From the article: Using a biometric identifier in an encrypted chip would make it much harder for criminals to steal people's identities, Drummond said.
What makes you think (and what makes those congressmen think) that everyone at the local DMV is such a good honest person that no criminal would ever get ahold of that information?
If one person can print a retinal pattern onto a card, then it's technically possible for a card to printed for a criminal, or BY a criminal for that matter.
By the way, I love how two government officials are offering solutions to the problem of SSN's being misused....a problem that was CREATED BY THE GOVERNMENT TO BEGIN WITH when they implemented SSN's.
Re:Cheap technology won't make this cheap...
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Cable Without Cables
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Cheap(er) technology and competition are not mutually exclusive. Competition breeds innovation and, hence, cheaper ways of doing things (technology).
One problem is this idea of a "spectrum auction". As soon as the government gets involved in ways like this, it is no longer a free market, and true competition goes out the window.
Of course, someone is bound to come along now and explain to me all the technical reasons why we MUST have the spectrum controlled by the government and auctioned off (or rented...or some other method of distribution). But that person will be missing the bigger picture, which is that people are really good at finding solutions to problems, and without government involvement, bandwidth is just another problem.....even if you don't yet know the answer to the problem.
Not necessarily a zero sum situation. Let's assume the sale value of the car to the dealer was 20,000. Now, lets assume you took the car, but you would only be willing to actually pay (at maximum) 5,000 for the car.
In this case, there has been a net loss to society of 15,000....although I agree with the sentiment of your post.
Any company but Microsoft would have been forced to pull out of those markets or go out of business
Which is part of my motivation to buy one. Personally, I felt like I had three choices:
1)Gamecube -- maybe I'm wrong, but I see nintendo as being more of a kid game, and less adult potential
2)PS2 -- I already own a PS1, so the whole "you can play PS games TOO" hype didn't pertain to me. I didn't see a huge attraction to the PS2...
3)Xbox -- A couple good games coming out on it (Morrowind and Project Ego), plus a whole bunch of games in the next year. The hardware was impressive, mainly I've had bad luck with the memory cards on my PS breaking, so I thought the HD would be a really good improvement to a console.
Plus, since MS is so big, I figure they've got as good a chance of persuading game companies to develop for them as anyone...
Perfomance on both are going to be really good, I don't get into the whole "graphics on the xbox are better, no, the PS2 graphics are better". As far as I'm concerned, graphics are good enough that I'm looking at other factors. They both cost basically the same, except you have to pay extra for memory cards on PS2, the HD provides plenty of save space on the Xbox. Add that into the fact that those memory cards are so fragile, and from a purely financial perspective, the choice was easy to me.
From a game play perspective, Elder Scrolls: MOrrowind and Project Ego are the two games I'm looking forward to more than anything. It will be a while before I get a new computer, so the only way I get to play either of these games in on my MS machine.
you can usually find a government employee willing to spend someone else's hard-earned dollars to buy it.
I love this country. I've actually got some ideas I've been kicking around, which I think the government would eagerly spend millions of other peoples' money on....it's only a matter of time before I start getting my share of other people's money.
I realize that a verbal agreement is supposed to be binding, I meant that statement in a practical sense. The reality is, anyone with any sense would not enter into a serious agreement without a contract now (well, I would, but only with 1 or 2 people I know I can trust...and I don't necessarily have any sense).
they are for lawyers to use in court.
See, I post an assertion, and reasoning behind it, and all you do is say "no" - you don't provide any proof, you don't try to attack my reasoning..
Reasoning: Lawyers create EULA's to support their products/companies in court.
I apologize for not explicitly stating that....I thought it was implied.
Nope, they are for lawyers to use in court. That's it. Dishonest people will try to change the meaning/interpretation of words to get out of an agreement. A good lawyer will (since there are so many people like that out there) will have a very detailed, legally specific EULA.
Same with any other contract. A verbal agreement and handshake just don't qualify as an agreement anymore, now you have to have very (legally) specific contracts to be sure and cover your ass. Otherwise, the joker you are shaking hands with might try to screw you later.
