I understand what you're saying, but I didn't mean to imply that it was ever slow to begin with. I only meant it as an example of his concern for performance that he'd spend that much time for a miniscule gain. Obviously I hope he'd tackle any truly problem areas first.
As funny as that was, it's also sad. I know somebody in virtually that exact position.
Okay, the school he got his degree from isn't "top knotch" by any standard, and I admit I'm not much of a programmer myself--but from what I've seen of him and his work, he's an absolutely brilliant programmer. Better yet, he's self-motivated to improve not only his program, but himself. He's always trying new things and pushing himself, just to see if he can do it. He's one of those guys who'll rewrite 500 lines of code because he found somewhere he can shave a millisecond of processing time out. (Yeah, that's a bit obsessive, but I admire the dedication.)
I know he was aiming for a 4.0 major GPA, not sure how he did with that. Anyway, graduated with his BS in CS (which is really fun to say), and he's now working in receiving at Walmart.
The United States government is divided into three branches in a system known as checks and balances. It most definitely IS the job of the courts to keep Congress in line.
To be accurate, the job of the judiciary is to interpret the Constitution and the laws that Congress passes. The USSC sort of took the power of judicial review upon itself under John Marshall.
That of course doesn't change the fact that it is a reality, so on to the argument.
The job of the courts is not to "keep Congress in line," per se, simply to keep them within the bounds of the Constitution. "Keep Congress in line" implies too much discretion. The courts are not intended to determine if laws are good or bad, fair or unfair--merely whether the legislature overstepped their bounds in passing it in the manner it did.
That said, copyright cases have gone to the courts. To the Supreme Court, in fact. And the Congressional actions were legal.
That may change in the future if another copyright case makes it to a different Court, but I think the grandparent's post stands. Until something changes, Congress is the body that needs to change its mind.
In many cases you're absolutely right. However in the case of LOTR I don't agree.
First and foremost because I, at least, knew there would be an extended edition of all the movies coming out a bit after the regular DVD. I never ran out and bought the regular and then went "oh shit, now I have to buy another, extended copy!" Even if I had fallen for that the first time, it certainly wouldn't have gotten me with the second two videos.
But also because the LOTR movies are so incredibly long. They're about what, nine hours long total--and I'm talking regular releases? I don't see anything wrong with providing those already long but shorter releases--cheaper--to the people who aren't interested in an extra 45 minutes per movie in background information. For those who love the movies and want the extra, or who loved the books and feel the things that got cut out were absolute blasphemy to begin with, wait a few months, pay an extra $10 and get the bigger version.
What's the problem, really? I mean even with other series', I understand being somewhat upset buying the regular version and then finding out a directors cut or something will be released later--but this stops you from buying movies why exactly? You must have liked the movie if you bought it in the first place. I don't see why not getting EXTRA footage ruins a good movie for you.
b) are they any better than Microsoft if they do that?
I think so, yeah. There are obviously a lot of people here who think patents are just Plain Evil(tm). Regardless of whether or not that is true, they are a legal reality in today's world.
That said, like so many things in life, they can be used or they can be abused. If Microsoft is going to start suing and Novell wants to challenge them on it, I'm all for it. Novell is in a much better position to defend against the claims than most of the (other) people/companies MS is likely to hit.
Point A is completely correct though. Right or wrong, it takes some iron balls to send your lawyers up against Microsoft's.
SO, what the parent said was more accurate than what you said, yes?
Depends on how "almost" 3 million it was and how "over" 500,000 they're talking about. 2,900,000 in five days is considerably closer to 600,000/day than it is to 500,000.
Unless of course we're playing a Price Is Right-style "closest without going over!" game.
As to the other post who states
600000 > 500000, correct?
Absolutely. And a billion is greater than six, but if the number is a billion, I'm probably not going to say "over six" to describe it.
Do you honestly think you're any safer, having pissed off the UN and the majority of the planet?
Whether you supported the Iraq war or not, I think the UN has shown time and again that it lacks the balls to actually act when things need acting upon.
