Ooo! Ooo! I just thought of this great joke to tell about this story!
What?
Oh, darn! And I would have been modded up if it hadn't been for those blasted kids!
Anyone else remember a few years back there were a couple of wackier egyptologists (but in the field, as opposed to tabloid people) claimed there was a "secret" project headed by Hawass to dig a tunnel around the King's chamber and get to the supposed "room" at the end of the shaft? Complete with photos of equipment, lights, some eyewitness testimony from people peripheral to the event.
That's the problem with anything controversial like the pyramid. If Hawass or someone else did "get there first" before this big "expose", we can't trust what they'll "find," be it an empty room or an inflatable LGM on a lounge chair.
I wish I knew more about that "event." Kooks and people with agendas don't only exist outside of agencies and fields of study - they exist within them and are entirely capable of "setting up" evidence for their pet theories, be it fake hieroglyphs or anything else that might be found.
Part of the problem with the Great Pyramid is not only that it has some serious discontinuities with regard to its construction, but that it has it's own complex modern mythology that clouds the issue.
I'm just worried that we'll have this big "expose" that won't actually do anything useful. Kind of like those Fox "UFO shows" that say "The Truth" at the beginning and "You Decide" at the end.
I don't know where you live, but personally I have never seen anyone with a open cup hassled by police. Maybe I just hang in thw wrong neighborhood, but you also have to know that attitudes and laws vary a lot all over the US. People in Alaska carry guns openly all the time, don't try that in New York...
Unfortunately the US is becoming more centralized, FedGov is trying to overrule local authority more and more, so we're becoming more "homogenized," and it seems that every rule change means More Power For The Man And Less For You And Me.
Because everybody but that Brilliant Idiot Turner knew that as long as the "people never watch ads" meme was quiet, the fiction that kept ad prices high kept the business model going.
Now that he's publicly and loudly opened his big, fat mouth, that business model is further threatened. Now he's forced himself into a position where he has to advocate insane things (wait a bit for proposed laws to ban ad-skipping technology and think about this - they're not going to ban DVD-R, they're going to ban analog recorders because they can (try to) control the digital ones).
The really hilarious thing is that his words actually hurt his own profits by bringing the fact that people are skipping ads to the attention of his advertisers.
The business model works as long as people believe they're getting value for money, just like the monetary system works as long as people believe their money has value. Endangering that perception is just plain dumb.... unless what you really want is the collapse of the system.
Think about Mr. Turner's history and politics. He may be playing a more complex game than you think.
And he may have forgotten the rules, because every few generations someone tries that trick, and they never quite get what they want (Les Miserables, Trotsky, Washington, the Shah, ad nauseum).
The RX-7 has peculiar needs as far as air/fuel/ignition - I don't mess with the timing much, because detonation is not tolerated. It's touchy but rewarding.
The BMW, on the other hand, was detuned from original design, and thus much easier to just pull gobs of power out of, while still passing CA smog.
One of the reasons that people don't get power out of a chip (and most don't), is that they forgot that "tune" is a verb and not something that comes in a box.
For the average person, I'd say that they should just buy a faster car (handling is another matter, nobody but Ferrari does that right from the factory!). Unless you're willing to put a lot of time into it, slapping on a lot of parts is a bit of a crapshoot.
Standalone systems offer a lot of opportunities, but are generally not as able to handle varying conditions (fuel quality, for example) as stock computers.
As far as hacking into your Park Avenue with a PDA and turning it into a Corvette... Umm, No.
And yes, you can reduce engine life with thoughtless mods (or even radical thoughtful mods), but you can fall off half-dome, too. A blown engine is rarely fatal, and if it's that critical to you, don't mess with it.
As far as apex seals, this is an area I have some familiarity with. There are only two main ways you can blow an apex seal, mechanical failure (spring) and detonation. The former is extremely rare (didn't save me), the latter is controllable if you pay attention. And buy a J&S knock sensor.
I was actually going to try to argue with some of y'all, but let me simply observe that we, once again, have the left blaming the corporations and greedy rich, the right blaming the dumb bureaucrats, and all the while the bureaucrat/corporate complex is raping the both of you.
