What I've been worrying about lately is: how do democracies die? I think using some emergency to convince voters to give up their constitutionally guaranteed civil rights is a great start.
> Really it shouldn't be that surprising that the rights established by the US constitution, or US legislation, don't apply to non-citizens who are >not in the US.
It's interesting, however, that US Laws appear to apply to US Citizens while NOT in the US (John Walker Lindh)...
One minor detail you're overlooking here is that 99% of rules and laws are only on the books to make citizens feel better about losing their civil liberties and being herded into the pen for safe keeping.
Something like the "perjury" clause is not going to be enforced. It would be up to the judge to find the RIAA in contept - which I all but guarantee you no federal judge in his right mind, who has any interest in staying on the bench, is going to do. Federal judges are either elected or appointed by politicians, so you can imagine how easy it would be for the RIAA to have a federal judge demoted to court clerk if he/she were to find the RIAA in contempt..
Besides, with the current idiot in that big white mansion in Washington D.C. running the show, you can probably safely assume that in the case of "big fat corporation that gives lots of money to political campaigns vs. The American People", the big fat corporation is going to win...
Re:Gentlemen/Ladies Start Your Honey Pots....&
on
File-sharing and AOL
·
· Score: 1
You forget that the record companies probably own registered trademarks for the band's names, so you'd probably be infringing upon their trademarks. You would also be obstructing justice by interfering with enforcement of the DMCA. They would find some way to send you to prison over this.
This agreement only covers sales that are made in states where the retailers have a physical presence.
They're absolution from "failure to collect prior taxes" is to give them amnesty for not collecting tax on sales that they SHOULD have collected in the past (i.e. when they first went online and for some reason didn't collect it)..
There is still nothing allowing them to collect sales tax on interstate sales to states in which they have no physical presence...
There was probably never a real surplus anyway. Governments use whatever numbers they feel like using - whenever they claim there's a surplus, it's usually because they want the voters to roll over and approve some ridiculous spending measure. "Oh yeah, this is chump change - look how much money we have!!!"
There was never a surplus in the 90's. It was a "projected" surplus based on "estimates" from the Congressional Budget Orifice, of the "approximate" "future growth" of income taxes derived from dot-commers realizing "capital gains" on selling ther stock options.
Hello!? That surplus never materialized because the market crashed and nobody ended up making all the bazillions of dollars in income tax on the profits. So many people had overvalued stock that there were no more idiots left to buy it. Then, BOOM, it hit and here we are..
See, we as individuals can't pull this neat trick whenever our budgets get tight (and believe me, they're tight).. The gov't can either simply print more money, which will have an effect on inflation a couple of years down the line (but that's okay, blame it on whoever is in office when the inflation hits), or two, just take more of ours! GEE! I wish I could just walk up to some random stranger on the street and take money out of his wallet!
No society has ever taxed itself into prosperity. Taxes will not stimulate the economy. Taxes will not put food in anyones' mouth (except maybe the bureaucrats who run the whole dog and pony show). Taxing the internet will not increase sales.
HOWEVER, there is a legitimate issue of tax avoidance that should be addressed. This issue was never addressed in the mail-order days because mail-order sales never amounted to a significant portion of all sales. However, in the era of the Internet (which is now over), it was much easier for people to go online and buy stuff tax-free, especially big ticket items like computers that would generate $70+ in revenue for the states and localities. Making it so easy to avoid sales tax quickly started drying up state coffers. This wasn't a problem because the loss in sales tax revenue was more than made up for by the increases in income tax revenue that was the result of ultra-low unemployment and the higher wages that went along with it. Now that the income tax stream is pretty much gone, and states are instead paying out "welfare" type benefits, we have a cash flow problem.
What we have been seeing thus far is rising sales tax rates everywhere to account for tax-free sales that go on over the internet. Shifting the sales tax burden to fewer and fewer shoppers is dangerous business because it is essentially narrowing the tax base. Continuing the trend will eventually lead to the expiration of brick-and-mortar retail alltogether. We've seen this phenomenon in real-estate for decades. One school district decides it wants more money, so it raises tax rates until people start leaving. However, they can't reduce their budget, so they have to raise taxes more to offset those who leave. This cycle continues until you have New Paltz, NY, where the tax rates on my parents' $130k home are almost $10k per year, and Pottstown, PA where I was going to buy my new home until I found out that the tax on the meager $120k "estate" was over $5k per year. The same could happen in retail if there is always a tax-free solution - or as long as States refuse to cut spending.
