I wouldn't trust a single thing that comes out of Andy Hodges' mouth. He is extremely well known as a liar in the TFC community. Just visit the catacombs and their forums - enter into the cesspool and ask who Andy Hodges is (well, you could ask in any forum really, but the admins would move your thread to the cesspool forum). Don't believe him when he writes "Our exclusive visit with Gabe Newell and Valve Software" because he lives just about as far away from Seattle as one could in the continental USA. When he used to run area51live.com he would make up stories just to impress the teens who would visit the site on their way to his game servers. A lot of people from the TFC community were drawn in by his lies and were hurt by his actions.
His new web site, halflifesource is a farce. They have no special connection to Valve, all information they post on their site is either coming from other sites, or pure speculation. This is just about as bad as it can get when the blind lead the blind.
They could tell beforehand that you don't want them to call. But they insist they want to call you despite that and rule the list illegal.
The problem is that the telemarketing associations believe that people are being signed up against their will. They claim that there is no assurance that the name (and number) on the list was put there by that individual. To prove their point, they claim that several of their high ranking officials were put on the list - but that those officials did not sign up themselves (and that they were the butt of the joke for being on a list they oppose).
When we signed up for our state-wide do-not-call list, All you had to do was visit a web site, enter your phone number, and click OK. For all the telemarketing association knows, one lone anti-telemarketer could have sat on that web site with a phone book and entered the whole damn thing into it. Thus you didn't REALLY tell them beforehand that you don't want them to call. Someone hijacked your right to recieve these phone calls, and placed you on a list without your authorization.
To be a nemesis, you have to actively try to destroy something, don't you? Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect.
Uh-huh. Sure. As unintentional as a bull in a china shop.
Ya, that's why we start counting with 1 instead of 0. But if you ask someone to list all the years of the '90s, they will correctly start with 1990, and continue to 1999. Ask them to count to 10, and they will ALWAYS start with 1 (even though their previous example included 0).
It is a societal standard. If the lawsuit had taken place shortly after this change in labeling, I could see it as having merit. I wonder if with all the time that has passed if this is seen as a true mis-label, or societal standard? Is it within error limits of measurements? Would you miss 1% or 2% of your gallon of milk? (chances are, you would lose 1% or 2% of your milk to the measuring cup trying to find out if you had exactly 1 gallon)
The individuals involved are only doing it for the money. They are suing companies with deep pockets. If they really wanted to make a change, they would be suing the hard disk manufacturers.
Are you late even at 7:31? One minute past? YES!
Your employers set up the rules, as a good
employee you should respect an abide by those
rules. To be honest, it should never be an issue.
You should make an effort to arrive at 7:00. That
will give you plenty of time to deal with any
unforeseen traffic conditions in your drive in to
work, issues with weather, car problems,
breakfast, etc. As well, if you are consistently
early for work, your employers will take note, and
will be impressed by your attitude and willingness
to get started with your work! Those are the
kinds of things which give you good reviews and
get you better raises and help with promotions.
You should never be late. You should strive to
make sure that it will never be an issue.
I think a major portion of your concern is the ability to get a job in a different market after graduation. While I do not know about the advantages of the programs offered overseas, I do know of two things that will capture a potential employer's interest. A well known school (even if it isn't known for their CS degree), and what extra curricular projects you have been involved with.
For example, if you come back to the States with a Doctorate in Computer Science from Oxford University, and contributed heavily to the SATA, USB2, and Firewire code in the Linux Kernel, your interviewer will drool at the opportunity to have you working for them. On the other hand, if you come back with a Doctorate in Computer Science from St. Etienne Community College, and contributed heavily to gwine (with no disrespect to Sylvain Daubert or his work), your potential employer might be asking you where St. Etienne is, and what gwine is ("is that related to the Wine is not an emulator project?").
I couldn't agree more with your first suggestion! I bought a set of speakers for my desk, and I like to turn it up. I have even had people put in requests for what music they want to listen to. Of course, it is nice that I work for the company that makes those speakers, so this kind of behavior is acceptable.
