointed out already, there is no security concern to be worried about. Even if someone copied their thumbprint database, I mean, what could you do with that? Nada...
So in the gushy article, they don't even mention a website, or what any of their "products" will/would/could do.
Music is a communion that every should share? Really?
Dude, what do you do for a living? Whatever your answer (software developer, network engineer, burger flipper), the absurd thing would be for me to suggest that what you do is a communion that all should be able to share for free.
So, if you flip burgers for a living, I should be able to eat all the burgers I want for free. And so should everybody (call it McCommunion). So, then, you don't get paid for flipping 'em, the burger joint doesn't get paid for their trouble, but at least I'm fat and happy.
How much sense does that make?
Musicians, and, yes, people who work for record companies provide a service, a (flawed) distribution mechanism. It takes a great deal of talent to write music--it is a truly rare skill (compare this to whatever it is you do), and they deserve to be paid for it.
It is arrogant and naive of you to think that the *people* who write, perform and distribute music should do so for free.
Here's an idea: why don't you quit your burger flipping job and becoming a performing musician and do it for free. I'll come to all of your gigs. Really, I will.
Rock on...
Here's the thing kiddies: the music industry tried a solution to provide content with no DRM (it was called CDs). Some enterprising folks figured out how to rip CDs into digital audio. Then, "services" like Napster and Kazaa sprung up whereby the people who PAID FOR the CDs allowed others to copy the music for free.
So, all of you wanting a DRM-free world, the fact is you had one and you f---ed it up. Thanks a lot.
The current DRM restrictions on digital media aren't really that bad. If you don't like them, you can always buy CDs and rip them, like we used to do.
I for one, think that a buck a song is a bargain (I don't have to buy a whole album if I don't want to), and the DRM restrictions are not a limitation--especially if you consider the fact that under the DRM restrictions you can burn an audio CD, and, duh, once you have an audio CD, there are no more DRM restrictions. You can make archival back ups, etc. etc.
Unless what you really want is the old napster back where you get music for free and the people who produce it don't get paid.
I recently deposited a fairly large check at my bank. The check, the result of a cash-out refinance of my mortgage, was directly from another bank. I didn't have access to the funds for 5-7 business days. Obviously, this is in an effort to defeat fraud attempts.
So, wouldn't it stand to reason that any large transfers of funds (even electronic) would be followed up before they were made? I mean, even if the bank president authorized a $20M transfer, would there be some sort of mandatory, signature in blood, or phone call or something? Or a holding period?
I just can't believe that this type of transaction could be authorized electronically without some sort of personal verification. How many times is a $20M transfer of funds to a single individual account going to happen, even at the largest bank?
Gosh, maybe I should quit my IT job and try to become a bank president...in Switzerland or the Caymen Islands.
OK, so human activity (fossil involving fuels, principally) are to blame for so-called global warming. This leads to some interesting questions:
...and if anyone is experiencing global warming in their area, please turn on a fan and point it in the direction of the northeastern U.S. It's cold as hell here!
What caused the end of the last ice age? Cavemen and campfires?
A Canadian economist a few years ago reviewed the data that the first guy (OK, I'm a little short on details) who postulated global warming. He (the economist) found there were errors in the data and the methodology, and when the errors were corrected, the warmest time on record was in the middle ages.
Finally, to say the global temperature is warming is a dramatic and ridiculous oversimplification of the facts. Unless you can compare every temperature from every day (or hour!) of the year, from a very large number of points on Earth to some historical baseline, how can one even suggest any kind of trend.
This continues to be JUNK SCIENCE of the highest (lowest?) order.