Congress might control the purse strings, but what is happening here is a President is taking credit for his "Bold Initiatives" but not actually creating a budget that includes money for the mandate. That's because he doesn't want to take the heat for cutting some other program, or putting the nation even further into debt. He doesn't really give a damn about going to Mars, he just wants the bump in the polls. He also figures that he can later blame the failure of the program on the evil congress that thought it was more important to balance the budget than go to Mars. (I'm not saying we can't do both, but most political critters don't think that way.)
It's political opportunism.
This is a responsible bill, in my opinion, because it's telling the President that if he wants this program so badly, he should submit a budget that includes money for that program, not just leave it up to the NASA director to gut all the other science programs.
I'd love to see us go to Mars, but it's more important to me that my kids and grandkids didn't get crushed under the debt this president is racking up.
It's not just the whole email system they are disrupting, it's the entire Internet. Ever get upset because the MMO you are playing seems laggy? Ever get upset because a download takes way longer than it should? In a lot of cases, you can thank spammers, who use up a considerable fraction of the bandwidth of the Internet. That's bandwidth you pay for every month. Think about it. A significant portion of your Internet bill goes to pay the business expenses for the spammers. Any of you have a relative who's been taken in by a phisher? You helped pay for that spam, too.
That's why it's a big deal.
Another reason it's a concern is that it's going to add even more costs to your Internet usage as ISPs find ways to cash in on the virtual monopolies they've been granted in the U.S. It's not really a question of whether you'll have to pay to have email delivered as when it will happen and how much you'll have to pay. That is, unless you actually sit up, take notice, and start writing some of your law makers. Sometimes that does work. (Works better if you sign the letter Bill Gates, too.)
What most players don't understand is the trade-offs that have to be made between things like realistic physics and prevention of griefing. As pointed in the post above, there are also exploits that have to be considered.
Lets take just the issue of not allowing players to walk through one another. That would allow a player to effectively trap others in a room that had no exits. While that seems childish and immature, it has happened in the past.
Most of these types of decisions are carefully weighed. They aren't "mistakes." They are simply facts of life when you are dealing with large numbers of people, some of whom, because of the anonymity granted by having a toon represent them, think it's fun to make game play miserable for other people. The problem isn't the MMO companies, it's human nature.
I went to work for a fortune 100 company many years ago, and I was forced to undergo drug testing in order to get the job. I didn't like it, but I did it. Why? Because I had health problems that meant I needed good health insurance. Had I gone to any other company with similar health insurance, I still would have been forced to get drug testing.
If such testing were 100% error free, it might not bother me so much. (Although, I think what you do on your time off, provided it doesn't mess with your ability to work, is your business.) But the consequences of a false positive are pretty harsh. Not only do you lose the job, but who knows what else is going to happen before you can get it straightened out?
While I support the fingerprinting in this particular case. (Let's face it, it's a bank, they have to be careful.) I think there should be some kind of ethical guidelines for all companies on how far they can go in digging through someone's life while determining suitability for hire. These days, everything you say on the web stays around forever. I wonder how many kids are going to be penalized for rash remarks said in the heat of argument thirty years from now.
The problem I see is that you are losing 20% of your power for the sake of convenience. The last thing we need is another way to throw power away needlessly. We should be looking at ways to increase our power production and transmission efficiency.
I'd love to lose the power cords, but not at the cost of destroying the climate.
I think this might have been handled better, but mostly on the BSD side. If they'd "borrowed" code from a corporation, their first notification might have been a lawsuit, not a widely distributed posting.
It's no surprise that stuff like this gets blown up out of proportion. Quite a few people who work in software, myself included, aren't the most diplomatic types. Still, maturity is ignoring other peoples bad behavior and trying to work out your differences amicably. I think Marcus showed a great deal of restraint. I would have been incredibly angry if I'd been in his situation and I'm not sure I'd have been nearly so forgiving.
While it maybe a tempest in a teapot, it's a lesson for all of us. We all look like doofuses (how do you spell the plural of doofus?) when we air our grievances in public.
Take a breath, relax, go have a beer. Then find a way to work together.
that shouldn't have been issued in the first place?
This makes it way too easy to get a patent. Now you don't even have to search for prior art? That places an even greater burden on the patent office. Why should any examiner reject a patent now, if it means a great deal more work for him/her? If examiners are evaluated by number of patents they process, there will be a strong incentive to rubber stamp each and every application that comes in through this new system.
It's foolish to set up a system that is so badly skewed. It will result in more bad patents that are used to extort money from small businesses that can't afford to defend against bogus infringement claims. And since software patents seem to have become law without any bill authorizing them, it will mean it is even easier for companies like Microsoft to attack Open Source.
I don't oppose patents, but I believe that we need to be rigorous in how they are given out. Our government needs to remember that it's duty is not only to the multi-billion dollar corporations in this country, but to the individual citizens who will be affected financially by the cost of bad patent office decisions.
I'll support a fast track patent service once the USPTO can demonstrate that it's not giving out patents for glaringly obvious inventions simply because the patent was filed by a large corporation.
The reason people get so worked up about global warming is that, at the very least, millions, if not billions of lives are threatened if even the mildest of predictions come true. At worst, we could be looking at the end of our species and most other life forms on the planet. It's happened before as a result of natural cycles. (Just because it's natural doesn't mean it can't kill you.)