That is a really good point. Perhaps the designers could put in some sort of safety guard in their design parameters, such as "No quest will take over an hour to complete" to provide for easy save and break times where people can bail on the game after completing a quest that took an hour or less. This way players feel like they have accomplished something on their "online" world, as well as not having wasted several hours to make it happen. Unfortunately, being a previous MUD player myself, I know that it isn't the adventure that kept me coming back to play, but the friendships I had formed online that kept me coming back for more.
I'm sorry to say, as several other posters have already pointed out, that laptops are pretty much inconfigurable beyond "Do you want DVD or CDRW with that?" The best thing you can do if you are in the market is look for a model that most closely fits what you want to do with it, and how you will most likely use (abuse) it. For example, if you know you are rough with technology, might I suggest a Panasonic ToughBook? If you are looking for style and sophistication, perhaps Apple is calling your name? If you want a gaming platform, you can go with your alienware. Several manufacturers are coming out with 17" and widescreen laptops (Apple and Dell for example), and if you want something that can keep going on batteries for several hours, perhaps you should investigate Centrino laptops.
YOU must decide what is important in your new purchase, and decide how important. If customization and configurability is really that important, perhaps you are asking the wrong question? Maybe you should be asking, "Do I really need a laptop? What would a laptop give me that a regular computer will not, and can I live without it?"
"You're adding more complex software, more hardware devices, home-based Internet applications. These things interact and they don't always work together," Blyskal said. "That's going to make this a bigger problem."
Perhaps the problem is that we aren't using Open Standards like we should? Instead we find ourselves using propritary interfaces that are changed at a moment's notice by a single controlling organization who cares little about the impact of said changes, and woe to the consumer who doesn't keep their system up to date with the latest version of Software-X! Unfortunately a lot of these problems are Microsoft's doing because of their co-opting of the few set standards that we do have, and turning them into something that they weren't meant for. And if the giant cannot honor their own dedication to the standards that they claim to be following, how can smaller companies ever hope to create and fairly use open standards for their products? Microsoft is the example, and how they operate in the software world is being used as the standard for every other software vendor.
It is not that the software is overly complex, interfaces between internet apps is complex, or even that adding hardware and mobile devices is complex. It is that the interface is constantly changing because someone has an itch, or is paranoid, or wants to maintain market dominance, and fails to notify their partners, or worse their partners have no way of sending updates to their customers! We are all paying for someone else' short-sightedness.
The problem is, the USTPO doesn't want to better the people, it sees itself as revenue generating arm of the federal government. It wants to help create as many patents as possible so it can charge individuals and corporations to have their own patents. It believes that by helping people create patents, it is helping businesses protect and build themselves.
Until that mindset is changed, we will continue seeing patents for the incredulous, the obvious, the impossible, and the idiotic. Problem is, this is a government authority with very little oversite, and a mission that seems to change for a more broad interpretation every time the supreme court seems to say anything positive about patents and what is patentable. Unfortunately it doesn't seem as if the pendulum is slowing down...it may be this way for a long, long time.
Might it be time to kill SCO with a death by a thousand cuts? By this I mean if everyone who contributed code to the Linux Kernel sued SCO? Imagine it. Thousands of lawsuits scattered all over the world arguing breach of contract when SCO offered licences for their version of linux without the developer's approval on a change of licence. They would exhaust all their legal funds racing around the world defending themselves.
Its not like they could convince one judge to throw out all the cases because they are frivolous or do not pertain to the unrevealed code. They would have to convince hundreds of judges, and spend countless manhours defending themselves from so many suits.
It may seem awkward to keep a large cardboard box, styrofoam moldings, and large plastic bags, but unless you plan on driving cross country with it in your trunk, those are the best tools in which to ensure that your baby gets to its destination safely, while in someone else's hands. If you have already disposed of the original packaging, you may be able to drop by the local Apple store, and ask if they kept the original packaging for one of display units that you could have.
As an alternative, you may be able to partially disassemble your machine based on what might get damaged if part of the internals of your computer came apart during shipping. For example: Pull out the hard drive, and keep that with you (as it has all of your important data), while pulling out all internal cards (PCI, AGP, ISA, etc) and putting them in seperate protective containters.
