Erie County (and possibly all of NYS, I'm not sure) has laws prohibiting the use of phones while driving... unless you have a handsfree set.
So, you are not allowed to hold on to a cell phone while driving because it is dangerous, but, these, evidentially, are not:
- smoke - chow down on that big mac - fumble with the radio - read the newspaper - tend to a crying child in the back seat - apply makeup or shave (hopefully, the correct conjunction is "or")
That's why I hate cell phone driving laws - either target ALL driving distractions or target none of them.
It would be the same thing as having "assault with a knife", "assault with a bat", and "assault with a lead pipe" laws instead of "assault with a deadly weapon".
The only studies that I have seen quoted that supported cell-phone laws were ones that asked "Was a cell-phone in use during the accident?" not "What driving distractions were present during the accident?" Those are two completely different questions.
The studies that I have seen that list out all driving distractions clearly show things other than cell-phones are leading factors - I think "tuning radio" and "smoking" were the top two.
Honestly now, is there any fucking reason for that site to have the story in PDF?
Hold on... let me check.
Yep... just what I thought. Justin wanted to personally piss off you and you alone. He specifically went out of his way to make sure that only you would be angry. In fact, he spent a lot of time writing code so that only you would receive a horrible PDF, while the rest of the Internet gets an HTML document.
The code doesn't work on IP address or anything like that. It is a complex operation that identifies you by your PHQ - PDF Hate Quotient. It uses the monitor as a scanner to collect data on pupil dilation, skin temperature, pulse, and CO2 production of a user while a PDF is displayed to calculate a PHQ. Few people realize that the PHQ works like a fingerprint and can identify a specific person.
At least you know the whole story now.
Re:I'm not convinced of VoIP yet...
on
VoIP Questioned
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
What amazes me is the lack of talk regarding the security of these devices
Yeah, because the security of cell phones and cordless phones is so rock solid.
Almost nobody cares that anyone can eavesdrop on their cell and cordless conversations. Why should they care any different about their VOIP ones?
- Tony
Re:be careful what you wish for...
on
Dell CEO Tells All
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Why don't you put some meat on your argument, demonstrating with actual figures that the tax breaks and "subsidies" (what subsidies?) Dell gets in the US are better than what they can achieve elsewhere.
IMHO, it's not tax breaks that piss me off. It's that these corporations are shirking their responsibility as a US entity.
Both people and organizations pay taxes to support a government to protect them, provide service programs, and allow us to pursue happiness.
People and organizations are taxed differently in the US. An American Corporation makes X dollars in a year, but, they spent Y dollars doing it. Thus, their tax basis is X - Y. If an American Worker, on the other hand, makes X, then he/she generally pays taxes on the whole amount.
In a company with most or all American employees, this makes sense. Employees are paid and then need to pay taxes. Since salary is usually one of the largest portions of "Y", the corporation is "taxed" via its employees.
However, if the employee is not an American citizen, no tax revenue is generated. For every corporate dollar of salary that gets sent overseas, we the people of the United States need to kick in another $.33 to cover the lost tax base.
Why should I have to pay more taxes because Dell or IBM or Microsoft sends jobs to China, India, etc?
I am not sure what the answer is, perhaps it is a tax plan that says you can offshore, but, the corporation will be assessed a tax for each job offshored equal to the amount of the taxes that would have been generated if the job stayed in the US. That, or maybe if Z% of jobs are offshored, Z% of X (revenue from above) cannot be "balanced" by expenses - ie - you must pay taxes on it.
Who knows.... it's Monday morning and I am not 100% with it yet.
excuse me? You're saying that unless you're a politician, you shouldn't get involved in politics?
No, I think he meant "If you don't understand how P2P and the Internet works, then you really shouldn't be trying to change it".
'Some think they can legally lure children into breaking the law with false promises of "free music."'
That's an interesting statement. But, couldn't a similar argument be made about the auto industry: "Many companies have commercials showing how fast their cars are. One even shows their car going faster than sound. Obviously, these are false promises of how fast you should be able to drive. Therefore, we should legislate that no car should be able to go faster than 65 miles per hour. Yes, there are some areas where it is legal to go above 65, but, for the greater good, those areas will be removed."
Incidentally, unlike speeding, no one was ever killed by someone using a P2P application to break the law.
Having the boss 'try out' Firefox isn't working: a single site looks bad, so IE must be better.
