"they are good at finding concealed drugs but haven't found much that could bring down an airplane."
Wow. Could that possibly be because drug smuggling is not that uncommon, but shitheads actually attempting to bring down airliners really is? Seriously, in the last decade how many attempts HAVE there been, out of the hundreds of millions of passengers flying during that same period? How many hand grenades and Popiel pocket nukes did they expect to find, anyway?
"Security theater" beliefs aside, and I'm not saying there is not a lot of security theater that is senseless and ineffective, I can always say it would be easy to figure out how to do it - but if it actually were that easy I believe we'd have seen a lot more attempts. Some would probably have been successful. Instead we get dipshits trying to light fuses on shoes and underwear.
Negligent driving -- do we really need such granularity that we have a separate law for each object or activity that comes along? I always wonder whether having so many laws creates the mental masturbation that seems to be pervasive at all levels of government, or whether said mental masturbation results in such a ridiculously high number of laws and regulations.
Great, so none of my passengers can use the phone either? And no one can use the BT connection to the car's stereo for hands-free calling?
We need to keep the drivers from calling and texting while driving, not everyone in the vehicle. I don't have a solution for that, though God knows I wish I did. You think seeing that shit's scary when you're driving next to one, try being on a motorcycle in a town full of texting & chatting SUV and pickup drivers.
Radio Shack has given up on almost everything, but fear not. There are still plenty of places you can go for electronic kits, experimenters' sets, and all kinds of tinker-it-yourself goodies. In fact, I would venture to say there may be more now than ever before. Now with the ability of the average Joe to put up an e-commerce web site and sell his stuff - or just do it on Fleabay - you see a lot more kits and hackable devices around. All you have to do is look. Elenco, Ramsey, Vellman, Hendricks, HamGadgets, QRPme, Parallax, the list goes on and on.
Who told you gas goes bad after six weeks? I routinely leave gasoline (both unleaded regular 10% ethanol mix AND 93 octane straight unleaded gas) in vehicles and various engine driven instruments of lawn and garden destruction for months at a time. No "fuel conditioner", no special treatment. My Harley sits for 5-6 months over the winter, my snow blower sits idle all summer. This is Nebraska, where temperature and humidity varies wildly throughout the year. I've also lived in OK, GA, CO and OH. There have been no problems, and I mean not a SINGLE instance of bad gasoline or water condensation, ever, since 1979. I've seen a tank full of truly bad gas, but it was from a scooter that had been parked since '68. I imagine that probably went south within a few years, but certainly a couple of months is nothing to worry about - especially with the well sealed fuel systems that have been in use for many years now.
I'm sure the fuel stabilizer folks would love for you to believe gasoline goes stale as quickly as the milk in your fridge, but it's really just not true.
Yes, it is based on a few decades of observation. There is no less opportunity now than there was 30-40 years ago; in fact, there is a lot more opportunity. Many things that are simple and commonplace now were nearly unthinkable, certainly much more difficult, for the average person not all that long ago.
People don't have less opportunity. Fewer people take advantage of the opportunities that exist. Too many are preoccupied with the gadgets and non-stop, so-called "social" connectivity.
"According to the cell phone industry, living in Maine may cause idiotic warning labels on your cell phone that you'll need to spend an extra minute to peel off." Now we just need the greenies bitching about the extra ecological impact of producing the labels.
Or, hey... maybe Maine-compliant cell phones would be required to make a voice announcement with a dire warning of the possible consequences at the beginning of each call, which of course you would be required to acknowledge before the call is completed. You know, kind of like those stupid-assed warnings we have to put up with on DVDs (FBI anti-copy warning)and GPS (don't operate while driving) screens.
I can see a promising new income source, smuggling warning-free cell phones into Maine and San Francisco. Dukes of Hazzard style, with Roscoe P. Coltrane one step behind...
$13.62? You've never actually been on the consumer end of one of these things, have you?
No, the lawyers will get 100% of the actual cash that changes hands. The "victimized consumer class" will get some bullshit "settlement" like a voucher for $50 off the list price of the next monitor they buy from the companies that did this in the first place. Of course that will work out to a much higher price than you could buy it for without said voucher... so, in effect, you get dick.
