It seems to me that the issue is not with any public display of religion, but with state-sponsored displays of religion. You see, a government having a religion is the same as a government enforcing a religion.
No, it isn't the same. A state can sponsor displays of religion without enforcing it, especially if the display is provided by non-government employees, aka regular citizens. Enforcement still denotes coercion. There is no coercion on the part of the U.S. government to institute any religion. Favoring a particular religion does not enforce a religion either which is good since the government (locally in places, not federally) is favoring Islam all too much lately.
For example, in many U.S. states, atheists are barred from holding public office. This gives atheists less rights than theists. This is an example of government enforcing religion. It's nowhere near as extreme as Iran ("if you abandon Islam you'll die" is much worse than "if you're not religious you can't take part in governing"), but it's the same concept.
I'm not sure why they are being barred or what law/regulation is being used to bar them. Care to provide references? I'm curious to read about it b/c I hadn't heard of that happening until you mentioned it. However, it isn't an example of a government enforcing a religion. They are not enforcing anything other than who can be in that public office which isn't out of the ordinary. Are you going to accuse the federal gov't of enforcing ethnic bias by requiring a U.S. President to be a native-born U.S. citizen? If you aren't a citizen you pick a different job.
You look at it as if the person has to change religions to be in public office while others may view it as the person just changes which position in public office he/she wants to be in or they choose a different position outside of gov't altogether. Yet some others view atheism itself as a religion and therefore those states are definitely not enforcing anything remotely close to what you are accusing them of. Would you care to specify which religion they are enforcing? Theism itself isn't a religion. Atheism is historically counter to Christianity however it really is counter to any religion that has a God figure so with that said, which religion are they enforcing? Since the person isn't being forced to be in public office it can't be said that religion is being enforced especially if no religion is ever specified such as by saying "Mr. Smith, you are barred from public office in Utah because you are an atheist, however if you convert to Mormonism we'll let you have any position you want, subject to the usual terms of hiring state employees." Mr. Smith has alternatives so nothing is being forced on him.
Wait a minute. What's the actual problem necessitating even talking to Iran in the first place? Why can't we just leave them the hell alone?
Well the problem is nothing related to what the article submitted is about if that's where your confusion lies. We *could* leave them alone but if they do something stupid then we *will* have to do something about it. Ahmadinejad continuously makes threats against the U.S. that are not shown in the mainstream media. He continuously makes threats against Israel too. Israel may do something unprovoked that could spark WWIII and we would be required to join the battle. It definitely wouldn't be pretty as someone else said. The Straits of Hormuz may not get blocked but when idiot traders and speculators get spooked about oil supply when a hurricane is way over near Africa you can imagine what they would do if shots were fired and Iran was involved. Crude has already gone up about $10 in the last week or so partly because of Iran being in the news again. When idiots determine the price of crude oil, nothing has to actually happen in the world for prices to go up. They just do and strangely enough when the "dust" settles the prices never seem to go back down. That, my friend, is pure speculation at consumers' expense.
"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God; that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship; that the legislative powers of the government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation
So I guess it is okay to prevent public displays of religion because separation trumps the freedom of religion? You are still confusing a government enforcing a religion and a government having a religion. Get those 2 straightened out in your head and then we can have a deeper discussion, until then this discussion will go no further than the thousands of discussions that have already occurred on the this topic.
between church and State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore man to all of his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties. "
Thomas Jefferson
The Founding Fathers very explicitely set up a secular state, a state with complete religious freedoms and a state free of any potential government religious coercion.
Exactly, no coercion such as what is happening in Iran. The U.S. is not coercing. The fact that the government has a religion does not prove and has not proven that the gov't is coercing the citizens of this country to share in the same religion. A citizen is not punished for not believing in the same God as what is mentioned on U.S currency. If that were true we would have had mass killings already or the prisons would be even more full than they already are. The U.S. shouldn't separate church and state because we aren't like Iran. We believe in the freedom of religion which includes no religion at all. If you lived in Iran then, yeah, separation of church and state would be a good thing because they actually use coercion (threats of death).
That means that a Jew, atheist or Hindu has equal rights before the law and has a right not to have any particular religion pushed on him by the government.
Just because a government has a religion does not require them to push it on the people. Iran is an example of a government pushing religion on the people. The U.S. is not an example of that and not because we have a supposed separation.