No, this power grab will not result in anything of lasting good, any more than the regulation they called deregulation helped the power situation (I get queasy, as someone who spent a lot of time on the whole power mess, thinking that some people still believe the propaganda that any "deregulation" actually occurred - I mean, how can price controls, controls on new construction, controls on distribution, and government-run "power exhanges" be conflated with "deregulation"?)
And no, they don't have any legitimate authority to do this. But that really hasn't mattered in years, if ever, has it?
Oh, well, the oldest tactic in the world has worked again. Both sides played against the middle, while the few who are paying attention grow ever more disenchanted and drop out of the game.
The fundamental question of "who should make the rules, the bureaucrats or the corporations" is a false dichotomy that should be answered "mu".
Unfotunately, that's about as likely as a group hug-in of middle-Eastern and western leaders, or an hour-long ABC special: "Inside the CFR", with your host, Mel Gibson.
I've found that recently, SA has taken the same dark, dingy, stupid path that Discover took a few years ago... down, down, down into the depths of politically correct balderdash.
The fact that they denied him the right to respond to his critics, then harassed him when he tried to respond on his own website (which is now 404'ing, unfortunately), is a red flag.
No, I haven't read the whole book, and yes, I did read the SA articles. They were sour grapes and it showed to anyone who didn't reflexively agree with the prejudices of the authors. Data and quotes were few, accusations and anger was high. The cover of the magazine should have read "How Dare You Question Us!?!"
Unfortunately, there are many areas of "debate and discussion" in the modern world where the BS Index is so high that anyone who tries to find out what's actually going on either gets burned out trying or marginalized if they think they did find something interesting that doesn't fit into anyone's agenda.
This is one of those areas. I doubt the situation will improve. It is glaringly clear that major environmental shifts have occurred throughout history and prehistory, and it is also glaringly clear that we have only a sliver of an idea how we interact with that system.
Are tugboat cars going to cause global warming? Or will they delay global cooling (we are, after all, in an unusually long interglacial period - how much longer do we have)?
But the serious attempt to get a grip on what the likely future is and how we might productively interact with it is hamstrung by all these agendas.
And to all those worshippers who think people become magically objective when they put on lab coats: I wish you were right, but you are dramatically wrong.
There are a few people committed to the truth, but not enough to form a lobby, and there's no money in it. Yuppies don't get hot and bothered and send donations when a politician or academic lies on TV, you don't have a magazine or research center. And if you expect government grants to find the truth, well, you know the rest...
Without the truth, you never know what to do next. And the truth is a difficult thing to get hold of even when people aren't lying to you.
I leave you with this thought: How much would the political document called Kyoto cost if it were implemented by everyone, with its silly concentration of banning plant food (CO2) and less emphasis on possibly more dangerous "system inputs"?
And how much would it cost to bring irrigation and potable water systems to every region on the face of the planet that currently lacks it?
I hate to sound politically correct, and I really hate race-baiting, but could it be because pale europeans are worried about sunburns and swarthily-complected children are dying because they don't have sanitation (or pest-killers)?
1. I've never been ripped off on eBay, but I never buy big-ticket items. The closest thing I've had to being ripped off was an old book from someone who forgot to mention he was a 300-pack a day chain smoker.
2. I've never had a problem with PayPal. Just lucky, I guess.
3. $700 for porcelain mice? I hope they were porcelain-plated gold or 300 years old or something.
4. The guy will be caught because a lot of people are looking and he didn't get enough money to really make a run for it, unlike the payroll truck thief here in CA who stole (I think) 7 million from moving trucks and no-one knew until it was over.
I'm anti-thievery on moral grounds, but even if you aren't, never steal anything as measly as a quarter-million, especially so publicly. This guy deserves to lose, no matter what your POV is...
Hmmm... I'm still looking for a good Socket A board, I'll keep an eye on the 333. I've had a few problems but have been mainly satsified by the stability of the KT133A boards, though they are a little out of date.
As to ECS and the K7S5A, I wouldn't touch them with a ten-meter cattle-prod. I ordered two right after they came out, and they promptly Bit The Big Green Banana of Death shortly after startup, taking a pair of out-of-warranty Athlon 1.4's with them.
ECS's response was, basically, "too bad so sad." The retailer finally (after 3 months) refunded the cost of the boards (or claimed they have, the money hasn't arrived yet), but I got to eat the cost of two Athlons.