Of course, what are the chances that any government will ever reduce spending? If they try to cut spending, some crybaby group will whine that they're going to "starve the poor".. if they try to increase spending, some other crybaby group will whine that they're going to "tax the middle class"...
I guess that's the problem, too many crybaby groups..:)
other than this is just further proof of the lenghts corporations will go to in order to make more money. Theft, lies, deceit, are all perfectly acceptable business practices these days, especially in east Asia.
This story has been circulating around for a long time, but this article is a good update on what's going on. I was very surprised to read that manufacturers actually threatened that guy who put a list of problem boards on his website.
You know, this is an all-too-disturbing trend. If you look at the behavior of media-giants, RIAA, MPAA, and now computer hardware makers - they'd all like to see us just locked in our homes, doing what they want us to do, seeing only what they want us to see, and not having any communication with anyone else... because if we can communicate with other people (i.e. by publishing a list of boards that are prone to failure), we'll realize just how badly we're being taken. That would eat into profits, and therefore should be made illegal. Heaven forbid consumers are allowed to make informed decisions..
I'm sure this has been said, but I didn't feel like reading through all the posts to make sure..
but, this is simply the next iteration of p2p filesharing. The encryption is there to try to keep RIAA/MPAA off their backs, but I'll bet that this will be bastardized into a secure encrypted p2p network where snooping eyes will not be able to gather proof-of-crime...
So much for my Karma, but what the hell is it good for anymore?
7:55am, Alarm goes off, Snooze 8:04am, Alarm goes off, Snooze repeat several dozen times 11:14am, Alarm goes off, crawl out of bed, hit the head 11:18am, load up wired.com, glance over headlines 11:19am, without having read any, copy and paste 3 or 4 of them over to/. 11:20am, back to bed 1:32pm, wake up, crawl out of bed again, eat cold pizza from the LAN party the night before 1:41pm, load up wired.com, glance over headlines 1:42pm, without having read any, and not remembering having done it before, copy and paste the same 3 or 4 articles to/. 1:49pm, read through hate-email from people complaining about dupes, and from paying subscribers who feel short-changed 2:24pm, meander to the "office" for the 1pm staff meeting 3:08pm, meet with editorial staff to discuss that afternoon's postings 4:11pm, CmdrTaco, timothy, and Hemos decide on 3 or 4 really good articles from wired.com that are worthy of the/. front page 4:55pm, after a long day at the office, calls it quits and heads home 5:15pm, arrives home after stopping by Starbucks, Ikea, the BMW dealer, and the natural food store 5:45pm, decides to check up on/. and contribute some material. Googles for articles and finds 3 or 4 really good articles in the google cache from wired.com, posts them 6:12pm, after having exhausted that day's supply of Mountain Dew and Pringles, decides to meet some friends at Outback for dinner.. brings laptop, of course 7:11pm, seated in the 802.11 section of Outback with michael, Hemos, and timothy, and his pseudo-quasi-girlfriend that he met on IRC, who, having just gotten her first driver's license, drove out from Raleigh in her parents' 1971 Pinto, without their permission 7:15pm, orders a Mountain Dew to drink 7:24pm, fires up laptop and the gang looks for good material for the front page. Collectively, they find 3 or 4 really good articles on wired.com to cut and paste. Decide to post an article from The Register just for the hell of it. 7:29pm, server asks if they're ready to order. The gang asks if they have Pizza - but settles for burgers and beer (At Outback) 7:57pm, after a few beers, decide to check up on their darling blogger and post some relevant "News for Nerds, stuff that matters"... they find some really good articles on SLASHDOT to post to the front page 8:11pm, finishing up gobbling down the burger, having gone through 38 pitchers of mountain dew and the equivalent of a case of Meister Brau, they head to CmdrTaco's apartment for that nights UT LAN party 8:21pm, pick up a case of Meister Brau, a case of Mountain Dew, and a case of Miller Light on the way home 8:46pm, arrive at CmdrTaco's place, decide first thing to check/. and post some cool articles found earlier in that day, after all, they don't remember posting since before dinnertime. 9:11pm, timothy, rip-roaring drunk, logs onto/. and after reading through for a couple of minutes, yells "What the hell is with all the dupes on/. today!??!! f'ing editors!"
