The only thing it would do if we removed all troops from the middle east is prove to the terrorists around the world that the U.S. is indeed a "paper tiger", and can be pushed around and blackmailed with just a few suicidal zealots.
Sure, the terrorists demand right now is that we get out of the middle east. What will be their next demand? Probably forced conversion to Islam - would you like it if your government said "in the interest of national security, we are forcibly mandating that every citizen convert to Islam"?
Can you back this up with hard evidence - not another Slashdot anecdote - or are you just spouting the party line?
The only "hard evidence" I can provide is my own opinion - Personally I cannot justify spending $400 for a player and sometimes twice as much for each BluRay disc (over DVD), when all I get is a little bit better quality video and audio.
To put it simply, I personally don't think that standard DVD looks (or sounds) that bad, and it's VERY hard to justify the extra cost, just so it can look a bit better.
Of course, I am also in that 60% (I think) that doesn't have a HDTV television yet, either, so I'm sure that influences my opinion at least a little. But I'll tell you this now, though, when I do get a HDTV and (probably) even a BluRay player (once the prices drop significantly, both on players and discs), I very likey won't worry about replacing much of my current DVD collection with the BluRay equivalent - there's little justification for doing so.
Ah thank you. See I have a single HDMI going from my stereo receiver to my TV, and everything else going into my stereo, so that's not a concern for me.
Truth told, when the time comes for me to get an HDTV and up-converting DVD player (be it BluRay or not), I very well might do what you're talking about - have everything feed into the receiver and then just a single HDMI to the TV.
Sure, I could use my existing DVD player, and get an up-converting receiver instead, but those tend to be on the pricey side, compared to the non-up-converting receivers ($200 vs $800).
To put it simply: HDMI. A non-upconverting DVD player isn't likely to have an HDMI out, and if I'm trying to minimize the cables that have to go to my tv (or for that matter my receiver), I'd rather use a single HDMI cable instead of a three-cable component video and a single digital audio cable.
I'll be honest, the "average person" sure won't see that much of a difference between DVD and BluRay. Even if they do, it'd be a real hard sell to convince them it's worth buying a $400+ player and spending MORE for each disc than they could with DVD.
I mean, it's one thing when there's a MASSIVE jump in technology, like going from VHS to DVD. I mean, with DVD suddenly the discs were a lot higher quality (picture and sound), and were considerably closer to indestructible than VHS tapes (that would wear out over time regardless of how well they were maintained). And then you add the DVD extras as well, it's a slam dunk.
What does Blu Ray have over DVD? A better picture (but only for those who have HDTVs and can see the improvement), a little better sound (but how many "average" users think that 5.1 from a DVD really sounds "bad"?). What else? Not much. Certainly not enough to justify the extra cost.
Personally, I'll buy my first BluRay player when I can buy one that will also up-convert my existing DVDs and cost $100 or less. Considering you can get up-converting DVD players now for $40, I'd pay an extra $60 for the ability to play BluRay at some point. But pay an extra $360? No way.
I've been against the idea of gambling being "illegal" for a long time, and I've never heard a convincing argument that supports why it's illegal.
If it's because some consider it "immoral", then the state-run lotteries (not to mention the government-regulated casinos) would be equally immoral.
If it's because some people would gamble their whole savings away (and their families, and their friends, etc.), what's to keep them from gambling their savings away on the lottery? Okay, maybe at $1 a ticket you'd have to work pretty hard to lose a TON of money. But what about gambling it away by calling it "investing" in the stock market?
Sure, but staying late for a week (or more) because someone changed the requirements on you towards the end of the project, without changing the deadline (or resources) is not part of the job description, no matter how much middle-management wants to say that it is.
I suspect it will hinge on two things:
1) Whether the "20 seconds" of footage really was just 20 seconds, or if it was longer (like a minute or two), and "seemed" like only 20 seconds to them.
2) At what point they stopped recording - in other words, if they stopped recording when the manager/cops showed up, they'll have a hard time convincing anyone that they planned to stop recording prior to getting caught.
The problem (IMHO, of course), is the companies that want the best of both worlds. They want to pay a straight salary (for presumably 40 hours of work), and not pay extra when the employee works extra. But at the same time, these are the same companies that want to dock the employee's pay whenever their weekly hours DROPS below 40 hours in the week.
