The state of Missouri has been commonly known as friendly to the "puppy mill" industry. Puppy mills are places where people breed expensive pets for profit in deplorable, inhumane conditions, or sometimes just overcrowded. They are located in rural areas where outsiders can be kept away. Only the owners and pet store buyers saw these places.
Animal protection activitists would get in posing as buyers to video tape the conditions. Then the activists reported the abuse to the authorities. The puppy mill owners have tried all sorts of legal means to keep the activists out. Longer story short, it is now illegal in Missouri to video record in an animal breeding business without the consent of the owners. So what is the greater good, protect businesses from those who don't agree with their business practices or to protect the right of the public to know and possiblely oppose the business practices?
In 1998, I had a friend that needed to get married in a hurry. It was something they were meaning to do but never got around to until his longtime girlfriend was expecting. His health insurance required them to be married at the time of the first doctor visit to cover the birth. So they looked around for the quickest local option in Springfield, IL. Turned out the "nutty sidekick" on the local "Morning Zoo" radio show was an ordained minister. This is the guy they would send out to do the crazy stunts. I'll call him Tim.
The wedding was planned to happen in a park on the Saturday before Halloween. Tim arrived at the park in the radio station's Hummer from doing a remote show wearing his "The Tim Reaper" costume. It consisted of a skeleton unitard, a red satin cape, and devil's pitchfork. We were all stunned, but Jim explained he had brought his minister robes. He ran back to the Hummer zipped on the robe. We couldn't tell if he still had the unitard on because were distracted by the huge coffee stain on the front of the robe.
Despite all this, we were all happy our friends were married and domestic bliss was ensured. Then about 2 years later, my friend saw Tim at a local bar. Tim was telling another patron about marriages he had performed. He said he married a couple and forgot to file the papers for a year. My friend turned to Tim and said , "Hey, you married my wife and me two years ago." Tim quickly replied, "I know it wasn't you. I am pretty sure.";-)
When Apple was developing the Power Macintosh 7100, the interal code name for the computer was "Sagan", in honor of Carl Sagan. Carl Sagan sued and lost. Apple changed the name to "Butthead Astronomer". Sagan sued again, this time for libel, and lost again. So the the law will look the other way for more creative names. For example... DieRedmondDie, GatesUX, SueThis, BlueScreenOfDeath, BorgLawyer, or RedmondKeepYourHandsOffMyComputer. No law suit fodder here.
Globalization is going to be a real bitch. Right now these corporations are riding the front of wave of change. At some point market forces will cause wages and the quality of life in the US to decrease. How many HP products will US workers be able to buy when that comes around? Not much. Then these corporations will feel the hurt. This is where US political, economic, and business leaders are failing the US. Someone is getting rich doing this, but that group is getting smaller and smaller.
You can mark e-mail as Spam in Yahoo! e-mail. When you do that, you can create a filter or send the e-mail to Yahoo!. Will Yahoo! allow their own homemade spam to be treated the same way? What would happen if everyone sent the spam back to Yahoo!?
What if someone used spam to fight spam? They could send spam to collect the e-mail addresses of responders. Then posted those e-mail addresses to a public forum. It wouldn't decrease spam initially, but it might have a damping effect. A recipient would not know if their response would get them pills or a world of hurt.
I saw one of the meteorites coming down at 11:50 PM CST while driving north from St. Louis to Alton, IL on hwy 64. It fell just before I crossed the Mississippi River at the Clark Bridge into Alton. It looked like a green firework that started to glow overhead. The City of Alton shoots fireworks over the Mississippi here so I was not concerned at first. It seemed to float a little, then began to rapidly shoot down in a stream of green light toward the left of the bridge. By the time the meteor looked to be even with the top of the bridge pylons it broke up and the streak turned from green to bright yellow/white. When it hit, it looked like it hit behind Alton and exploded in a flash of light like a bomb. I have never seen anything like it, not even during a meteor shower. Mentally, I went through a list of the possibilities: airplane crash, missle, lightning, meteorite, or space junk. No news outlets had any information at that time. There was just a creepy calm when I got home. I only wish I had a picture of it.
