You are thinking of forwarding services, like the new thing from Cingular. There are other devices that can tie your cell phone into the phone wiring of your home and allow you to use your regular old extensions as if you had a real land line. If those devices were more well known, I think they would really put a dent in the land-line market, ESPECIALLY if they also provided an external antenna to improve reception in the home.
I would just like to point out that the steel duties arose mainly out of illegal dumping of steel products into the US market by foreign countries whose steel industries are on government welfare. The US went to the WTO to get the situation remedied and were backhanded. The US steel industry demanded the import duties, and they got them.
Now the WTO has backhanded us again. I find it quite humorous that after having shoved globalization and the WTO down our throats for several decades, it has now bitten us in the ass.
And a note on US farm subsidies. They are fucked up beyond any comprehension of any sane individual. While they should be geared to support the individual family farmer, some 80% goes to agri-based mega corporations (ADM,Conagra, etc.)
One other note, Conagra is fucking evil and has designs on controlling the entire food supply.
The secrecy of ballots has already been broken. In some states (Arkansas for example) your ballot is numbered and the number of your ballot is recorded in a log book next to your name and DL#/SS#. Ostensibly this is to prevent vote fraud though it does little good, in my opinion.
These measures have already been challenged and upheld in state and federal courts. I would think that extending that to something of a truly useful nature, like an audit trail for electronic voting would be acceptable as well.
Why wouldn't it be possible to just modify ATM software to do voting and reporting instead of monetary transactions. They are already touchscreen/button operated. Many even have GUI's now. They are portable. They are already secure.
Voters could simply receive a voter card and voter pin, and use it just like an atm card/pin. You vote, it prints a receipt for you, and a log of the transaction inside of the machine. Transmission of the vote to some centralized/semi-centralized location is immediate. Current Talley inquiries can be instantaneous.
Why bother with reinventing the wheel when all of the elements already exist in a commodity form.
China blowing money on going to the moon for the purpose of mining is like someone on welfare blowing their checks on cigarettes to recover the trace amounts of minerals in the ashes after they smoke.
Will China buy all the previous work on the Russian moon program, or will this be a truly original venture on their part? Thus far, China's space program has been using Russian designs. The Chinese Shenzhou 5 is a modified Soyuz capsule.
I cannot help but feel like Russia is helping a great deal more behind the scenes than we realize. The Russians have the know how, and the Chinese have the resources. Both sides would love to see the American edge dulled.
Most people don't know it, but Microsoft is in a state of panic right now over console prices.
Developers *hate* working with the X-Box team at M'soft, and if coding for the X-Box was as difficult as coding for the PS2 developers would choose 1 console and stick with it.
Also watch as GameCube surprises everyone with their next console which will demolish Sony and Microsoft's benchmarks...
Another difference is that political candidates are required to DISCLOSE the sources of the contributions they receive.
I wouldn't have a problem with this if Symantec disclosed that its software may block one side in the name of bias of any political argument they see fit.
The answer of course is Vigilante Death Squads of mail admins, hell bent on literally snuffing out the sources of spam. Perhaps in a Kill Bill, Uma Thurman'esque fashion.
Two on-line, full-scale reactors have proceeded to full failure in the last 50 years. One killed hundreds of people. One did not. Care to guess which was massively regulated?
One was a known accident waiting to happen, and the other was a known safe, sound design which performed well in its worst case failure mode. Neither of which are at all related to the system in this story, beyond the fact that they are all nuclear reactors.
On a tangential argument, it wouldn't have mattered if Chernobyl had been regulated to death like American style facilities. The operators there willfully and stupidly disabled what safety features their system did posess while running some tests. Regulation and safety features are irrelevant if you have incompetent workers.
Additionally, TMI is a perfect case study for why nuclear power is safe when it is designed and managed intelligently. And when I say managed intelligently, I don't mean regulated into oblivion. I mean operated by smart people.