A large percentage of human beings live near oceans. Almost all the great cities of the world face inundation by even a moderate increase in sea level. That will kill the poorest and force the relocation of the rest.
If you add heat to a system, you get more activity. It's likely that increasing heat will give us more powerful storms. Those also threaten lives.
This isn't an academic subject anymore. It's far more important than, say, cigarette smoking, it's no surprise that people react as they do.
I refused to install WGA for a long time for several reasons, not the least was the fact that it was marked in the EULA as BETA software. Why should I be forced to install software that MS admits hasn't been fully tested yet? I have enough problems with MS bugs. Also, I resent the implication that I have to constantly prove that my software was purchased legally. I've always paid for the software I use, even when I was a poor college student.
Most copies of Windows in the U.S. are paid for, because Windows comes installed, by default, on almost every retail machine sold. That alone makes piracy a non-issue in the U.S. However, WGA does give Microsoft a way to shut down every Windows computer connected to the Internet. What a scam. Once they've got everyone using WGA, they can start dictating terms to governments instead of dealing with irritating lawsuits.
Lets say that the kind souls at MS never even think of using WGA as leverage on say, Europe. I still think it's possible for a clever hacker to use WGA to do some real damage. The hacker would have to do some DNS spoofing and probably crack some encryption, but then, that's what these guys do. Whose to say someone might not use WGA to pull off the biggest Denial of Service extortion in history? Perhaps I'm a bit paranoid, but my caution has kept me from ever having one of my computers compromised.
Piracy is a problem, but not nearly as big a problem as MS would have us believe. If people are stealing you blind, you don't make billions of dollars in profits, you lose money. If MS is feeling a pinch lately, it's due to their own foolish policies and assumptions that they would be able to dictate terms to the world forever. Google Apps and Open Source software will, hopefully, eliminate the need to put our computers at risk simply because a company is greedy.
Microsoft seems to believe that if there were no piracy, everyone in the third world who is now stealing their software would pay for it instead. Yeah right. One of the reasons they steal it is because there is no way they could possibly pay for it. If MS ever finds a way to shut down piracy, it will merely hasten the move to Linux in 3rd world countries. Ironically, that will speed the demise of Windows.
It will be used to shut off the machines of disadents. Governments don't seem to care that much about machines being stolen, but they do care about giving power to political opponents. If I buy a machine, I should have complete control of it. No one should be able to remotely turn off the machine without my explicit authorization. I can't think of any way to make a feature like this safe from abuse.
No, every computer does not have IE installed. Only all the ones shipped with Windows already installed. I build some of my computers and put Linux on them. Lots of people use Mac computers that run OS/X.
Not everyone wants to live in a world run by Microsoft. It's surprising that often the people who claim that the free market justifies anything a company does, refuse to understand that it's NOT a free market if there are no competitors, or if the competition is so badly hamstrung that they can't really compete fairly.
The problem is that the Republicans are more concerned with staying in power than in the well-being of the country or average Americans. They will put forth the old argument that they "must" be in office in order to do the right thing, all the while, passing laws that make legal actions that the President should be impeached over. All this to preserve the party.
This is what things have come to. Party politics have become more important than good government. The Republicans were willing to cover up Foleys actions. Why? Because they'd rather have a Republican sexual predator in office than any Democrat. How messed up is that?
It's time we demonstrated that the Republicans way of doing things has a price. Vote them all out of office on November 7th. And, if the Democrats can't do any better, vote them out in the next election. It's time we took back our country.
Don't just moan and groan, do something about the problem. VOTE. Make sure that these jokers are voted out by such a huge margin that even cheating won't help them. Then insist that your new representatives actually pay attention and work for you, rather than which ever lobbiest gives them the biggest check.
It is quite possible to have fair voting with electronic voting machines, provided those machines use code that can be inspected and verified by any member of the public, and the machines produce a paper trail that allows for recounts and gives auditors a way to detect fraud. It's unfortunate, but probably predictable, that the our representatives have been pushing the use of clearly insecure and unverifiable e-voting machines here in the U.S.
It's a shame that American voters care so little about the legitimacy of their elections that they tolerate a system that can easily disenfranchise large portions of the electorate.
Even paper systems have flaws, as was demonstrated in Florida in 2000, when the election was stolen by Bush, the first President appointed by the Supreme Court rather than elected. But at least there's a chance of detecting fraud and doing something about it. If it hadn't been for the actions of then Florida Secretary of State, Harris, the election results might well have been corrected.
If you're an American, show some real patriotism and insist that your representatives demand that we have a fair voting system. That means:
1) Voting districts should be set up based only on population counts, such that each district has a minimum circumference. (No Jerrymandering.) 2) Voter registration must be free, simple, and easily available to all citizens. 3) Ample resources must be allocated to each voting precinct to insure timely voting by all the citizens in that precinct. 4) Election day should be a paid holiday, insuring that everyone can get to the polls. Alternatively, allow voting over an extended period of time, such as a week. 5) If votes cast differ substantially from independent polls that are statistically valid, an audit should be performed. 6) Make vote tampering punishable by twenty years in prison and permanent disenfranchisement. 7) Public financing of all elections. At the very least, prohibit the use of any money in a campaign that comes from outside the voting area. That means no foreign money in national elections, and no out-of-state money in statewide elections. Currently there is too much money in the system and it has corrupted our government so badly that everyone assumes our representatives can be bought and sold. Sadly, there are few examples of any of our representatives turning down bribes or turning in the people who make them.