This threat has a special Risk Assessment - it is "High" only for unpatched systems (only affects SQL servers not running SP3):
I wonder how many admins blindly upgraded to SP3 just to get rid of the worm, and of course without reading the terms of SP3, gave M$ unfettered access to pillage and plunder their systems?
Ahhh very interesting theory - one of those Catch-22/self-fulfilling prophecy type situations. I agree there was WAY too much margining going on - credit was so easy to come by, but interest rates were also rising which almost guaranteed a pop at some point.
Don't ya love it when preparing for the worst causes the worst?
Ahhh, tax evasion at its finest... if I understand you correctly, just borrow against your appreciation and pray the stock doesn't collapse? What happens if you take out all of your cash, and then your stock pulls a Worldcom?
If you go to their website, all of the language would seem to suggest the otherwise. Reading their website is all one should have to do as far as "research" is concerned. If their product does one thing, then they should not write about it as if it does some other thing.
I'm not ignorant, I'm misinformed. Igorance would have been some anonymously posted flame with no basis in fact, and for which the poster obviously did not consult the "authoritative" source of information regarding the product being discussed. Oh, wait....
Yeah I wish I could do that, but my room is TINY! Otherwise, I'd definitely be yanking it away from the wall... I guess that's what I get for living in such a small place... it's what I can afford
They're obviously stuck in a hopeless cycle of groupthink here.... thinking that big==good. This, of course, is hogwash. I have a 17" monitor sitting on my desk and it's perfect. I have a 21" Viewsonic Pro monitor sitting in the corner of my room holding up a bunch of boxes.
But EmagGeek! Why not use the 21"!?
Because it's so damn deep, I can't put my input devices in front of it! I just happened to be at that stupid trendy (but cheap) quasi-swedish furniture store today measuring up desks. The standard depth was 28", on almost every single desk. That ViewSonic monitor I mentioned is 24" deep including cable relief - so unless I can find a 4" keyboard, I'm screwed..
Of course, chiming in with all the "conspiracy theories" that this thread seems to have spawned, I could conjecture that monitor manufacturers have teamed up with computer desk manufacturers so that no desk can accomodate the smallest CRT, forcing people to LCDs...:)
At least with M$, the software is installed on the local machine, so you don't have to have a connection to the internet, and you have at least some degree of control over it.
SimDesk, however, does not run on the local machine. It is run on some server, and the owners of the software (i.e. NOT YOU) can update, change, or do whatever they want with it.
Also, if your internet connection goes down, so do you. You can't do squat running apps-over-net if your i'net connection goes away. So, there could be thousands of City Workers in Houston just sitting around doing nothing if their 'net connection goes down....
*blink*
ok so that may not be far off from normal... but you can see where this could be a huge problem in a large corporate environment where people actually depend on their PCs and applications.
I lived in Atlanta when they got 770 and 678... and it was about a week of confusion, but nothing terrible...
Now I live in Philadelphia, with 215, 610, and 484, and it's still no big deal (I still have my 678 atlanta cell phone number!)
Granted, it is a pain in the arse not knowing what's local and what's long distance anymore - and I'm sure the LECs got what they were going for with that...
What's worse, a lot of local phone services here have different strata of local calling areas, that all have different rates. So, we have intra-LATA toll, inter-LATA toll, and heaven forbid we call across the river to New Jersey..
Thing get even more complicated when said large city sits on a border with 2 or 3 other states. New York's suburbs basically expand out into New Jersey, Connecticuit, and Upstate NY, and there are even people in Philadelphia who grab the train into the city every day. I imagine there are far more than the 3 or 4 NYC area codes to worry about in that case...
Like everyone else has said, get a cell phone, or at the very least, one of those $99 PDAs...
My mom lives in the suburbs of DC with my dad, who is a regulatory consultant for the Broadcasting industry (including FM radio). They're both constantly complaining about how terrible FM radio is and how they can never find music they like.
Well, I bought my Mom an XM radio for Christmas (a little early, though), and now I'm her favorite son:)
She has her cute Silver Delphi set up on the endtable next to her ez-chair, along with the remote control. Her knees aren't as young as she is at heart, so it's probably better that she not have to get up from her latest novel to change the station from 50's Country and Western to 30's Swing. She simply adores that she can dial in whichever kind of music she has a craving for, and the latest news or weather are just a buttonpush away at any given time.