Attempting to redefine what the Founding Fathers meant is a pretty weak tactic, particularly when their views on religious freedom and on the noxious mix than religion and politics make is so well known.
It is also well known that secularists spin whatever tidbit of info they can to prove we have a separation and/or that we need a separation. We definitely don't need it because our gov't isn't like Iran; some people just want it maybe because they think we might turn into Iran. I don't know. Despite secularists believing in a 'free exercise thereof' it seems to only run as far as a Joe Public's front door. As soon as Joe Public steps outside, the 'free exercise' belief no longer exists with the excuse that if Joe has a religion we must be careful not to offend anyone who doesn't have religion.
I hate Bush and I hate the Iraq war and as un-PC as this sounds (and it will surely enrage slashdot users here)- I hope Israel bombs them into the stone age.
It's okay to be un-PC. It's good for the soul.:) Enraging slashdot users just encourages improper modding but sometimes it is required. I'm not much of a supporter of Bush anymore and the war needs some direction but I do agree Iran needs bombed but I'm torn with that decision to actually do so because it will be a Bad Thing(tm). See my post here I just submitted for my take on the "bombing" idea.
Yeah, that'll work.
The mullahs want kill their own people for posting things to the internet (and for women dressing in Western clothes...) and some naive TWIT thinks we can TALK to them.
Dumbass.
It very well may not work, however, are you prepared to pay $15/gallon for gasoline (assuming you are in the U.S.) if Iran is attacked by the U.S. military? Iran has stated they will respond with military action and one of their actions is to block oil exports through the Straits of Hormuz. If that occurs you know damn well commodity traders and actual purchasers of crude oil will pay $200-$250/bbl which will cause obvious increases in gasoline prices. We must talk to them first and if that fails then do we go in militarily to solve any problems. The problem with that though is it will have a ripple effect, one of which is the price of oil. There is no winner in the battle with Iran. Everyone loses. Iran may be destroyed but they know we survive on oil and they are the 4th largest exporter so economically we could be destroyed too. If the U.S. goes down economically (moreso than we already are recently) then world markets follow suit because of the economic interdependencies of world gov'ts.
Non-separation of church and state is not necessarily bad but most (if not all) "states" which do not have the separation are also dictatorships therefore giving non-separation movements a bad connotation. Despite what many want and think, the U.S. was never intended to institute a true separation of church and state, at least that's not what the U.S. Constitution says we should be doing. If a state punishes its citizens for not conforming to state religion then, yes, it is bad and should be dealt with. That isn't freedom, especially freedom of religion, and it isn't separation either. Making laws to ban all public display of religion is also not freedom of religion which is what proponents of separation in the U.S. are fighting for. But there is nothing wrong with a state *having* a religion which is what our (U.S. that is) Constitution was trying to accomplish.
Those who chastise the U.S. for not keeping a separation of church and state do not know what true separation is. We now have yet another example with this story about Iran who wants to kill those who do not conform to the state religion. If those who chastise the U.S. would live in Iran for a year they would realize that what the U.S. has is not the same and was never intended to be a state-sponsored religion (the Founding Fathers knew they didn't want that because they were escaping that) but yet a country *with* a common religion (with some minority religions too, which is fine). That is true freedom of religion. People are always quick to chastise the U.S. government and hail other, foreign governments as better, but yet I don't see anyone such as celebrities, who are famous for criticizing the U.S), moving to Iran or Venezuela. I mention Venezuela because some celebrities in the last year or so were giving props to Hugo Chavez for his dictatorship.
Mod me flamebait or troll or whatever makes you feel better just because you may disagree.
All the stories are the same, some observation was made that surprise, surprise turned out to be consistent with General Relativity. It's not like the theory was "proven", it just survived another chance to be not proven.
Except this time the experiment was to do something that couldn't be done before and in the end they give Einstein's theory a little more credit. A new measurement (observation) matches theory. It's a win-win. You would prefer to only hear of when he is discredited? And their results aren't focused on saying Einstein was right. They already knew he was. They just couldn't properly measure the predicted effects.
From the article:
"Those eclipses are the key to making a measurement that could never be done before," Breton said.
Einstein's 1915 theory predicted that in a close system of two very massive objects, such as neutron stars, one object's gravitational tug, along with an effect of its spinning around its axis, should cause the spin axis of the other to wobble, or precess.
Studies of other pulsars in binary systems had indicated that such wobbling occurred, but could not produce precise measurements of the amount of wobbling.
