No one has denied that creating a police state makes things easy for the police. The problem is that you can't trust the police all the time with all information. Maybe if the police still had to do police work instead of sitting on their hands watching TV the serial killer would have been caught a long time ago. In a free society, police work isn't supposed to be easy.
I paid $100 for 1000 minutes last March, and I still have $30 left. I bought a used GSM Treo 600 on eBay and could have bought my SIM card there at a discount as well (I bought a currently unused phone at Wal-Mart for $30 before I figured that out). The really neat part is that there is no credit check, no SSN disclosure, no privacy issues at all! They don't care who I am! All they care about is that I paid cash and I'm getting service. My only complaint is that they block the GPRS hi-speed internet connection to my color graphical browser at their own firewall, or I'd have mobile internet as well. I'd be happy to pay for GPRS IP on a metered basis as well, but they haven't figured that out yet.
Yes, our planet appears to be warming. The CAUSE is far less certain. Of the Greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere, Co2 is one of the LEAST influential. Water vapor is vastly more effective. Global Dimming from particulates appears to have a far more significant influence on global temperatures than Co2. By fixating on Co2 emissions we are missing the probable cause of global warming, as yet to be scientifically determined. We haven't even determined that it isn't an entirely natural process. The earth has been getting warmer for the last 10,000 years.
I saw Al Gore's movie. He fails to show any CAUSATIVE influence at all. He implies that higher Co2 levels are linked to higher temperatures, but which way? Does higher Co2 cause higher temperatures, or do higher temperatures cause Co2 levels to increase? Are they even linked, or is it coincidental? He doesn't say, or even ask the question. He's a politician, not a scientist.
Yes, more investigation should be done. But by assuming the conclusion and passing laws before we really know what's happening, we may be doing more harm than good. We're definitely hurting the economy in the process.
I just gave my 12-year-old daughter a brand new laptop for a back-to-school present. Yes, she wastes time IMing her friends, but she also knows how to look up pretty much anything on google and wikipedia, and the school actually has her using Word and PowerPoint in class! She doesn't take it to school, just her USB drive for moving files back and forth, but I don't see what's wrong with her learning about the real world. I showed her how to make multipage brochures when she was 8! She was playing simple video games at 18 months, and I don't think that there's anything wrong with that. On the contrary, kids should be learning about the real world that they will be living in. That means using computers extensively in all aspects of their lives. Why should they learn the hard way, then relearn the right way?
In Linux, you can store a file on the system that is the ISO image of a CD that you could use to burn another CD. Then, you can mount the file as if it was a drive and have the data available as if it had been inserted into a CD drive. This would enable you to store the CDs and DVDs as online files which can be mounted as needed when data needs to be accessed and unmounted when you are done. If you created a RAID-5 array with large disk drives, you could easily create multi-terabyte drives to store the data. I'm running a 1.3 terabyte file server at home, built from cheap-after-rebate ATA disks.
If the late fees were earmarked to fund an open source Windows clone, Microsoft would have a good reason to pay quickly. 5 million euros a day would fund the entire project in about an hour. Just think the scare that would put into Chairman Bill. That'd get Microsoft's attention.
Believe it or not, this could really be Bill Gates's fault! Remember, the first non-assembler language for microcomputers was actually personally written by Bill Gates! Back in the '70s he wrote a basic interpreter for the 8080 that became the basis for the Microsoft Corporation. It got ripped off all over the place, which taught Bill the value of getting people to actually PAY MONEY for his products. He personally started the emphasis on Basic as a first microcomputer language.
I'm not usually a Bill Gates fan or hater, but I think that he actually deserves credit/blame here...
If you're going to gamble, the state wants a piece of the action. THAT'S what they can't handle. They see it as avoiding paying your taxes, and they treat it accordingly. Don't you just love it? Gambling is just a tax on people that are bad at math, after all...
All this cross-referencing of data for the purpose of data mining (this appears to be simply a refining of data mining) is why I lie my butt off to telemarketers. Only by filling their collective coffers with garbage can we hope to undo their efforts. Currently, I'm a white male computer engineer when doing politically correct things, I'm a hispanic female for others, and I have many other identities. I pick identities at random for activities that I don't want traced, and I keep them active by doing strange things for the hell of it. Incidentally, I've been doing this since the mid-seventies when I registered for college as a black man. I changed races several times in college, as black student groups kept insisting that I join up. They get downright pushy about it. I think I ended up an American Indian - oops, Native American. What's it called this week?
5 Years? Vertical Recording for disk drives offers the same kind of increase in storage, and it's here NOW. My gut reaction to "5 Years before it hits mass market" was to instantly append "by which time it will be worthless" to the end of the sentence. Tape is dead. The only thing keeping it going is administrators with their heads in the sand (or the 1970s). The only thing that would convince me otherwise is someone volume shipping $100 500G tape drives with $20 media.