When Intel had their cartrige processors (during Pentium 2, and early Pentium 3 days), the massive cartrige and its heat sink had a tendancy to come off during transport, and flop about wildly inside the computer case during transport - damaging just about everything inside of a computer. If you feel that your heat sink/fan is too big you may consider removing those, along with your processor, and placing them in protective containers as well.
This way, you reduce the chance that one breakage would destroy the entire computer, and help to minimize your costs to repair/replace parts. As well, you also maximize the survivability of your important information.
RAID5 is good for redundancy, 1gb of RAM is cheap, but Dual P4's is a waste of money for that setup.
I totally agree, go with a hyperthreading processor to help simulate multiple processors, but stick with a single processor solution. If you are supporting that many individuals, you also may want to consider a backup solution, and back up all of the e-mail and web data on a regular (weekly) basis. For what you are doing, you might get by with an external firewire or USB2 hard drive that you connect once a week and start a copying script before you leave friday night.
I have to disagree, because Half Life shipped over a year late, and it went on to become arguably the best game ever made. I fully believe with all my heart what Gabe Newell said when justifying the delay of the game, "A game can only be late once, but it can suck forever."
Diakatana slipped for the wrong reason, and instead of making it right, they rushed it out the door. I am not sure if the same can be said about Duke, after all, Perhaps by not rushing it out the door after changing the 3D engines, they may have refocused themselves on developing a first class game. But after seeing the HL2 technology demonstration, Duke Nukem would have to jump out of my monitor and punch me in the face to impress me.
Half Life won big because when it shipped, it was just about perfect. It made its money serindipitously by being a mod makers heaven, which attracted more players and more developers, and kept feeding off of itself. I know people who play TFC and CS, DoD and NS (all very popular HL mods) who have never played the original single player game all of this technology is based off of. Hell, less than a week before I heard any rumblings about HL2, mod makers for the original were still coming up with original ideas for modifications that looked enjoyable and fun to play! I suspect that Valve is going to repeat their feat by coming out with an incredible game, and providing people like you and I the tools we need to make our own modified versions of the game.
Yes, you are right. Raw data with no other point of reference is a very crappy measure of a driver's hazard level. How do you know if the 70 miles per hour recorded as a max speed was on the interstate where that was the speed limit, or in a residential area where they were speeding through a school zone? Was the jack rabbit start because they were involved in a street race, or because they lost traction in the ice and snow? Was the emergency brake because someone cut them off, or they weren't watching where they were going and almost rear ended a police car?
However, raw data like that can be compared with other statistical information about the individual to help determine their risk as a driver. Your risk as a driver is what the insurance company bases your rate on. If devices like this can indicate you are a better driver than you are currently classified in, you may demand a better rate for your current insurance company, or try to get an offer from one of their many many competitors.
Driving safer puts less wear and tear on your vehicle, uses less gasoline, gives you more time to make decisions in dangerous situations, makes the road safer for other drivers around you, makes your bed in the morning, washes your dishes, cooks your food, and cleans your clothes. Oh wait...I had a point in there somewhere. Oh yea! Driving safer generally makes you less of a risk to insure, and when you are a low risk driver, you enjoy better rates.
Beyond that, all I can say is that I am all for safer roads. The mentality in the U.S. is that of driving being a right, and it is not. Driving is a very serious responsibility, and too many Americans take it far too lightly. Ride along in a police cruiser, or with an EMT for a busy evening, and you will understand exactly why we need to make people aware just how serious the situation is, and why we cannot stress enough just how dangerous our roads are when people abuse their privilige.
Unfortunately I disagree with your pessimism. To be very honest, I wholeheartedly agree with the usage of these devices. You must remember driving is a privilidge and a convenience. When people abuse that privilidge, it affects more than just the individual abuser.
Consider the argument that insurance companies do require access to your black box to evaluate your driving and assign rates to you. Those who drive safer will have lower rates as actuarials will be able to add another component to their calculations that will weed out unsafe drivers, and allow them to reduce rates to customers who drive better. Thank you capitalism, and competition!
