History lesson time. Pinkerton started as a protective service for stage coaches and trains as well as private detectives. If I remember, Pinkertons tracked the James brothers (Frank and Jesse). As time went along they were used by factory owners to break up strikes (hired thugs essentially).
Over time they have evolved into a large security corporation (Burns being another example) who supply security guards for whoever wants them. They don't have the bad name anymore (aside from those attached to the private security industry in general) mainly because what is past is past... and most people don't remember that kind of thing past the amount of time it takes to pass the history test.
Go here for a short (and biased; it is the company websight after all) history.
All right. There be spoilers ahead! But anyhow. I loved the Sixth Sense. Great movie. But I figured out he was dead in the first twenty minutes. My girlfriend will never forgive me either. Turned to her and said "Hey, he's dead." I will admit that it was one of the few movies to scare me.
American Beauty was good too except for one problem. Why are the suburbs always depicted as some seething pit of insanity with just a thin crust of normalcy? The implication that if you live in the suburbs then you must be some kind of repressive nutcase or crazed homophobe/secret homosexual just strikes me as a bit simple bordering on insulting. Still a good movie if you take it as a allegory and not a depiction of actually life.
Hello! Genius! They were wearing Level IIIA body armor from head to toe! They were actually shot several times by the police but the bullets didn't penetrate.
When you're using hollow points designed to drop suspects from blood loss quickly from expansion and you shoot body armor that stops bullets by spreading out the energy, a bullet that expands rapidly over a wide area is going to have little to no effect (aside from some sore ribs). That's why the police needed bigger weapons. So the bullets would penetrate Kevlar. It had nothing to do with range and everything to do with the types and calibers of bullets. Remember, a 9mm is actually a rather low powered round.
This kind of thing is done on purpose. The Japanese don't let us have these things until they have been in use there for several years and we are behind the curve, so to speak (and as it's their products that's their right). It's one way to keep American industry behind Japanese and was done really bad back when Japan had their economy ramped way up.
Ex: Toyota has a car that has a electric/gas hybrid engine called the Prius that gets something like 70mpg in town. This vehicle has been available in Japan for at least five years. It gets released next year in the United States. Honda is releasing the Insight which has the same tech as the Prius this year. Go here and enter a search for the Prius for information about it.Go here for information on the Insight.
In summary... this is nothing new and will continue as long as the Japanese feel that we need to be kept behind them in these things. Nothing evil about it. Just business.
I'll chime in with my say here. I too recieved the letter saying that my free copy was available. No mention of the fact that it was a link for the Glassbook till I reached it.
I made the comment on the story about this a week or so ago that Barnes and Nobles and Amazon couldn't possibly be doing this just to milk a few bucks out of their customers. I now stand corrected. I'm going to start using my old neighborhood book store again and I encourage others to do the same. If it costs a extra buck here and there, screw it. I'll live with it. The above comment is correct. These sights have basically lowered themselves to the level of bad porn sights. They don't deserve my business and they won't be getting it anymore.
Here's a dirt simple way to save old spreadsheet programs. Paper. Write them down and save them in a secure spot. Works for Word docs too. As for the pictures why not have them printed out? Frankly though I'm at a loss to how to save the MP3's.
Re:what i dont understand, please enlighten me
on
Geographic Screening
·
· Score: 1
Amen! I was asking myself the same question. While I may reside in America and be subject to the laws the Congress passes how does a Canadian company get threatened by an American law? It makes no sense. Notice of course I didn't say my Congress because I don't own a major corporation and/or am a part of a "public" interest group.
What color is paranoid anyway? But yes, you're paranoid. If you want it then enter your e-mail address and have them send it to you. If they don't then don't buy it. How fricking hard is that? And do you really think that B&N, Amazon, and/or Softlock are that hard up for $2.50 as to pull a stunt like that? It's the simple fact that it's free, the free offer was posted on several major websites and now their servers are getting slammed with people trying to get a copy. Occam's Razor.
Close but no cigar. The Hacker Crackdown was printed and then put online. You have to pay for the printed version but you can download the online version for free. This isn't the same thing. This was written and published entirely online. You can't get it in printed format at this time. The only thing that I can think that comes close is Gibson's poem Agrippa that he had distrubited on disk.
Alright. So replying to AC's is about as useful as yelling at the wall when the cat makes me mad but...
Yes, the movie was entertaining. If you've never read the book that is or if decent acting isn't too high up on your list of things to expect from a good movie. Let's start with the most glaring example.