I had a roommate in college who started college at age 13 and graduated with 5 degrees in 4 years, then went to work for the U.S. Military developing spy satellites. He once told me that if the U.S. really wanted to keep the Russians behind them in technology they should send them the source code to their devices. Reverse Engineering the crappy code would take them decades...
You know, for about 1% of what the EU is paying lawyers to violate Microsoft's privacy rights, they could pay some good programmers to clone Windows and release it in GPL. That way they'd be doing a public service for the world instead of undermining the principles of free societies. But I guess governments are made up overwhelmingly of lawyers, not programmers, and the idea of helping the people that they represent isn't nearly as important as advancing their careers and their profession, is it?
I loved the series and liked the movie, but if he comes up with anything else like that, he should sell it to SciFi channel, where it might have had a chance. Unfortunately, he's right that it is just too late now. The series needed a flashier start to get a bigger audience where it was, and he planned for a longer run to do the character development that never got a chance. Sad, but that's life on network TV...
If I can't simply rip a CD, I take it back and exchange it for another identical disc. At least 5 times, possibly many more. I leave it in the car and take it into the store with me every time I visit the store. That way, the assholes lose money. Whenever someone tries to fuck me, I simply make sure that it costs them more to fuck me than if they had been honest. I consider it to be my moral duty to society.
I don't listen to CDs. At home, I listen to MP3s on multiple computers with the MP3 archive on my 360GB linux file server, and in the car I listen to MP3 discs, as the MP3 player was cheaper than a changer. I also listen on a personal MP3 player. I view CDs as installation media which is read once and filed. When someone comes up with a copy protection scheme that allows me to listen to music that I legally purchased on all of the above devices without problems, I will consider it acceptable, but until then all copy protection is simply interference with my legal use of software that I legally purchased.
In my living room I currently use a 32" TV (700 line res), but the SVID input is connected to a computer with SVID output (800x600), high-speed internet connection, a DVD drive, Dolby 5.1 sound card, and a wireless keyboard/mouse. There is a TV tuner card in the computer that acts as a digital VCR, storing the files on my home file server.
This has been OK for the last 2 years, but I'm looking at upgrading a couple of things. I'm looking for an HDTV tuner card, which I haven't found yet but should be available soon. I still have a hard time reading text from the far end of the room, so I'm considering a XGA (1024x768) projector ($2000) and a motorized screen, for a ~100" diagonal display.
That still doesn't approach the picture I just saw when I played the DVD of Cirque du Soliel's Journey of Man, which was originally filmed for IMAX, on my new laptop with the 15" 1600x1200x32bit screen! Wow! I swear you could see every leaf in that forest!
Yes, if you have money to burn, you can get really good quality. But if you have to live within a budget, you have to learn to think. Yes, and compromise a bit...
There are several routes to getting accredited or non-accredited degrees. If all you want is a line on a resume, there are many outfits that will sell you a piece of paper for a few bucks. I don't think that's what you are asking for, though. There are real schools that teach classes through "distance learning" and will do so on your schedule. They may or may not be accredited, which is essential in some usages.
I would highly recommend purchasing a book (yes, paper) entitiled "Bear's Guide to Nontraditional college education" (or something to that effect). It lists many options for getting "real" college degrees without actually spending years in classes that people in the real world can't really do. Don't think that it will be easy, though. There really is a lot of information that is taught in classes that you don't usually run into in the real world, but that a knowledge of will help you to get a fuller picture of what's really going on.
Good Luck!
I have been looking for a laptop with SVID, Serial, DVD/CD/RW, USB, Mic/Line/Spk, 10/100, and 56K. I don't care which brand. This is the first one I've found that actually has that combination, as it seems that everybody else seems to delete at least one of those. I wouldn't think that my requirements should be all that unusual. Unfortunately, the Asus web site neglects to mention either the price or a place that you can buy one. Just as well, as I'm not sure that I'd want to buy from a company whose web site is as screwed up as theirs.
I haven't bought a new laptop before, so I guess I'm not used to this. I'm used to just building what I want. It's so much easier!
BTW, what is it about computer manufacturers that prevents them from just telling you what the machine is? They start by asking you if you are a person or a business (none of your f*ing business!), then want to know what applications I'm going to run (if it can't run every windows program out there, it's junk), then they want to know what processor I want (like I give 2 shits, they all work), then they want to know what screen I want (I can see them all), then they point me at one model that doesn't have the jacks I require and I have to start all over! How can I find out which machines have the options I need?!!
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I saw this idea implemented on a Jaguar years ago on an episode of the Australian TV show, "Beyond Tomorrow".