I'm sure there are other good ideas out there, ones probably better than mine, but unless people actually prove that they care about the fairness of our elections, we'll never get control of our government back into the hands of the people, where it belongs.
Talk about a scam. Now MS has less incentive than ever to produce an OS that is secure and well-protected against viruses. Why protect their users for free when they can force them to pay a subscription?
This is another example of why MS should have been broken up. It's only by actually enforcing the anti-monopoly laws that we'll ever convince corporations that doing this kind of thing simply isn't going to wash.
To me, this is extortion, pure and simple, and should be agressively pursued by law enforcement as such.
The only reason I still use Windows is so I can play games. I dearly wish that the companies that make the games I play would port them to Linux so I could be shed of Windows once and for all.
Twenty years ago, the best guess for how the space elevator would be built involved some kind of massive cable constructed of artificial diamond molecules miles long. New discoveries have changed that perception, so now we believe that carbon nanotubes might be the material that makes the space elevator happen.
One that that is for sure, is that the quality control of nanotubes isn't yet as high as it needs to be. There are all kinds of conflicting claims from various suppliers as to the strength of the materials they produce. At the high end, nanotubes seem plenty strong even with occasional defects.
Any realistic design is going to allow for repair and maintenance, which is what is needed to counter these problems.
As far as the oxygen problem, only a very small portion of the overall cable is ever in the atmosphere. Regularly replacing that section of the cable probably won't be terribly expensive.
Micrometeorites are also a concern, but the designs I've seen take them into consideration.
The fact is, the potential profits for a space elevator are enormous, more than enough to fund the needed maintenence work and continued development of advanced materials.
Open Office works fine for me, in fact, I like it a lot better than Word. I find it easier to figure out what I need to do. I've been using Open Office exclusively for a couple of years now and don't see any reason to go back to MS Office.
I also write BIG documents. I'm working on a couple of novels, which means that I use a master document that organizes dozens of individual chapter files. While it takes a few seconds to load and reindex that file, it's not a big deal.
What I REALLY like about Open Office, can be illustrated by a bug I found. I discovered that under certain conditions, Open Office would lock up and crash while I was reoganizing the chapters in my novel. Since I was doing a lot of that kind of thing, it was quite a big irritation. So I filed a bug.
Now, remember, my bug was not one that would affect most users of the software, so it wasn't very high priority. Nevertheless, it was fixed in about three months. Not only was it fixed, but I got emails telling me the status every step of the way. I was able to download the beta version of the software that had the fix and verify that it really was fixed. Try getting Microsoft to do that.
Even more important. If I'd been worried enough about the bug, I could have gone in and made the change myself and submitted it.
If my choice is between good service and slow file loading or bad service and fast file loading, I'll take the good service.
Besides, knowing the folks that work on Open Office, I expect they're already looking at ways to speed up file access.:)
What about sites that are art sites that include nudity? Should they be placed under the XXX domain? That would greatly restrict their potential traffic, since people might feel uncomfortable about visiting a.XXX site.
Exactly how are you going to define a porn site? Some of the non-nude sites are pretty racy, while some of the art sites with full nudes are very tastefully done. Does picture of a woman a wet clingy t-shirt justify forcing a site into a.xxx domain? What if it's a picture of a famine victim in Africa dancing in the first rain in a decade?
I think most legitimate adult sites would prefer to be under a.xxx domain, but I'm concerned that a lot of other sites that deal with mature subjects might be pushed into the.xxx domain against their will. It will become a convenient ghetto that the conservatives can use to limit access to anything they don't like.
Once the.xxx domain is set up, expect to see legislation forcing some sites to move. Shortly after that, expect to see a "sin" tax imposed on the registration fees for.xxx sites.
I suspect the.xxx domain will eventually be set up. I also suspect that in twenty years,.xxx will be associated with a lot more than just porn. It will be associated with anything the government doesn't like.
I wonder if this will work. The people who have the greatest personal vested interest will be people who want there to be more patents. If they outnumber the more objective reviewers, this type of setup could hurt more than it helps.
Setting up a special patent court was supposed to help keep dubious patents from being approved, but that court quickly became populated by people with a vested interest in promoting more and broader patents.
I think this idea has a lot of merit, but it will have to be setup carefully and monitored closely.
There are lots of ways to generate electricity, which is where most of our energy is used. Hydroelectric, nuclear (Pebble-bed reactors), solar, and wind, are all viable options.
Once you can produce the electricity you need, you need a way to store that energy for use in mobile devices from automobiles to cell phones. Battery technology is good and getting better. So is fuel cell technology. There's also been some great work done on using Hydrogen to fuel automobiles.
As for getting by with less energy, that is also an option. Giving up the instant on feature of our televisions would save enormous amounts of electricity. Improvements in electrical transmission lines could save as much as thirty percent.
The real key is what it costs. Oil prices are kept low in order to discourage us from developing alternatives. If you figured in the damage done to the environment and health by using oil, switching to alternate forms of power would be a no brainer. Instead we act as if our actions will never have an effect on the environment in spite of growing scientific evidence to the contrary.
Wind power is already competitive in some parts of the country. What is ironic is that rich people have usurped conservation groups to try to fight the construction of wind farms, because they fear it might spoil the view from their expensive vaction homes. (That's happening here in Massecheusetts.)