The point is, it's not the fault of the lawyers, but the dishonest people.
This guy really misses the point.
I don't have a problem with this theory if they're writing for other lawyers. But if they're writing for kids online, it makes no sense to have a 3,000-word policy written at a college-reading level.
The reality is, this stuff is written for other lawyers. Why? Because when there is a disagreement, lawyers and judges (higher up lawyers) will be making arguments/decisions pertaining to the confilict.
A EULA that says "Do you promise not to give this game to all your friends?" just won't do.
It's not the lawyers fault as much as it's the fault of, as the interviewer put it, the "litigious culture".
I only used that as an example of a plan...it's not a requirement that the plan be going into management, only that you are on a track that is going somwhere....otherwise, it's a dead end.
As long as you slave away for someone else, that qualifies as "dead end" in my book...unless you are slaving away with a plan. Either a plan for a new job (going from programmer to managment) to slave away in, or a plan for financial freedom.
When you stop having ambition is when you start having a dead end job.
I don't know if they deserve that or not, I'm pretty sure I didn't use that word, although I'll go back and check....anyway, who "deserves" anything? Maybe people who spend their youth partying and end up poor deserve it....Maybe you can tell us all who deserves what and in what amounts.
This is a little off topic, but don't you think that the people who conciously invested in Enron bear some burden for losing their money? I've lost plenty of money in stocks, how come noone ever wrote an editorial in my name?
As if "wealth" were some finite pie which 1% of the people got together, took forcible control of, and divied up 10% of the pie to the rest of us....
That's not real life. People who are very wealthy, for the most part, either created that wealth (yes, wealth is generated), or inherited it from someone who created it. That simple.
I know this is a wild idea....but maybe the person who agreed to PURCHASE the licenses bears at least a little (read: "all") responsibility for what was PURCHASED.
What's worse is, rather than blame the government who writes it's self a ticket to take and spend as much money as they can, people want to blame the corporation.
When I go to McDonalds, I don't want to be quizzed by the store wether or not I REALLY need those burgers...just give me what I order.
Likewise, don't hold Oracle responsible for the thieves that blew a bunch of your (or mine) money.
After all, making things illegal is so effective. Can you get child pornography? No, it's illegal. Can you get cracked software? No, it's illegal. Can you get ripped music? No, it's illegal. Do servers ever suffer from DOS attacks? Do people ever make charges on other people credit cards without the owner of CC knowing? Do people ever hack into private networks?
Of course not, it's all illegal. Logically, if we make viruses illegal to write, noone would write them...right?
I think the point was, that there was no indication of harm at the point when it would have to be proven (browsers are still free). You can't use "what might happen in the future" as evidence.
I think the bigger thing is for restaurants. It would allow them to provide a higher level of service, with little additional cost (except for the initial cost of the system), providing that costs associated with replacing broken steins is relatively low...
Hmmm...I meant "imperative" as in "for the country to continue to exist".
Guarding against military attack is imperative.
Making sure I get to see the local news story about the dogpound, or get hit with the latest "Johnny's Local Car Dealer" commercial is not imperative.
At least, its not so important to require federal regulation. Never has been.
What then, when Ass End has a mayoral election?
Let the market decide. To believe that just because you can't come up with an answer,must mean a good answer can't be found, is a little arrogant.
Competition breeds innovation and efficiency. Let it happen. Competition does this more effectivly than perhaps anything else.
I don't see how that requires regulation. Let the market decide how it goes...Let the stations, interacting with advertisers and consumers, how it all happens, and give them the incentive to innovate to solve problems, rather than have the government regulate (which I have to pay for, no thanks) such stupid crap.
When did television become so imperative that it needed to be regulated on a FEDERAL LEVEL!!?
This is from their creed.
That all men have inalienable rights to think freely, to talk freely, to write freely their own opinions and to counter or utter or write upon the opinions of others;
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I want night vision. Then I can actually BE an elf.
Seriously, you can bet your ass I would have night vision eye implants...