Isn't it about time to abandon the concept of the graviton and just accept that gravity is not a fundamental force, but is simply the observed effect of the curvature of spacetime due to the presence of matter and energy?
Something still has to transfer the effects of that force. Gravity may not be fundamental but it is a force. For example, the photon particle transfers the electromagnetic force. Mass is considered fundamental but isn't a force however scientists are working on what actually gives an object mass. Their money right now is on the Higg's boson (the God particle).
Rumor has it that the once free IM service is now going to a $.10 per sent or received IM message.
I'm surprised a spam (spim, technically) hasn't been sent out on any of the IM networks yet poking fun of this issue with SMS on the cell networks. Then again, maybe it has and I just haven't got it yet. There have been spim messages talking about Yahoo or someone similar going to charge but that is too general to be considered poking fun at SMS.
Your grandmother is a wise woman who has better things to worry about.
She is nearing EOL. You would think she would speed up her life a little to make sure all her routines finish without being killed while running. Graceful exit.
The only real broadband in the US (not including business leased lines, of course) is Verizon's FIOS, and that's available in so few areas it might as well be mythical.
Since when was broadband defined by bandwidth instead of the way the signal is transmitted?
I used to have CellularOne (from Nov 06) but as of late last year they were acquired by AT&T. AT&T finally completed the acquisition a couple months ago with the last noticeable change being the monthly paper bills. I had my SMS disabled by CellularOne so I don't know how AT&T handles it. I actually had to re-enable SMS briefly about 2 weeks ago when I had to redo my online account setup on AT&T's site once they completely transitioned to the AT&T website instead of CellularOne's website. I had to re-enable SMS in order to receive my temporary password. Their website said I'd still get the SMS because it was an administrative message but I didn't so when I originally stated that I only get admin messages it was only based on what I've read. Incidentally, I haven't received an admin message for a while either so maybe they are blocked too. When I called AT&T they re-enabled it and while on the phone the 3 SMS I had triggered flowed in and the rep disabled it again with no questions asked and no extra raping fee required. They could tell I was one of the accounts that came from CellularOne so I don't know if that had anything to do with it. AT&T also keeps sending me fliers to upgrade my phone/plan so I can be locked into another 2 year contract but I'm not falling for it. I get unlimited anytime minutes and 100 minutes of roaming for $50/mo. There is no way I'm changing that.
I have SMS disabled on my phone at the carrier level. The only SMSs I can receive are administrative which are free. No one can send me a mesg and I can't send out. I did that after my previous carrier (which got bought by AT&T) started charging for incoming messages. I asked why they did that and they said because everyone else was charging for incoming too. And of course then it went from 10 cents to 20. I don't need SMS so the charges don't hurt me because I don't have any.
After having to pay for a new algebra book (75$'s) because, apparently, algebra changed since last year and the teacher insisted I have the new book.
The Muslims are to blame. They keep increasing the royalties on algebra text books. If you don't understand the joke then look up the origins of algebra (aka. al-Jabr).
I started working for an IT contractor (for the gov't) almost 6 years ago at age 25. I only had an associate's degree in systems engineering. I got the only position on the contract that didn't require a BS degree. I was told by my project manager to go back to school. After a year with my company I went back to school and they paid for it. I finished a BS in CS but I continued my job as a Systems Engineer. My title officially changed about a year before graduating. I continue to do the same work but I do no development work at all. I do requirements analysis, design, test, and deployment at a system level. The CS degree was fun (I like programming) but I don't have any professional experience with programming. I've stuck to doing the engineering. When I eventually go back for my Master's it will be in CS. Point being, just because you have a CS degree doesn't mean you have to be in development and if you can get a job with a gov't contractor I think you'll get great experience. I know I have. I got 6 years under my belt now and a BS degree. And if I stick with my company for at least another 6 months I don't owe anything for tuition (even books were paid for). No school loans. It's great.
Nevermind someone hacking the FBI DB - what if some data entry monkey just screws up their data entry?
Nevermind the hacked database or the data entry monkey - what if some algorithm kept confusing your biometric data with someone else's every....single....time?
The National Instant Criminal Background Check System (aka NICS) has a mechanism in place for people with a legit background who want to buy a gun but get delayed every single time. During a background check someone with the same name and a bad background always crops up and places the good person in the Delay bin. These people can enroll in a program so that they can be greenlighted to buy a gun everytime, faster, instead of being put into the Delay bin which, by definition, slows down their purchase. It's a little more complicated than that but that's the gist of it. The point being that with NGI something similar can be instituted (doesn't mean it will be though) to counteract mistakes be they human or machine.