Ask the Sudanese if the UN passing an almost strongly-worded resolution against the genocide there did anything more than make people chuckle. Christ, they couldn't even step up to SAY they MIGHT in the FUTURE stop a GENOCIDE. Is there a trigger for UN action in their resolution? Nope. Did they acknowledge it was genocide? Of course not! Because if they acknowledged it as what it is, they have legal obligations under the international law they claim to believe so strongly in to stop it.
So no, they slapped them on the wrist, and China talked them out of even using a ruler to do it. Frankly, until the UN proves it is willing to fulfil its obligations, I'm inclined to believe it's nothing more than a waste of time to even let them know what's going on.
Ahhh. So, let's see. If you use google at work, you should be going to jail. Sounds fair.
Can anybody take your comments seriously after you say something like "you should be going to jail?" I don't know when Google became a government agency that could send officers to your door for violating a TOS. No, at best it would be a civil issue. More likely, as you say, they have that clause as a justification if they choose to block usage.
However, of all the companies out there, Google would be the one of the least anal ones I could think of. Almost certainly that clause exists for only the purpose of blocking people doing what MS is (rightly or wrongly) accused of: Crawling them to offer a competing service. And THAT is taking money directly out of their pockets--you can bet if it were true and could be proven, they would do more than start firewalling. They'd be sueing somebody's ass off.
Frankly, I think that is a perfectly legitimate attempt to protect one's business. But hey, if you think it's moronic and crappy, that's your call.
Here in the US central time zone, after both the Aussies and we have gone through our daylight savings-related rituals, folks around Sydney are now 17 hours ahead of us.
I completely agree that a lot of good has come from making mistakes and finding something new out.
Still, I'd prefer my multi-million dollar spacecraft be programmed with the right units and not crash headlong into a planet. I'm picky that way though.
Actually, unlike IE, pages render correctly in Firefox, including Slashdot. Just because a site isn't done properly and thus isn't displayed in Firefox as it is IE (which apparently will accept horseshit for HTML), doesn't mean that there is anything wrong with Firefox.
Well, that depends on your goals. If your goals are to conform to standards, congratulations, you've succeeded and the rest is a rather moot point.
If your goal is to take market share away from IE, you might run into problems. I doubt the average Internet user will see a page broken in Firefox, which works (or worked) in IE, and go "damn those Microsoft bitches and their crappy implementation!!" They will likely blame Firefox, even if that's wrong. Or more likely, they simply won't give a crap whose fault it is. They had a browser that worked for them and now they have one that isn't working. Back to IE they go.
We're in our own little slashworld here, where people care about standards and implementations and who's somehow right versus who's somehow wrong. There's nothing wrong with that, but we can't assume it is widely true outside of our little world. Most people are going to use what they perceive works better for them. Pages that only render in IE, or pages that downright REQUIRE IE, might be all the impetus some people need to switch back or avoid switching altogether. Maybe they can be overwhelmed by the other better features (I have no idea how I used the Internet without tabs!), but your task just become more difficult.
IM and email has take a lot of that away. It is just to easy to write a quick email or im that friend on the other side of the country. Little thought is put into it and it has the life of a mayfly. It is here and then gone.
I'm not entirely sure what I think about this issue, but let me play devil's advocate a little bit.
You're right in the short sense. If you compare any single IM I send to any single letter I have ever written, the IM message is going to come up short. But then, that's the value of something like IM: It permits instant feedback. With a letter, you would put a lot of thought and time into it because you had to. Once you send that puppy, it might take a week just to get to your recipient, a day or two for them to read and find time to reply, and another week for your response to hit home. In short, there was a two week lag. This obviously means you want to make sure you say everything you've had to say in one pass.
But I wonder--if instead of looking over a single message or something of IM, if you took the sum of all the messages with somebody for a day or two--would it still seem to come up short? I admit it. I have a lot of really silly IM conversations, just goofing around and being silly with friends, and believe it or not the things that come out in conversations like that often mean more to me than the prepared stuff. All that's true. I don't know about anybody else, but I have also had some extremely deep conversations in IM. I've helped people with girlfriend problems, I've helped friends through depression, helped some younger friends deal with things like having to move and potentially leave their friends behind. Or hell, just listened if they had a bad day and want to do a little complaining. All in real-time.