One of XM's most endearing qualities is that there are channels for music you simply can't find on FM anywhere, or any time. There's a separate channel for the music of each decade from the 30's right on through today. If you have the urge for some esoteric wordly music, there are a few channels for that, too. CNN junkie? Turn your DSL modem off, XM is cheaper. 80's pop queen? They've got ya covered. There are even channels for you crunchy granola Folk types (like me).
No, I don't work for XM radio. But, if I had the disposable cash, I'd have my own. My Mom doesn't mind, though, since now I just have to visit her more often to get my fix.
Where I live, it's de facto illegal for me to paint my garage door without approval of a quasi-governmental committee. (It's called a "home owners association" and where I live, the state grants it major power over my life and property. YMMV.)
And who, might I ask, forced you into that agreement? Did you not consciously decide to buy that house? Did you now have to knowingly and willingly agree to abide by the rules and bylaws of the HOA?
Also, there's no such thing as "de facto illegal." EVERYTHING IS LEGAL unless there is a law on the books stating otherwise.
Aside from this point, I agree with your post whole-heartedly! It is absolutely RIDICULOUS what we're getting into, and the only reason is that we don't get out there and vote, and we don't spend enough time trying to educate stupid people on what the government's real intentions are. Believe me, there are FAR MORE stupid people in this world than there are smart people, and that means that there are far more voters that will elect the very-intelligent power-mongers that get these laws passed, all under the guise of "we'll protect you from the rich, smart people" or "vote for us and we'll give you money."
There are not enough cynics in the world, and kids start off at a very young age being discouraged from independent thought and growth. This is why I will never send my kids to public school. I was horrified when I moved here and visited the local Public School, and overheard a 3rd grade teacher extoling the virtues of socialism and how the world would be a better place if we just let the government make all of our decisions for us.
When I have kids, they will learn cynicism every day just by virtue of being around me, and hopefully they will grow up to be smart and help us get out from under all of these stupid laws that are meant to "protect us" from ourselves, becuase if you ask any politician, we're all just a bunch of idiots that go around shooting ourselves, mixing drano with comet, growing our own food on "our" land (that we don't really own as long as we have to pay tax on it), and GOD FORBID, PAINTING OUR OWN FSCKING GARAGE DOORS!
36dBm is most definitely 3.981 Watts. If you had read my post in its entirety, you would have known that a dBm is a dB referred to a MILLIWATT. 10 ** 3.6 is 3981, so 36dBm is 3981 MILLIWATTS, or 3.981 Watts.
Here's a helpful table for you, in case you need math help in the future:
Slashdot Mirror
I nominate Colonel Sanders...
I'll have my politicians extra crispy, please..
> Really it shouldn't be that surprising that the rights established by the US constitution, or US legislation, don't apply to non-citizens who are >not in the US.
It's interesting, however, that US Laws appear to apply to US Citizens while NOT in the US (John Walker Lindh)...
One minor detail you're overlooking here is that 99% of rules and laws are only on the books to make citizens feel better about losing their civil liberties and being herded into the pen for safe keeping.
Something like the "perjury" clause is not going to be enforced. It would be up to the judge to find the RIAA in contept - which I all but guarantee you no federal judge in his right mind, who has any interest in staying on the bench, is going to do. Federal judges are either elected or appointed by politicians, so you can imagine how easy it would be for the RIAA to have a federal judge demoted to court clerk if he/she were to find the RIAA in contempt..
Besides, with the current idiot in that big white mansion in Washington D.C. running the show, you can probably safely assume that in the case of "big fat corporation that gives lots of money to political campaigns vs. The American People", the big fat corporation is going to win...
You forget that the record companies probably own registered trademarks for the band's names, so you'd probably be infringing upon their trademarks. You would also be obstructing justice by interfering with enforcement of the DMCA. They would find some way to send you to prison over this.
This agreement only covers sales that are made in states where the retailers have a physical presence.
They're absolution from "failure to collect prior taxes" is to give them amnesty for not collecting tax on sales that they SHOULD have collected in the past (i.e. when they first went online and for some reason didn't collect it)..
There is still nothing allowing them to collect sales tax on interstate sales to states in which they have no physical presence...
There was probably never a real surplus anyway. Governments use whatever numbers they feel like using - whenever they claim there's a surplus, it's usually because they want the voters to roll over and approve some ridiculous spending measure. "Oh yeah, this is chump change - look how much money we have!!!"