I am one of literally thousands who have had serious problems with these boards. If you haven't, more power to you and I hope your boards stay healthy.
As for me, ECS = shoveling cash into the fireplace.
(And no, I wasn't overclocking them or running them off power from a car battery or anything terminally stupid like that.)
1. Microsoft has a history of collecting data without telling you, remember Win95's "don't send data" option on the first online registration thingy?
2. I don't know why people think that this is _not bad_ because they're _not hiding_ it.
3. What with all the hackers lying around here doing nothing, why isn't somebody fixing this? Or WinAmp? Or ???
4. Why doesn't somebody tell me how to get rid of WMP 7 in ME? You can't get rid of the damned thing and install 6.4 over it. 6.4 sucked, 7 is Terminally Brain Dead.
5. Where's the Competition? Preferably one that can use the same codecs, or even better, download the new codecs from Microsoft.:)
Well, as far as conference rooms go, we could be talking some useful, voluntary commercial products here - as per the previous post with the automatic HVAC. Companies will pay for this kind of thing, and it's their own fault if the FBI is listening.
Of course, if your meetings are run by monkeys, giving the monkeys PDAs, automatic lighting, and centrally controlled mike/PA systems won't do much good.
With regards to the "sensors everywhere" syndrome, well, I hope you don't have a pacemaker, because the area is clear, we can talk.:)
Could you imagine how often those sensors would be destroyed? It would be impossibly expensive, just like those red light cameras that keep getting CB caps shot through them...
Well, it seems that if something is greedy, self-serving, and intrusive, it doesn't neccesarily have to come from government after all!
It may be even easier to do than I thought at first, but some of the problem for people like me with persistent connections can be alleviated by:
1. Serious Firewalls (not much good, but could at least make it harder for a targeted attack if the Java Virus steals password data).
2. Running Java only when neccesary (what a pain).
3. Monitoring your bandwidth (my Primary Internet router actually has an LED meter of sorts).
Still, any code brought in by clandestine means, that operates without the user's knowledge or permission, is "malicious code," and perpetrators should be considered dorks.
It doesn't matter if the user is using the machine up to what you consider it's potential, It's Not Your Machine!
I wonder how many of the people who think this idea is "kewl" and think those users won't be hurt spend their spare time railing against "corporate greed.":)
You bunch of freaking brats. (No, not you, the other guy.)
I can't help but see a picture of a screaming lefty with a leash on his neck leading up to the hand of a giant Bureaucrat screaming "Corporate Evil!"
And opposite him a screaming righty with a leash on his neck leading up to the hand of a giant Executive screaming "Government Evil!"
That's not really fair, of course, since most corporations don't have armies, police forces, jails, or the power to tax.
But it's close enough for the sake of this argument.
You're all on the game board, people, so get some Visex and clear your eyes, because people die by the millions in this game.
I admit sometimes I don't want to play, but I'm on the board and standing eyes shut with my hands over my ears won't protect me.
I don't know how much advice I can really give people on one issue or another. Would I cooperate with a foreign government to hide the truth from their people? No. Do I blame the Cisco salesguy who wants to pay off his wife's college debt and send his kid to school and pay those back taxes... No.
It's crappy, but most people try to play the moves they think are right for them. I try (and sometimes fail) to judge events as events and people as people. I try (and sometimes fail) not to see other people as enemies when they just want something different than I do.
But a few questions here come to mind that need answering:
1) Do you really want to spend your energy opposing this?
2) What can you do that might be productive?
3) Is it really any of your business?
I mean, heck, maybe we're mainly just venting. I know I am...
Well, I think asking the government for help here is a little counterproductive. Given the Government Nature, the solution will be shortsighted, intrusive, expensive, and will exclude rational thought. In short, they'll probably:
Declare a national moratorium on e-mail while a congressional steering committee holds a conference to determine the nature and extent of the problem.
Industry and Community Leaders who have never actually sent or recieved an e-mail will be called in to consult, as well as a couple of Hollywood Celebrities.
A proposal will be made to Nationalize e-mail under the State Department.
Objections from Civil Liberties Profiteers Inc. will lead to a "compromise" proposal to place control of e-mail services with that well-known private organization, The Post Office.
New "Spam Free" e-mail will cost $0.34 each, and take 3-5 days to deliver, but you can pay $3.00 and have a guarantee of delivery... in 3-5 days.