Energy density is only one small part of the equation.
What do you mean, "some supporters?" Wasn't it reported that the Administration supports a bill that would make any kind of whistleblowing on Homeland Security illegal?
If you've ever wondered why all the mergers of the telcos go unchallenged, this is the reason. If you only have to deal with a couple of companies, ones that know you can legally split them up under monopoly laws, you can make them do whatever you like. AT&T is almost as large as it was back before it was forced to divest.
If we had a truely healthy telecomm industry with lots of companies competing with each other, we would have heard about this program as soon as it was suggested. One or more companies would have decided to stand up for their customers.
Better yet, it's likely the program wouldn't have been suggested, because of the concerns that it would be leaked. The fewer companies the government has to work with, the easier it is to keep it quiet.
BTW, I commend the gentleman who risked his freedom to protect the freedom of us all. He should get a medal.
Just in case you're one of those who believes that you're safer with the government able to spy on every Internet transaction you make, remember, who is monitoring this traffic, it's underpaid civil service employees who have mortgages and kids to put through school. Sooner or later, one or more of them is going to use their privilaged access to swipe credit cards numbers or worse.
If that's not enough to scare you, think about this can be used for political gain. Put in the wrong context, perfectly innocent Internet activity can be made to look bad. Who hasn't searched on an unfamiliar term only to get barraged by a million porn sites? Don't forget about what happens when you accidentally mispell a site name, as well.
And here's the kicker. For those of you who love the Republican Party and are convinced they will never abuse this kind of power, do you really have the same kind of faith in the Democrats? (Personally, I have a lot more faith in the Dems, but that's just because I don't think they can keep anything secret.) We should never allow our government to have this kind of power. No matter how innocent the intentions, someone will eventually abuse it.
If you truely think you are better off without a right to privacy, I expect you're soon going to find out why you are wrong. If you have any doubts about living in an age where the government can watch everything you do, now is the time to stand up and say something about it.
Utimately, Islamic terrorists have the same weakness that the USSR had. They really don't have a clue as to how to run a government. If not propped up by oil revenues, they will eventually tear themselves to pieces. Their citizens will get tired of waiting in bread lines while their democratic neighbors wear blue jeans and carry ipods.
Terrorists have to have money to do anything. Hard to work a regular job and be a terrorist. It doesn't give you time for training, planning, or flying around the world meeting with other terrorists. Most of that money comes from men we've made rich with oil revenues.
We don't need to give up our liberties in order to beat terrorism. We just need to give up our oil and find something better that doesn't prop up people who mistreat their citizens.
I'm not saying it will be easy, like it might have been if we'd started thirty years ago, but we're going to have to wean ourselves off oil regardless, so why not get started now?
So much worry over kids seeing anatomy possessed by half of the population. It's about time we got over this puritanical BS.
Face it, any kid with access to the Internet will find a way to view naked women, if he/she so desires. Kids are smart. They have friends with printers. The secret is out, women and girls have different parts than boys do.
If you want to make sure your kids grow up to be well-adjusted, talk to them and explain things. Make sure they have plenty of parental attention and affection. Tell them they can always come to you and talk about things. Don't let kids learn all about sex from their peers.
Oh, and teach them that there are more important matters for people to worry about than whether or not electronic models have breasts.
Some things need to be regulated, particularly resources which are vitally important to everyone. The Internet has had a profound impact on the entire World and has quickly become integral to the World economy. The U.S. economy is the one most deeply connected to the Internet, but changes to the way the Internet works will affect hundreds of millions, if not billions of people.
The reason this regulation is necessary is that a small handful of telecommunication companies have decided to take advantage of the near monopoly they have over the Internet. They plan to charge different rates depending on the content you wish to access. This is like charging you a different toll on the highway depending on whether you are going to McDonald's or Macy's.
Packets are packets. What services you use on the Internet in no way change the cost for providing access from the point of view of the telecom. The only business reason to make this change is to squeeze more money out of either the consumers or sites like Google. (Ultimately we'll pay, regardless.)
This isn't a case where the "free market" will work things out. These companies have already made the decision not to compete against each other on this issue, even if they haven't all announced it. Why should they? If they all work together, it's free money for all of them.
If these telecoms are successful, they'll be able to set the prices on content all across the Internet. You'll pay more for any content that isn't provided by the telecoms, meaning that it might cost more to use Google than to use Yahoo! (This is just an example.) It will put enormous power in the hands of just a few people.
Imagine what happens to politics. It might suddenly become more expensive to access sites that criticize the telecoms or their favorite political party.
There will be pressure to make it more expensive to access porn sites. Then it will be any art site that has any nudity.
I'm sure you can think of other examples.
The only way to deal with this is with government regulation. Since our government seems to have given up on enforcing monopoly laws, some of our law makers are doing what they can to try to keep the Internet as free as possible. I commend them.
I agree. If I'm barraged by ads in an on-line game, I'll find another game or stop playing altogether. Since the games I play are ones like DDO, ads for coca-cola would be extremely inappropriate in the game world.
This is another example of obsession with steadily increasing profits vs. creating a product that sells well and consistently produces a good income. Wall Street has ruined many good companies with this mindless obsession.