:)
There was never a surplus in the 90's. It was a "projected" surplus based on "estimates" from the Congressional Budget Orifice, of the "approximate" "future growth" of income taxes derived from dot-commers realizing "capital gains" on selling ther stock options.
Hello!? That surplus never materialized because the market crashed and nobody ended up making all the bazillions of dollars in income tax on the profits. So many people had overvalued stock that there were no more idiots left to buy it. Then, BOOM, it hit and here we are..
See, we as individuals can't pull this neat trick whenever our budgets get tight (and believe me, they're tight).. The gov't can either simply print more money, which will have an effect on inflation a couple of years down the line (but that's okay, blame it on whoever is in office when the inflation hits), or two, just take more of ours! GEE! I wish I could just walk up to some random stranger on the street and take money out of his wallet!
No society has ever taxed itself into prosperity. Taxes will not stimulate the economy. Taxes will not put food in anyones' mouth (except maybe the bureaucrats who run the whole dog and pony show). Taxing the internet will not increase sales.
HOWEVER, there is a legitimate issue of tax avoidance that should be addressed. This issue was never addressed in the mail-order days because mail-order sales never amounted to a significant portion of all sales. However, in the era of the Internet (which is now over), it was much easier for people to go online and buy stuff tax-free, especially big ticket items like computers that would generate $70+ in revenue for the states and localities. Making it so easy to avoid sales tax quickly started drying up state coffers. This wasn't a problem because the loss in sales tax revenue was more than made up for by the increases in income tax revenue that was the result of ultra-low unemployment and the higher wages that went along with it. Now that the income tax stream is pretty much gone, and states are instead paying out "welfare" type benefits, we have a cash flow problem.
What we have been seeing thus far is rising sales tax rates everywhere to account for tax-free sales that go on over the internet. Shifting the sales tax burden to fewer and fewer shoppers is dangerous business because it is essentially narrowing the tax base. Continuing the trend will eventually lead to the expiration of brick-and-mortar retail alltogether. We've seen this phenomenon in real-estate for decades. One school district decides it wants more money, so it raises tax rates until people start leaving. However, they can't reduce their budget, so they have to raise taxes more to offset those who leave. This cycle continues until you have New Paltz, NY, where the tax rates on my parents' $130k home are almost $10k per year, and Pottstown, PA where I was going to buy my new home until I found out that the tax on the meager $120k "estate" was over $5k per year. The same could happen in retail if there is always a tax-free solution - or as long as States refuse to cut spending.
Of course, what are the chances that any government will ever reduce spending? If they try to cut spending, some crybaby group will whine that they're going to "starve the poor".. if they try to increase spending, some other crybaby group will whine that they're going to "tax the middle class"...
I guess that's the problem, too many crybaby groups..
other than this is just further proof of the lenghts corporations will go to in order to make more money. Theft, lies, deceit, are all perfectly acceptable business practices these days, especially in east Asia.
This story has been circulating around for a long time, but this article is a good update on what's going on. I was very surprised to read that manufacturers actually threatened that guy who put a list of problem boards on his website.
You know, this is an all-too-disturbing trend. If you look at the behavior of media-giants, RIAA, MPAA, and now computer hardware makers - they'd all like to see us just locked in our homes, doing what they want us to do, seeing only what they want us to see, and not having any communication with anyone else... because if we can communicate with other people (i.e. by publishing a list of boards that are prone to failure), we'll realize just how badly we're being taken. That would eat into profits, and therefore should be made illegal. Heaven forbid consumers are allowed to make informed decisions..
Starting to sound like Soviet Russia?
I'm sure this has been said, but I didn't feel like reading through all the posts to make sure..
but, this is simply the next iteration of p2p filesharing. The encryption is there to try to keep RIAA/MPAA off their backs, but I'll bet that this will be bastardized into a secure encrypted p2p network where snooping eyes will not be able to gather proof-of-crime...
So much for my Karma, but what the hell is it good for anymore?
/. /. /. front page /. and contribute some material. Googles for articles and finds 3 or 4 really good articles in the google cache from wired.com, posts them /. and post some cool articles found earlier in that day, after all, they don't remember posting since before dinnertime. /. and after reading through for a couple of minutes, yells "What the hell is with all the dupes on /. today!??!! f'ing editors!"