There are a number of sources now for Canon cartridges with the chips needed to work perfectly fine. I've been using them for a while now with zero problems; the printer still thinks I'm using Canon ink. It's not AS cheap as the old non-chipped cartridges, but they're still cheap compared to factory ink.
I passed on several models of printers for which no aftermarket ink cartridges cold be had. No freaking way am I paying the insane prices they want for OEM ink. No way. I pay less than $6 per tank for my Canon IP4500 ink, and it's about 95% as good as OEM, maybe better. For black print the two are completely indistinguishable.
The worst POS printer I have bought in recent years has been a Lexmark. It was the second Lexmark I have ever bought, and definitely the last, period. I made the mistake of giving them a second chance after the complete screwing I got on one in the mid 1990s. No improvement, this thing is an overpriced, underperforming piece of shit with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. The Canon, on the other hand, has been one pleasant surprise after another. Trouble-free duplex printing and even prints CDs, all for under $100 and with cheap, good aftermarket ink from dozens of sources.
You have two choices. Buy aftermarket ink, or grab your ankles and pray for good lube. Ya gots ta do yer homework before buying.
I'm not trying to twist your words, just trying to make the point that not everyone feels the same way. To you, it doesn't seem reasonable to suffer the "huge inconvenience" over what you seem to regard as a more minor matter of principle. To some others, it's apparently a much larger matter of principle, and/or a much smaller inconvenience.
Who said the guy got rid of his cell phone because of GPS concerns? He just said he's glad he doesn't have one. Maybe he's never had one, maybe he got rid of it because he got tired of everyone on the planet being able to reach out and bother him whenever they wanted (or getting huffy when they couldn't). And note also that I have my cell still, as do all of my immediate family members, so obviously I'm also not quite concerned enough to give it up.
If I were able to use a cell phone with no GPS function built in, though, I certainly would. If I were able to completely disable the GPS function in the phone I have, I would do so. But let me understand this point...
I agree that Sprints ability to track phones is bad, unconstitutional, dangerous, and should be fought with legislation, buyer's dollars, shareholder input, and every way possible, but I *DON'T* think it makes sense for any individual to actually go so far as to get rid of their phone *JUST* because of this.
Do I understand correctly, then, that you feel someone ought to do something about it, as long as it's not done at any loss of personal convenience? It's a concept I'm not unfamiliar with, I just don't agree with it.
I'm not disagreeing with you in general... but I can see the parent poster's point as well. I'm unhappy that my phone allows GPS location during times other than when I'm calling 911. I don't use GPS on my phone; I have dedicated GPS devices for those times I need them, and I can read a bloody map. If I could disable the GPS entirely, I would do so. I have it set for 911 calls only, but I seriously doubt that works as it should. Am I unhappy enough to give up the cell phone? No, not yet. Could it reach that point? It's quite possible. The camel's nose is poking way, way too far into the tent for comfort, IMHO.
Of course it's one thing to say you're OK with privacy by obscurity -- someone could be monitoring your every move, but they probably don't because you're just one out of a faceless crowd of millions, so that's OK. It's quite another to maintain that attitude when someone decides they do care enough to start watching, regardless of whether you've done something wrong or not. At that point the old "Well, if you've done nothing wrong then you shouldn't care about the search" argument starts getting pretty hollow.
Perhaps he just doesn't see the need for the police to know where he is at all times, even if he ISN'T doing something illegal. This argument is not difficult to make. Would you knowingly allow the police to monitor your every move, even if you believe yourself to be a law abiding citizen? How about opening your mail? Listening in on your phone calls? Monitoring all of your web surfing?
You have to draw the line somewhere. I have nothing illegal in my car, not even anything remotely embarrassing. There are no drugs or evidence of crimes in my home. All the same, if a police officer asks to search my home or vehicle, I'll refuse. If he feels strongly enough about it, he can try to get a search warrant.
Maybe some of those politicians are just idiots...