The language might not be as flowery, the threads of conversation might not be thought out for days in advance--but I think all the emotion and compassion is there. And it provides a method for discussing things as they happen. Maybe we're being silly one minute and the next they find out something that devastates them--boom, that conversation changes in an instant. Certainly can't do that in a letter.
In a lot of senses, I prefer IM because it's more personal. In terms of communications, it's the next best thing to being there with the person or maybe getting them on the phone (which isn't always feasible). It's personal, it's friendly, it's a couple of friends shooting the breeze and seeing what topics come up. Unlike letters, where there is usually some pre-planned "motive" (in quotes because I don't want to imply anything sinister) to writing, where the speech is pedantic and formal.
About the only thing that bothers me about IM in particular and the Internet in general is the writing. I don't think I need to go into any details about that with this crowd. On the other hand, I have friends across the world who, thanks to this medium, I get to talk to every day. If that means putting up with a few Internet-isms, I consider it a small price.
After all, the purpose of IM and email and writing letters are all the same: to allow people to communicate. I'm not sure it ultimately matters on what "intellectual level" we're communicating on so long as the writer and the recipient understand the message and the meaning behind it.
And I've really gone on a ramble without much of a point. Sorry. Just kind of dropping my thoughts on "paper" and seeing where it leads.
I started experiencing issues at about 10pm last night (could not update status, if I logged out it would be very difficult to log back in, etc); at 10am this morning, my logins were rejected completely. I tried again around 2pm and it looks to be working fairly well right now.
Still, last I checked 10pm one day to 10am the next was twelve hours.
Perhaps you shouldn't criticize without the facts?
Why not just set the national highway speed limit at 10mph then, and we'll never have another accident?
Why not overreact?
Seriously, all I said was that as an entity that has to pay when you fuck up, Geico has an interest in you driving the speed limit. It wasn't a value judgment, and it certainly wasn't something that you should take as far as to say "set the national highway speed limit at 10mph."
When 90% of the population breaks a law, there is something wrong with the law.
The world isn't that cut and dry. People not liking a law doesn't, itself, mean that it is bad. But we'll get to the good/bad argument in a second.
Obviously most people think that the increased risk at the higher speed is perfectly reasonable to accept, so why not change the law?
That is a much more pertinant question, since most of my initial argument was based on it being the law.
I might agree with you. I don't agree with the seatbelt law I mentioned in my previous post because it's a personal choice. I'm old enough to make legal decisions, old enough to be drafted... I should be old enough to decide if the risk of not putting my seatbelt on is one I'm willing to take. (I might agree with a law that requires you to buckle up your kids, however.)
But driving is a slightly different story. If I crash without a seatbelt on and I die, that was my decision and apparently a bad one. Oopsie, guess I paid for it. But accidents are not always one car. That means that my choosing to speed (or to support removing or increasing speed limits) affects not only me, a choice I would consider myself able to make--but also the people in the vehicle that I hit. I shouldn't be able to decide for them whether or not speeding is an acceptable risk, and my increased speed may well mean the difference between them walking away or being carried away on a stretcher. And as somebody else said, it's really more dangerous to be the odd-ball driver who's going too fast or too slow for the traffic around you. Abolishing limits and in effect allowing every driver to drive whatever pace they wanted to would likely increase accidents.
If all I had to decide is "am I okay with the risk?" then I would fully support being able to legally drive as fast as I want. But when other people and other lives start entering the picture, we've got a different picture, and frankly I'm not sure where I would come down on the issue. I guess I'd like to see some hard data on it first.
Personally, my feeling is that the technology exists to automate cars entirely.
That is probably coming one day. Me, I'm still waiting for my Star Trek-style transporters. Now that would be sweet.
What does a judge saying the government has an interest in protecting privacy have to do with rewriting history? He's not commenting on what they've done--and certainly not on any particular piece of legislation with the possible exception of the one (Do-Not-Call) before him--he's merely stating that the government has an interest in protecting privacy and this bill does so. He's making a legal argument. That's what judges do.
Actually, if you'd put emphasis one word earlier--that is, "advances the government's...," it would have been even clearer. The government (not *ADMINISTRATION* or *CURRENT CONGRESS*) has an interest and this advances it; it helps it. Even if other things osetensibly hurt it.