I believe that there are too many cars on the road as it is. We need to beef up our public transportation, and reduce the number of drivers who abuse their privilidge to drive. If you can't drive safely, if you can't remember to buckle your seatbelt, if you are not paying attention to the speed limit, then perhaps you should be ticketed. Just because the police do not see you do it, does not mean that you should get away with breaking the law! Consider this; if those girls hadn't pulled out of their driveway when they did, this very reckless driver would still be on our roads! Would you want him driving 100+ miles per hour through your neighborhood? I can guarantee that this wasn't the only time he had driven that fast - one does not work up to those kinds of speeds easily.
Re:SCO still packs a punch?
on
SCO SCO SCO!
·
· Score: 4, Funny
For some reason I see the SCO CEO, only it is really Dr. Evil, and he has his pinky up to his mouth as he says, "One Billion Dollars!"
The Copyright Office is setting up rules on how the RIAA can collect royalties from Web Casters? Isn't that like the Fox setting up rules on how many chickens it can take per night from the henhouse? Anyone else sense a conflict of interest?
I can't help but think this might be the next big thing. Although it took about 10 minutes to download the 2 minute "liquid" trailer, and my computer stuttered a little bit, it reminds me alot of the days when MP3s where first introduced, and the majority of the computers of the day were just barely able to play them (today they can be played in the background, and don't take up much comparable processing power at all).
Imagine if you will, when this becomes mainstream in the next year or two, and we are given a delivery medium that can offer this to us at "live viewing" delivery rates. With all of the media enhancements that modern computers and operating systems are focusing on, people may demand a lot more high quality content to be available to them. As well, with the FCC, broadcasters, content providers, and high definition television manufacturers all dragging their feet, they may find themselves missing out on a market that they once monopolized.
Slashdot Mirror
I wouldn't trust a single thing that comes out of Andy Hodges' mouth. He is extremely well known as a liar in the TFC community. Just visit the catacombs and their forums - enter into the cesspool and ask who Andy Hodges is (well, you could ask in any forum really, but the admins would move your thread to the cesspool forum). Don't believe him when he writes "Our exclusive visit with Gabe Newell and Valve Software" because he lives just about as far away from Seattle as one could in the continental USA. When he used to run area51live.com he would make up stories just to impress the teens who would visit the site on their way to his game servers. A lot of people from the TFC community were drawn in by his lies and were hurt by his actions.
His new web site, halflifesource is a farce. They have no special connection to Valve, all information they post on their site is either coming from other sites, or pure speculation. This is just about as bad as it can get when the blind lead the blind.
They could tell beforehand that you don't want them to call. But they insist they want to call you despite that and rule the list illegal.
The problem is that the telemarketing associations believe that people are being signed up against their will. They claim that there is no assurance that the name (and number) on the list was put there by that individual. To prove their point, they claim that several of their high ranking officials were put on the list - but that those officials did not sign up themselves (and that they were the butt of the joke for being on a list they oppose).
When we signed up for our state-wide do-not-call list, All you had to do was visit a web site, enter your phone number, and click OK. For all the telemarketing association knows, one lone anti-telemarketer could have sat on that web site with a phone book and entered the whole damn thing into it. Thus you didn't REALLY tell them beforehand that you don't want them to call. Someone hijacked your right to recieve these phone calls, and placed you on a list without your authorization.
To be a nemesis, you have to actively try to destroy something, don't you? Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect.
Uh-huh. Sure. As unintentional as a bull in a china shop.
Ya, that's why we start counting with 1 instead of 0. But if you ask someone to list all the years of the '90s, they will correctly start with 1990, and continue to 1999. Ask them to count to 10, and they will ALWAYS start with 1 (even though their previous example included 0).