This goes along with the article on pricing. In industries where pricing is heavily competitive (e.g. airlines, rental cars, computer equipment) pricing information is constantly shopped. The companies can't ask each other for rates because it is banned by by anti price fixing laws. So they shop competitors' prices on information services, some even have shopbots to do the work. Sabre, the largest travel booking network in North America, which is a closed network, has blocked some paying customers due to excessive shopping. They block shopping because automated shopbots elevate CPU and network usage. These shopbots can't tell when rates have changed, so they continuously hit Sabre. Wonder how hard Farechase was hitting AA.com?
A microserf friend once told me MS had no policy either way on easter eggs. They were there if programmers took the time to put them there. If an easter egg can get through development, peer-review, testing, packaging, why couldn't a backdoor?
The article says they will use the PNR record but does not explain what is in a PNR record. Having programmed communication software that handle PNRs, I know a PNR can include information about meal restrictions, including PORK. Too bad no one bothered to look up what is in a PNR record.
One of the original reasons for the legal utility monopolies was to reduce the amount of redundant infrastucture. If you look at old urban photos, you will see poles choked with cabling and equipment. Where the power industry is deregulated, the power company doesn't have run new power lines to your house. Why is the telecommunications business different?
Many of the facilities the RBOCs own were built while Ma Bell was a legal monopoly. Since the break-up, the RBOCs have fought tooth and nail against other companies from entering their markets. Why don't people recongnize the enormous advantages in market share, brand recognition, infrastructure, and facilities that the RBOC have over start-ups?
Moderators, what is the deal with scoring this 1? It has information. It has websites. It has a contact for the submitter. Its a lot better than the other drivel with the same score.
A group in Prescott, Arizona started Coyote Radio, a local radio comedy group. They produce, write, act, and foley a live show once a month with a simulcast on KJZA 89.5 FM. The producer/co-writer/director, Andrew Johnson-Schmit, told me that the live feedback from the audience adds a lot to the performance. Their stuff is edgy/political/toplical and damn funny. Check them out of you are between Prescott and the Utah border.
I know they have given permission to universities to produce Coyote Radio scripts as class projects. Give them an e-mail if you are interested in seeing some scripts.
Some day they hope to have a streaming server for their material, but it is very expensive for a volunteer organization to mount.
This is more than just appeasing environmentalists. By designing and building a car that is easier to recycle, they reduce the cost of recycling. Which reduces the price of recycled materials. Which reduces the price of making new products from the recycled materials. If the US requires auto companies to take back and recycle their products, Ford has already reduced their cost of complying. There are already products in the US that manufacturers are require to take back for recycling.
If there was copyright protection on plots or story formulas, Hollywood would have been out of business in the 1930's. Even Star Wars is based on previous movies. What if Akira Kurosawa had a copyright on the plot? Would Lucas have paid royalties or made a different film? Where is the originality of ideas that the US Constitution is trying to encourage?
On another point... Even in a world of perfect DRM, DVDs will screw Hollywood. At a certain point, consumers are not going to watch remakes of old plots because they own a better version on a DVD which will be picture perfect for decades. What is Hollywood going to do then? Why would you watch the latest remake of a French comedy when you can watch the better, original version dubbed in English?
Voting machines should be built like aerospace equipment. Science and engineering skills in this country are good enough that the citizens should not accept voting systems that are systemically prone to more than a miniscule percentage of error.
The systems must be able to be used without having to reprove their correctness each time there is a new ballot.
Voting officials should be able to recount the votes quickly.
Brownouts, misuse, physical abuse, unitialized pointers, and chads in the family way should not erase or obfuscate data.
If that means a marker, a card, and an OCR machine then that is what the citizens should demand. If you want a computerized voting, it should internally punch a running log of votes on mylar tape. If the computer crashes, just run the tape through a reader. But citizens should demand better.
Live theatre is just that, live. If a cellphone goes of, it changes the performance, throws the actors off. A critical scene can be wasted. (Matt Damon was talking about it on Letterman last week.) At least movies are oblivious to audiences.
My wife is a professional stage actress, and there were shows that were ruined by people having conversations. My wife had the same name as a local TV weather lady. So occassionally audience members would hold discussions about whether she was was the weather lady or not. She just wanted to yell at them, WE CAN HEAR YOU! But the theatre tradition is to ignore such disturbances.