A new congressional committee will congratulate the Post Office and themselves for eliminating SPAM!!! And hold hearings to examine the new problem of "unsolicited e-mail."
Okay, that's a _slight_ exaggeration.
But seriously, the obvious ways to help are:
1. Very Public Boycotts of companies that use Spam tactics.
2. Encourage use of Digitally Signed E-mail.
3. Encourage efforts by ISPs to block e-mail from "repeat offender" sites.
4. Encourage the "securing" of open relays.
None of these methods involve letting politicians write laws which include new taxes, new power, or new public swimming pools named after them.
And by the way, given the nature of Enya's music and Eminem's "anti-music," I imagine that if they were to actually meet, the resulting music-anti-music reaction could deafen an entire medium-sized city.
I don't have any objection to the idea of patents, it's just that lawyers got involved with the system. In theory, a certain protection of a truly original idea does provide a development incentive - but not when the system is so complex and overloaded that PWOLs (People WithOut Lawyers) are afraid to apply in case they get raped by PWELs (People With Expensive Lawyers).
Add to that people who see the system as an opportunity to make a quick buck over vagueness and uncertainty, and lawyers who make the process so expensive that companies have little choice but to surrender, and it gets depressing.
Remember that lawyers make the laws, enforce the laws, judge the cases, and (mis)represent the disputing parties - the only class of person you can guarantee will be in the winner's circle after a court case is a lawyer.
"Ooooh! Ooooh! Maybe someone engineered that as visible proof of their presence!"
Then I thought:
"But that would only be a slight probability if it was the only one,"
And it wasn't. And then I thought:
"what if several civilizations had the same idea at the same time?"
Could you imagine how pissed you'd be if you went to all that trouble to stand out and two guys down the block did the same thing?:)
Idle thinking, like idling at a stoplight, burns fuel and gets you no-where. But then again, stopping and starting at every stoplight wastes even more fuel and puts more wear on the engine so... I wonder where I was going with that?
Someone commented that a good TV series always seems to go bad (what's the plural of series? I can't believe I was a a Lit major...). Well, those that don't start out bad.
Babylon 5 was a good example (for those who liked it) of why this is wrong - and shows that shows have cycles. It went from Okay, to Good, to Great, to Oh, Jeez That Sucked, to Okay again, to Good, and back to Great, and it ended on a relatively high note.
Most shows that 'go bad' get cancelled before they can cycle up again.
What I noticed about SG-1 is that it had good chemistry between the characters, which is also where B5 excelled, and its successor (Crusade) failed. Now one of the major players is gone, and that hurts the show. Fatally? We'll see.
I don't imagine the SG-1 fanbase and the B5 one cross over too much - "episode" lovers generally don't like "arc" shows, recurse. SG-1 did get repetetive (haven't had TV for a while).
One of the most powerful tools, in war and politics, is surprise. Without it, power almost never changes hands. Think about it. How do you get the upper hand when someone else controls the police, the press... (and I'm mainly talking politics here, not war... though the same principles apply).
You don't have to be a revolutionary to have a problem with the way things are being done - and legitimate protest can lead to targeting. A significant political movement has a hard time developing when its members are isolated, harassed, and discredited before they can form up.
And if you think that loss of privacy will be symmetrical, they you Just Don't Get It.
Those who retain privacy will be the usual suspects: the elected, the appointed, the wealthy, and the popular.
It will be a simple power (surprise) shift in favor of those who already have the power, just like newspapers and TV stations love "campaign finance reform" that shuts private citizens and groups up and lets the press blather on as much as it wants - because it maintains and expands their power.
Politicians like speech restrictions and privacy reduction for exactly the same reason.
It may seem cynical to some of you, but go to the capitals, volunteer to help, sit in on the meetings, talk to insiders, and see what they think. See how they talk about their relationship to "the people."
As someone wise once said to me, "You may not be in the game, but you're still on the board, so you had better damn well care about the rules."
Slashdot Mirror
Ooo! Ooo! I just thought of this great joke to tell about this story! What? Oh, darn! And I would have been modded up if it hadn't been for those blasted kids!