It is a societal standard. If the lawsuit had taken place shortly after this change in labeling, I could see it as having merit. I wonder if with all the time that has passed if this is seen as a true mis-label, or societal standard? Is it within error limits of measurements? Would you miss 1% or 2% of your gallon of milk? (chances are, you would lose 1% or 2% of your milk to the measuring cup trying to find out if you had exactly 1 gallon)
The individuals involved are only doing it for the money. They are suing companies with deep pockets. If they really wanted to make a change, they would be suing the hard disk manufacturers.
Are you late even at 7:31? One minute past? YES! Your employers set up the rules, as a good employee you should respect an abide by those rules. To be honest, it should never be an issue. You should make an effort to arrive at 7:00. That will give you plenty of time to deal with any unforeseen traffic conditions in your drive in to work, issues with weather, car problems, breakfast, etc. As well, if you are consistently early for work, your employers will take note, and will be impressed by your attitude and willingness to get started with your work! Those are the kinds of things which give you good reviews and get you better raises and help with promotions. You should never be late. You should strive to make sure that it will never be an issue.
I think a major portion of your concern is the ability to get a job in a different market after graduation. While I do not know about the advantages of the programs offered overseas, I do know of two things that will capture a potential employer's interest. A well known school (even if it isn't known for their CS degree), and what extra curricular projects you have been involved with.
For example, if you come back to the States with a Doctorate in Computer Science from Oxford University, and contributed heavily to the SATA, USB2, and Firewire code in the Linux Kernel, your interviewer will drool at the opportunity to have you working for them. On the other hand, if you come back with a Doctorate in Computer Science from St. Etienne Community College, and contributed heavily to gwine (with no disrespect to Sylvain Daubert or his work), your potential employer might be asking you where St. Etienne is, and what gwine is ("is that related to the Wine is not an emulator project?").
I couldn't agree more with your first suggestion! I bought a set of speakers for my desk, and I like to turn it up. I have even had people put in requests for what music they want to listen to. Of course, it is nice that I work for the company that makes those speakers, so this kind of behavior is acceptable.
That is a really good point. Perhaps the designers could put in some sort of safety guard in their design parameters, such as "No quest will take over an hour to complete" to provide for easy save and break times where people can bail on the game after completing a quest that took an hour or less. This way players feel like they have accomplished something on their "online" world, as well as not having wasted several hours to make it happen. Unfortunately, being a previous MUD player myself, I know that it isn't the adventure that kept me coming back to play, but the friendships I had formed online that kept me coming back for more.
I'm sorry to say, as several other posters have already pointed out, that laptops are pretty much inconfigurable beyond "Do you want DVD or CDRW with that?" The best thing you can do if you are in the market is look for a model that most closely fits what you want to do with it, and how you will most likely use (abuse) it. For example, if you know you are rough with technology, might I suggest a Panasonic ToughBook? If you are looking for style and sophistication, perhaps Apple is calling your name? If you want a gaming platform, you can go with your alienware. Several manufacturers are coming out with 17" and widescreen laptops (Apple and Dell for example), and if you want something that can keep going on batteries for several hours, perhaps you should investigate Centrino laptops.
YOU must decide what is important in your new purchase, and decide how important. If customization and configurability is really that important, perhaps you are asking the wrong question? Maybe you should be asking, "Do I really need a laptop? What would a laptop give me that a regular computer will not, and can I live without it?"
"You're adding more complex software, more hardware devices, home-based Internet applications. These things interact and they don't always work together," Blyskal said. "That's going to make this a bigger problem."
Perhaps the problem is that we aren't using Open Standards like we should? Instead we find ourselves using propritary interfaces that are changed at a moment's notice by a single controlling organization who cares little about the impact of said changes, and woe to the consumer who doesn't keep their system up to date with the latest version of Software-X! Unfortunately a lot of these problems are Microsoft's doing because of their co-opting of the few set standards that we do have, and turning them into something that they weren't meant for. And if the giant cannot honor their own dedication to the standards that they claim to be following, how can smaller companies ever hope to create and fairly use open standards for their products? Microsoft is the example, and how they operate in the software world is being used as the standard for every other software vendor.