YES! We should point this out. Fossil Fuel energy production is by no means safe. Last summer in my area a buried 6ft-diameter gas line exploded in a field about 3 miles down the road. (Nobody is quite sure about the source of ignition, but there were structural failures in the pipe) Luckily it was an open field and the only casualties were a few trees, but it left a huge fucking hole in the ground. If the accident had occured under a residential neighborhood it would have certainly killed people.
And in the end, when it is your turn to die, you will. Whether it be by natural causes, accident, murder, whatever. No matter what you do, you will live no longer or shorter than you are suppossed to.
I suppose it could be true that an extraterrestrial society MAY be so advanced today that they consider it wasteful to transmit RF and have since shifted to IR, or that there is no point in communicating with lesser beings TODAY.
But consider than any signals we receive will most likely be millions/thousands of years old already, originating from a state of the sending civilization that predates the present. At one time they may have attempted in vain to communicate with extraterrestrial civilizations themselves, or used just RF technology that leaked into space. Just like we do/are now. Any civilization, advanced or not, becamed "advanced" through stages and time. I think it is amazingly shortsighted for people to overlook that fact.
There is utility in listening, even when there is no sound or noise.
I don't think it really matters much that PC hardware may, on average, offer slightly lower reliability than dedicated communications hardware. Whatever impact it might have on system reliability is neglibile in comparison to the problems the wireless networks have with reliability "just because." Would you really consider cellular service "reliable?" If so, I will just say that it is not the case everywhere. My cingular service is truly tragic.
If PC based systems can offer average reliability for a site at greatly lower cost than dedicated hardware, I say they should go for it. Maybe lower market entry costs will help foster competition.
Of course the United States would be concerned with "the safety of our people." That's what the government is for, not to mention that we apparently have to be concerned with the safety of everyone else judging by our role in police actions all over the world.
If the actions of another country are endangering my and my fellow Americans lives, of course I want the government to take care of the threat. Now in this case it might mean "degrading" Galileo's capabilities in whatever way best accomodates our safety. What else would you suggest we do? Allow Chinese cruise missles to retain dead on accuracy in a theoretical American-Chinese conflict?
Much has been said about this all relating back to this theoretical conflict between America and Chinese, and why we keep returning to it. Well the simple truth is that China is currently the only power on Earth that might rival American military ability at some point. Of course we have to consider the possibility of conflict with them at some point. If your Galileo system allows them to realize that threat more fully, don't think we will have a problem with taking care of it.
Most likely because if the US wanted your signal accuracy degraded and you did not comply, we would do it for you if we thought it was essential to the success of our mission or the safety of our people.
What if they launched reflective mylar bags (designed to decay at a known rate in orbital radiation levels) at the foreign satellites that would enclose them and prevent them from working properly. Would that be an act of war? The satellite is not destroyed, just temporarily disabled.
Additionally, since Galileo would be a joint venture, who would the act of war be commited against. All of the members in the consortium? I would think that would require a co-defense treaty or pact between the members. I highly doubt that will ever come about as long as NATO exists.
If the senior management had any sort of commitment to the company beyond the short term as they should, they would not jump ship in the face of rough times.
In addition, laying off 1000 people while simultaneously raising your own salary by or taking a bonus of an amount equal to or even half of what you saved by laying off the workers is just wrong, no matter how you look at it. If you need to save money to keep the company afloat, then layoffs are acceptable. But they are not acceptable when it is for the selfservice of the managers.
I think it is related to the problem with short term stock price driven goals among the management. They do everything they can to boost the stock price, so they can cash in their options and leave to find another company to rape.
It is true that there are legitimate business reasons for paying your management a reasonable salary to keep them on and out of competing companies. But there is absolutely no valid way anyone can reason for the fat and bloated pay checks many executives receive today. It is evidence of a lack of corporate governance from their boards of directors. CEO's have cart blanche to set their own salaries in many cases, so what would you do with that power...