That's a pretty safe assumption, unfortunately. Of course that doesn't mean they're not also greedy and corrupt. So, I think they're probably squarely in BOTH camps -- idiots, and those making money from blocking it.
'We are concerned that some of the proposed regulations on the Internet could, as applied, inhibit the goal of universal access and leave disenfranchised communities further behind.'
In other words, 'We want to make sure everyone is just as screwed as our constituents. If they can't afford top-tier service, then no one else should be able to get it either.' Or am I completely misunderstanding the logic here?
God forbid we don't legislate absolute equality in every aspect of life for all our citizens; after all, look how well it worked out for China and the USSR. I know some people are uncomfortable with the concept of poor people not being able to afford everything that's available to not quite as poor people, or people who live in the boonies not having their corner Starbucks and fiber connectivity. But what they're bitching about is that if carriers aren't free to pick and choose what they deliver and how fast, you might have areas that lag behind the population centers.
Well, yeah, no shit. I suppose we could all go back to dialup service and AOL, then we'd all be on equal footing again. Screwed completely, but equal, which I guess is OK with 72 of our elected morons and a few groups whoring for attention. Of course then they'd be squealing about not all the phone lines in BFE supporting 56K, and the whole thing would start over again.
Must we always seek the lowest common denominator? Or could we maybe get comfortable with the simple fact that advanced services and technologies are pretty much always going to be available to employed people in population centers first, then spread as economy of scale comes into play? Did none of these people ever read or go to school? Jeez.
Oh, but wait... it's a BSA report, which means anyone with a brain already KNOWS it's bullshit. Unfortunately, that means most members of Congress thinking it's true, and I suspect that's their intended audience. It's certainly a not "report" aimed at us. Their goal is to get more laws passed to make them and their masters money, extracted by law from everyone whether they have ever used any of the software in question or not. Another tax on blank media, anyone? How about one on hard drives, CPUs and other components? Pay by the megabyte for connectivity, because obviously we're stealing software? All they have to do is convince Congress-critters it's a good idea, which seems to be shockingly easy to do if you supply enough cash.
You make a good point, but it's not like that's a reason to tolerate the corruption. Benito Mussolini finally made the trains in Italy run on time, but I think most would agree that the benefits of his time at the helm were outweighed by the more negative impact.
Slashdot Mirror
"they are good at finding concealed drugs but haven't found much that could bring down an airplane."
Wow. Could that possibly be because drug smuggling is not that uncommon, but shitheads actually attempting to bring down airliners really is? Seriously, in the last decade how many attempts HAVE there been, out of the hundreds of millions of passengers flying during that same period? How many hand grenades and Popiel pocket nukes did they expect to find, anyway?
"Security theater" beliefs aside, and I'm not saying there is not a lot of security theater that is senseless and ineffective, I can always say it would be easy to figure out how to do it - but if it actually were that easy I believe we'd have seen a lot more attempts. Some would probably have been successful. Instead we get dipshits trying to light fuses on shoes and underwear.
Negligent driving -- do we really need such granularity that we have a separate law for each object or activity that comes along? I always wonder whether having so many laws creates the mental masturbation that seems to be pervasive at all levels of government, or whether said mental masturbation results in such a ridiculously high number of laws and regulations.
Great, so none of my passengers can use the phone either? And no one can use the BT connection to the car's stereo for hands-free calling?
We need to keep the drivers from calling and texting while driving, not everyone in the vehicle. I don't have a solution for that, though God knows I wish I did. You think seeing that shit's scary when you're driving next to one, try being on a motorcycle in a town full of texting & chatting SUV and pickup drivers.
Is it such a slow tech news day that we're going to see links to 4chan and xkcd all day?
Jeebus.
They'll apparently accept crap applications for obviously unpatentable technology... just as long as the FAX is right side up.
Radio Shack has given up on almost everything, but fear not. There are still plenty of places you can go for electronic kits, experimenters' sets, and all kinds of tinker-it-yourself goodies. In fact, I would venture to say there may be more now than ever before. Now with the ability of the average Joe to put up an e-commerce web site and sell his stuff - or just do it on Fleabay - you see a lot more kits and hackable devices around. All you have to do is look. Elenco, Ramsey, Vellman, Hendricks, HamGadgets, QRPme, Parallax, the list goes on and on.