Anybody notice the mention of Lockheed Martin in the original article?
Really? Is more outsourcing of sensitive government tasks the way to go? Have we learned nothing from experience...
The gov't doesn't have the manpower or sometimes the experience/knowledge to do something like this. They have everyday stuff to take care of. No time to build something new. Contracts go on all the time both for development and O&M. Geez, and all this time I thought the gov't built their own planes for the military too. I guess Lockheed Martin (SR-71 Blackbird [back when it was just Lockheed] anyone?) just has their hands in everything don't they? By the way, IBM also bid on the contract for NGI. They lost, obviously. All I know is that with NGI being a 10 year contract, it keeps people like me employed.
Once they get a DNA database everyone, you'll have to leave the house wearing gloves and protective clothing so you don't accidentally leave DNA on someone who happens to get murdered later.
This just requires that the backbone passes ipv6, which any backbone routing device made in the past 10 years will be easily capable of doing.
By backbone, the mandate means the network as a whole as opposed to your applications and hosts (workstations and servers). It doesn't mean your network backbone proper in your facility such as your core and distribution devices. It includes your entire network down to the access switch. And when you start investigating Cisco equipment as well as other vendors network devices and appliances you see that IPv6 is not 100% supported yet so it won't be totally easy. The best that can happen is that for devices that don't yet support it the government agency owning the device has to write a waiver that says they are waiting for their vendor to support IPv6.
There is enough clean water for everyone. There is enough food for everyone. It isn't getting to the people that need it for various reasons; corruption, war, market failures. The common thread in these is a lack of correct information; corruption involves people deliberately misrepresenting information, war makes it dangerous to collect information, and market failures are normally trigged by bad information.
Actually, many people would disagree with you that there is enough clean water for everyone. Many places in the US are supposedly running out of clean water. Take a gander at this page.
Slashdot Mirror
It seems to me that the issue is not with any public display of religion, but with state-sponsored displays of religion. You see, a government having a religion is the same as a government enforcing a religion.
No, it isn't the same. A state can sponsor displays of religion without enforcing it, especially if the display is provided by non-government employees, aka regular citizens. Enforcement still denotes coercion. There is no coercion on the part of the U.S. government to institute any religion. Favoring a particular religion does not enforce a religion either which is good since the government (locally in places, not federally) is favoring Islam all too much lately.
For example, in many U.S. states, atheists are barred from holding public office. This gives atheists less rights than theists. This is an example of government enforcing religion. It's nowhere near as extreme as Iran ("if you abandon Islam you'll die" is much worse than "if you're not religious you can't take part in governing"), but it's the same concept.
I'm not sure why they are being barred or what law/regulation is being used to bar them. Care to provide references? I'm curious to read about it b/c I hadn't heard of that happening until you mentioned it. However, it isn't an example of a government enforcing a religion. They are not enforcing anything other than who can be in that public office which isn't out of the ordinary. Are you going to accuse the federal gov't of enforcing ethnic bias by requiring a U.S. President to be a native-born U.S. citizen? If you aren't a citizen you pick a different job.
You look at it as if the person has to change religions to be in public office while others may view it as the person just changes which position in public office he/she wants to be in or they choose a different position outside of gov't altogether. Yet some others view atheism itself as a religion and therefore those states are definitely not enforcing anything remotely close to what you are accusing them of. Would you care to specify which religion they are enforcing? Theism itself isn't a religion. Atheism is historically counter to Christianity however it really is counter to any religion that has a God figure so with that said, which religion are they enforcing? Since the person isn't being forced to be in public office it can't be said that religion is being enforced especially if no religion is ever specified such as by saying "Mr. Smith, you are barred from public office in Utah because you are an atheist, however if you convert to Mormonism we'll let you have any position you want, subject to the usual terms of hiring state employees." Mr. Smith has alternatives so nothing is being forced on him.
Wait a minute. What's the actual problem necessitating even talking to Iran in the first place? Why can't we just leave them the hell alone?