No one has denied that creating a police state makes things easy for the police. The problem is that you can't trust the police all the time with all information. Maybe if the police still had to do police work instead of sitting on their hands watching TV the serial killer would have been caught a long time ago. In a free society, police work isn't supposed to be easy.
I paid $100 for 1000 minutes last March, and I still have $30 left. I bought a used GSM Treo 600 on eBay and could have bought my SIM card there at a discount as well (I bought a currently unused phone at Wal-Mart for $30 before I figured that out). The really neat part is that there is no credit check, no SSN disclosure, no privacy issues at all! They don't care who I am! All they care about is that I paid cash and I'm getting service. My only complaint is that they block the GPRS hi-speed internet connection to my color graphical browser at their own firewall, or I'd have mobile internet as well. I'd be happy to pay for GPRS IP on a metered basis as well, but they haven't figured that out yet.
Yes, our planet appears to be warming. The CAUSE is far less certain. Of the Greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere, Co2 is one of the LEAST influential. Water vapor is vastly more effective. Global Dimming from particulates appears to have a far more significant influence on global temperatures than Co2. By fixating on Co2 emissions we are missing the probable cause of global warming, as yet to be scientifically determined. We haven't even determined that it isn't an entirely natural process. The earth has been getting warmer for the last 10,000 years. I saw Al Gore's movie. He fails to show any CAUSATIVE influence at all. He implies that higher Co2 levels are linked to higher temperatures, but which way? Does higher Co2 cause higher temperatures, or do higher temperatures cause Co2 levels to increase? Are they even linked, or is it coincidental? He doesn't say, or even ask the question. He's a politician, not a scientist. Yes, more investigation should be done. But by assuming the conclusion and passing laws before we really know what's happening, we may be doing more harm than good. We're definitely hurting the economy in the process.
I just gave my 12-year-old daughter a brand new laptop for a back-to-school present. Yes, she wastes time IMing her friends, but she also knows how to look up pretty much anything on google and wikipedia, and the school actually has her using Word and PowerPoint in class! She doesn't take it to school, just her USB drive for moving files back and forth, but I don't see what's wrong with her learning about the real world. I showed her how to make multipage brochures when she was 8! She was playing simple video games at 18 months, and I don't think that there's anything wrong with that. On the contrary, kids should be learning about the real world that they will be living in. That means using computers extensively in all aspects of their lives. Why should they learn the hard way, then relearn the right way?
In Linux, you can store a file on the system that is the ISO image of a CD that you could use to burn another CD. Then, you can mount the file as if it was a drive and have the data available as if it had been inserted into a CD drive. This would enable you to store the CDs and DVDs as online files which can be mounted as needed when data needs to be accessed and unmounted when you are done. If you created a RAID-5 array with large disk drives, you could easily create multi-terabyte drives to store the data. I'm running a 1.3 terabyte file server at home, built from cheap-after-rebate ATA disks.
If the late fees were earmarked to fund an open source Windows clone, Microsoft would have a good reason to pay quickly. 5 million euros a day would fund the entire project in about an hour. Just think the scare that would put into Chairman Bill. That'd get Microsoft's attention.
Believe it or not, this could really be Bill Gates's fault! Remember, the first non-assembler language for microcomputers was actually personally written by Bill Gates! Back in the '70s he wrote a basic interpreter for the 8080 that became the basis for the Microsoft Corporation. It got ripped off all over the place, which taught Bill the value of getting people to actually PAY MONEY for his products. He personally started the emphasis on Basic as a first microcomputer language. I'm not usually a Bill Gates fan or hater, but I think that he actually deserves credit/blame here...
Wake me when it can properly pour a Black & Tan. THAT'S an accomplishment... ;)
If you're going to gamble, the state wants a piece of the action. THAT'S what they can't handle. They see it as avoiding paying your taxes, and they treat it accordingly. Don't you just love it? Gambling is just a tax on people that are bad at math, after all...
All this cross-referencing of data for the purpose of data mining (this appears to be simply a refining of data mining) is why I lie my butt off to telemarketers. Only by filling their collective coffers with garbage can we hope to undo their efforts. Currently, I'm a white male computer engineer when doing politically correct things, I'm a hispanic female for others, and I have many other identities. I pick identities at random for activities that I don't want traced, and I keep them active by doing strange things for the hell of it. Incidentally, I've been doing this since the mid-seventies when I registered for college as a black man. I changed races several times in college, as black student groups kept insisting that I join up. They get downright pushy about it. I think I ended up an American Indian - oops, Native American. What's it called this week?
5 Years? Vertical Recording for disk drives offers the same kind of increase in storage, and it's here NOW. My gut reaction to "5 Years before it hits mass market" was to instantly append "by which time it will be worthless" to the end of the sentence. Tape is dead. The only thing keeping it going is administrators with their heads in the sand (or the 1970s). The only thing that would convince me otherwise is someone volume shipping $100 500G tape drives with $20 media.