Step 1: Remove Firefox Step 2: Wait a few weeks Step 3: Add an entry to his hosts file that directs this one site to a porn site. Better yet, update your local DNS to be authoritative for the domain of the site and set 'www.example.com' to the offending IP. (No evidence on the boss's machine, then) Step 4: When he comes to you asking for help, tell him his Internet Explorer is infected. Make sure to say "I hope you haven't accessed your bank from this machine in the last few weeks or used a credit card - your information might have been stolen." Step 5: Point out that this is one of the reasons why you want to move away from IE.
One caveat: Step 6 might involve getting fired if you get caught.
For reasons of commerce, national security, and personal safety, NOAA must gather significant amounts of weather data. Furthermore, to ensure that products like severe weather statements can be issued accurately, the organization must provide data such as current conditions and forecasts.
An artificial scarcity of data does nothing to help the people paying for it via their taxes. It only serves to help the bottom lines of a few large corporations whose only responsibilities are to themselves, not the citizens of the United States.
The services that are currently "experimental" or whose ultimate availability is unknown due to pressure from certain members of the Commercial Weather Industry should become permanently and freely available to anyone wishing access to it.
Back when data dissemination costs were high, it made sense to limit the NWS role in giving data to the public. By allowing only a few organizations to have access to the data and allowing them to sell it, those organization would pay the rather high costs to ensure the data was, in fact, available.
However, now that communication costs are so low, such a method makes no sense.
A recent letter from Barry Myers to members of the Commercial Weather Industry pleading for them to come out against the NWS Partnership Policy, he stated:
"Industries grow where risk is controllable or predictable. The present path of the NWS- controlled federal policy introduces greater risk to the private sector. Not less."
In this case, he is partially right.
However, the risk he is actually talking about is the ability for large commercial weather organizations to maintain a stranglehold on the sector.
You see, the products that NOAA currently offer, themselves, pose no threat to AccuWeather or other large organizations. It is just data, and most people don't want to look at coded data. They want an end product.
By allowing data to flow freely to the public, the NWS ENCOURAGES competition to the incumbents. Barriers that prevented bright entrepreneurs from pushing new services are greatly reduced and a new era of value-added products will be born.
To this end, I see no alternative but for NOAA to provide the services it currently does in a permanent, free fashion as well as to develop other offerings that benefit the taxpayers as it sees fit.
So a government monopoly on weather services benefits us how exactly? Whenever taxpayers subsidize a service that could be provided in the marketplace, that subsidy undermines the development of true competition for that service.
Let's use severe weather as an example.
You need a single organization for severe weather coverage to ensure public safety. Imagine if you had multiple companies issuing conflicting severe weather warnings? Since it is an issue of public safety, it makes sense to have a government agency in control of these statements.
In order to provide severe weather coverage, the government needs to:
(a) collect significant amounts of data (observations, satellite, radar) (b) process that data into certain forms (forecasts, models, etc)
Since we are paying for this service, why should access to the data be limited?
Despite them getting infected with adware and spyware through IE, none of them want to use firefox. I've asked them many times, and even gone to the point of deleting IE, but their resillence to use anything else forced me to put it back on (amongst other reasons).
If you would be so kind, I am really curious what the reasons were.
What I have always done is download Firefox, change the icon to the blue E, and rename the shortcut "Internet Explorer". I then tell them, "It's the new version of Internet Explorer, called Mozilla."
I have had no people complain or ask to have the "old" version back. In fact, the only thing I have heard is praise ("It's so fast", "I don't get pop-ups anymore", etc).
I've done this for about 60 users (45 computers), so far.
61 559 APNIC nets are a spam source. Go away. 202 559 APNIC nets are a spam source. Go away. 203 559 APNIC nets are a spam source. Go away. 210 559 APNIC nets are a spam source. Go away. 211 559 APNIC nets are a spam source. Go away. 218 559 APNIC nets are a spam source. Go away. 219 559 APNIC nets are a spam source. Go away. 220 559 APNIC nets are a spam source. Go away.
It's amazing how much spam this stops (approx. 50%)
Re:Over-wired? and tooo far ahead of the curve
on
Fiber To The Dorm Room
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
I don't think they thought this through. From the link:
If your computer has a 10/100/1000 Ethernet connection, or if it says "Gigabit Ethernet connection included" in the specs, you've got the right system for our network.