Typically it's a wildly inaccurate guess.
Who told you gas goes bad after six weeks? I routinely leave gasoline (both unleaded regular 10% ethanol mix AND 93 octane straight unleaded gas) in vehicles and various engine driven instruments of lawn and garden destruction for months at a time. No "fuel conditioner", no special treatment. My Harley sits for 5-6 months over the winter, my snow blower sits idle all summer. This is Nebraska, where temperature and humidity varies wildly throughout the year. I've also lived in OK, GA, CO and OH. There have been no problems, and I mean not a SINGLE instance of bad gasoline or water condensation, ever, since 1979. I've seen a tank full of truly bad gas, but it was from a scooter that had been parked since '68. I imagine that probably went south within a few years, but certainly a couple of months is nothing to worry about - especially with the well sealed fuel systems that have been in use for many years now.
I'm sure the fuel stabilizer folks would love for you to believe gasoline goes stale as quickly as the milk in your fridge, but it's really just not true.
Yes, it is based on a few decades of observation. There is no less opportunity now than there was 30-40 years ago; in fact, there is a lot more opportunity. Many things that are simple and commonplace now were nearly unthinkable, certainly much more difficult, for the average person not all that long ago.
People don't have less opportunity. Fewer people take advantage of the opportunities that exist. Too many are preoccupied with the gadgets and non-stop, so-called "social" connectivity.
"According to the cell phone industry, living in Maine may cause idiotic warning labels on your cell phone that you'll need to spend an extra minute to peel off." Now we just need the greenies bitching about the extra ecological impact of producing the labels.
Or, hey... maybe Maine-compliant cell phones would be required to make a voice announcement with a dire warning of the possible consequences at the beginning of each call, which of course you would be required to acknowledge before the call is completed. You know, kind of like those stupid-assed warnings we have to put up with on DVDs (FBI anti-copy warning)and GPS (don't operate while driving) screens.
I can see a promising new income source, smuggling warning-free cell phones into Maine and San Francisco. Dukes of Hazzard style, with Roscoe P. Coltrane one step behind...
Ummm... indeed. You can do that now. Buy the phone at retail, go month to month on the service with no contract.
$13.62? You've never actually been on the consumer end of one of these things, have you?
No, the lawyers will get 100% of the actual cash that changes hands. The "victimized consumer class" will get some bullshit "settlement" like a voucher for $50 off the list price of the next monitor they buy from the companies that did this in the first place. Of course that will work out to a much higher price than you could buy it for without said voucher... so, in effect, you get dick.
Again.
There are a number of sources now for Canon cartridges with the chips needed to work perfectly fine. I've been using them for a while now with zero problems; the printer still thinks I'm using Canon ink. It's not AS cheap as the old non-chipped cartridges, but they're still cheap compared to factory ink.
I passed on several models of printers for which no aftermarket ink cartridges cold be had. No freaking way am I paying the insane prices they want for OEM ink. No way. I pay less than $6 per tank for my Canon IP4500 ink, and it's about 95% as good as OEM, maybe better. For black print the two are completely indistinguishable.
The worst POS printer I have bought in recent years has been a Lexmark. It was the second Lexmark I have ever bought, and definitely the last, period. I made the mistake of giving them a second chance after the complete screwing I got on one in the mid 1990s. No improvement, this thing is an overpriced, underperforming piece of shit with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. The Canon, on the other hand, has been one pleasant surprise after another. Trouble-free duplex printing and even prints CDs, all for under $100 and with cheap, good aftermarket ink from dozens of sources.
You have two choices. Buy aftermarket ink, or grab your ankles and pray for good lube. Ya gots ta do yer homework before buying.
I'm not trying to twist your words, just trying to make the point that not everyone feels the same way. To you, it doesn't seem reasonable to suffer the "huge inconvenience" over what you seem to regard as a more minor matter of principle. To some others, it's apparently a much larger matter of principle, and/or a much smaller inconvenience.