Well the problem is nothing related to what the article submitted is about if that's where your confusion lies. We *could* leave them alone but if they do something stupid then we *will* have to do something about it. Ahmadinejad continuously makes threats against the U.S. that are not shown in the mainstream media. He continuously makes threats against Israel too. Israel may do something unprovoked that could spark WWIII and we would be required to join the battle. It definitely wouldn't be pretty as someone else said. The Straits of Hormuz may not get blocked but when idiot traders and speculators get spooked about oil supply when a hurricane is way over near Africa you can imagine what they would do if shots were fired and Iran was involved. Crude has already gone up about $10 in the last week or so partly because of Iran being in the news again. When idiots determine the price of crude oil, nothing has to actually happen in the world for prices to go up. They just do and strangely enough when the "dust" settles the prices never seem to go back down. That, my friend, is pure speculation at consumers' expense.
"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God; that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship; that the legislative powers of the government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation
So I guess it is okay to prevent public displays of religion because separation trumps the freedom of religion? You are still confusing a government enforcing a religion and a government having a religion. Get those 2 straightened out in your head and then we can have a deeper discussion, until then this discussion will go no further than the thousands of discussions that have already occurred on the this topic.
between church and State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore man to all of his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties. " Thomas Jefferson
The Founding Fathers very explicitely set up a secular state, a state with complete religious freedoms and a state free of any potential government religious coercion.
Exactly, no coercion such as what is happening in Iran. The U.S. is not coercing. The fact that the government has a religion does not prove and has not proven that the gov't is coercing the citizens of this country to share in the same religion. A citizen is not punished for not believing in the same God as what is mentioned on U.S currency. If that were true we would have had mass killings already or the prisons would be even more full than they already are. The U.S. shouldn't separate church and state because we aren't like Iran. We believe in the freedom of religion which includes no religion at all. If you lived in Iran then, yeah, separation of church and state would be a good thing because they actually use coercion (threats of death).
That means that a Jew, atheist or Hindu has equal rights before the law and has a right not to have any particular religion pushed on him by the government.
Just because a government has a religion does not require them to push it on the people. Iran is an example of a government pushing religion on the people. The U.S. is not an example of that and not because we have a supposed separation.
Attempting to redefine what the Founding Fathers meant is a pretty weak tactic, particularly when their views on religious freedom and on the noxious mix than religion and politics make is so well known.
It is also well known that secularists spin whatever tidbit of info they can to prove we have a separation and/or that we need a separation. We definitely don't need it because our gov't isn't like Iran; some people just want it maybe because they think we might turn into Iran. I don't know. Despite secularists believing in a 'free exercise thereof' it seems to only run as far as a Joe Public's front door. As soon as Joe Public steps outside, the 'free exercise' belief no longer exists with the excuse that if Joe has a religion we must be careful not to offend anyone who doesn't have religion.
I hate Bush and I hate the Iraq war and as un-PC as this sounds (and it will surely enrage slashdot users here)- I hope Israel bombs them into the stone age.
It's okay to be un-PC. It's good for the soul. :) Enraging slashdot users just encourages improper modding but sometimes it is required. I'm not much of a supporter of Bush anymore and the war needs some direction but I do agree Iran needs bombed but I'm torn with that decision to actually do so because it will be a Bad Thing(tm). See my post here I just submitted for my take on the "bombing" idea.
Yeah, that'll work. The mullahs want kill their own people for posting things to the internet (and for women dressing in Western clothes...) and some naive TWIT thinks we can TALK to them. Dumbass.
It very well may not work, however, are you prepared to pay $15/gallon for gasoline (assuming you are in the U.S.) if Iran is attacked by the U.S. military? Iran has stated they will respond with military action and one of their actions is to block oil exports through the Straits of Hormuz. If that occurs you know damn well commodity traders and actual purchasers of crude oil will pay $200-$250/bbl which will cause obvious increases in gasoline prices. We must talk to them first and if that fails then do we go in militarily to solve any problems. The problem with that though is it will have a ripple effect, one of which is the price of oil. There is no winner in the battle with Iran. Everyone loses. Iran may be destroyed but they know we survive on oil and they are the 4th largest exporter so economically we could be destroyed too. If the U.S. goes down economically (moreso than we already are recently) then world markets follow suit because of the economic interdependencies of world gov'ts.
Separation of church and state anyone?
Non-separation of church and state is not necessarily bad but most (if not all) "states" which do not have the separation are also dictatorships therefore giving non-separation movements a bad connotation. Despite what many want and think, the U.S. was never intended to institute a true separation of church and state, at least that's not what the U.S. Constitution says we should be doing. If a state punishes its citizens for not conforming to state religion then, yes, it is bad and should be dealt with. That isn't freedom, especially freedom of religion, and it isn't separation either. Making laws to ban all public display of religion is also not freedom of religion which is what proponents of separation in the U.S. are fighting for. But there is nothing wrong with a state *having* a religion which is what our (U.S. that is) Constitution was trying to accomplish.