7:55am, Alarm goes off, Snooze
8:04am, Alarm goes off, Snooze
repeat several dozen times
11:14am, Alarm goes off, crawl out of bed, hit the head
11:18am, load up wired.com, glance over headlines
11:19am, without having read any, copy and paste 3 or 4 of them over to
11:20am, back to bed
1:32pm, wake up, crawl out of bed again, eat cold pizza from the LAN party the night before
1:41pm, load up wired.com, glance over headlines
1:42pm, without having read any, and not remembering having done it before, copy and paste the same 3 or 4 articles to
1:49pm, read through hate-email from people complaining about dupes, and from paying subscribers who feel short-changed
2:24pm, meander to the "office" for the 1pm staff meeting
3:08pm, meet with editorial staff to discuss that afternoon's postings
4:11pm, CmdrTaco, timothy, and Hemos decide on 3 or 4 really good articles from wired.com that are worthy of the
4:55pm, after a long day at the office, calls it quits and heads home
5:15pm, arrives home after stopping by Starbucks, Ikea, the BMW dealer, and the natural food store
5:45pm, decides to check up on
6:12pm, after having exhausted that day's supply of Mountain Dew and Pringles, decides to meet some friends at Outback for dinner.. brings laptop, of course
7:11pm, seated in the 802.11 section of Outback with michael, Hemos, and timothy, and his pseudo-quasi-girlfriend that he met on IRC, who, having just gotten her first driver's license, drove out from Raleigh in her parents' 1971 Pinto, without their permission
7:15pm, orders a Mountain Dew to drink
7:24pm, fires up laptop and the gang looks for good material for the front page. Collectively, they find 3 or 4 really good articles on wired.com to cut and paste. Decide to post an article from The Register just for the hell of it.
7:29pm, server asks if they're ready to order. The gang asks if they have Pizza - but settles for burgers and beer (At Outback)
7:57pm, after a few beers, decide to check up on their darling blogger and post some relevant "News for Nerds, stuff that matters"... they find some really good articles on SLASHDOT to post to the front page
8:11pm, finishing up gobbling down the burger, having gone through 38 pitchers of mountain dew and the equivalent of a case of Meister Brau, they head to CmdrTaco's apartment for that nights UT LAN party
8:21pm, pick up a case of Meister Brau, a case of Mountain Dew, and a case of Miller Light on the way home
8:46pm, arrive at CmdrTaco's place, decide first thing to check
9:11pm, timothy, rip-roaring drunk, logs onto
I wonder how many admins blindly upgraded to SP3 just to get rid of the worm, and of course without reading the terms of SP3, gave M$ unfettered access to pillage and plunder their systems?
Think about it...
Ahhh very interesting theory - one of those Catch-22/self-fulfilling prophecy type situations. I agree there was WAY too much margining going on - credit was so easy to come by, but interest rates were also rising which almost guaranteed a pop at some point.
Don't ya love it when preparing for the worst causes the worst?
Ahhh, tax evasion at its finest... if I understand you correctly, just borrow against your appreciation and pray the stock doesn't collapse? What happens if you take out all of your cash, and then your stock pulls a Worldcom?
(In America) Profits from the sale of stock are already taxed by the capital gains tax. Likewise, losses on the sale of stock are deductible.
If you go to their website, all of the language would seem to suggest the otherwise. Reading their website is all one should have to do as far as "research" is concerned. If their product does one thing, then they should not write about it as if it does some other thing.
I'm not ignorant, I'm misinformed. Igorance would have been some anonymously posted flame with no basis in fact, and for which the poster obviously did not consult the "authoritative" source of information regarding the product being discussed. Oh, wait....
Yeah I wish I could do that, but my room is TINY! Otherwise, I'd definitely be yanking it away from the wall... I guess that's what I get for living in such a small place... it's what I can afford
They're obviously stuck in a hopeless cycle of groupthink here.... thinking that big==good. This, of course, is hogwash. I have a 17" monitor sitting on my desk and it's perfect. I have a 21" Viewsonic Pro monitor sitting in the corner of my room holding up a bunch of boxes.
:)
But EmagGeek! Why not use the 21"!?
Because it's so damn deep, I can't put my input devices in front of it! I just happened to be at that stupid trendy (but cheap) quasi-swedish furniture store today measuring up desks. The standard depth was 28", on almost every single desk. That ViewSonic monitor I mentioned is 24" deep including cable relief - so unless I can find a 4" keyboard, I'm screwed..