It is not that the software is overly complex, interfaces between internet apps is complex, or even that adding hardware and mobile devices is complex. It is that the interface is constantly changing because someone has an itch, or is paranoid, or wants to maintain market dominance, and fails to notify their partners, or worse their partners have no way of sending updates to their customers! We are all paying for someone else' short-sightedness.
The problem is, the USTPO doesn't want to better the people, it sees itself as revenue generating arm of the federal government. It wants to help create as many patents as possible so it can charge individuals and corporations to have their own patents. It believes that by helping people create patents, it is helping businesses protect and build themselves.
Until that mindset is changed, we will continue seeing patents for the incredulous, the obvious, the impossible, and the idiotic. Problem is, this is a government authority with very little oversite, and a mission that seems to change for a more broad interpretation every time the supreme court seems to say anything positive about patents and what is patentable. Unfortunately it doesn't seem as if the pendulum is slowing down...it may be this way for a long, long time.
Might it be time to kill SCO with a death by a thousand cuts? By this I mean if everyone who contributed code to the Linux Kernel sued SCO? Imagine it. Thousands of lawsuits scattered all over the world arguing breach of contract when SCO offered licences for their version of linux without the developer's approval on a change of licence. They would exhaust all their legal funds racing around the world defending themselves.
Its not like they could convince one judge to throw out all the cases because they are frivolous or do not pertain to the unrevealed code. They would have to convince hundreds of judges, and spend countless manhours defending themselves from so many suits.
Your complex question requires a complex answer. I would say Pi.
It is probably just coincidence.
It may seem awkward to keep a large cardboard box, styrofoam moldings, and large plastic bags, but unless you plan on driving cross country with it in your trunk, those are the best tools in which to ensure that your baby gets to its destination safely, while in someone else's hands. If you have already disposed of the original packaging, you may be able to drop by the local Apple store, and ask if they kept the original packaging for one of display units that you could have.
As an alternative, you may be able to partially disassemble your machine based on what might get damaged if part of the internals of your computer came apart during shipping. For example: Pull out the hard drive, and keep that with you (as it has all of your important data), while pulling out all internal cards (PCI, AGP, ISA, etc) and putting them in seperate protective containters.
When Intel had their cartrige processors (during Pentium 2, and early Pentium 3 days), the massive cartrige and its heat sink had a tendancy to come off during transport, and flop about wildly inside the computer case during transport - damaging just about everything inside of a computer. If you feel that your heat sink/fan is too big you may consider removing those, along with your processor, and placing them in protective containers as well.
This way, you reduce the chance that one breakage would destroy the entire computer, and help to minimize your costs to repair/replace parts. As well, you also maximize the survivability of your important information.
...although I kind of like the idea of Mars' pole covering a huge pocket of hydrogen gas.
BOOM!
Hindenmars - oh the humanity!
RAID5 is good for redundancy, 1gb of RAM is cheap, but Dual P4's is a waste of money for that setup.
I totally agree, go with a hyperthreading processor to help simulate multiple processors, but stick with a single processor solution. If you are supporting that many individuals, you also may want to consider a backup solution, and back up all of the e-mail and web data on a regular (weekly) basis. For what you are doing, you might get by with an external firewire or USB2 hard drive that you connect once a week and start a copying script before you leave friday night.
I have to disagree, because Half Life shipped over a year late, and it went on to become arguably the best game ever made. I fully believe with all my heart what Gabe Newell said when justifying the delay of the game, "A game can only be late once, but it can suck forever."
Diakatana slipped for the wrong reason, and instead of making it right, they rushed it out the door. I am not sure if the same can be said about Duke, after all, Perhaps by not rushing it out the door after changing the 3D engines, they may have refocused themselves on developing a first class game. But after seeing the HL2 technology demonstration, Duke Nukem would have to jump out of my monitor and punch me in the face to impress me.
Half Life won big because when it shipped, it was just about perfect. It made its money serindipitously by being a mod makers heaven, which attracted more players and more developers, and kept feeding off of itself. I know people who play TFC and CS, DoD and NS (all very popular HL mods) who have never played the original single player game all of this technology is based off of. Hell, less than a week before I heard any rumblings about HL2, mod makers for the original were still coming up with original ideas for modifications that looked enjoyable and fun to play! I suspect that Valve is going to repeat their feat by coming out with an incredible game, and providing people like you and I the tools we need to make our own modified versions of the game.