Those who chastise the U.S. for not keeping a separation of church and state do not know what true separation is. We now have yet another example with this story about Iran who wants to kill those who do not conform to the state religion. If those who chastise the U.S. would live in Iran for a year they would realize that what the U.S. has is not the same and was never intended to be a state-sponsored religion (the Founding Fathers knew they didn't want that because they were escaping that) but yet a country *with* a common religion (with some minority religions too, which is fine). That is true freedom of religion. People are always quick to chastise the U.S. government and hail other, foreign governments as better, but yet I don't see anyone such as celebrities, who are famous for criticizing the U.S), moving to Iran or Venezuela. I mention Venezuela because some celebrities in the last year or so were giving props to Hugo Chavez for his dictatorship.
Mod me flamebait or troll or whatever makes you feel better just because you may disagree.
Say for instance your grandfather has a pacemaker with wireless.
$>ping grandpa
No Host Found.
The Solaris ping response would be best in this case, for successful pings that is. When you ping in Solaris you get back "/insert IP/ is alive".
All the stories are the same, some observation was made that surprise, surprise turned out to be consistent with General Relativity. It's not like the theory was "proven", it just survived another chance to be not proven.
Except this time the experiment was to do something that couldn't be done before and in the end they give Einstein's theory a little more credit. A new measurement (observation) matches theory. It's a win-win. You would prefer to only hear of when he is discredited? And their results aren't focused on saying Einstein was right. They already knew he was. They just couldn't properly measure the predicted effects.
From the article:
"Those eclipses are the key to making a measurement that could never be done before," Breton said.
Einstein's 1915 theory predicted that in a close system of two very massive objects, such as neutron stars, one object's gravitational tug, along with an effect of its spinning around its axis, should cause the spin axis of the other to wobble, or precess.
Studies of other pulsars in binary systems had indicated that such wobbling occurred, but could not produce precise measurements of the amount of wobbling.
Isn't it about time to abandon the concept of the graviton and just accept that gravity is not a fundamental force, but is simply the observed effect of the curvature of spacetime due to the presence of matter and energy?
Something still has to transfer the effects of that force. Gravity may not be fundamental but it is a force. For example, the photon particle transfers the electromagnetic force. Mass is considered fundamental but isn't a force however scientists are working on what actually gives an object mass. Their money right now is on the Higg's boson (the God particle).
Rumor has it that the once free IM service is now going to a $.10 per sent or received IM message.
I'm surprised a spam (spim, technically) hasn't been sent out on any of the IM networks yet poking fun of this issue with SMS on the cell networks. Then again, maybe it has and I just haven't got it yet. There have been spim messages talking about Yahoo or someone similar going to charge but that is too general to be considered poking fun at SMS.
Your grandmother is a wise woman who has better things to worry about.
She is nearing EOL. You would think she would speed up her life a little to make sure all her routines finish without being killed while running. Graceful exit.
The only real broadband in the US (not including business leased lines, of course) is Verizon's FIOS, and that's available in so few areas it might as well be mythical.
Since when was broadband defined by bandwidth instead of the way the signal is transmitted?
I used to have CellularOne (from Nov 06) but as of late last year they were acquired by AT&T. AT&T finally completed the acquisition a couple months ago with the last noticeable change being the monthly paper bills. I had my SMS disabled by CellularOne so I don't know how AT&T handles it. I actually had to re-enable SMS briefly about 2 weeks ago when I had to redo my online account setup on AT&T's site once they completely transitioned to the AT&T website instead of CellularOne's website. I had to re-enable SMS in order to receive my temporary password. Their website said I'd still get the SMS because it was an administrative message but I didn't so when I originally stated that I only get admin messages it was only based on what I've read. Incidentally, I haven't received an admin message for a while either so maybe they are blocked too. When I called AT&T they re-enabled it and while on the phone the 3 SMS I had triggered flowed in and the rep disabled it again with no questions asked and no extra raping fee required. They could tell I was one of the accounts that came from CellularOne so I don't know if that had anything to do with it. AT&T also keeps sending me fliers to upgrade my phone/plan so I can be locked into another 2 year contract but I'm not falling for it. I get unlimited anytime minutes and 100 minutes of roaming for $50/mo. There is no way I'm changing that.