From the article: Using a biometric identifier in an encrypted chip would make it much harder for criminals to steal people's identities, Drummond said.
What makes you think (and what makes those congressmen think) that everyone at the local DMV is such a good honest person that no criminal would ever get ahold of that information?
If one person can print a retinal pattern onto a card, then it's technically possible for a card to printed for a criminal, or BY a criminal for that matter.
By the way, I love how two government officials are offering solutions to the problem of SSN's being misused....a problem that was CREATED BY THE GOVERNMENT TO BEGIN WITH when they implemented SSN's.
Cheap(er) technology and competition are not mutually exclusive. Competition breeds innovation and, hence, cheaper ways of doing things (technology).
One problem is this idea of a "spectrum auction". As soon as the government gets involved in ways like this, it is no longer a free market, and true competition goes out the window.
Of course, someone is bound to come along now and explain to me all the technical reasons why we MUST have the spectrum controlled by the government and auctioned off (or rented...or some other method of distribution). But that person will be missing the bigger picture, which is that people are really good at finding solutions to problems, and without government involvement, bandwidth is just another problem.....even if you don't yet know the answer to the problem.
"A zero sum situation"
Not necessarily a zero sum situation. Let's assume the sale value of the car to the dealer was 20,000. Now, lets assume you took the car, but you would only be willing to actually pay (at maximum) 5,000 for the car.
In this case, there has been a net loss to society of 15,000....although I agree with the sentiment of your post.
Any company but Microsoft would have been forced to pull out of those markets or go out of business
Which is part of my motivation to buy one. Personally, I felt like I had three choices:
1)Gamecube -- maybe I'm wrong, but I see nintendo as being more of a kid game, and less adult potential
2)PS2 -- I already own a PS1, so the whole "you can play PS games TOO" hype didn't pertain to me. I didn't see a huge attraction to the PS2...
3)Xbox -- A couple good games coming out on it (Morrowind and Project Ego), plus a whole bunch of games in the next year. The hardware was impressive, mainly I've had bad luck with the memory cards on my PS breaking, so I thought the HD would be a really good improvement to a console.
Plus, since MS is so big, I figure they've got as good a chance of persuading game companies to develop for them as anyone...
Perfomance on both are going to be really good, I don't get into the whole "graphics on the xbox are better, no, the PS2 graphics are better". As far as I'm concerned, graphics are good enough that I'm looking at other factors. They both cost basically the same, except you have to pay extra for memory cards on PS2, the HD provides plenty of save space on the Xbox. Add that into the fact that those memory cards are so fragile, and from a purely financial perspective, the choice was easy to me.
From a game play perspective, Elder Scrolls: MOrrowind and Project Ego are the two games I'm looking forward to more than anything. It will be a while before I get a new computer, so the only way I get to play either of these games in on my MS machine.
you can usually find a government employee willing to spend someone else's hard-earned dollars to buy it.
I love this country. I've actually got some ideas I've been kicking around, which I think the government would eagerly spend millions of other peoples' money on....it's only a matter of time before I start getting my share of other people's money.
Thanks in advance.
I realize that a verbal agreement is supposed to be binding, I meant that statement in a practical sense. The reality is, anyone with any sense would not enter into a serious agreement without a contract now (well, I would, but only with 1 or 2 people I know I can trust...and I don't necessarily have any sense).
they are for lawyers to use in court. See, I post an assertion, and reasoning behind it, and all you do is say "no" - you don't provide any proof, you don't try to attack my reasoning.. Reasoning: Lawyers create EULA's to support their products/companies in court.
I apologize for not explicitly stating that....I thought it was implied.
Not in Perl.
The EULA's are for average people to read
Nope, they are for lawyers to use in court. That's it. Dishonest people will try to change the meaning/interpretation of words to get out of an agreement. A good lawyer will (since there are so many people like that out there) will have a very detailed, legally specific EULA.
Same with any other contract. A verbal agreement and handshake just don't qualify as an agreement anymore, now you have to have very (legally) specific contracts to be sure and cover your ass. Otherwise, the joker you are shaking hands with might try to screw you later.