I actually had one employer that did precisely that - they (or more precisely he - the owner) had the gall to dock my pay for taking a two-hour lunch (on the day that everyone in the company took a two-hour lunch - it was the paid-for christmas lunch), despite the fact that I'd worked 10 hours just two days earlier and 8 hours every other day that week.
Looking back, maybe I should have taken legal action. But at the time, jobs were few and far between, and I couldn't afford to be out of work for long. Little did I know that I'd be "laid off" (translation: fired for no good reason) just a few months later.
I'm hoping they do a study of this next, so they will have scientific data to back up law against wives nagging their husbands while driving. On the other hand, I know I would make a lot more road trips if such a law existed, so it might not be good for traffic and the environment.:)
That one is easy enough to counteract - just tune out her voice and ignore it... There, end of problem.
OUCH! Sorry honey! OW! I didn't mean it! Damn, quit hitting me woman!!!
I would suggest the following: Unplugging the computer (without doing the appropriate voodoo tricks in advance), a self destructing sequence is initiated (by special hardware, or mabye software running on the main processor), which overwrites all data on the harddrives. An internal battery would power the procedure when the servers are on their way to the police.:-)
I will make myself one, that's for sure.
That's all well and good, until your first power outage and/or UPS failure.
Screw that. Give 500. Give a number so rediculously high that your help desk should practically never have to deal with another "locked account" again, but so stunningly low that a brute-force attack will never succeed. It turns out that these two boundaries are still pretty far apart from one another.
IMHO, I think a relatively-small artificial delay (after a certain number of attempts) should slow down the "brute-force" attack significantly as well...
After all, let's say that it has an artificial delay of 1 second after every 5 tries. Most human-entered attempts won't even notice the delay (and even if they do, it's a relatively minor inconvenience - much more minor than having to contact someone about unlocking the account after 3 unsuccessful attempts).
But a brute-force attack that would send, say, 1,000,000 passwords in quick succession will take at least 50 hours, or over two days. Not very practical. Especially when it may take more than 1,000,000 tries (assuming the password was set up to deliberately avoid things such as dictionary searches and things like that).
Not only that, but those two things (after how many "attempts" to have the delay, and the delay itself) could even be tweaked based on how much abuse the site is getting. Maybe a 2 second delay after 3 failed attempts, which would be even MORE effective (approx. 7.7 days if my calculations are correct) than a 1 second delay after 5, while only being slightly more intrusive for legitimate users.
I'm supprised that they don't first offer tickets at $500, starting from the best seats.
Then, a week later, drop it down to $400 and so on. Again, in order to spur people into buying at the earlier, higher price, offer the best seats first. Sell out too quickly? You didn't start high enough.
Then again, you might have huge numbers of people trying to wait until it's only a $100
In fact, why not start with an absolutely OBSCENE amount? And have it halve over a set period of time (such as weeks/days/hours)?
For example, let's set the "period" as a day.
The first day they would be at $1000
The second day they would be at $500
The third day they'd be at $250
The fourth day they'd be at $125
And so on...
At some point, every seat would be sold. Sure, some people would have paid $1000 per ticket, and some probably less than $100. But the ones paying $1000 a ticket paid a premium for the guarantee that they'd not be sold out yet.
Fact of the matter is, if a venue ISN'T sold out, there's no reason not to sell the extra tickets for even less, as each additional person attending isn't exactly costing them any more money - the cost is the same if the venue is half full, or if it's packed.
Maybe they'd sell out at the $1000 price. Maybe not. Either way, this should maximize how much money is made.
I'm supprised that they don't first offer tickets at $500, starting from the best seats.
Then, a week later, drop it down to $400 and so on. Again, in order to spur people into buying at the earlier, higher price, offer the best seats first. Sell out too quickly? You didn't start high enough.
Then again, you might have huge numbers of people trying to wait until it's only a $100
Sure, that might happen, but those people would be taking a big risk that the show may already be sold out (or at least the best seats gone) by that time. If they're willing to take that risk, they may get a good deal - or they may find themselves without tickets to the show.
The legitimate controversy isn't whether or not "Global Warming" is real, it's whether or not, and/or to what extent, humans have anything to do with it.
This is exactly what I've been saying for years. It is quite possible that this "warming" is part of the natural cycle of the planet.
It's equally possible that if we didn't cause it, we probably are equally unable to fix it, if it is part of the normal cycle.
The thing that gets me, is we need to know what the reasoning behind this law is.