I have SMS disabled on my phone at the carrier level. The only SMSs I can receive are administrative which are free. No one can send me a mesg and I can't send out. I did that after my previous carrier (which got bought by AT&T) started charging for incoming messages. I asked why they did that and they said because everyone else was charging for incoming too. And of course then it went from 10 cents to 20. I don't need SMS so the charges don't hurt me because I don't have any.
You mean like he said in his original post?
I never saw anyone mention international edition text books and still don't see any mention of it after looking again.
After having to pay for a new algebra book (75$'s) because, apparently, algebra changed since last year and the teacher insisted I have the new book.
The Muslims are to blame. They keep increasing the royalties on algebra text books. If you don't understand the joke then look up the origins of algebra (aka. al-Jabr).
I'd file my idea after your "one more" and before your "last resort" which is to buy international editions of text books. They are much cheaper.
Where would we be if our students didn't understand the latest developments in trigonometry or first-semester calculus?
answer: where we are right now.
Very acute but that's tangential to the main topic.
I started working for an IT contractor (for the gov't) almost 6 years ago at age 25. I only had an associate's degree in systems engineering. I got the only position on the contract that didn't require a BS degree. I was told by my project manager to go back to school. After a year with my company I went back to school and they paid for it. I finished a BS in CS but I continued my job as a Systems Engineer. My title officially changed about a year before graduating. I continue to do the same work but I do no development work at all. I do requirements analysis, design, test, and deployment at a system level. The CS degree was fun (I like programming) but I don't have any professional experience with programming. I've stuck to doing the engineering. When I eventually go back for my Master's it will be in CS. Point being, just because you have a CS degree doesn't mean you have to be in development and if you can get a job with a gov't contractor I think you'll get great experience. I know I have. I got 6 years under my belt now and a BS degree. And if I stick with my company for at least another 6 months I don't owe anything for tuition (even books were paid for). No school loans. It's great.
Nevermind someone hacking the FBI DB - what if some data entry monkey just screws up their data entry?
Nevermind the hacked database or the data entry monkey - what if some algorithm kept confusing your biometric data with someone else's every....single....time?
The National Instant Criminal Background Check System (aka NICS) has a mechanism in place for people with a legit background who want to buy a gun but get delayed every single time. During a background check someone with the same name and a bad background always crops up and places the good person in the Delay bin. These people can enroll in a program so that they can be greenlighted to buy a gun everytime, faster, instead of being put into the Delay bin which, by definition, slows down their purchase. It's a little more complicated than that but that's the gist of it. The point being that with NGI something similar can be instituted (doesn't mean it will be though) to counteract mistakes be they human or machine.
Anybody notice the mention of Lockheed Martin in the original article? Really? Is more outsourcing of sensitive government tasks the way to go? Have we learned nothing from experience...
The gov't doesn't have the manpower or sometimes the experience/knowledge to do something like this. They have everyday stuff to take care of. No time to build something new. Contracts go on all the time both for development and O&M. Geez, and all this time I thought the gov't built their own planes for the military too. I guess Lockheed Martin (SR-71 Blackbird [back when it was just Lockheed] anyone?) just has their hands in everything don't they? By the way, IBM also bid on the contract for NGI. They lost, obviously. All I know is that with NGI being a 10 year contract, it keeps people like me employed.
Once they get a DNA database everyone, you'll have to leave the house wearing gloves and protective clothing so you don't accidentally leave DNA on someone who happens to get murdered later.
You mean like CODIS?
They are just expressing a (common) political view! Just because you disagree does not make it flamebait!!
You must be new here.
This just requires that the backbone passes ipv6, which any backbone routing device made in the past 10 years will be easily capable of doing.
By backbone, the mandate means the network as a whole as opposed to your applications and hosts (workstations and servers). It doesn't mean your network backbone proper in your facility such as your core and distribution devices. It includes your entire network down to the access switch. And when you start investigating Cisco equipment as well as other vendors network devices and appliances you see that IPv6 is not 100% supported yet so it won't be totally easy. The best that can happen is that for devices that don't yet support it the government agency owning the device has to write a waiver that says they are waiting for their vendor to support IPv6.
Actually, many people would disagree with you that there is enough clean water for everyone. Many places in the US are supposedly running out of clean water. Take a gander at this page.