Oy. The political posturing around here is really becoming too much.
Dude, you're taking it too seriously. The "explain yourself" thing really has nothing to do with it. It was more of a joke that you won't have the excuse that "I didn't know I was speeding" with something like this running.
You don't have to "explain yourself" at all. Just shut up, say you were speeding, take the ticket and deal with it. No explaining necessary. If you want to FIGHT it, you have a chance to explain in court. Your RIGHT, not your OBLIGATION.
It's a good question. But then again, I don't think the system has to necessarily be worse at it than a human. In those situations, what does the human do (assuming they don't KNOW what sign it is)? They look at shape, color, things like that.
Why can't a camera and a piece of software try to do that too? Even if they're looking at databased images for comparison, I still think they might be able to hit a fair level of success matching.
And maybe he/she will have to explain why they use speed "enforcement" as a means of generating revenue and a means of generating an excuse to search people's cars.
Mmm... not quite. Being pulled over is not an excuse to have your car searched. Suspicious activity while you're being ticketed, however, may be, and of course anything in plain sight is fair game. Any scent of alcohol or indication of drug use may be grounds for a sobriety test as well. Then again, if we're complaining that cops are taking drunks and druggies off the roads, I simply don't have a lot of sympathy about it.
As far as generating revenue, sure, they do. And that (especially combined with "quotas") might well be an excuse to pull you over. But you know, you're also breaking the law and they're enforcing it and I find it somewhat ironic trying to take the high road about it. But you know, on the other hand, those tickets DO get a message across. Illinois just made not having your seatbelt on a ticketable offense. (For clarity, it has been illegal for quite some time, but they never used to be able to pull you over FOR it, only write you an additional ticket when they had you anyway; now that is enough cause.) On the way back from college for the weekend, my dad and I both got nailed for no seatbelts. My dad has never worn a seatbelt in his life, but damned if he doesn't have it on every time he gets on that highway now. Am I happy about paying the fine? Hell no. But I'm wearing my seatbelt. No, it's not perfect; no, it hasn't changed his behavior on every road, but it helped.
Likewise, I have friends who have gotten speeding tickets and it's amazing what good, curteous drivers they become for a few weeks. Again, not permenant, but it's something.
Speed enforcement is just an excuse for getting into your wallet, and your car. It's extremely selectively enforced; the cops don't pull over everyone(next time you're on the road, look down at your speedo. Notice the car in front of you and behind you and all around you- they're all doing the same speed)
I'll have you know I don't wear a speedo on the road!
But seriously, enforcement is an "excuse" to get into your wallet? Buddy, it's the law, and while there are plenty of bad laws around (*cough*Patriot Act!*cough*), I'm not going to fault the police for enforcing them. If you have a problem with the law, take it up with your legislaters, not the cops.
As far as "they're all doing the same speed," that's a poor excuse/example for a number of reasons. For starters, if you're just going as fast as the traffic around you your chances of getting pulled over for it are lessened, for a number of reasons. It's the guys blowing by the people taking liberty with their "freebie" 10 miles over who get nailed the most. And the second reason I can explain with an old cop joke:
A man was speeding down the highway, feeling secure in a gaggle of cars all traveling at the same speed. However, as they passed a speed trap, he got nailed with an infrared speed detector and was pulled over.
The officer handed him the citation, received his signature and was about to walk away when the man asked, "Officer, I know I was speeding, but I don't think it's fair - there were plenty of other cars around me who were going just as fast, so why did *I* get the ticket?"
"Ever go fishing?" the policeman suddenly asked the man.
"Ummm, yeah..." the startled man replied.
The officer grinned and added, "Ever catch *all* the fish?"
No conflict of interest there, no sir, not an insurance company giving police officers a device that, every time it is used, causes someone's insurance rate to go through the roof, despite no evidence speeding causes accidents.
NO evidence? If nothing else it cuts down your available time to react without causing an accident and I think that would be a fair example. But even if you're right that
Slashdot Mirror
I understand what you're saying, but I didn't mean to imply that it was ever slow to begin with. I only meant it as an example of his concern for performance that he'd spend that much time for a miniscule gain. Obviously I hope he'd tackle any truly problem areas first.