The point is, it's not the fault of the lawyers, but the dishonest people.
This guy really misses the point. I don't have a problem with this theory if they're writing for other lawyers. But if they're writing for kids online, it makes no sense to have a 3,000-word policy written at a college-reading level.
The reality is, this stuff is written for other lawyers. Why? Because when there is a disagreement, lawyers and judges (higher up lawyers) will be making arguments/decisions pertaining to the confilict.
A EULA that says "Do you promise not to give this game to all your friends?" just won't do.
It's not the lawyers fault as much as it's the fault of, as the interviewer put it, the "litigious culture".
I only used that as an example of a plan...it's not a requirement that the plan be going into management, only that you are on a track that is going somwhere....otherwise, it's a dead end.
As long as you slave away for someone else, that qualifies as "dead end" in my book...unless you are slaving away with a plan. Either a plan for a new job (going from programmer to managment) to slave away in, or a plan for financial freedom.
When you stop having ambition is when you start having a dead end job.
I don't know if they deserve that or not, I'm pretty sure I didn't use that word, although I'll go back and check....anyway, who "deserves" anything? Maybe people who spend their youth partying and end up poor deserve it....Maybe you can tell us all who deserves what and in what amounts.
This is a little off topic, but don't you think that the people who conciously invested in Enron bear some burden for losing their money? I've lost plenty of money in stocks, how come noone ever wrote an editorial in my name?
As if "wealth" were some finite pie which 1% of the people got together, took forcible control of, and divied up 10% of the pie to the rest of us.... That's not real life. People who are very wealthy, for the most part, either created that wealth (yes, wealth is generated), or inherited it from someone who created it. That simple.
I know this is a wild idea....but maybe the person who agreed to PURCHASE the licenses bears at least a little (read: "all") responsibility for what was PURCHASED.
That's absurd. Everyone knows that dumping billions and trillions of dollars at a problem is the only way to solve it...
What's worse is, rather than blame the government who writes it's self a ticket to take and spend as much money as they can, people want to blame the corporation. When I go to McDonalds, I don't want to be quizzed by the store wether or not I REALLY need those burgers...just give me what I order. Likewise, don't hold Oracle responsible for the thieves that blew a bunch of your (or mine) money.
After all, making things illegal is so effective.
Can you get child pornography? No, it's illegal.
Can you get cracked software? No, it's illegal. Can you get ripped music? No, it's illegal.
Do servers ever suffer from DOS attacks? Do people ever make charges on other people credit cards without the owner of CC knowing? Do people ever hack into private networks?
Of course not, it's all illegal. Logically, if we make viruses illegal to write, noone would write them...right?
I think the point was, that there was no indication of harm at the point when it would have to be proven (browsers are still free). You can't use "what might happen in the future" as evidence.
I think the bigger thing is for restaurants. It would allow them to provide a higher level of service, with little additional cost (except for the initial cost of the system), providing that costs associated with replacing broken steins is relatively low...
Wonder if I can get my wife to monitor the glass...
Hmmm...I meant "imperative" as in "for the country to continue to exist". Guarding against military attack is imperative. Making sure I get to see the local news story about the dogpound, or get hit with the latest "Johnny's Local Car Dealer" commercial is not imperative. At least, its not so important to require federal regulation. Never has been.
What then, when Ass End has a mayoral election? Let the market decide. To believe that just because you can't come up with an answer,must mean a good answer can't be found, is a little arrogant. Competition breeds innovation and efficiency. Let it happen. Competition does this more effectivly than perhaps anything else.
I don't see how that requires regulation. Let the market decide how it goes...Let the stations, interacting with advertisers and consumers, how it all happens, and give them the incentive to innovate to solve problems, rather than have the government regulate (which I have to pay for, no thanks) such stupid crap. When did television become so imperative that it needed to be regulated on a FEDERAL LEVEL!!?
This is from their creed. That all men have inalienable rights to think freely, to talk freely, to write freely their own opinions and to counter or utter or write upon the opinions of others;