Hahaha, and here I was going to point you to someone else's post in this discussion.
Yes, you are right. Raw data with no other point of reference is a very crappy measure of a driver's hazard level. How do you know if the 70 miles per hour recorded as a max speed was on the interstate where that was the speed limit, or in a residential area where they were speeding through a school zone? Was the jack rabbit start because they were involved in a street race, or because they lost traction in the ice and snow? Was the emergency brake because someone cut them off, or they weren't watching where they were going and almost rear ended a police car?
However, raw data like that can be compared with other statistical information about the individual to help determine their risk as a driver. Your risk as a driver is what the insurance company bases your rate on. If devices like this can indicate you are a better driver than you are currently classified in, you may demand a better rate for your current insurance company, or try to get an offer from one of their many many competitors.
Driving safer puts less wear and tear on your vehicle, uses less gasoline, gives you more time to make decisions in dangerous situations, makes the road safer for other drivers around you, makes your bed in the morning, washes your dishes, cooks your food, and cleans your clothes. Oh wait...I had a point in there somewhere. Oh yea! Driving safer generally makes you less of a risk to insure, and when you are a low risk driver, you enjoy better rates.
Beyond that, all I can say is that I am all for safer roads. The mentality in the U.S. is that of driving being a right, and it is not. Driving is a very serious responsibility, and too many Americans take it far too lightly. Ride along in a police cruiser, or with an EMT for a busy evening, and you will understand exactly why we need to make people aware just how serious the situation is, and why we cannot stress enough just how dangerous our roads are when people abuse their privilige.
Unfortunately I disagree with your pessimism. To be very honest, I wholeheartedly agree with the usage of these devices. You must remember driving is a privilidge and a convenience. When people abuse that privilidge, it affects more than just the individual abuser.
Consider the argument that insurance companies do require access to your black box to evaluate your driving and assign rates to you. Those who drive safer will have lower rates as actuarials will be able to add another component to their calculations that will weed out unsafe drivers, and allow them to reduce rates to customers who drive better. Thank you capitalism, and competition!
I believe that there are too many cars on the road as it is. We need to beef up our public transportation, and reduce the number of drivers who abuse their privilidge to drive. If you can't drive safely, if you can't remember to buckle your seatbelt, if you are not paying attention to the speed limit, then perhaps you should be ticketed. Just because the police do not see you do it, does not mean that you should get away with breaking the law! Consider this; if those girls hadn't pulled out of their driveway when they did, this very reckless driver would still be on our roads! Would you want him driving 100+ miles per hour through your neighborhood? I can guarantee that this wasn't the only time he had driven that fast - one does not work up to those kinds of speeds easily.
For some reason I see the SCO CEO, only it is really Dr. Evil, and he has his pinky up to his mouth as he says, "One Billion Dollars!"
All your base are belong to us!
No, if they did we wouldn't have electricity, or heat, or fuel, or food, or . . .
The Copyright Office is setting up rules on how the RIAA can collect royalties from Web Casters? Isn't that like the Fox setting up rules on how many chickens it can take per night from the henhouse? Anyone else sense a conflict of interest?
I can't help but think this might be the next big thing. Although it took about 10 minutes to download the 2 minute "liquid" trailer, and my computer stuttered a little bit, it reminds me alot of the days when MP3s where first introduced, and the majority of the computers of the day were just barely able to play them (today they can be played in the background, and don't take up much comparable processing power at all).
Imagine if you will, when this becomes mainstream in the next year or two, and we are given a delivery medium that can offer this to us at "live viewing" delivery rates. With all of the media enhancements that modern computers and operating systems are focusing on, people may demand a lot more high quality content to be available to them. As well, with the FCC, broadcasters, content providers, and high definition television manufacturers all dragging their feet, they may find themselves missing out on a market that they once monopolized.