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Congress might control the purse strings, but what is happening here is a President is taking credit for his "Bold Initiatives" but not actually creating a budget that includes money for the mandate. That's because he doesn't want to take the heat for cutting some other program, or putting the nation even further into debt. He doesn't really give a damn about going to Mars, he just wants the bump in the polls. He also figures that he can later blame the failure of the program on the evil congress that thought it was more important to balance the budget than go to Mars. (I'm not saying we can't do both, but most political critters don't think that way.)
It's political opportunism.
This is a responsible bill, in my opinion, because it's telling the President that if he wants this program so badly, he should submit a budget that includes money for that program, not just leave it up to the NASA director to gut all the other science programs.
I'd love to see us go to Mars, but it's more important to me that my kids and grandkids didn't get crushed under the debt this president is racking up.
It's not just the whole email system they are disrupting, it's the entire Internet. Ever get upset because the MMO you are playing seems laggy? Ever get upset because a download takes way longer than it should? In a lot of cases, you can thank spammers, who use up a considerable fraction of the bandwidth of the Internet. That's bandwidth you pay for every month. Think about it. A significant portion of your Internet bill goes to pay the business expenses for the spammers. Any of you have a relative who's been taken in by a phisher? You helped pay for that spam, too.
That's why it's a big deal.
Another reason it's a concern is that it's going to add even more costs to your Internet usage as ISPs find ways to cash in on the virtual monopolies they've been granted in the U.S. It's not really a question of whether you'll have to pay to have email delivered as when it will happen and how much you'll have to pay. That is, unless you actually sit up, take notice, and start writing some of your law makers. Sometimes that does work. (Works better if you sign the letter Bill Gates, too.)
What most players don't understand is the trade-offs that have to be made between things like realistic physics and prevention of griefing. As pointed in the post above, there are also exploits that have to be considered.
Lets take just the issue of not allowing players to walk through one another. That would allow a player to effectively trap others in a room that had no exits. While that seems childish and immature, it has happened in the past.
Most of these types of decisions are carefully weighed. They aren't "mistakes." They are simply facts of life when you are dealing with large numbers of people, some of whom, because of the anonymity granted by having a toon represent them, think it's fun to make game play miserable for other people. The problem isn't the MMO companies, it's human nature.
... and you get to exercise your constitutional rights to Fair Use.
So, basically, if you are poor, we consider you a criminal and you don't deserve to have the constitutional rights due to everyone else.
Two interesting ways of interpreting the scheme where you pay more in order to be allowed to do something that's legal anyway.
As long as people keep buying no matter what these companies do, we'll continue to see our rights eroded away.
I went to work for a fortune 100 company many years ago, and I was forced to undergo drug testing in order to get the job. I didn't like it, but I did it. Why? Because I had health problems that meant I needed good health insurance. Had I gone to any other company with similar health insurance, I still would have been forced to get drug testing.
If such testing were 100% error free, it might not bother me so much. (Although, I think what you do on your time off, provided it doesn't mess with your ability to work, is your business.) But the consequences of a false positive are pretty harsh. Not only do you lose the job, but who knows what else is going to happen before you can get it straightened out?
While I support the fingerprinting in this particular case. (Let's face it, it's a bank, they have to be careful.) I think there should be some kind of ethical guidelines for all companies on how far they can go in digging through someone's life while determining suitability for hire. These days, everything you say on the web stays around forever. I wonder how many kids are going to be penalized for rash remarks said in the heat of argument thirty years from now.
The problem I see is that you are losing 20% of your power for the sake of convenience. The last thing we need is another way to throw power away needlessly. We should be looking at ways to increase our power production and transmission efficiency.
I'd love to lose the power cords, but not at the cost of destroying the climate.
I think this might have been handled better, but mostly on the BSD side. If they'd "borrowed" code from a corporation, their first notification might have been a lawsuit, not a widely distributed posting.
It's no surprise that stuff like this gets blown up out of proportion. Quite a few people who work in software, myself included, aren't the most diplomatic types. Still, maturity is ignoring other peoples bad behavior and trying to work out your differences amicably. I think Marcus showed a great deal of restraint. I would have been incredibly angry if I'd been in his situation and I'm not sure I'd have been nearly so forgiving.
While it maybe a tempest in a teapot, it's a lesson for all of us. We all look like doofuses (how do you spell the plural of doofus?) when we air our grievances in public.
Take a breath, relax, go have a beer. Then find a way to work together.
My 1.9888888 cents worth.
that shouldn't have been issued in the first place?
This makes it way too easy to get a patent. Now you don't even have to search for prior art? That places an even greater burden on the patent office. Why should any examiner reject a patent now, if it means a great deal more work for him/her? If examiners are evaluated by number of patents they process, there will be a strong incentive to rubber stamp each and every application that comes in through this new system.
It's foolish to set up a system that is so badly skewed. It will result in more bad patents that are used to extort money from small businesses that can't afford to defend against bogus infringement claims. And since software patents seem to have become law without any bill authorizing them, it will mean it is even easier for companies like Microsoft to attack Open Source.
I don't oppose patents, but I believe that we need to be rigorous in how they are given out. Our government needs to remember that it's duty is not only to the multi-billion dollar corporations in this country, but to the individual citizens who will be affected financially by the cost of bad patent office decisions.
I'll support a fast track patent service once the USPTO can demonstrate that it's not giving out patents for glaringly obvious inventions simply because the patent was filed by a large corporation.