"...it was an alarm that indicated that someone on board was using a cellphone. Maybe she was pulling my leg..."
Such alarms do exist, they are used extensively in hospitals where your phone really can foul things up. I have never heard of one on a plane though, but it makes sense that they might be installed if the airline feels that it is a great enough danger, either to safety or to the revenue of the evil seat phone.
Has anyone else noticed the marked militarization of the police in recent years? The police organizations are slowly trying to seperate themselves from "civilian" society into their own martialed code enforcement agencies. It's not even a covert effort anymore. I have been to some police training courses where they refer to US, everybody else, as civilians. The fucking police are civilians too, and they need to be reminded of that.
Additionally, the various police agencies are being infused with termininology like tactical assault, infiltration, war on drugs, war on terrorism, which are all just police actions. NOT military actions. And they go to training camps where they wear camoflage or black clothes, just like the real military. It gives them a feeling that they are seperate and maybe even a little superior to everyone else.
The government is forbidden to use the military for domestic law enforcement by Posse Comitatus, but it seems to me that they are doing all they can to convert civilian law enforcement into some pseudo-military security force. It really bothers me that there is a growing feeling of us and them in the police.
I don't have a problem with most individual police officers, but I do have a problem with the higher organization's policies that aim to seperate and militarize. If you think it all sounds crazy, go to a police training course or something, or just listen to a group of officers talk, or watch for police in army fatigues or their current favorite, the black tactical-ware (not kidding, some call it that).
Hmmm, I wonder if the sex of these alleged virgins is specified. Imagine the horror of the deceased when they discover that in fact their 70 virgins are all middle aged, overweight former tech support guys named Phil with body odor problems. Muahahahahaha!
Slashdot Mirror
You are thinking of forwarding services, like the new thing from Cingular. There are other devices that can tie your cell phone into the phone wiring of your home and allow you to use your regular old extensions as if you had a real land line. If those devices were more well known, I think they would really put a dent in the land-line market, ESPECIALLY if they also provided an external antenna to improve reception in the home.
You can compare compiled genome data on various viruses at the NIH Viral Genomes Resource
You can look at the genome lengths in basepairs and compare them.
I would just like to point out that the steel duties arose mainly out of illegal dumping of steel products into the US market by foreign countries whose steel industries are on government welfare. The US went to the WTO to get the situation remedied and were backhanded. The US steel industry demanded the import duties, and they got them.
Now the WTO has backhanded us again. I find it quite humorous that after having shoved globalization and the WTO down our throats for several decades, it has now bitten us in the ass.
And a note on US farm subsidies. They are fucked up beyond any comprehension of any sane individual. While they should be geared to support the individual family farmer, some 80% goes to agri-based mega corporations (ADM,Conagra, etc.)
One other note, Conagra is fucking evil and has designs on controlling the entire food supply.
The secrecy of ballots has already been broken. In some states (Arkansas for example) your ballot is numbered and the number of your ballot is recorded in a log book next to your name and DL#/SS#. Ostensibly this is to prevent vote fraud though it does little good, in my opinion.
These measures have already been challenged and upheld in state and federal courts. I would think that extending that to something of a truly useful nature, like an audit trail for electronic voting would be acceptable as well.
Why wouldn't it be possible to just modify ATM software to do voting and reporting instead of monetary transactions. They are already touchscreen/button operated. Many even have GUI's now. They are portable. They are already secure.
Voters could simply receive a voter card and voter pin, and use it just like an atm card/pin. You vote, it prints a receipt for you, and a log of the transaction inside of the machine. Transmission of the vote to some centralized/semi-centralized location is immediate. Current Talley inquiries can be instantaneous.
Why bother with reinventing the wheel when all of the elements already exist in a commodity form.
China blowing money on going to the moon for the purpose of mining is like someone on welfare blowing their checks on cigarettes to recover the trace amounts of minerals in the ashes after they smoke.