But, further down:
Our network uses fiber optics connections in your residence hall.
So, the fact that I have a 10/100/1000 copper connection means that I can't connect to their network?
Why did they not use copper gigabit for the in room connections, so that (a) EVERY computer from Dell, Apple, etc, labeled "10/100/1000" would be usable without additional hardware, (b) copper gigabit PCI cards are a hell of a lot less expensive than optical fiber cards, and (c) you can still support 10/100Mbit connections for those students (all 99.9% of them) who have no use for gigabit?
They told me that I am alert after eight hours of sleep, a little sleepy after lunch and after dinner, and have "difficulty being awake" when I am asleep overnight.
Brilliant deduction, Watson.
Maybe they can do another site predicting that the sun will rise tomorrow and set later in the day?
Slashdot Mirror
I've always felt that the "loser pays" rule would be a great one with one simple addition:
The loser pays the winner the amount the LOSER spent on legal fees, as opposed to reimbursing the WINNER their fees.
- Tony
Their fancy equipment will probably tell them that they are hearing magma.
After I posted, I did a quick search on google and found this:
Driving distractions:
Outside person, object or event: 29.4%
Adjusting radio/cassette/CD: 11.4%.
Other occupant: 10.9%.
Moving object in vehicle: 4.3%
Other device/object: 2.9%
Adjusting vehicle controls: 2.8%
Eating and/or drinking: 1.7%
Using/dialing cell phone: 1.5%
Smoking: 0.9 %
Other distractions: 25.6%
Unknown: 8.6%
Source: University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center
My memory was a little off about the items (and order on the list).
Erie County (and possibly all of NYS, I'm not sure) has laws prohibiting the use of phones while driving... unless you have a handsfree set.
So, you are not allowed to hold on to a cell phone while driving because it is dangerous, but, these, evidentially, are not:
- smoke
- chow down on that big mac
- fumble with the radio
- read the newspaper
- tend to a crying child in the back seat
- apply makeup or shave (hopefully, the correct conjunction is "or")
That's why I hate cell phone driving laws - either target ALL driving distractions or target none of them.
It would be the same thing as having "assault with a knife", "assault with a bat", and "assault with a lead pipe" laws instead of "assault with a deadly weapon".
The only studies that I have seen quoted that supported cell-phone laws were ones that asked "Was a cell-phone in use during the accident?" not "What driving distractions were present during the accident?" Those are two completely different questions.
The studies that I have seen that list out all driving distractions clearly show things other than cell-phones are leading factors - I think "tuning radio" and "smoking" were the top two.
I guess you're not letting your precious Firefox remember any passwords for you, then.
First of all, I use Safari all the time - unless I am on a Window or Linux box, then I use Firefox.
Second, correct, I do NOT let any browser remember passwords or sites I have visited (with the exception of the ones in my bookmarks).
Third, there is a difference between me the user making a bad security decision and the server (IE / Intranet) not giving me a choice.
- Tony
securely ... without requiring a username/password
Does anyone else see a problem with this?
Just because a person logs in to a terminal at 8 AM in the morning, does it follow that an access from that terminal at 4 PM is the same person?
Doesn't sound like a failing of Firefox, but a failing in the intranet application design.
- Tony
Honestly now, is there any fucking reason for that site to have the story in PDF?
Hold on... let me check.
Yep... just what I thought. Justin wanted to personally piss off you and you alone. He specifically went out of his way to make sure that only you would be angry. In fact, he spent a lot of time writing code so that only you would receive a horrible PDF, while the rest of the Internet gets an HTML document.
The code doesn't work on IP address or anything like that. It is a complex operation that identifies you by your PHQ - PDF Hate Quotient. It uses the monitor as a scanner to collect data on pupil dilation, skin temperature, pulse, and CO2 production of a user while a PDF is displayed to calculate a PHQ. Few people realize that the PHQ works like a fingerprint and can identify a specific person.
At least you know the whole story now.
What amazes me is the lack of talk regarding the security of these devices
Yeah, because the security of cell phones and cordless phones is so rock solid.
Almost nobody cares that anyone can eavesdrop on their cell and cordless conversations. Why should they care any different about their VOIP ones?
- Tony
Why don't you put some meat on your argument, demonstrating with actual figures that the tax breaks and "subsidies" (what subsidies?) Dell gets in the US are better than what they can achieve elsewhere.