If I were able to use a cell phone with no GPS function built in, though, I certainly would. If I were able to completely disable the GPS function in the phone I have, I would do so. But let me understand this point...
Do I understand correctly, then, that you feel someone ought to do something about it, as long as it's not done at any loss of personal convenience? It's a concept I'm not unfamiliar with, I just don't agree with it.
I'm not disagreeing with you in general... but I can see the parent poster's point as well. I'm unhappy that my phone allows GPS location during times other than when I'm calling 911. I don't use GPS on my phone; I have dedicated GPS devices for those times I need them, and I can read a bloody map. If I could disable the GPS entirely, I would do so. I have it set for 911 calls only, but I seriously doubt that works as it should. Am I unhappy enough to give up the cell phone? No, not yet. Could it reach that point? It's quite possible. The camel's nose is poking way, way too far into the tent for comfort, IMHO.
Of course it's one thing to say you're OK with privacy by obscurity -- someone could be monitoring your every move, but they probably don't because you're just one out of a faceless crowd of millions, so that's OK. It's quite another to maintain that attitude when someone decides they do care enough to start watching, regardless of whether you've done something wrong or not. At that point the old "Well, if you've done nothing wrong then you shouldn't care about the search" argument starts getting pretty hollow.
Look under a flat rock, you'll probably find them there.
Perhaps he just doesn't see the need for the police to know where he is at all times, even if he ISN'T doing something illegal. This argument is not difficult to make. Would you knowingly allow the police to monitor your every move, even if you believe yourself to be a law abiding citizen? How about opening your mail? Listening in on your phone calls? Monitoring all of your web surfing?
You have to draw the line somewhere. I have nothing illegal in my car, not even anything remotely embarrassing. There are no drugs or evidence of crimes in my home. All the same, if a police officer asks to search my home or vehicle, I'll refuse. If he feels strongly enough about it, he can try to get a search warrant.
That's a pretty safe assumption, unfortunately. Of course that doesn't mean they're not also greedy and corrupt. So, I think they're probably squarely in BOTH camps -- idiots, and those making money from blocking it.
In other words, 'We want to make sure everyone is just as screwed as our constituents. If they can't afford top-tier service, then no one else should be able to get it either.' Or am I completely misunderstanding the logic here?
God forbid we don't legislate absolute equality in every aspect of life for all our citizens; after all, look how well it worked out for China and the USSR. I know some people are uncomfortable with the concept of poor people not being able to afford everything that's available to not quite as poor people, or people who live in the boonies not having their corner Starbucks and fiber connectivity. But what they're bitching about is that if carriers aren't free to pick and choose what they deliver and how fast, you might have areas that lag behind the population centers.
Well, yeah, no shit. I suppose we could all go back to dialup service and AOL, then we'd all be on equal footing again. Screwed completely, but equal, which I guess is OK with 72 of our elected morons and a few groups whoring for attention. Of course then they'd be squealing about not all the phone lines in BFE supporting 56K, and the whole thing would start over again.
Must we always seek the lowest common denominator? Or could we maybe get comfortable with the simple fact that advanced services and technologies are pretty much always going to be available to employed people in population centers first, then spread as economy of scale comes into play? Did none of these people ever read or go to school? Jeez.
Because RedHat, Novell and the others aren't paying them to shill their stuff.
Oh, but wait... it's a BSA report, which means anyone with a brain already KNOWS it's bullshit. Unfortunately, that means most members of Congress thinking it's true, and I suspect that's their intended audience. It's certainly a not "report" aimed at us. Their goal is to get more laws passed to make them and their masters money, extracted by law from everyone whether they have ever used any of the software in question or not. Another tax on blank media, anyone? How about one on hard drives, CPUs and other components? Pay by the megabyte for connectivity, because obviously we're stealing software? All they have to do is convince Congress-critters it's a good idea, which seems to be shockingly easy to do if you supply enough cash.
You make a good point, but it's not like that's a reason to tolerate the corruption. Benito Mussolini finally made the trains in Italy run on time, but I think most would agree that the benefits of his time at the helm were outweighed by the more negative impact.