Will China buy all the previous work on the Russian moon program, or will this be a truly original venture on their part? Thus far, China's space program has been using Russian designs. The Chinese Shenzhou 5 is a modified Soyuz capsule.
I cannot help but feel like Russia is helping a great deal more behind the scenes than we realize. The Russians have the know how, and the Chinese have the resources. Both sides would love to see the American edge dulled.
Most people don't know it, but Microsoft is in a state of panic right now over console prices.
Developers *hate* working with the X-Box team at M'soft, and if coding for the X-Box was as difficult as coding for the PS2 developers would choose 1 console and stick with it.
Also watch as GameCube surprises everyone with their next console which will demolish Sony and Microsoft's benchmarks...
And you know all of this how? Sources please.
So what would happen on earth if an X40 solar flare directly impacted? I haven't seen anybody mention the effects of something so large.
Additionally, at what level should we throw our hands up in despair and declare the end is here?
Another difference is that political candidates are required to DISCLOSE the sources of the contributions they receive.
I wouldn't have a problem with this if Symantec disclosed that its software may block one side in the name of bias of any political argument they see fit.
The answer of course is Vigilante Death Squads of mail admins, hell bent on literally snuffing out the sources of spam. Perhaps in a Kill Bill, Uma Thurman'esque fashion.
Two on-line, full-scale reactors have proceeded to full failure in the last 50 years. One killed hundreds of people. One did not. Care to guess which was massively regulated?
One was a known accident waiting to happen, and the other was a known safe, sound design which performed well in its worst case failure mode. Neither of which are at all related to the system in this story, beyond the fact that they are all nuclear reactors.
On a tangential argument, it wouldn't have mattered if Chernobyl had been regulated to death like American style facilities. The operators there willfully and stupidly disabled what safety features their system did posess while running some tests. Regulation and safety features are irrelevant if you have incompetent workers.
Additionally, TMI is a perfect case study for why nuclear power is safe when it is designed and managed intelligently. And when I say managed intelligently, I don't mean regulated into oblivion. I mean operated by smart people.
YES! We should point this out. Fossil Fuel energy production is by no means safe. Last summer in my area a buried 6ft-diameter gas line exploded in a field about 3 miles down the road. (Nobody is quite sure about the source of ignition, but there were structural failures in the pipe) Luckily it was an open field and the only casualties were a few trees, but it left a huge fucking hole in the ground. If the accident had occured under a residential neighborhood it would have certainly killed people.
And in the end, when it is your turn to die, you will. Whether it be by natural causes, accident, murder, whatever. No matter what you do, you will live no longer or shorter than you are suppossed to.
I suppose it could be true that an extraterrestrial society MAY be so advanced today that they consider it wasteful to transmit RF and have since shifted to IR, or that there is no point in communicating with lesser beings TODAY.
But consider than any signals we receive will most likely be millions/thousands of years old already, originating from a state of the sending civilization that predates the present. At one time they may have attempted in vain to communicate with extraterrestrial civilizations themselves, or used just RF technology that leaked into space. Just like we do/are now. Any civilization, advanced or not, becamed "advanced" through stages and time. I think it is amazingly shortsighted for people to overlook that fact.
There is utility in listening, even when there is no sound or noise.
I don't think it really matters much that PC hardware may, on average, offer slightly lower reliability than dedicated communications hardware. Whatever impact it might have on system reliability is neglibile in comparison to the problems the wireless networks have with reliability "just because." Would you really consider cellular service "reliable?" If so, I will just say that it is not the case everywhere. My cingular service is truly tragic.
If PC based systems can offer average reliability for a site at greatly lower cost than dedicated hardware, I say they should go for it. Maybe lower market entry costs will help foster competition.
Of course the United States would be concerned with "the safety of our people." That's what the government is for, not to mention that we apparently have to be concerned with the safety of everyone else judging by our role in police actions all over the world.