Anyone else remember a few years back there were a couple of wackier egyptologists (but in the field, as opposed to tabloid people) claimed there was a "secret" project headed by Hawass to dig a tunnel around the King's chamber and get to the supposed "room" at the end of the shaft? Complete with photos of equipment, lights, some eyewitness testimony from people peripheral to the event.
That's the problem with anything controversial like the pyramid. If Hawass or someone else did "get there first" before this big "expose", we can't trust what they'll "find," be it an empty room or an inflatable LGM on a lounge chair.
I wish I knew more about that "event." Kooks and people with agendas don't only exist outside of agencies and fields of study - they exist within them and are entirely capable of "setting up" evidence for their pet theories, be it fake hieroglyphs or anything else that might be found.
Part of the problem with the Great Pyramid is not only that it has some serious discontinuities with regard to its construction, but that it has it's own complex modern mythology that clouds the issue.
I'm just worried that we'll have this big "expose" that won't actually do anything useful. Kind of like those Fox "UFO shows" that say "The Truth" at the beginning and "You Decide" at the end.
I don't know where you live, but personally I have never seen anyone with a open cup hassled by police. Maybe I just hang in thw wrong neighborhood, but you also have to know that attitudes and laws vary a lot all over the US. People in Alaska carry guns openly all the time, don't try that in New York...
Unfortunately the US is becoming more centralized, FedGov is trying to overrule local authority more and more, so we're becoming more "homogenized," and it seems that every rule change means More Power For The Man And Less For You And Me.
Now that he's publicly and loudly opened his big, fat mouth, that business model is further threatened. Now he's forced himself into a position where he has to advocate insane things (wait a bit for proposed laws to ban ad-skipping technology and think about this - they're not going to ban DVD-R, they're going to ban analog recorders because they can (try to) control the digital ones).
The really hilarious thing is that his words actually hurt his own profits by bringing the fact that people are skipping ads to the attention of his advertisers.
The business model works as long as people believe they're getting value for money, just like the monetary system works as long as people believe their money has value. Endangering that perception is just plain dumb.... unless what you really want is the collapse of the system.
Think about Mr. Turner's history and politics. He may be playing a more complex game than you think.
And he may have forgotten the rules, because every few generations someone tries that trick, and they never quite get what they want (Les Miserables, Trotsky, Washington, the Shah, ad nauseum).
Buy car. Buy Taser. Unplug unit. Apply 120,000 volts. Plug unit back in. Drive in privacy. (Ignore warning light optional.)
Of course, if you hack it, even better.
Personally, I'll stick to upgraded older cars. I prefer 5-points to airbags anyway.
I don't own a car _without_ a modified computer.
The RX-7 has peculiar needs as far as air/fuel/ignition - I don't mess with the timing much, because detonation is not tolerated. It's touchy but rewarding.
The BMW, on the other hand, was detuned from original design, and thus much easier to just pull gobs of power out of, while still passing CA smog.
One of the reasons that people don't get power out of a chip (and most don't), is that they forgot that "tune" is a verb and not something that comes in a box.
For the average person, I'd say that they should just buy a faster car (handling is another matter, nobody but Ferrari does that right from the factory!). Unless you're willing to put a lot of time into it, slapping on a lot of parts is a bit of a crapshoot.
Standalone systems offer a lot of opportunities, but are generally not as able to handle varying conditions (fuel quality, for example) as stock computers.
As far as hacking into your Park Avenue with a PDA and turning it into a Corvette... Umm, No.
And yes, you can reduce engine life with thoughtless mods (or even radical thoughtful mods), but you can fall off half-dome, too. A blown engine is rarely fatal, and if it's that critical to you, don't mess with it.
As far as apex seals, this is an area I have some familiarity with. There are only two main ways you can blow an apex seal, mechanical failure (spring) and detonation. The former is extremely rare (didn't save me), the latter is controllable if you pay attention. And buy a J&S knock sensor.
I was actually going to try to argue with some of y'all, but let me simply observe that we, once again, have the left blaming the corporations and greedy rich, the right blaming the dumb bureaucrats, and all the while the bureaucrat/corporate complex is raping the both of you.
No, this power grab will not result in anything of lasting good, any more than the regulation they called deregulation helped the power situation (I get queasy, as someone who spent a lot of time on the whole power mess, thinking that some people still believe the propaganda that any "deregulation" actually occurred - I mean, how can price controls, controls on new construction, controls on distribution, and government-run "power exhanges" be conflated with "deregulation"?)