In a civil lawsuit?
I mean yes, we're paying a judge to... well, play judge, but that's about the extent of the government's involvement in this particular civil suit.
As funny as that was, it's also sad. I know somebody in virtually that exact position.
Okay, the school he got his degree from isn't "top knotch" by any standard, and I admit I'm not much of a programmer myself--but from what I've seen of him and his work, he's an absolutely brilliant programmer. Better yet, he's self-motivated to improve not only his program, but himself. He's always trying new things and pushing himself, just to see if he can do it. He's one of those guys who'll rewrite 500 lines of code because he found somewhere he can shave a millisecond of processing time out. (Yeah, that's a bit obsessive, but I admire the dedication.)
I know he was aiming for a 4.0 major GPA, not sure how he did with that. Anyway, graduated with his BS in CS (which is really fun to say), and he's now working in receiving at Walmart.
Blahh. Sucky job market I guess.
The United States government is divided into three branches in a system known as checks and balances. It most definitely IS the job of the courts to keep Congress in line.
To be accurate, the job of the judiciary is to interpret the Constitution and the laws that Congress passes. The USSC sort of took the power of judicial review upon itself under John Marshall.
That of course doesn't change the fact that it is a reality, so on to the argument.
The job of the courts is not to "keep Congress in line," per se, simply to keep them within the bounds of the Constitution. "Keep Congress in line" implies too much discretion. The courts are not intended to determine if laws are good or bad, fair or unfair--merely whether the legislature overstepped their bounds in passing it in the manner it did.
That said, copyright cases have gone to the courts. To the Supreme Court, in fact. And the Congressional actions were legal.
That may change in the future if another copyright case makes it to a different Court, but I think the grandparent's post stands. Until something changes, Congress is the body that needs to change its mind.
In many cases you're absolutely right. However in the case of LOTR I don't agree.
First and foremost because I, at least, knew there would be an extended edition of all the movies coming out a bit after the regular DVD. I never ran out and bought the regular and then went "oh shit, now I have to buy another, extended copy!" Even if I had fallen for that the first time, it certainly wouldn't have gotten me with the second two videos.
But also because the LOTR movies are so incredibly long. They're about what, nine hours long total--and I'm talking regular releases? I don't see anything wrong with providing those already long but shorter releases--cheaper--to the people who aren't interested in an extra 45 minutes per movie in background information. For those who love the movies and want the extra, or who loved the books and feel the things that got cut out were absolute blasphemy to begin with, wait a few months, pay an extra $10 and get the bigger version.
What's the problem, really? I mean even with other series', I understand being somewhat upset buying the regular version and then finding out a directors cut or something will be released later--but this stops you from buying movies why exactly? You must have liked the movie if you bought it in the first place. I don't see why not getting EXTRA footage ruins a good movie for you.
Please, oh PLEASE, I hope I get a chance to meta-mod the people who marked this funny!
But it DOES mean that Ballmer's word choice literally sucks monkey balls, almost.
Seriously, with all the times he said "literally" and diluded his statements with "almosts" and "probably" I'm not sure he even said anything at all.
b) are they any better than Microsoft if they do that?
I think so, yeah. There are obviously a lot of people here who think patents are just Plain Evil(tm). Regardless of whether or not that is true, they are a legal reality in today's world.
That said, like so many things in life, they can be used or they can be abused. If Microsoft is going to start suing and Novell wants to challenge them on it, I'm all for it. Novell is in a much better position to defend against the claims than most of the (other) people/companies MS is likely to hit.
Point A is completely correct though. Right or wrong, it takes some iron balls to send your lawyers up against Microsoft's.
SO, what the parent said was more accurate than what you said, yes?
Depends on how "almost" 3 million it was and how "over" 500,000 they're talking about. 2,900,000 in five days is considerably closer to 600,000/day than it is to 500,000.
Unless of course we're playing a Price Is Right-style "closest without going over!" game.
As to the other post who states
600000 > 500000, correct?
Absolutely. And a billion is greater than six, but if the number is a billion, I'm probably not going to say "over six" to describe it.
Do you honestly think you're any safer, having pissed off the UN and the majority of the planet?