The reason people get so worked up about global warming is that, at the very least, millions, if not billions of lives are threatened if even the mildest of predictions come true. At worst, we could be looking at the end of our species and most other life forms on the planet. It's happened before as a result of natural cycles. (Just because it's natural doesn't mean it can't kill you.)
A large percentage of human beings live near oceans. Almost all the great cities of the world face inundation by even a moderate increase in sea level. That will kill the poorest and force the relocation of the rest.
If you add heat to a system, you get more activity. It's likely that increasing heat will give us more powerful storms. Those also threaten lives.
This isn't an academic subject anymore. It's far more important than, say, cigarette smoking, it's no surprise that people react as they do.
I refused to install WGA for a long time for several reasons, not the least was the fact that it was marked in the EULA as BETA software. Why should I be forced to install software that MS admits hasn't been fully tested yet? I have enough problems with MS bugs. Also, I resent the implication that I have to constantly prove that my software was purchased legally. I've always paid for the software I use, even when I was a poor college student.
Most copies of Windows in the U.S. are paid for, because Windows comes installed, by default, on almost every retail machine sold. That alone makes piracy a non-issue in the U.S. However, WGA does give Microsoft a way to shut down every Windows computer connected to the Internet. What a scam. Once they've got everyone using WGA, they can start dictating terms to governments instead of dealing with irritating lawsuits.
Lets say that the kind souls at MS never even think of using WGA as leverage on say, Europe. I still think it's possible for a clever hacker to use WGA to do some real damage. The hacker would have to do some DNS spoofing and probably crack some encryption, but then, that's what these guys do. Whose to say someone might not use WGA to pull off the biggest Denial of Service extortion in history? Perhaps I'm a bit paranoid, but my caution has kept me from ever having one of my computers compromised.
Piracy is a problem, but not nearly as big a problem as MS would have us believe. If people are stealing you blind, you don't make billions of dollars in profits, you lose money. If MS is feeling a pinch lately, it's due to their own foolish policies and assumptions that they would be able to dictate terms to the world forever. Google Apps and Open Source software will, hopefully, eliminate the need to put our computers at risk simply because a company is greedy.
Microsoft seems to believe that if there were no piracy, everyone in the third world who is now stealing their software would pay for it instead. Yeah right. One of the reasons they steal it is because there is no way they could possibly pay for it. If MS ever finds a way to shut down piracy, it will merely hasten the move to Linux in 3rd world countries. Ironically, that will speed the demise of Windows.
It will be used to shut off the machines of disadents. Governments don't seem to care that much about machines being stolen, but they do care about giving power to political opponents. If I buy a machine, I should have complete control of it. No one should be able to remotely turn off the machine without my explicit authorization. I can't think of any way to make a feature like this safe from abuse.
No, every computer does not have IE installed. Only all the ones shipped with Windows already installed. I build some of my computers and put Linux on them. Lots of people use Mac computers that run OS/X.
Not everyone wants to live in a world run by Microsoft. It's surprising that often the people who claim that the free market justifies anything a company does, refuse to understand that it's NOT a free market if there are no competitors, or if the competition is so badly hamstrung that they can't really compete fairly.
The problem is that the Republicans are more concerned with staying in power than in the well-being of the country or average Americans. They will put forth the old argument that they "must" be in office in order to do the right thing, all the while, passing laws that make legal actions that the President should be impeached over. All this to preserve the party.
This is what things have come to. Party politics have become more important than good government. The Republicans were willing to cover up Foleys actions. Why? Because they'd rather have a Republican sexual predator in office than any Democrat. How messed up is that?
It's time we demonstrated that the Republicans way of doing things has a price. Vote them all out of office on November 7th. And, if the Democrats can't do any better, vote them out in the next election. It's time we took back our country.
Don't just moan and groan, do something about the problem. VOTE. Make sure that these jokers are voted out by such a huge margin that even cheating won't help them. Then insist that your new representatives actually pay attention and work for you, rather than which ever lobbiest gives them the biggest check.
It is quite possible to have fair voting with electronic voting machines, provided those machines use code that can be inspected and verified by any member of the public, and the machines produce a paper trail that allows for recounts and gives auditors a way to detect fraud. It's unfortunate, but probably predictable, that the our representatives have been pushing the use of clearly insecure and unverifiable e-voting machines here in the U.S.
It's a shame that American voters care so little about the legitimacy of their elections that they tolerate a system that can easily disenfranchise large portions of the electorate.
Even paper systems have flaws, as was demonstrated in Florida in 2000, when the election was stolen by Bush, the first President appointed by the Supreme Court rather than elected. But at least there's a chance of detecting fraud and doing something about it. If it hadn't been for the actions of then Florida Secretary of State, Harris, the election results might well have been corrected.
If you're an American, show some real patriotism and insist that your representatives demand that we have a fair voting system. That means:
1) Voting districts should be set up based only on population counts, such that each district has a minimum circumference. (No Jerrymandering.)
2) Voter registration must be free, simple, and easily available to all citizens.
3) Ample resources must be allocated to each voting precinct to insure timely voting by all the citizens in that precinct.
4) Election day should be a paid holiday, insuring that everyone can get to the polls. Alternatively, allow voting over an extended period of time, such as a week.
5) If votes cast differ substantially from independent polls that are statistically valid, an audit should be performed.
6) Make vote tampering punishable by twenty years in prison and permanent disenfranchisement.