And no, they don't have any legitimate authority to do this. But that really hasn't mattered in years, if ever, has it?
Oh, well, the oldest tactic in the world has worked again. Both sides played against the middle, while the few who are paying attention grow ever more disenchanted and drop out of the game.
The fundamental question of "who should make the rules, the bureaucrats or the corporations" is a false dichotomy that should be answered "mu".
Unfotunately, that's about as likely as a group hug-in of middle-Eastern and western leaders, or an hour-long ABC special: "Inside the CFR", with your host, Mel Gibson.
I've found that recently, SA has taken the same dark, dingy, stupid path that Discover took a few years ago... down, down, down into the depths of politically correct balderdash.
The fact that they denied him the right to respond to his critics, then harassed him when he tried to respond on his own website (which is now 404'ing, unfortunately), is a red flag.
No, I haven't read the whole book, and yes, I did read the SA articles. They were sour grapes and it showed to anyone who didn't reflexively agree with the prejudices of the authors. Data and quotes were few, accusations and anger was high. The cover of the magazine should have read "How Dare You Question Us!?!"
Unfortunately, there are many areas of "debate and discussion" in the modern world where the BS Index is so high that anyone who tries to find out what's actually going on either gets burned out trying or marginalized if they think they did find something interesting that doesn't fit into anyone's agenda.
This is one of those areas. I doubt the situation will improve. It is glaringly clear that major environmental shifts have occurred throughout history and prehistory, and it is also glaringly clear that we have only a sliver of an idea how we interact with that system.
Are tugboat cars going to cause global warming? Or will they delay global cooling (we are, after all, in an unusually long interglacial period - how much longer do we have)?
But the serious attempt to get a grip on what the likely future is and how we might productively interact with it is hamstrung by all these agendas.
And to all those worshippers who think people become magically objective when they put on lab coats: I wish you were right, but you are dramatically wrong.
There are a few people committed to the truth, but not enough to form a lobby, and there's no money in it. Yuppies don't get hot and bothered and send donations when a politician or academic lies on TV, you don't have a magazine or research center. And if you expect government grants to find the truth, well, you know the rest...
Without the truth, you never know what to do next. And the truth is a difficult thing to get hold of even when people aren't lying to you.
I leave you with this thought: How much would the political document called Kyoto cost if it were implemented by everyone, with its silly concentration of banning plant food (CO2) and less emphasis on possibly more dangerous "system inputs"?
And how much would it cost to bring irrigation and potable water systems to every region on the face of the planet that currently lacks it?
I hate to sound politically correct, and I really hate race-baiting, but could it be because pale europeans are worried about sunburns and swarthily-complected children are dying because they don't have sanitation (or pest-killers)?
1. I've never been ripped off on eBay, but I never buy big-ticket items. The closest thing I've had to being ripped off was an old book from someone who forgot to mention he was a 300-pack a day chain smoker.
2. I've never had a problem with PayPal. Just lucky, I guess.
3. $700 for porcelain mice? I hope they were porcelain-plated gold or 300 years old or something.
4. The guy will be caught because a lot of people are looking and he didn't get enough money to really make a run for it, unlike the payroll truck thief here in CA who stole (I think) 7 million from moving trucks and no-one knew until it was over.
I'm anti-thievery on moral grounds, but even if you aren't, never steal anything as measly as a quarter-million, especially so publicly. This guy deserves to lose, no matter what your POV is...
Hmmm... I'm still looking for a good Socket A board, I'll keep an eye on the 333. I've had a few problems but have been mainly satsified by the stability of the KT133A boards, though they are a little out of date.
As to ECS and the K7S5A, I wouldn't touch them with a ten-meter cattle-prod. I ordered two right after they came out, and they promptly Bit The Big Green Banana of Death shortly after startup, taking a pair of out-of-warranty Athlon 1.4's with them.
ECS's response was, basically, "too bad so sad." The retailer finally (after 3 months) refunded the cost of the boards (or claimed they have, the money hasn't arrived yet), but I got to eat the cost of two Athlons.
I am one of literally thousands who have had serious problems with these boards. If you haven't, more power to you and I hope your boards stay healthy.
As for me, ECS = shoveling cash into the fireplace.