Whether you supported the Iraq war or not, I think the UN has shown time and again that it lacks the balls to actually act when things need acting upon.
Ask the Sudanese if the UN passing an almost strongly-worded resolution against the genocide there did anything more than make people chuckle. Christ, they couldn't even step up to SAY they MIGHT in the FUTURE stop a GENOCIDE. Is there a trigger for UN action in their resolution? Nope. Did they acknowledge it was genocide? Of course not! Because if they acknowledged it as what it is, they have legal obligations under the international law they claim to believe so strongly in to stop it.
So no, they slapped them on the wrist, and China talked them out of even using a ruler to do it. Frankly, until the UN proves it is willing to fulfil its obligations, I'm inclined to believe it's nothing more than a waste of time to even let them know what's going on.
Ahhh. So, let's see. If you use google at work, you should be going to jail. Sounds fair.
Can anybody take your comments seriously after you say something like "you should be going to jail?" I don't know when Google became a government agency that could send officers to your door for violating a TOS. No, at best it would be a civil issue. More likely, as you say, they have that clause as a justification if they choose to block usage.
However, of all the companies out there, Google would be the one of the least anal ones I could think of. Almost certainly that clause exists for only the purpose of blocking people doing what MS is (rightly or wrongly) accused of: Crawling them to offer a competing service. And THAT is taking money directly out of their pockets--you can bet if it were true and could be proven, they would do more than start firewalling. They'd be sueing somebody's ass off.
Frankly, I think that is a perfectly legitimate attempt to protect one's business. But hey, if you think it's moronic and crappy, that's your call.
And after reading the rest of this thread it seems my joke has been used like three other times before this.
God that's depressing. So much for that burst of creative pride I had going there!
Just goes to prove: A million monkeys with a million rubber stamps will eventually reproduce the entire work of the US Patent Office.
Err..
Nine? Where do you live?
Here in the US central time zone, after both the Aussies and we have gone through our daylight savings-related rituals, folks around Sydney are now 17 hours ahead of us.
I completely agree that a lot of good has come from making mistakes and finding something new out.
Still, I'd prefer my multi-million dollar spacecraft be programmed with the right units and not crash headlong into a planet. I'm picky that way though.
Actually, unlike IE, pages render correctly in Firefox, including Slashdot. Just because a site isn't done properly and thus isn't displayed in Firefox as it is IE (which apparently will accept horseshit for HTML), doesn't mean that there is anything wrong with Firefox.
Well, that depends on your goals. If your goals are to conform to standards, congratulations, you've succeeded and the rest is a rather moot point.
If your goal is to take market share away from IE, you might run into problems. I doubt the average Internet user will see a page broken in Firefox, which works (or worked) in IE, and go "damn those Microsoft bitches and their crappy implementation!!" They will likely blame Firefox, even if that's wrong. Or more likely, they simply won't give a crap whose fault it is. They had a browser that worked for them and now they have one that isn't working. Back to IE they go.
We're in our own little slashworld here, where people care about standards and implementations and who's somehow right versus who's somehow wrong. There's nothing wrong with that, but we can't assume it is widely true outside of our little world. Most people are going to use what they perceive works better for them. Pages that only render in IE, or pages that downright REQUIRE IE, might be all the impetus some people need to switch back or avoid switching altogether. Maybe they can be overwhelmed by the other better features (I have no idea how I used the Internet without tabs!), but your task just become more difficult.
IM and email has take a lot of that away. It is just to easy to write a quick email or im that friend on the other side of the country. Little thought is put into it and it has the life of a mayfly. It is here and then gone.
I'm not entirely sure what I think about this issue, but let me play devil's advocate a little bit.
You're right in the short sense. If you compare any single IM I send to any single letter I have ever written, the IM message is going to come up short. But then, that's the value of something like IM: It permits instant feedback. With a letter, you would put a lot of thought and time into it because you had to. Once you send that puppy, it might take a week just to get to your recipient, a day or two for them to read and find time to reply, and another week for your response to hit home. In short, there was a two week lag. This obviously means you want to make sure you say everything you've had to say in one pass.