I had a roommate in college who started college at age 13 and graduated with 5 degrees in 4 years, then went to work for the U.S. Military developing spy satellites. He once told me that if the U.S. really wanted to keep the Russians behind them in technology they should send them the source code to their devices. Reverse Engineering the crappy code would take them decades...
You know, for about 1% of what the EU is paying lawyers to violate Microsoft's privacy rights, they could pay some good programmers to clone Windows and release it in GPL. That way they'd be doing a public service for the world instead of undermining the principles of free societies. But I guess governments are made up overwhelmingly of lawyers, not programmers, and the idea of helping the people that they represent isn't nearly as important as advancing their careers and their profession, is it?
I loved the series and liked the movie, but if he comes up with anything else like that, he should sell it to SciFi channel, where it might have had a chance. Unfortunately, he's right that it is just too late now. The series needed a flashier start to get a bigger audience where it was, and he planned for a longer run to do the character development that never got a chance. Sad, but that's life on network TV...
If I can't simply rip a CD, I take it back and exchange it for another identical disc. At least 5 times, possibly many more. I leave it in the car and take it into the store with me every time I visit the store. That way, the assholes lose money. Whenever someone tries to fuck me, I simply make sure that it costs them more to fuck me than if they had been honest. I consider it to be my moral duty to society. I don't listen to CDs. At home, I listen to MP3s on multiple computers with the MP3 archive on my 360GB linux file server, and in the car I listen to MP3 discs, as the MP3 player was cheaper than a changer. I also listen on a personal MP3 player. I view CDs as installation media which is read once and filed. When someone comes up with a copy protection scheme that allows me to listen to music that I legally purchased on all of the above devices without problems, I will consider it acceptable, but until then all copy protection is simply interference with my legal use of software that I legally purchased.
In my living room I currently use a 32" TV (700 line res), but the SVID input is connected to a computer with SVID output (800x600), high-speed internet connection, a DVD drive, Dolby 5.1 sound card, and a wireless keyboard/mouse. There is a TV tuner card in the computer that acts as a digital VCR, storing the files on my home file server. This has been OK for the last 2 years, but I'm looking at upgrading a couple of things. I'm looking for an HDTV tuner card, which I haven't found yet but should be available soon. I still have a hard time reading text from the far end of the room, so I'm considering a XGA (1024x768) projector ($2000) and a motorized screen, for a ~100" diagonal display. That still doesn't approach the picture I just saw when I played the DVD of Cirque du Soliel's Journey of Man, which was originally filmed for IMAX, on my new laptop with the 15" 1600x1200x32bit screen! Wow! I swear you could see every leaf in that forest! Yes, if you have money to burn, you can get really good quality. But if you have to live within a budget, you have to learn to think. Yes, and compromise a bit...
There are several routes to getting accredited or non-accredited degrees. If all you want is a line on a resume, there are many outfits that will sell you a piece of paper for a few bucks. I don't think that's what you are asking for, though. There are real schools that teach classes through "distance learning" and will do so on your schedule. They may or may not be accredited, which is essential in some usages. I would highly recommend purchasing a book (yes, paper) entitiled "Bear's Guide to Nontraditional college education" (or something to that effect). It lists many options for getting "real" college degrees without actually spending years in classes that people in the real world can't really do. Don't think that it will be easy, though. There really is a lot of information that is taught in classes that you don't usually run into in the real world, but that a knowledge of will help you to get a fuller picture of what's really going on. Good Luck!
I considered putting a sign "There is no spoon" in an elevator, but I don't think that everyone would find it funny...
I have been looking for a laptop with SVID, Serial, DVD/CD/RW, USB, Mic/Line/Spk, 10/100, and 56K. I don't care which brand. This is the first one I've found that actually has that combination, as it seems that everybody else seems to delete at least one of those. I wouldn't think that my requirements should be all that unusual. Unfortunately, the Asus web site neglects to mention either the price or a place that you can buy one. Just as well, as I'm not sure that I'd want to buy from a company whose web site is as screwed up as theirs. I haven't bought a new laptop before, so I guess I'm not used to this. I'm used to just building what I want. It's so much easier! BTW, what is it about computer manufacturers that prevents them from just telling you what the machine is? They start by asking you if you are a person or a business (none of your f*ing business!), then want to know what applications I'm going to run (if it can't run every windows program out there, it's junk), then they want to know what processor I want (like I give 2 shits, they all work), then they want to know what screen I want (I can see them all), then they point me at one model that doesn't have the jacks I require and I have to start all over! How can I find out which machines have the options I need?!!