The weirding devices. Cheesy. Really cheesy. The Fremen didn't need some little box with a handle to be badasses... they already where! Remember the book "We lost two of our men for three platoons of theirs. Seems a fair trade." (refering to fighting Sadakkar [I know I mispelled that]) The Fremen as a rule were ruthless and tough. You're telling me some offworld kid shows up, teaches them to shout oddly whilst holding a box and suddenly they can't be beat? Paul was needed to be their leader not show them how to fight. They could already do that. Never mind that the whole point of the weirding way was that humans could do it only their bodies (remember the jihad they talk about that removed computing machines?). It's a pretty cheap cop out to assume your audience won't figure it out without some techno gimmick to explain it.
And what was up with Paul's sister in the movie? She looked like a evil muppet or something and the voice sounded like they gave that little girl some helium and asked her to talk even higher.
Let's not even get too deep into the stillsuits. Never mind that leaving your whole freaking head exposed is a quick way to get sunstroke on a Earth desert much less a planet that is entirely desert. Also the fact that you do loose a large amount of sweat through your mouth. Or how about wearing all black out in the blazing sun(s)? If they were that worried about not being able to tell who was who how about some marks on the suits? It wouldn't have been that hard.
Let's be honest. The first twenty minutes or so were decent and then it came to a screeching grinding halt. If you show that much contempt for the material that it comes from where you don't even really try to show the novel correctly then you probably shouldn't be making a movie about it (like Star Ship Troopers but that's a whole other post). The movie wasn't a visual feast by any stretch of the word. It showed nothing really new from sci-fi and nothing sticks with me from the movie (aside the giant worms and they weren't even that hot).
I hope that the mini-series is better. Judging by the shots it will at least look better but I'm hoping for it to stick to the story. Maybe I wish too much.
Noooo. Read the page (and your own post). Micahj@io.com has only identified the source of the ciphertext. This is like knowing what the message was encoded in not what the text says. Pay more attention.
I can just see some bored NSA math prodigy now. "God, it's a boring day. Hey, what's this on Salon? Well hell, that supercomputer isn't doing much right now and I could use $2500 bucks...,"
Uhhh, no offense but what do you mean no magic in the Conan movies (or Ladyhawke for that matter)? Wasn't James Earl Jones character some evil magacian in the first one? And that Chinese guy in Conan the Destroyer was a magacian also. As for Ladyhawke the whole movie was based on the spell that turned them into a hawk and a wolf during different parts of the day. And I agree... they were decent movies. I hope that this lives up to the hype.
Finally! Yes it's a huge double standard. It's right up there with people saying that they want Microsoft to die and then saying that they don't want Linux to go mainstream. It comes from the urge that you want to be protected but you would rather not have the same protections for the people you don't agree with.
Analogy: Actors who want to abolish the ownership of guns (Rosie O'Donnel leaps to mind) but have armed body guards. End Analogy
It is not a bad thing for corporations to protect there brand names from dilution. Yes, there should be some kind of protection from completly idiotic law suits (say a guy named Slim getting a domain name and then being sued by the makers of Slim Jim Snacks). Remember if you're a company you have put time and effort into designing a product and getting the name recognized. Now how are you going to feel if you can't get a domain name because someone has taken it and is using it for: 1] Nothing (squatters) 2] Bashing you or you're product (imagine Microsoft getting Linux domain names and then using it to trash Linux or just re-direct to their sights) 3] Putting up something that has not relevance to your product and confusing the market you're trying to reach
Now maybe you see why companies are a little prickly about they're names just getting snapped up with out some kind of protection.
As usual Sterling has some rather interesting things to say. And as usual some people are taking this as him saying that this is what the future will be. Heinlein once said that it does not pay a prophet to be too specific. When someone does something like this it is more along the lines of "Think about these things and where they are going." This probably won't be the future any more then the 90's were any more like the old pulps but it does make you ask "What is my future (and my children's) and what do I want to do with it?"
Check out his Viridian movement (sorry don't have a link right now; if someone could give it I would be appreciative) and see what it has to say. We do have the world in a grip that is on course to cause some rather interesting consequences. And don't forget the old saying "May you live in interesting times" was a curse.
Hey you're right! Let's have them spend it on some more "meteors" to bombard Mars with because their budget was cut too far back to include redundant systems! Or we can fund the Space Shuttle to put more comsats into orbit so we can broadcast Ishtar to Puerto Rico 24/7! Face it. Space travel and exploration is expensive if you want to do it right.