But I wonder--if instead of looking over a single message or something of IM, if you took the sum of all the messages with somebody for a day or two--would it still seem to come up short? I admit it. I have a lot of really silly IM conversations, just goofing around and being silly with friends, and believe it or not the things that come out in conversations like that often mean more to me than the prepared stuff. All that's true. I don't know about anybody else, but I have also had some extremely deep conversations in IM. I've helped people with girlfriend problems, I've helped friends through depression, helped some younger friends deal with things like having to move and potentially leave their friends behind. Or hell, just listened if they had a bad day and want to do a little complaining. All in real-time.
The language might not be as flowery, the threads of conversation might not be thought out for days in advance--but I think all the emotion and compassion is there. And it provides a method for discussing things as they happen. Maybe we're being silly one minute and the next they find out something that devastates them--boom, that conversation changes in an instant. Certainly can't do that in a letter.
In a lot of senses, I prefer IM because it's more personal. In terms of communications, it's the next best thing to being there with the person or maybe getting them on the phone (which isn't always feasible). It's personal, it's friendly, it's a couple of friends shooting the breeze and seeing what topics come up. Unlike letters, where there is usually some pre-planned "motive" (in quotes because I don't want to imply anything sinister) to writing, where the speech is pedantic and formal.
About the only thing that bothers me about IM in particular and the Internet in general is the writing. I don't think I need to go into any details about that with this crowd. On the other hand, I have friends across the world who, thanks to this medium, I get to talk to every day. If that means putting up with a few Internet-isms, I consider it a small price.
After all, the purpose of IM and email and writing letters are all the same: to allow people to communicate. I'm not sure it ultimately matters on what "intellectual level" we're communicating on so long as the writer and the recipient understand the message and the meaning behind it.
And I've really gone on a ramble without much of a point. Sorry. Just kind of dropping my thoughts on "paper" and seeing where it leads.
No, it was for about twelve of the last 24 hours.
I started experiencing issues at about 10pm last night (could not update status, if I logged out it would be very difficult to log back in, etc); at 10am this morning, my logins were rejected completely. I tried again around 2pm and it looks to be working fairly well right now.
Still, last I checked 10pm one day to 10am the next was twelve hours.
Perhaps you shouldn't criticize without the facts?
I think the AC was taking a shot at the documentation of open source projects, not telling you to read the source as a doc.
Open web browser, browse?
I really don't see what that linux rant was about in a story about a firewall screwing you up.
Why not just set the national highway speed limit at 10mph then, and we'll never have another accident?
Why not overreact?
Seriously, all I said was that as an entity that has to pay when you fuck up, Geico has an interest in you driving the speed limit. It wasn't a value judgment, and it certainly wasn't something that you should take as far as to say "set the national highway speed limit at 10mph."
When 90% of the population breaks a law, there is something wrong with the law.
The world isn't that cut and dry. People not liking a law doesn't, itself, mean that it is bad. But we'll get to the good/bad argument in a second.
Obviously most people think that the increased risk at the higher speed is perfectly reasonable to accept, so why not change the law?
That is a much more pertinant question, since most of my initial argument was based on it being the law.
I might agree with you. I don't agree with the seatbelt law I mentioned in my previous post because it's a personal choice. I'm old enough to make legal decisions, old enough to be drafted... I should be old enough to decide if the risk of not putting my seatbelt on is one I'm willing to take. (I might agree with a law that requires you to buckle up your kids, however.)
But driving is a slightly different story. If I crash without a seatbelt on and I die, that was my decision and apparently a bad one. Oopsie, guess I paid for it. But accidents are not always one car. That means that my choosing to speed (or to support removing or increasing speed limits) affects not only me, a choice I would consider myself able to make--but also the people in the vehicle that I hit. I shouldn't be able to decide for them whether or not speeding is an acceptable risk, and my increased speed may well mean the difference between them walking away or being carried away on a stretcher. And as somebody else said, it's really more dangerous to be the odd-ball driver who's going too fast or too slow for the traffic around you. Abolishing limits and in effect allowing every driver to drive whatever pace they wanted to would likely increase accidents.
If all I had to decide is "am I okay with the risk?" then I would fully support being able to legally drive as fast as I want. But when other people and other lives start entering the picture, we've got a different picture, and frankly I'm not sure where I would come down on the issue. I guess I'd like to see some hard data on it first.