My brother created a documentary video about ordinary people trying to switch to net metering. In the course of making the video, he learned how difficult the switch is. It is not a technology issue. The technology is here and it works. The problem is the power companies and co-ops don't like it. (1) They drag their feet. (2) Create excessive red tape. (3) Make it cost prohibitive.
To all those nay sayers, PV cells are a lot tougher than you think. The manufacturers estimate that a PV panel will last 25 years. However, those who have used them for a long time will tell you that they will last 50 years. Your kids might inherit them from you!
Out of all the PV panel owners my brother interviewed, only one had a story about a damaged panel. Hail didn't hurt it. It was a meteor that had fallen and lodged in the panel. The panel didn't stop working, but moisture was causing its output to drop some. A little soldering and a little patching, the PV panel was back up to the manufacturer's spec output.
Way back in college, I had a CS professor who was a retired Marine who had programmed in Ada. When we studied concurrecy in OS class, the prof taught us about the Ada rendezvous mechanism. As I remember, this feature of Ada provided the ability to synchronize concurrent tasks. In C/C++ or Java you have to roll your own.
Slashdot Mirror
Animal protection activitists would get in posing as buyers to video tape the conditions. Then the activists reported the abuse to the authorities. The puppy mill owners have tried all sorts of legal means to keep the activists out. Longer story short, it is now illegal in Missouri to video record in an animal breeding business without the consent of the owners. So what is the greater good, protect businesses from those who don't agree with their business practices or to protect the right of the public to know and possiblely oppose the business practices?
The wedding was planned to happen in a park on the Saturday before Halloween. Tim arrived at the park in the radio station's Hummer from doing a remote show wearing his "The Tim Reaper" costume. It consisted of a skeleton unitard, a red satin cape, and devil's pitchfork. We were all stunned, but Jim explained he had brought his minister robes. He ran back to the Hummer zipped on the robe. We couldn't tell if he still had the unitard on because were distracted by the huge coffee stain on the front of the robe.
Despite all this, we were all happy our friends were married and domestic bliss was ensured. Then about 2 years later, my friend saw Tim at a local bar. Tim was telling another patron about marriages he had performed. He said he married a couple and forgot to file the papers for a year. My friend turned to Tim and said , "Hey, you married my wife and me two years ago." Tim quickly replied, "I know it wasn't you. I am pretty sure." ;-)
When Apple was developing the Power Macintosh 7100, the interal code name for the computer was "Sagan", in honor of Carl Sagan. Carl Sagan sued and lost. Apple changed the name to "Butthead Astronomer". Sagan sued again, this time for libel, and lost again. So the the law will look the other way for more creative names. For example... DieRedmondDie, GatesUX, SueThis, BlueScreenOfDeath, BorgLawyer, or RedmondKeepYourHandsOffMyComputer. No law suit fodder here.
Globalization is going to be a real bitch. Right now these corporations are riding the front of wave of change. At some point market forces will cause wages and the quality of life in the US to decrease. How many HP products will US workers be able to buy when that comes around? Not much. Then these corporations will feel the hurt. This is where US political, economic, and business leaders are failing the US. Someone is getting rich doing this, but that group is getting smaller and smaller.
You can mark e-mail as Spam in Yahoo! e-mail. When you do that, you can create a filter or send the e-mail to Yahoo!. Will Yahoo! allow their own homemade spam to be treated the same way? What would happen if everyone sent the spam back to Yahoo!?
What if someone used spam to fight spam? They could send spam to collect the e-mail addresses of responders. Then posted those e-mail addresses to a public forum. It wouldn't decrease spam initially, but it might have a damping effect. A recipient would not know if their response would get them pills or a world of hurt.
pdrome4robert
This goes along with the article on pricing. In industries where pricing is heavily competitive (e.g. airlines, rental cars, computer equipment) pricing information is constantly shopped. The companies can't ask each other for rates because it is banned by by anti price fixing laws. So they shop competitors' prices on information services, some even have shopbots to do the work. Sabre, the largest travel booking network in North America, which is a closed network, has blocked some paying customers due to excessive shopping. They block shopping because automated shopbots elevate CPU and network usage. These shopbots can't tell when rates have changed, so they continuously hit Sabre. Wonder how hard Farechase was hitting AA.com?