Same in the private sector but what I'm asking is is this even legal? My impression of what I've heard of the original intent was the SSN was to be used for Social Security benefits and the taxes associated with them and that's it. What does buying a cell phone or getting a home loan have to do with my Social Security benefits and taxes?
Call the phone company. Some areas have a service that if a person calls with blocked caller id it won't even ring your phone. It'll give them a message along the lines of "This person doesn't accept blocked calls."
Which does bring up something I've been wondering about. Back in the sixties when Social Security was enacted and numbers given out to everyone it was told to people (and enacted as law if I remember) that these were not personal ID numbers and that the only thing they could be used for was your SS benefits. Supposedly any use other then that was illegal. So how in the world did the Social Security number become the ID number for everything? If anyone knows pass it on.
This is a no brainer people. Buying a sledghammer is not illegal. Taking it into your back yard and driving posts with it is not illegal. However if you go to your neighbors house and bash his door in to steal his television then you are now using a burgulary tool. If you try and kill someone with it then the sledghammer becomes a deadly weapon. The whole point of the matter is context.
Another point to consider is often as many charges as possible are filed knowing that the defense lawyer will bargain and have some of them removed and then plea to some of the lesser charges. Don't think that this hasn't been thought out well in advance by the DA.
They'll get real experts when they decide to pay for them. Have you bothered to check and see what the pay for government service is these days? It's terrible. My state (Oklahoma) has a problem where they hire IT people fresh out of school and then a year later (after they have something to put on the resume) they leave to private industry to make some decent money. It's not limited to just IT but it is the most blatant example here.
The experts they do have are usually trying to get some project of there's funded and will say anything to get the funding. If they want good advice they'll have to shell out for it... just like everyone else.
Alright. Normally I like to read Katz's articles. As a rule even if I don't agree they make me think a little. But this one falls under the category of Huh?. Did I miss something?
Of course people like to hold paper in there hands and look at it. This is how most of us grew up getting information. Maybe the children being born today will be more used to a monitor and want there information that way. However, the vast majority of people that buy online right now want to be able to browse through there buying decision without being tied to the computer.
Just because the dot.coms and others are using paper catalogs now doesn't mean that everything won't finally go all electronic. Even paper will have interactive abilities eventually. This is all just a transition period not some Middle Media thing.
Slashdot Mirror
History lesson time. Pinkerton started as a protective service for stage coaches and trains as well as private detectives. If I remember, Pinkertons tracked the James brothers (Frank and Jesse). As time went along they were used by factory owners to break up strikes (hired thugs essentially).
Over time they have evolved into a large security corporation (Burns being another example) who supply security guards for whoever wants them. They don't have the bad name anymore (aside from those attached to the private security industry in general) mainly because what is past is past... and most people don't remember that kind of thing past the amount of time it takes to pass the history test.
Go here for a short (and biased; it is the company websight after all) history.
LINKS! GIVE A LINK FOR THAT LAST REMARK!
All right. There be spoilers ahead! But anyhow. I loved the Sixth Sense. Great movie. But I figured out he was dead in the first twenty minutes. My girlfriend will never forgive me either. Turned to her and said "Hey, he's dead." I will admit that it was one of the few movies to scare me.
American Beauty was good too except for one problem. Why are the suburbs always depicted as some seething pit of insanity with just a thin crust of normalcy? The implication that if you live in the suburbs then you must be some kind of repressive nutcase or crazed homophobe/secret homosexual just strikes me as a bit simple bordering on insulting. Still a good movie if you take it as a allegory and not a depiction of actually life.
Hello! Genius! They were wearing Level IIIA body armor from head to toe! They were actually shot several times by the police but the bullets didn't penetrate.
When you're using hollow points designed to drop suspects from blood loss quickly from expansion and you shoot body armor that stops bullets by spreading out the energy, a bullet that expands rapidly over a wide area is going to have little to no effect (aside from some sore ribs). That's why the police needed bigger weapons. So the bullets would penetrate Kevlar. It had nothing to do with range and everything to do with the types and calibers of bullets. Remember, a 9mm is actually a rather low powered round.
This kind of thing is done on purpose. The Japanese don't let us have these things until they have been in use there for several years and we are behind the curve, so to speak (and as it's their products that's their right). It's one way to keep American industry behind Japanese and was done really bad back when Japan had their economy ramped way up.
Ex: Toyota has a car that has a electric/gas hybrid engine called the Prius that gets something like 70mpg in town. This vehicle has been available in Japan for at least five years. It gets released next year in the United States. Honda is releasing the Insight which has the same tech as the Prius this year. Go here and enter a search for the Prius for information about it.Go here for information on the Insight.