If it's a "gambling is bad, and therefore illegal" type of message, they are hypocrites because of "legal" gambling already there, such as lotteries, and even things like insurance policies and trading stocks.
If it's the idea that "many gambling sites are taking money and refusing to pay winnings", then that's a different idea altogether.
country has two parties for a reason, and they need to keep each other in check. People have different views so they should be given choices as to what party they will support to represent those views. I'm not gonna go in to how the bi-partisan system fails here (nothing is black and white, dammit!), but at least a line is being drawn.
The problem is that lately there's been apparently little difference between the two parties anyways.
For example, in the past the Democratic party was often for bigger government, more social programs, etc. At the same time, the Republican part was generally for smaller government, fewer social programs, etc.
But this administration has proven time and time again that "smaller government" is the furthest from their mind.
IMHO, the first thing they need to do is start reducing/eliminating some government programs in order to get the budget in line. Ignoring propoganda about surpluses and deficits, the governemnt needs to spend *LESS THAN IT BRINGS IN*. Period. If the government can do that, then they truly would have a surplus to pay down the national debt.
Continually adding programs, and adding to existing ones, is just heading for disaster. And there's only two solutions to that disaster, long-term:
1) Raise taxes (which IMHO are too high already)
2) Reduce the budget
Adding one more program (in this case, broadband for all) isn't what I'd call reducing the budget.
Especially when you consider that bureaucracy ALWAYS adds extra costs to anything. Sure, maybe right now your internet broadband access costs you $50/month. But if the government paid for it, after going through a few more hands, it'd probably cost $100/month or more. Except then we also have to add in the people who aren't paying those new taxes. So then it'd boil down to (yes, this is over-simplified, but still) some people paying (essentially) $0/month for their internet access, while others ended up paying $500/month for it.
No thanks... Let's leave it in the open market, and let the market (with healthy competition) determine the reasonable price for the service. Not only that, but that would also leave people the option to *NOT* pay for internet access if they don't need/want it.
I am very glad to hear of this. I've said for a long while, that while I absolutely love my Tivo, it has a few drawbacks (that can be remedied):
1) Lack of dual (or more) tuners on standalone models
2) Lack of support for digital channels (a la CableCard)
3) Personalizing "suggestions" on a person basis, instead of a Tivo box basis.
And from what I hear, #1 and #2 are in the works (rumored to come out mid-2006). And this (it sounds like) could be the third.
I've known for awhile that my Tivo will (if "suggestions" are turned on) record shows it thinks I will like. The problem, is if I record my shows, and my wife records her shows, the machine doesn't differentiate between the two, and tries to find "suggestions" that match both hers and my preferences.
Priceless: Guaranteed to never get a promotion or pay raise!
With this economy, isn't that a given anyways?
It comes full circle for me...
on
Ma Bell is Back
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· Score: 1
Guess it's coming all the way around now for me.
A few years ago, I had my high-speed internet (and e-mail) through AT&T cable (when they bought TCI Cablevision), so I had an @attbi.com e-mail address.
Then they got swallowed up by comcast, and I got a @comcast.net e-mail address.
Then DSL was available cheaper (and faster) for me, so I switched to that - winding up with a @sbcglobal.net address.
At this rate, I wonder if I'll get my @attbi e-mail address back.;)
Slashdot Mirror
The only thing it would do if we removed all troops from the middle east is prove to the terrorists around the world that the U.S. is indeed a "paper tiger", and can be pushed around and blackmailed with just a few suicidal zealots. Sure, the terrorists demand right now is that we get out of the middle east. What will be their next demand? Probably forced conversion to Islam - would you like it if your government said "in the interest of national security, we are forcibly mandating that every citizen convert to Islam"?
The only "hard evidence" I can provide is my own opinion - Personally I cannot justify spending $400 for a player and sometimes twice as much for each BluRay disc (over DVD), when all I get is a little bit better quality video and audio.
To put it simply, I personally don't think that standard DVD looks (or sounds) that bad, and it's VERY hard to justify the extra cost, just so it can look a bit better.
Of course, I am also in that 60% (I think) that doesn't have a HDTV television yet, either, so I'm sure that influences my opinion at least a little. But I'll tell you this now, though, when I do get a HDTV and (probably) even a BluRay player (once the prices drop significantly, both on players and discs), I very likey won't worry about replacing much of my current DVD collection with the BluRay equivalent - there's little justification for doing so.