7) Public financing of all elections. At the very least, prohibit the use of any money in a campaign that comes from outside the voting area. That means no foreign money in national elections, and no out-of-state money in statewide elections. Currently there is too much money in the system and it has corrupted our government so badly that everyone assumes our representatives can be bought and sold. Sadly, there are few examples of any of our representatives turning down bribes or turning in the people who make them.
I'm sure there are other good ideas out there, ones probably better than mine, but unless people actually prove that they care about the fairness of our elections, we'll never get control of our government back into the hands of the people, where it belongs.
Talk about a scam. Now MS has less incentive than ever to produce an OS that is secure and well-protected against viruses. Why protect their users for free when they can force them to pay a subscription?
This is another example of why MS should have been broken up. It's only by actually enforcing the anti-monopoly laws that we'll ever convince corporations that doing this kind of thing simply isn't going to wash.
To me, this is extortion, pure and simple, and should be agressively pursued by law enforcement as such.
The only reason I still use Windows is so I can play games. I dearly wish that the companies that make the games I play would port them to Linux so I could be shed of Windows once and for all.
Twenty years ago, the best guess for how the space elevator would be built involved some kind of massive cable constructed of artificial diamond molecules miles long. New discoveries have changed that perception, so now we believe that carbon nanotubes might be the material that makes the space elevator happen.
One that that is for sure, is that the quality control of nanotubes isn't yet as high as it needs to be. There are all kinds of conflicting claims from various suppliers as to the strength of the materials they produce. At the high end, nanotubes seem plenty strong even with occasional defects.
Any realistic design is going to allow for repair and maintenance, which is what is needed to counter these problems.
As far as the oxygen problem, only a very small portion of the overall cable is ever in the atmosphere. Regularly replacing that section of the cable probably won't be terribly expensive.
Micrometeorites are also a concern, but the designs I've seen take them into consideration.
The fact is, the potential profits for a space elevator are enormous, more than enough to fund the needed maintenence work and continued development of advanced materials.
Open Office works fine for me, in fact, I like it a lot better than Word. I find it easier to figure out what I need to do. I've been using Open Office exclusively for a couple of years now and don't see any reason to go back to MS Office.
:)
I also write BIG documents. I'm working on a couple of novels, which means that I use a master document that organizes dozens of individual chapter files. While it takes a few seconds to load and reindex that file, it's not a big deal.
What I REALLY like about Open Office, can be illustrated by a bug I found. I discovered that under certain conditions, Open Office would lock up and crash while I was reoganizing the chapters in my novel. Since I was doing a lot of that kind of thing, it was quite a big irritation. So I filed a bug.
Now, remember, my bug was not one that would affect most users of the software, so it wasn't very high priority. Nevertheless, it was fixed in about three months. Not only was it fixed, but I got emails telling me the status every step of the way. I was able to download the beta version of the software that had the fix and verify that it really was fixed. Try getting Microsoft to do that.
Even more important. If I'd been worried enough about the bug, I could have gone in and made the change myself and submitted it.
If my choice is between good service and slow file loading or bad service and fast file loading, I'll take the good service.
Besides, knowing the folks that work on Open Office, I expect they're already looking at ways to speed up file access.
What about sites that are art sites that include nudity? Should they be placed under the XXX domain? That would greatly restrict their potential traffic, since people might feel uncomfortable about visiting a .XXX site.
.xxx domain? What if it's a picture of a famine victim in Africa dancing in the first rain in a decade?
.xxx domain, but I'm concerned that a lot of other sites that deal with mature subjects might be pushed into the .xxx domain against their will. It will become a convenient ghetto that the conservatives can use to limit access to anything they don't like.
.xxx domain is set up, expect to see legislation forcing some sites to move. Shortly after that, expect to see a "sin" tax imposed on the registration fees for .xxx sites.
.xxx domain will eventually be set up. I also suspect that in twenty years, .xxx will be associated with a lot more than just porn. It will be associated with anything the government doesn't like.
Exactly how are you going to define a porn site? Some of the non-nude sites are pretty racy, while some of the art sites with full nudes are very tastefully done. Does picture of a woman a wet clingy t-shirt justify forcing a site into a
I think most legitimate adult sites would prefer to be under a
Once the
I suspect the
I wonder if this will work. The people who have the greatest personal vested interest will be people who want there to be more patents. If they outnumber the more objective reviewers, this type of setup could hurt more than it helps.
Setting up a special patent court was supposed to help keep dubious patents from being approved, but that court quickly became populated by people with a vested interest in promoting more and broader patents.
I think this idea has a lot of merit, but it will have to be setup carefully and monitored closely.
I disagree.
There are lots of ways to generate electricity, which is where most of our energy is used. Hydroelectric, nuclear (Pebble-bed reactors), solar, and wind, are all viable options.
Once you can produce the electricity you need, you need a way to store that energy for use in mobile devices from automobiles to cell phones. Battery technology is good and getting better. So is fuel cell technology. There's also been some great work done on using Hydrogen to fuel automobiles.
As for getting by with less energy, that is also an option. Giving up the instant on feature of our televisions would save enormous amounts of electricity. Improvements in electrical transmission lines could save as much as thirty percent.
The real key is what it costs. Oil prices are kept low in order to discourage us from developing alternatives. If you figured in the damage done to the environment and health by using oil, switching to alternate forms of power would be a no brainer. Instead we act as if our actions will never have an effect on the environment in spite of growing scientific evidence to the contrary.