IMHO, it's not tax breaks that piss me off. It's that these corporations are shirking their responsibility as a US entity.
Both people and organizations pay taxes to support a government to protect them, provide service programs, and allow us to pursue happiness.
People and organizations are taxed differently in the US. An American Corporation makes X dollars in a year, but, they spent Y dollars doing it. Thus, their tax basis is X - Y. If an American Worker, on the other hand, makes X, then he/she generally pays taxes on the whole amount.
In a company with most or all American employees, this makes sense. Employees are paid and then need to pay taxes. Since salary is usually one of the largest portions of "Y", the corporation is "taxed" via its employees.
However, if the employee is not an American citizen, no tax revenue is generated. For every corporate dollar of salary that gets sent overseas, we the people of the United States need to kick in another $.33 to cover the lost tax base.
Why should I have to pay more taxes because Dell or IBM or Microsoft sends jobs to China, India, etc?
I am not sure what the answer is, perhaps it is a tax plan that says you can offshore, but, the corporation will be assessed a tax for each job offshored equal to the amount of the taxes that would have been generated if the job stayed in the US. That, or maybe if Z% of jobs are offshored, Z% of X (revenue from above) cannot be "balanced" by expenses - ie - you must pay taxes on it.
Who knows.... it's Monday morning and I am not 100% with it yet.
- Tony
excuse me? You're saying that unless you're a politician, you shouldn't get involved in politics?
No, I think he meant "If you don't understand how P2P and the Internet works, then you really shouldn't be trying to change it".
'Some think they can legally lure children into breaking the law with false promises of "free music."'
That's an interesting statement. But, couldn't a similar argument be made about the auto industry: "Many companies have commercials showing how fast their cars are. One even shows their car going faster than sound. Obviously, these are false promises of how fast you should be able to drive. Therefore, we should legislate that no car should be able to go faster than 65 miles per hour. Yes, there are some areas where it is legal to go above 65, but, for the greater good, those areas will be removed."
Incidentally, unlike speeding, no one was ever killed by someone using a P2P application to break the law.
- Tony
Having the boss 'try out' Firefox isn't working: a single site looks bad, so IE must be better.
Step 1: Remove Firefox
Step 2: Wait a few weeks
Step 3: Add an entry to his hosts file that directs this one site to a porn site. Better yet, update your local DNS to be authoritative for the domain of the site and set 'www.example.com' to the offending IP. (No evidence on the boss's machine, then)
Step 4: When he comes to you asking for help, tell him his Internet Explorer is infected. Make sure to say "I hope you haven't accessed your bank from this machine in the last few weeks or used a credit card - your information might have been stolen."
Step 5: Point out that this is one of the reasons why you want to move away from IE.
One caveat: Step 6 might involve getting fired if you get caught.
- Tony
For reasons of commerce, national security, and personal safety, NOAA must gather significant amounts of weather data. Furthermore, to ensure that products like severe weather statements can be issued accurately, the organization must provide data such as current conditions and forecasts.
An artificial scarcity of data does nothing to help the people paying for it via their taxes. It only serves to help the bottom lines of a few large corporations whose only responsibilities are to themselves, not the citizens of the United States.
The services that are currently "experimental" or whose ultimate availability is unknown due to pressure from certain members of the Commercial Weather Industry should become permanently and freely available to anyone wishing access to it.
Back when data dissemination costs were high, it made sense to limit the NWS role in giving data to the public. By allowing only a few organizations to have access to the data and allowing them to sell it, those organization would pay the rather high costs to ensure the data was, in fact, available.
However, now that communication costs are so low, such a method makes no sense.
A recent letter from Barry Myers to members of the Commercial Weather Industry pleading for them to come out against the NWS Partnership Policy, he stated:
"Industries grow where risk is controllable or predictable. The present path of the NWS- controlled federal policy introduces greater risk to the private sector. Not less."
In this case, he is partially right.
However, the risk he is actually talking about is the ability for large commercial weather organizations to maintain a stranglehold on the sector.
You see, the products that NOAA currently offer, themselves, pose no threat to AccuWeather or other large organizations. It is just data, and most people don't want to look at coded data. They want an end product.
By allowing data to flow freely to the public, the NWS ENCOURAGES competition to the incumbents. Barriers that prevented bright entrepreneurs from pushing new services are greatly reduced and a new era of value-added products will be born.