Truth told, when the time comes for me to get an HDTV and up-converting DVD player (be it BluRay or not), I very well might do what you're talking about - have everything feed into the receiver and then just a single HDMI to the TV.
Sure, I could use my existing DVD player, and get an up-converting receiver instead, but those tend to be on the pricey side, compared to the non-up-converting receivers ($200 vs $800).
To put it simply: HDMI. A non-upconverting DVD player isn't likely to have an HDMI out, and if I'm trying to minimize the cables that have to go to my tv (or for that matter my receiver), I'd rather use a single HDMI cable instead of a three-cable component video and a single digital audio cable.
I'll be honest, the "average person" sure won't see that much of a difference between DVD and BluRay. Even if they do, it'd be a real hard sell to convince them it's worth buying a $400+ player and spending MORE for each disc than they could with DVD. I mean, it's one thing when there's a MASSIVE jump in technology, like going from VHS to DVD. I mean, with DVD suddenly the discs were a lot higher quality (picture and sound), and were considerably closer to indestructible than VHS tapes (that would wear out over time regardless of how well they were maintained). And then you add the DVD extras as well, it's a slam dunk. What does Blu Ray have over DVD? A better picture (but only for those who have HDTVs and can see the improvement), a little better sound (but how many "average" users think that 5.1 from a DVD really sounds "bad"?). What else? Not much. Certainly not enough to justify the extra cost. Personally, I'll buy my first BluRay player when I can buy one that will also up-convert my existing DVDs and cost $100 or less. Considering you can get up-converting DVD players now for $40, I'd pay an extra $60 for the ability to play BluRay at some point. But pay an extra $360? No way.
I've been against the idea of gambling being "illegal" for a long time, and I've never heard a convincing argument that supports why it's illegal. If it's because some consider it "immoral", then the state-run lotteries (not to mention the government-regulated casinos) would be equally immoral. If it's because some people would gamble their whole savings away (and their families, and their friends, etc.), what's to keep them from gambling their savings away on the lottery? Okay, maybe at $1 a ticket you'd have to work pretty hard to lose a TON of money. But what about gambling it away by calling it "investing" in the stock market?
Awww man... Just mentioning Defender of the Crown and now I have the theme song stuck in my head... Damn you... ;)
Sure, but staying late for a week (or more) because someone changed the requirements on you towards the end of the project, without changing the deadline (or resources) is not part of the job description, no matter how much middle-management wants to say that it is.
I suspect it will hinge on two things: 1) Whether the "20 seconds" of footage really was just 20 seconds, or if it was longer (like a minute or two), and "seemed" like only 20 seconds to them. 2) At what point they stopped recording - in other words, if they stopped recording when the manager/cops showed up, they'll have a hard time convincing anyone that they planned to stop recording prior to getting caught.
I actually had one employer that did precisely that - they (or more precisely he - the owner) had the gall to dock my pay for taking a two-hour lunch (on the day that everyone in the company took a two-hour lunch - it was the paid-for christmas lunch), despite the fact that I'd worked 10 hours just two days earlier and 8 hours every other day that week.
Looking back, maybe I should have taken legal action. But at the time, jobs were few and far between, and I couldn't afford to be out of work for long. Little did I know that I'd be "laid off" (translation: fired for no good reason) just a few months later.
The problem is, RIAA can easily turn a scenario like "sales are down" into the argument that it's "proof" of the damage of piracy. :(
That one is easy enough to counteract - just tune out her voice and ignore it... There, end of problem.
OUCH! Sorry honey! OW! I didn't mean it! Damn, quit hitting me woman!!!
Sure, until you get into that whole "separation of church and state" thing...
That's all well and good, until your first power outage and/or UPS failure.
IMHO, I think a relatively-small artificial delay (after a certain number of attempts) should slow down the "brute-force" attack significantly as well...
After all, let's say that it has an artificial delay of 1 second after every 5 tries. Most human-entered attempts won't even notice the delay (and even if they do, it's a relatively minor inconvenience - much more minor than having to contact someone about unlocking the account after 3 unsuccessful attempts).
But a brute-force attack that would send, say, 1,000,000 passwords in quick succession will take at least 50 hours, or over two days. Not very practical. Especially when it may take more than 1,000,000 tries (assuming the password was set up to deliberately avoid things such as dictionary searches and things like that).