If the actions of another country are endangering my and my fellow Americans lives, of course I want the government to take care of the threat. Now in this case it might mean "degrading" Galileo's capabilities in whatever way best accomodates our safety. What else would you suggest we do? Allow Chinese cruise missles to retain dead on accuracy in a theoretical American-Chinese conflict?
Much has been said about this all relating back to this theoretical conflict between America and Chinese, and why we keep returning to it. Well the simple truth is that China is currently the only power on Earth that might rival American military ability at some point. Of course we have to consider the possibility of conflict with them at some point. If your Galileo system allows them to realize that threat more fully, don't think we will have a problem with taking care of it.
Most likely because if the US wanted your signal accuracy degraded and you did not comply, we would do it for you if we thought it was essential to the success of our mission or the safety of our people.
What if they launched reflective mylar bags (designed to decay at a known rate in orbital radiation levels) at the foreign satellites that would enclose them and prevent them from working properly. Would that be an act of war? The satellite is not destroyed, just temporarily disabled.
Additionally, since Galileo would be a joint venture, who would the act of war be commited against. All of the members in the consortium? I would think that would require a co-defense treaty or pact between the members. I highly doubt that will ever come about as long as NATO exists.
If the senior management had any sort of commitment to the company beyond the short term as they should, they would not jump ship in the face of rough times.
In addition, laying off 1000 people while simultaneously raising your own salary by or taking a bonus of an amount equal to or even half of what you saved by laying off the workers is just wrong, no matter how you look at it. If you need to save money to keep the company afloat, then layoffs are acceptable. But they are not acceptable when it is for the selfservice of the managers.
I think it is related to the problem with short term stock price driven goals among the management. They do everything they can to boost the stock price, so they can cash in their options and leave to find another company to rape.
It is true that there are legitimate business reasons for paying your management a reasonable salary to keep them on and out of competing companies. But there is absolutely no valid way anyone can reason for the fat and bloated pay checks many executives receive today. It is evidence of a lack of corporate governance from their boards of directors. CEO's have cart blanche to set their own salaries in many cases, so what would you do with that power...
So, does that mean that my point to point wireless link is also a stationary bird death ray?
"...it was an alarm that indicated that someone on board was using a cellphone. Maybe she was pulling my leg..."
Such alarms do exist, they are used extensively in hospitals where your phone really can foul things up. I have never heard of one on a plane though, but it makes sense that they might be installed if the airline feels that it is a great enough danger, either to safety or to the revenue of the evil seat phone.
Has anyone else noticed the marked militarization of the police in recent years? The police organizations are slowly trying to seperate themselves from "civilian" society into their own martialed code enforcement agencies. It's not even a covert effort anymore. I have been to some police training courses where they refer to US, everybody else, as civilians. The fucking police are civilians too, and they need to be reminded of that.
Additionally, the various police agencies are being infused with termininology like tactical assault, infiltration, war on drugs, war on terrorism, which are all just police actions. NOT military actions. And they go to training camps where they wear camoflage or black clothes, just like the real military. It gives them a feeling that they are seperate and maybe even a little superior to everyone else.
The government is forbidden to use the military for domestic law enforcement by Posse Comitatus, but it seems to me that they are doing all they can to convert civilian law enforcement into some pseudo-military security force. It really bothers me that there is a growing feeling of us and them in the police.
I don't have a problem with most individual police officers, but I do have a problem with the higher organization's policies that aim to seperate and militarize. If you think it all sounds crazy, go to a police training course or something, or just listen to a group of officers talk, or watch for police in army fatigues or their current favorite, the black tactical-ware (not kidding, some call it that).
Hmmm, I wonder if the sex of these alleged virgins is specified. Imagine the horror of the deceased when they discover that in fact their 70 virgins are all middle aged, overweight former tech support guys named Phil with body odor problems. Muahahahahaha!
The phrases "This is do-able" and "..the goatse.cx guy in all his glory.." sit uneasily together in my mind...
I would imagine that the goatse.cx guy sits uneasily anywhere.