Personally, my feeling is that the technology exists to automate cars entirely.
That is probably coming one day. Me, I'm still waiting for my Star Trek-style transporters. Now that would be sweet.
but please don't try to rewrite history.
What does a judge saying the government has an interest in protecting privacy have to do with rewriting history? He's not commenting on what they've done--and certainly not on any particular piece of legislation with the possible exception of the one (Do-Not-Call) before him--he's merely stating that the government has an interest in protecting privacy and this bill does so. He's making a legal argument. That's what judges do.
Actually, if you'd put emphasis one word earlier--that is, "advances the government's...," it would have been even clearer. The government (not *ADMINISTRATION* or *CURRENT CONGRESS*) has an interest and this advances it; it helps it. Even if other things osetensibly hurt it.
Oy. The political posturing around here is really becoming too much.
Dude, you're taking it too seriously. The "explain yourself" thing really has nothing to do with it. It was more of a joke that you won't have the excuse that "I didn't know I was speeding" with something like this running.
You don't have to "explain yourself" at all. Just shut up, say you were speeding, take the ticket and deal with it. No explaining necessary. If you want to FIGHT it, you have a chance to explain in court. Your RIGHT, not your OBLIGATION.
It's a good question. But then again, I don't think the system has to necessarily be worse at it than a human. In those situations, what does the human do (assuming they don't KNOW what sign it is)? They look at shape, color, things like that.
Why can't a camera and a piece of software try to do that too? Even if they're looking at databased images for comparison, I still think they might be able to hit a fair level of success matching.
And maybe he/she will have to explain why they use speed "enforcement" as a means of generating revenue and a means of generating an excuse to search people's cars.
Mmm... not quite. Being pulled over is not an excuse to have your car searched. Suspicious activity while you're being ticketed, however, may be, and of course anything in plain sight is fair game. Any scent of alcohol or indication of drug use may be grounds for a sobriety test as well. Then again, if we're complaining that cops are taking drunks and druggies off the roads, I simply don't have a lot of sympathy about it.
As far as generating revenue, sure, they do. And that (especially combined with "quotas") might well be an excuse to pull you over. But you know, you're also breaking the law and they're enforcing it and I find it somewhat ironic trying to take the high road about it. But you know, on the other hand, those tickets DO get a message across. Illinois just made not having your seatbelt on a ticketable offense. (For clarity, it has been illegal for quite some time, but they never used to be able to pull you over FOR it, only write you an additional ticket when they had you anyway; now that is enough cause.) On the way back from college for the weekend, my dad and I both got nailed for no seatbelts. My dad has never worn a seatbelt in his life, but damned if he doesn't have it on every time he gets on that highway now. Am I happy about paying the fine? Hell no. But I'm wearing my seatbelt. No, it's not perfect; no, it hasn't changed his behavior on every road, but it helped.
Likewise, I have friends who have gotten speeding tickets and it's amazing what good, curteous drivers they become for a few weeks. Again, not permenant, but it's something.
Speed enforcement is just an excuse for getting into your wallet, and your car. It's extremely selectively enforced; the cops don't pull over everyone(next time you're on the road, look down at your speedo. Notice the car in front of you and behind you and all around you- they're all doing the same speed)
I'll have you know I don't wear a speedo on the road!
But seriously, enforcement is an "excuse" to get into your wallet? Buddy, it's the law, and while there are plenty of bad laws around (*cough*Patriot Act!*cough*), I'm not going to fault the police for enforcing them. If you have a problem with the law, take it up with your legislaters, not the cops.
As far as "they're all doing the same speed," that's a poor excuse/example for a number of reasons. For starters, if you're just going as fast as the traffic around you your chances of getting pulled over for it are lessened, for a number of reasons. It's the guys blowing by the people taking liberty with their "freebie" 10 miles over who get nailed the most. And the second reason I can explain with an old cop joke:
No conflict of interest there, no sir, not an insurance company giving police officers a device that, every time it is used, causes someone's insurance rate to go through the roof, despite no evidence speeding causes accidents.
NO evidence? If nothing else it cuts down your available time to react without causing an accident and I think that would be a fair example. But even if you're right that