Not only that, but those two things (after how many "attempts" to have the delay, and the delay itself) could even be tweaked based on how much abuse the site is getting. Maybe a 2 second delay after 3 failed attempts, which would be even MORE effective (approx. 7.7 days if my calculations are correct) than a 1 second delay after 5, while only being slightly more intrusive for legitimate users.
In fact, why not start with an absolutely OBSCENE amount? And have it halve over a set period of time (such as weeks/days/hours)?
For example, let's set the "period" as a day.
The first day they would be at $1000
The second day they would be at $500
The third day they'd be at $250
The fourth day they'd be at $125
And so on...
At some point, every seat would be sold. Sure, some people would have paid $1000 per ticket, and some probably less than $100. But the ones paying $1000 a ticket paid a premium for the guarantee that they'd not be sold out yet.
Fact of the matter is, if a venue ISN'T sold out, there's no reason not to sell the extra tickets for even less, as each additional person attending isn't exactly costing them any more money - the cost is the same if the venue is half full, or if it's packed.
Maybe they'd sell out at the $1000 price. Maybe not. Either way, this should maximize how much money is made.
Sure, that might happen, but those people would be taking a big risk that the show may already be sold out (or at least the best seats gone) by that time. If they're willing to take that risk, they may get a good deal - or they may find themselves without tickets to the show.
It's equally possible that if we didn't cause it, we probably are equally unable to fix it, if it is part of the normal cycle.
If it's a "gambling is bad, and therefore illegal" type of message, they are hypocrites because of "legal" gambling already there, such as lotteries, and even things like insurance policies and trading stocks.
If it's the idea that "many gambling sites are taking money and refusing to pay winnings", then that's a different idea altogether.
The problem is that lately there's been apparently little difference between the two parties anyways.
For example, in the past the Democratic party was often for bigger government, more social programs, etc. At the same time, the Republican part was generally for smaller government, fewer social programs, etc.
But this administration has proven time and time again that "smaller government" is the furthest from their mind.
IMHO, the first thing they need to do is start reducing/eliminating some government programs in order to get the budget in line. Ignoring propoganda about surpluses and deficits, the governemnt needs to spend *LESS THAN IT BRINGS IN*. Period. If the government can do that, then they truly would have a surplus to pay down the national debt.
Continually adding programs, and adding to existing ones, is just heading for disaster. And there's only two solutions to that disaster, long-term: 1) Raise taxes (which IMHO are too high already) 2) Reduce the budget
Adding one more program (in this case, broadband for all) isn't what I'd call reducing the budget.
Especially when you consider that bureaucracy ALWAYS adds extra costs to anything. Sure, maybe right now your internet broadband access costs you $50/month. But if the government paid for it, after going through a few more hands, it'd probably cost $100/month or more. Except then we also have to add in the people who aren't paying those new taxes. So then it'd boil down to (yes, this is over-simplified, but still) some people paying (essentially) $0/month for their internet access, while others ended up paying $500/month for it.
No thanks... Let's leave it in the open market, and let the market (with healthy competition) determine the reasonable price for the service. Not only that, but that would also leave people the option to *NOT* pay for internet access if they don't need/want it.
1) Lack of dual (or more) tuners on standalone models
2) Lack of support for digital channels (a la CableCard)
3) Personalizing "suggestions" on a person basis, instead of a Tivo box basis.
And from what I hear, #1 and #2 are in the works (rumored to come out mid-2006). And this (it sounds like) could be the third.
I've known for awhile that my Tivo will (if "suggestions" are turned on) record shows it thinks I will like. The problem, is if I record my shows, and my wife records her shows, the machine doesn't differentiate between the two, and tries to find "suggestions" that match both hers and my preferences.
And it rarely turns up anything useful.
With this economy, isn't that a given anyways?
A few years ago, I had my high-speed internet (and e-mail) through AT&T cable (when they bought TCI Cablevision), so I had an @attbi.com e-mail address.
Then they got swallowed up by comcast, and I got a @comcast.net e-mail address.
Then DSL was available cheaper (and faster) for me, so I switched to that - winding up with a @sbcglobal.net address.
At this rate, I wonder if I'll get my @attbi e-mail address back. ;)
Oops, it appears that the math gods are not with me today. Figured I'd correct myself before someone else does. ;)
Going from 45 hours (worked and paid) a week to paid for 40 while still working 45 is actually a 12% decrease in pay, not 8%.
I was so expecting this post to be a varation on the old joke "they pretend to pay OT, so I pretend to work it"... :)