In summary... this is nothing new and will continue as long as the Japanese feel that we need to be kept behind them in these things. Nothing evil about it. Just business.
I'll chime in with my say here. I too recieved the letter saying that my free copy was available. No mention of the fact that it was a link for the Glassbook till I reached it.
I made the comment on the story about this a week or so ago that Barnes and Nobles and Amazon couldn't possibly be doing this just to milk a few bucks out of their customers. I now stand corrected. I'm going to start using my old neighborhood book store again and I encourage others to do the same. If it costs a extra buck here and there, screw it. I'll live with it. The above comment is correct. These sights have basically lowered themselves to the level of bad porn sights. They don't deserve my business and they won't be getting it anymore.
For those of you who might not want to go to the NYTimes, having troubles getting on or want more on the story try this link here.
Here's a dirt simple way to save old spreadsheet programs. Paper. Write them down and save them in a secure spot. Works for Word docs too. As for the pictures why not have them printed out? Frankly though I'm at a loss to how to save the MP3's.
Amen! I was asking myself the same question. While I may reside in America and be subject to the laws the Congress passes how does a Canadian company get threatened by an American law? It makes no sense. Notice of course I didn't say my Congress because I don't own a major corporation and/or am a part of a "public" interest group.
Yes it did. But the protection was broken rather quickly and now you can find it online. Good poem too.
What color is paranoid anyway? But yes, you're paranoid. If you want it then enter your e-mail address and have them send it to you. If they don't then don't buy it. How fricking hard is that? And do you really think that B&N, Amazon, and/or Softlock are that hard up for $2.50 as to pull a stunt like that? It's the simple fact that it's free, the free offer was posted on several major websites and now their servers are getting slammed with people trying to get a copy. Occam's Razor.
Close but no cigar. The Hacker Crackdown was printed and then put online. You have to pay for the printed version but you can download the online version for free. This isn't the same thing. This was written and published entirely online. You can't get it in printed format at this time. The only thing that I can think that comes close is Gibson's poem Agrippa that he had distrubited on disk.
Alright. So replying to AC's is about as useful as yelling at the wall when the cat makes me mad but...
Yes, the movie was entertaining. If you've never read the book that is or if decent acting isn't too high up on your list of things to expect from a good movie. Let's start with the most glaring example.
The weirding devices. Cheesy. Really cheesy. The Fremen didn't need some little box with a handle to be badasses... they already where! Remember the book "We lost two of our men for three platoons of theirs. Seems a fair trade." (refering to fighting Sadakkar [I know I mispelled that]) The Fremen as a rule were ruthless and tough. You're telling me some offworld kid shows up, teaches them to shout oddly whilst holding a box and suddenly they can't be beat? Paul was needed to be their leader not show them how to fight. They could already do that. Never mind that the whole point of the weirding way was that humans could do it only their bodies (remember the jihad they talk about that removed computing machines?). It's a pretty cheap cop out to assume your audience won't figure it out without some techno gimmick to explain it.
And what was up with Paul's sister in the movie? She looked like a evil muppet or something and the voice sounded like they gave that little girl some helium and asked her to talk even higher.
Let's not even get too deep into the stillsuits. Never mind that leaving your whole freaking head exposed is a quick way to get sunstroke on a Earth desert much less a planet that is entirely desert. Also the fact that you do loose a large amount of sweat through your mouth. Or how about wearing all black out in the blazing sun(s)? If they were that worried about not being able to tell who was who how about some marks on the suits? It wouldn't have been that hard.
Let's be honest. The first twenty minutes or so were decent and then it came to a screeching grinding halt. If you show that much contempt for the material that it comes from where you don't even really try to show the novel correctly then you probably shouldn't be making a movie about it (like Star Ship Troopers but that's a whole other post). The movie wasn't a visual feast by any stretch of the word. It showed nothing really new from sci-fi and nothing sticks with me from the movie (aside the giant worms and they weren't even that hot).
I hope that the mini-series is better. Judging by the shots it will at least look better but I'm hoping for it to stick to the story. Maybe I wish too much.
Noooo. Read the page (and your own post). Micahj@io.com has only identified the source of the ciphertext. This is like knowing what the message was encoded in not what the text says. Pay more attention.
I can just see some bored NSA math prodigy now. "God, it's a boring day. Hey, what's this on Salon? Well hell, that supercomputer isn't doing much right now and I could use $2500 bucks...,"
Uhhh, no offense but what do you mean no magic in the Conan movies (or Ladyhawke for that matter)? Wasn't James Earl Jones character some evil magacian in the first one? And that Chinese guy in Conan the Destroyer was a magacian also. As for Ladyhawke the whole movie was based on the spell that turned them into a hawk and a wolf during different parts of the day. And I agree... they were decent movies. I hope that this lives up to the hype.