(And no, I wasn't overclocking them or running them off power from a car battery or anything terminally stupid like that.)
Okay, coupla items here:
1. Microsoft has a history of collecting data without telling you, remember Win95's "don't send data" option on the first online registration thingy?
2. I don't know why people think that this is _not bad_ because they're _not hiding_ it.
3. What with all the hackers lying around here doing nothing, why isn't somebody fixing this? Or WinAmp? Or ???
4. Why doesn't somebody tell me how to get rid of WMP 7 in ME? You can't get rid of the damned thing and install 6.4 over it. 6.4 sucked, 7 is Terminally Brain Dead.
5. Where's the Competition? Preferably one that can use the same codecs, or even better, download the new codecs from Microsoft. :)
Well, as far as conference rooms go, we could be talking some useful, voluntary commercial products here - as per the previous post with the automatic HVAC. Companies will pay for this kind of thing, and it's their own fault if the FBI is listening.
Of course, if your meetings are run by monkeys, giving the monkeys PDAs, automatic lighting, and centrally controlled mike/PA systems won't do much good.
With regards to the "sensors everywhere" syndrome, well, I hope you don't have a pacemaker, because the area is clear, we can talk. :)
Could you imagine how often those sensors would be destroyed? It would be impossibly expensive, just like those red light cameras that keep getting CB caps shot through them...
Well, it seems that if something is greedy, self-serving, and intrusive, it doesn't neccesarily have to come from government after all!
It may be even easier to do than I thought at first, but some of the problem for people like me with persistent connections can be alleviated by:
1. Serious Firewalls (not much good, but could at least make it harder for a targeted attack if the Java Virus steals password data).
2. Running Java only when neccesary (what a pain).
3. Monitoring your bandwidth (my Primary Internet router actually has an LED meter of sorts).
Still, any code brought in by clandestine means, that operates without the user's knowledge or permission, is "malicious code," and perpetrators should be considered dorks.
It doesn't matter if the user is using the machine up to what you consider it's potential, It's Not Your Machine!
I wonder how many of the people who think this idea is "kewl" and think those users won't be hurt spend their spare time railing against "corporate greed." :)
Oh, well, one more genie out of the bottle.
I can't help but see a picture of a screaming lefty with a leash on his neck leading up to the hand of a giant Bureaucrat screaming "Corporate Evil!"
And opposite him a screaming righty with a leash on his neck leading up to the hand of a giant Executive screaming "Government Evil!"
That's not really fair, of course, since most corporations don't have armies, police forces, jails, or the power to tax.
But it's close enough for the sake of this argument.
You're all on the game board, people, so get some Visex and clear your eyes, because people die by the millions in this game.
I admit sometimes I don't want to play, but I'm on the board and standing eyes shut with my hands over my ears won't protect me.
I don't know how much advice I can really give people on one issue or another. Would I cooperate with a foreign government to hide the truth from their people? No. Do I blame the Cisco salesguy who wants to pay off his wife's college debt and send his kid to school and pay those back taxes... No.
It's crappy, but most people try to play the moves they think are right for them. I try (and sometimes fail) to judge events as events and people as people. I try (and sometimes fail) not to see other people as enemies when they just want something different than I do.
But a few questions here come to mind that need answering:
1) Do you really want to spend your energy opposing this?
2) What can you do that might be productive?
3) Is it really any of your business?
I mean, heck, maybe we're mainly just venting. I know I am...
Well, I think asking the government for help here is a little counterproductive. Given the Government Nature, the solution will be shortsighted, intrusive, expensive, and will exclude rational thought. In short, they'll probably:
Declare a national moratorium on e-mail while a congressional steering committee holds a conference to determine the nature and extent of the problem.
Industry and Community Leaders who have never actually sent or recieved an e-mail will be called in to consult, as well as a couple of Hollywood Celebrities.
A proposal will be made to Nationalize e-mail under the State Department.
Objections from Civil Liberties Profiteers Inc. will lead to a "compromise" proposal to place control of e-mail services with that well-known private organization, The Post Office.
New "Spam Free" e-mail will cost $0.34 each, and take 3-5 days to deliver, but you can pay $3.00 and have a guarantee of delivery... in 3-5 days.
A new congressional committee will congratulate the Post Office and themselves for eliminating SPAM!!! And hold hearings to examine the new problem of "unsolicited e-mail."