A microserf friend once told me MS had no policy either way on easter eggs. They were there if programmers took the time to put them there. If an easter egg can get through development, peer-review, testing, packaging, why couldn't a backdoor?
...all the kids who make fun of you now because you are a geek will later have jobs in the tech industry or the fast food industry.
The article says they will use the PNR record but does not explain what is in a PNR record. Having programmed communication software that handle PNRs, I know a PNR can include information about meal restrictions, including PORK. Too bad no one bothered to look up what is in a PNR record.
One of the original reasons for the legal utility monopolies was to reduce the amount of redundant infrastucture. If you look at old urban photos, you will see poles choked with cabling and equipment. Where the power industry is deregulated, the power company doesn't have run new power lines to your house. Why is the telecommunications business different? Many of the facilities the RBOCs own were built while Ma Bell was a legal monopoly. Since the break-up, the RBOCs have fought tooth and nail against other companies from entering their markets. Why don't people recongnize the enormous advantages in market share, brand recognition, infrastructure, and facilities that the RBOC have over start-ups?
Moderators, what is the deal with scoring this 1? It has information. It has websites. It has a contact for the submitter. Its a lot better than the other drivel with the same score.
pdrome4robert
I know they have given permission to universities to produce Coyote Radio scripts as class projects. Give them an e-mail if you are interested in seeing some scripts.
Some day they hope to have a streaming server for their material, but it is very expensive for a volunteer organization to mount.
Shouldn't the EU also notify the US if passengers are wearing shoes? Shoes are just as indicative of a terrorist as pork.
This is more than just appeasing environmentalists. By designing and building a car that is easier to recycle, they reduce the cost of recycling. Which reduces the price of recycled materials. Which reduces the price of making new products from the recycled materials. If the US requires auto companies to take back and recycle their products, Ford has already reduced their cost of complying. There are already products in the US that manufacturers are require to take back for recycling.
Sometimes you parachute from the airplane... Sometimes the airplace parachutes from you.
On another point... Even in a world of perfect DRM, DVDs will screw Hollywood. At a certain point, consumers are not going to watch remakes of old plots because they own a better version on a DVD which will be picture perfect for decades. What is Hollywood going to do then? Why would you watch the latest remake of a French comedy when you can watch the better, original version dubbed in English?
If you mean security through obscurity, then Wordstar has got WinWord beat. However, Word 1.0 would fit the same order.
The systems must be able to be used without having to reprove their correctness each time there is a new ballot.
Voting officials should be able to recount the votes quickly.
Brownouts, misuse, physical abuse, unitialized pointers, and chads in the family way should not erase or obfuscate data.
If that means a marker, a card, and an OCR machine then that is what the citizens should demand. If you want a computerized voting, it should internally punch a running log of votes on mylar tape. If the computer crashes, just run the tape through a reader. But citizens should demand better.
My wife is a professional stage actress, and there were shows that were ruined by people having conversations. My wife had the same name as a local TV weather lady. So occassionally audience members would hold discussions about whether she was was the weather lady or not. She just wanted to yell at them, WE CAN HEAR YOU! But the theatre tradition is to ignore such disturbances.
If food replicators existed, ala Star Trek, would you use one in your home?
To all those nay sayers, PV cells are a lot tougher than you think. The manufacturers estimate that a PV panel will last 25 years. However, those who have used them for a long time will tell you that they will last 50 years. Your kids might inherit them from you!
Out of all the PV panel owners my brother interviewed, only one had a story about a damaged panel. Hail didn't hurt it. It was a meteor that had fallen and lodged in the panel. The panel didn't stop working, but moisture was causing its output to drop some. A little soldering and a little patching, the PV panel was back up to the manufacturer's spec output.
No matter how long it takes for a pessimists' predictions to come true, they will say "I told you so" when it does come true.
Way back in college, I had a CS professor who was a retired Marine who had programmed in Ada. When we studied concurrecy in OS class, the prof taught us about the Ada rendezvous mechanism. As I remember, this feature of Ada provided the ability to synchronize concurrent tasks. In C/C++ or Java you have to roll your own.