Finally! Yes it's a huge double standard. It's right up there with people saying that they want Microsoft to die and then saying that they don't want Linux to go mainstream. It comes from the urge that you want to be protected but you would rather not have the same protections for the people you don't agree with.
Analogy: Actors who want to abolish the ownership of guns (Rosie O'Donnel leaps to mind) but have armed body guards. End Analogy
It is not a bad thing for corporations to protect there brand names from dilution. Yes, there should be some kind of protection from completly idiotic law suits (say a guy named Slim getting a domain name and then being sued by the makers of Slim Jim Snacks). Remember if you're a company you have put time and effort into designing a product and getting the name recognized. Now how are you going to feel if you can't get a domain name because someone has taken it and is using it for:
1] Nothing (squatters)
2] Bashing you or you're product (imagine Microsoft getting Linux domain names and then using it to trash Linux or just re-direct to their sights)
3] Putting up something that has not relevance to your product and confusing the market you're trying to reach
Now maybe you see why companies are a little prickly about they're names just getting snapped up with out some kind of protection.
As usual Sterling has some rather interesting things to say. And as usual some people are taking this as him saying that this is what the future will be. Heinlein once said that it does not pay a prophet to be too specific. When someone does something like this it is more along the lines of "Think about these things and where they are going." This probably won't be the future any more then the 90's were any more like the old pulps but it does make you ask "What is my future (and my children's) and what do I want to do with it?"
Check out his Viridian movement (sorry don't have a link right now; if someone could give it I would be appreciative) and see what it has to say. We do have the world in a grip that is on course to cause some rather interesting consequences. And don't forget the old saying "May you live in interesting times" was a curse.
Hey you're right! Let's have them spend it on some more "meteors" to bombard Mars with because their budget was cut too far back to include redundant systems! Or we can fund the Space Shuttle to put more comsats into orbit so we can broadcast Ishtar to Puerto Rico 24/7! Face it. Space travel and exploration is expensive if you want to do it right.
Same in the private sector but what I'm asking is is this even legal? My impression of what I've heard of the original intent was the SSN was to be used for Social Security benefits and the taxes associated with them and that's it. What does buying a cell phone or getting a home loan have to do with my Social Security benefits and taxes?
Call the phone company. Some areas have a service that if a person calls with blocked caller id it won't even ring your phone. It'll give them a message along the lines of "This person doesn't accept blocked calls."
Which does bring up something I've been wondering about. Back in the sixties when Social Security was enacted and numbers given out to everyone it was told to people (and enacted as law if I remember) that these were not personal ID numbers and that the only thing they could be used for was your SS benefits. Supposedly any use other then that was illegal. So how in the world did the Social Security number become the ID number for everything? If anyone knows pass it on.
This is a no brainer people. Buying a sledghammer is not illegal. Taking it into your back yard and driving posts with it is not illegal. However if you go to your neighbors house and bash his door in to steal his television then you are now using a burgulary tool. If you try and kill someone with it then the sledghammer becomes a deadly weapon. The whole point of the matter is context.
Another point to consider is often as many charges as possible are filed knowing that the defense lawyer will bargain and have some of them removed and then plea to some of the lesser charges. Don't think that this hasn't been thought out well in advance by the DA.
They'll get real experts when they decide to pay for them. Have you bothered to check and see what the pay for government service is these days? It's terrible. My state (Oklahoma) has a problem where they hire IT people fresh out of school and then a year later (after they have something to put on the resume) they leave to private industry to make some decent money. It's not limited to just IT but it is the most blatant example here.
The experts they do have are usually trying to get some project of there's funded and will say anything to get the funding. If they want good advice they'll have to shell out for it... just like everyone else.
Alright. Normally I like to read Katz's articles. As a rule even if I don't agree they make me think a little. But this one falls under the category of Huh?. Did I miss something?
Of course people like to hold paper in there hands and look at it. This is how most of us grew up getting information. Maybe the children being born today will be more used to a monitor and want there information that way. However, the vast majority of people that buy online right now want to be able to browse through there buying decision without being tied to the computer.
Just because the dot.coms and others are using paper catalogs now doesn't mean that everything won't finally go all electronic. Even paper will have interactive abilities eventually. This is all just a transition period not some Middle Media thing.