Okay, that's a _slight_ exaggeration.
But seriously, the obvious ways to help are:
1. Very Public Boycotts of companies that use Spam tactics.
2. Encourage use of Digitally Signed E-mail.
3. Encourage efforts by ISPs to block e-mail from "repeat offender" sites.
4. Encourage the "securing" of open relays.
None of these methods involve letting politicians write laws which include new taxes, new power, or new public swimming pools named after them.
And by the way, given the nature of Enya's music and Eminem's "anti-music," I imagine that if they were to actually meet, the resulting music-anti-music reaction could deafen an entire medium-sized city.
I don't have any objection to the idea of patents, it's just that lawyers got involved with the system. In theory, a certain protection of a truly original idea does provide a development incentive - but not when the system is so complex and overloaded that PWOLs (People WithOut Lawyers) are afraid to apply in case they get raped by PWELs (People With Expensive Lawyers).
Add to that people who see the system as an opportunity to make a quick buck over vagueness and uncertainty, and lawyers who make the process so expensive that companies have little choice but to surrender, and it gets depressing.
Remember that lawyers make the laws, enforce the laws, judge the cases, and (mis)represent the disputing parties - the only class of person you can guarantee will be in the winner's circle after a court case is a lawyer.
Not that I'm cynical about lawyers or anything.
For about two seconds, I thought:
"Ooooh! Ooooh! Maybe someone engineered that as visible proof of their presence!"
Then I thought:
"But that would only be a slight probability if it was the only one,"
And it wasn't. And then I thought:
"what if several civilizations had the same idea at the same time?"
Could you imagine how pissed you'd be if you went to all that trouble to stand out and two guys down the block did the same thing? :)
Idle thinking, like idling at a stoplight, burns fuel and gets you no-where. But then again, stopping and starting at every stoplight wastes even more fuel and puts more wear on the engine so... I wonder where I was going with that?
Military my hinder, I'm starting tomorrow morning!
Well, there goes my electrical bill...
Someone commented that a good TV series always seems to go bad (what's the plural of series? I can't believe I was a a Lit major...). Well, those that don't start out bad.
Babylon 5 was a good example (for those who liked it) of why this is wrong - and shows that shows have cycles. It went from Okay, to Good, to Great, to Oh, Jeez That Sucked, to Okay again, to Good, and back to Great, and it ended on a relatively high note.
Most shows that 'go bad' get cancelled before they can cycle up again.
What I noticed about SG-1 is that it had good chemistry between the characters, which is also where B5 excelled, and its successor (Crusade) failed. Now one of the major players is gone, and that hurts the show. Fatally? We'll see.
I don't imagine the SG-1 fanbase and the B5 one cross over too much - "episode" lovers generally don't like "arc" shows, recurse. SG-1 did get repetetive (haven't had TV for a while).
One of the most powerful tools, in war and politics, is surprise. Without it, power almost never changes hands. Think about it. How do you get the upper hand when someone else controls the police, the press... (and I'm mainly talking politics here, not war... though the same principles apply).
You don't have to be a revolutionary to have a problem with the way things are being done - and legitimate protest can lead to targeting. A significant political movement has a hard time developing when its members are isolated, harassed, and discredited before they can form up.
And if you think that loss of privacy will be symmetrical, they you Just Don't Get It.
Those who retain privacy will be the usual suspects: the elected, the appointed, the wealthy, and the popular.
It will be a simple power (surprise) shift in favor of those who already have the power, just like newspapers and TV stations love "campaign finance reform" that shuts private citizens and groups up and lets the press blather on as much as it wants - because it maintains and expands their power.
Politicians like speech restrictions and privacy reduction for exactly the same reason.
It may seem cynical to some of you, but go to the capitals, volunteer to help, sit in on the meetings, talk to insiders, and see what they think. See how they talk about their relationship to "the people."
As someone wise once said to me, "You may not be in the game, but you're still on the board, so you had better damn well care about the rules."
First of all, that took great big stainless clanking ones. High risk = high reward. :)
Secondly, I got all excited and teary - They're getting married, I'm so happy....
And then it hit me. I sound like a soap opera fan.
AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!
(THUMP Thump thump thump SLAM!)
AAAAAAAaaaaaahhhhhhh..........