To this end, I see no alternative but for NOAA to provide the services it currently does in a permanent, free fashion as well as to develop other offerings that benefit the taxpayers as it sees fit.
So a government monopoly on weather services benefits us how exactly? Whenever taxpayers subsidize a service that could be provided in the marketplace, that subsidy undermines the development of true competition for that service.
Let's use severe weather as an example.
You need a single organization for severe weather coverage to ensure public safety. Imagine if you had multiple companies issuing conflicting severe weather warnings? Since it is an issue of public safety, it makes sense to have a government agency in control of these statements.
In order to provide severe weather coverage, the government needs to:
(a) collect significant amounts of data (observations, satellite, radar)
(b) process that data into certain forms (forecasts, models, etc)
Since we are paying for this service, why should access to the data be limited?
Despite them getting infected with adware and spyware through IE, none of them want to use firefox. I've asked them many times, and even gone to the point of deleting IE, but their resillence to use anything else forced me to put it back on (amongst other reasons).
If you would be so kind, I am really curious what the reasons were.
What I have always done is download Firefox, change the icon to the blue E, and rename the shortcut "Internet Explorer". I then tell them, "It's the new version of Internet Explorer, called Mozilla."
I have had no people complain or ask to have the "old" version back. In fact, the only thing I have heard is praise ("It's so fast", "I don't get pop-ups anymore", etc).
I've done this for about 60 users (45 computers), so far.
- Tony
I thought that caused the big one.
What stopped it was adding a single point support approximately 2 meters in length.
- Tony
Stupid slashcode won't support pound signs
Stupid AC must be illiterate.
At the Apple Store (International, UK), the Dual G5/2GHz is 1,849 GBP (1,573 GBP excl VAT).
The 2.5GHz is about 350 more.
- Tony
Seriously, how are you gonna stop a country?
/etc/postfix/clientreject , add:
Simple.
In
61 559 APNIC nets are a spam source. Go away.
202 559 APNIC nets are a spam source. Go away.
203 559 APNIC nets are a spam source. Go away.
210 559 APNIC nets are a spam source. Go away.
211 559 APNIC nets are a spam source. Go away.
218 559 APNIC nets are a spam source. Go away.
219 559 APNIC nets are a spam source. Go away.
220 559 APNIC nets are a spam source. Go away.
It's amazing how much spam this stops (approx. 50%)
OK, so it doesn't really block a "country".
- Tony
European scientists endured temperatures of as low as -40 Celsius
-40 Celsius isn't so bad. Now, -40 Fahrenheit, on the other hand...
- Tony
I have an easier solution.
A few of these..
One or two of these.
Maybe this or a smaller order.
And a smattering of these.
Problem solved.
Ummm.... no.
The output of 'netstat' on a default Mac OS X box:G'head. Try to remote exploit.
- Tony
I think you mean "did the nasty in the past-y".
- Tony
I don't think they thought this through. From the link:
If your computer has a 10/100/1000 Ethernet connection, or if it says "Gigabit Ethernet connection included" in the specs, you've got the right system for our network.
But, further down:
Our network uses fiber optics connections in your residence hall.
So, the fact that I have a 10/100/1000 copper connection means that I can't connect to their network?
Why did they not use copper gigabit for the in room connections, so that (a) EVERY computer from Dell, Apple, etc, labeled "10/100/1000" would be usable without additional hardware, (b) copper gigabit PCI cards are a hell of a lot less expensive than optical fiber cards, and (c) you can still support 10/100Mbit connections for those students (all 99.9% of them) who have no use for gigabit?
- Tony
Wow.
They told me that I am alert after eight hours of sleep, a little sleepy after lunch and after dinner, and have "difficulty being awake" when I am asleep overnight.
Brilliant deduction, Watson.
Maybe they can do another site predicting that the sun will rise tomorrow and set later in the day?
- Tony
Perfumes and fragrances cannot be patented.
... that's the best link I can come up with via a quick Google).
(Sorry
- Tony
This would only be a fair comparison if you had either:
(a) an Escalade that took 15 minutes to go from a dead stop to full speed and took 3 miles to stop
OR
(b) a train that could go from dead stop to full speed in 20 seconds and execute a full-speed brake maneuver in 300 feet.
- Tony