Wind power is already competitive in some parts of the country. What is ironic is that rich people have usurped conservation groups to try to fight the construction of wind farms, because they fear it might spoil the view from their expensive vaction homes. (That's happening here in Massecheusetts.)
Energy density is only one small part of the equation.
What do you mean, "some supporters?" Wasn't it reported that the Administration supports a bill that would make any kind of whistleblowing on Homeland Security illegal?
If you've ever wondered why all the mergers of the telcos go unchallenged, this is the reason. If you only have to deal with a couple of companies, ones that know you can legally split them up under monopoly laws, you can make them do whatever you like. AT&T is almost as large as it was back before it was forced to divest.
If we had a truely healthy telecomm industry with lots of companies competing with each other, we would have heard about this program as soon as it was suggested. One or more companies would have decided to stand up for their customers.
Better yet, it's likely the program wouldn't have been suggested, because of the concerns that it would be leaked. The fewer companies the government has to work with, the easier it is to keep it quiet.
BTW, I commend the gentleman who risked his freedom to protect the freedom of us all. He should get a medal.
Just in case you're one of those who believes that you're safer with the government able to spy on every Internet transaction you make, remember, who is monitoring this traffic, it's underpaid civil service employees who have mortgages and kids to put through school. Sooner or later, one or more of them is going to use their privilaged access to swipe credit cards numbers or worse.
If that's not enough to scare you, think about this can be used for political gain. Put in the wrong context, perfectly innocent Internet activity can be made to look bad. Who hasn't searched on an unfamiliar term only to get barraged by a million porn sites? Don't forget about what happens when you accidentally mispell a site name, as well.
And here's the kicker. For those of you who love the Republican Party and are convinced they will never abuse this kind of power, do you really have the same kind of faith in the Democrats? (Personally, I have a lot more faith in the Dems, but that's just because I don't think they can keep anything secret.) We should never allow our government to have this kind of power. No matter how innocent the intentions, someone will eventually abuse it.
If you truely think you are better off without a right to privacy, I expect you're soon going to find out why you are wrong. If you have any doubts about living in an age where the government can watch everything you do, now is the time to stand up and say something about it.
Utimately, Islamic terrorists have the same weakness that the USSR had. They really don't have a clue as to how to run a government. If not propped up by oil revenues, they will eventually tear themselves to pieces. Their citizens will get tired of waiting in bread lines while their democratic neighbors wear blue jeans and carry ipods.
Terrorists have to have money to do anything. Hard to work a regular job and be a terrorist. It doesn't give you time for training, planning, or flying around the world meeting with other terrorists. Most of that money comes from men we've made rich with oil revenues.
We don't need to give up our liberties in order to beat terrorism. We just need to give up our oil and find something better that doesn't prop up people who mistreat their citizens.
I'm not saying it will be easy, like it might have been if we'd started thirty years ago, but we're going to have to wean ourselves off oil regardless, so why not get started now?
So much worry over kids seeing anatomy possessed by half of the population. It's about time we got over this puritanical BS.
Face it, any kid with access to the Internet will find a way to view naked women, if he/she so desires. Kids are smart. They have friends with printers. The secret is out, women and girls have different parts than boys do.
If you want to make sure your kids grow up to be well-adjusted, talk to them and explain things. Make sure they have plenty of parental attention and affection. Tell them they can always come to you and talk about things. Don't let kids learn all about sex from their peers.
Oh, and teach them that there are more important matters for people to worry about than whether or not electronic models have breasts.
Some things need to be regulated, particularly resources which are vitally important to everyone. The Internet has had a profound impact on the entire World and has quickly become integral to the World economy. The U.S. economy is the one most deeply connected to the Internet, but changes to the way the Internet works will affect hundreds of millions, if not billions of people.
The reason this regulation is necessary is that a small handful of telecommunication companies have decided to take advantage of the near monopoly they have over the Internet. They plan to charge different rates depending on the content you wish to access. This is like charging you a different toll on the highway depending on whether you are going to McDonald's or Macy's.
Packets are packets. What services you use on the Internet in no way change the cost for providing access from the point of view of the telecom. The only business reason to make this change is to squeeze more money out of either the consumers or sites like Google. (Ultimately we'll pay, regardless.)
This isn't a case where the "free market" will work things out. These companies have already made the decision not to compete against each other on this issue, even if they haven't all announced it. Why should they? If they all work together, it's free money for all of them.
If these telecoms are successful, they'll be able to set the prices on content all across the Internet. You'll pay more for any content that isn't provided by the telecoms, meaning that it might cost more to use Google than to use Yahoo! (This is just an example.) It will put enormous power in the hands of just a few people.
Imagine what happens to politics. It might suddenly become more expensive to access sites that criticize the telecoms or their favorite political party.
There will be pressure to make it more expensive to access porn sites. Then it will be any art site that has any nudity.
I'm sure you can think of other examples.
The only way to deal with this is with government regulation. Since our government seems to have given up on enforcing monopoly laws, some of our law makers are doing what they can to try to keep the Internet as free as possible. I commend them.
I agree. If I'm barraged by ads in an on-line game, I'll find another game or stop playing altogether. Since the games I play are ones like DDO, ads for coca-cola would be extremely inappropriate in the game world.
This is another example of obsession with steadily increasing profits vs. creating a product that sells well and consistently produces a good income. Wall Street has ruined many good companies with this mindless obsession.