Of course, chiming in with all the "conspiracy theories" that this thread seems to have spawned, I could conjecture that monitor manufacturers have teamed up with computer desk manufacturers so that no desk can accomodate the smallest CRT, forcing people to LCDs...
At least with M$, the software is installed on the local machine, so you don't have to have a connection to the internet, and you have at least some degree of control over it.
SimDesk, however, does not run on the local machine. It is run on some server, and the owners of the software (i.e. NOT YOU) can update, change, or do whatever they want with it.
Also, if your internet connection goes down, so do you. You can't do squat running apps-over-net if your i'net connection goes away. So, there could be thousands of City Workers in Houston just sitting around doing nothing if their 'net connection goes down....
*blink*
ok so that may not be far off from normal... but you can see where this could be a huge problem in a large corporate environment where people actually depend on their PCs and applications.
It's because people who live in NYC have to work three jobs to pay for their $3600/mo studio apartment/broom closet...
I lived in Atlanta when they got 770 and 678... and it was about a week of confusion, but nothing terrible...
Now I live in Philadelphia, with 215, 610, and 484, and it's still no big deal (I still have my 678 atlanta cell phone number!)
Granted, it is a pain in the arse not knowing what's local and what's long distance anymore - and I'm sure the LECs got what they were going for with that...
What's worse, a lot of local phone services here have different strata of local calling areas, that all have different rates. So, we have intra-LATA toll, inter-LATA toll, and heaven forbid we call across the river to New Jersey..
Thing get even more complicated when said large city sits on a border with 2 or 3 other states. New York's suburbs basically expand out into New Jersey, Connecticuit, and Upstate NY, and there are even people in Philadelphia who grab the train into the city every day. I imagine there are far more than the 3 or 4 NYC area codes to worry about in that case...
Like everyone else has said, get a cell phone, or at the very least, one of those $99 PDAs...
My mom lives in the suburbs of DC with my dad, who is a regulatory consultant for the Broadcasting industry (including FM radio). They're both constantly complaining about how terrible FM radio is and how they can never find music they like.
:)
Well, I bought my Mom an XM radio for Christmas (a little early, though), and now I'm her favorite son
She has her cute Silver Delphi set up on the endtable next to her ez-chair, along with the remote control. Her knees aren't as young as she is at heart, so it's probably better that she not have to get up from her latest novel to change the station from 50's Country and Western to 30's Swing. She simply adores that she can dial in whichever kind of music she has a craving for, and the latest news or weather are just a buttonpush away at any given time.
One of XM's most endearing qualities is that there are channels for music you simply can't find on FM anywhere, or any time. There's a separate channel for the music of each decade from the 30's right on through today. If you have the urge for some esoteric wordly music, there are a few channels for that, too. CNN junkie? Turn your DSL modem off, XM is cheaper. 80's pop queen? They've got ya covered. There are even channels for you crunchy granola Folk types (like me).
No, I don't work for XM radio. But, if I had the disposable cash, I'd have my own. My Mom doesn't mind, though, since now I just have to visit her more often to get my fix.
And who, might I ask, forced you into that agreement? Did you not consciously decide to buy that house? Did you now have to knowingly and willingly agree to abide by the rules and bylaws of the HOA?
Also, there's no such thing as "de facto illegal." EVERYTHING IS LEGAL unless there is a law on the books stating otherwise.
Aside from this point, I agree with your post whole-heartedly! It is absolutely RIDICULOUS what we're getting into, and the only reason is that we don't get out there and vote, and we don't spend enough time trying to educate stupid people on what the government's real intentions are. Believe me, there are FAR MORE stupid people in this world than there are smart people, and that means that there are far more voters that will elect the very-intelligent power-mongers that get these laws passed, all under the guise of "we'll protect you from the rich, smart people" or "vote for us and we'll give you money."
There are not enough cynics in the world, and kids start off at a very young age being discouraged from independent thought and growth. This is why I will never send my kids to public school. I was horrified when I moved here and visited the local Public School, and overheard a 3rd grade teacher extoling the virtues of socialism and how the world would be a better place if we just let the government make all of our decisions for us.
When I have kids, they will learn cynicism every day just by virtue of being around me, and hopefully they will grow up to be smart and help us get out from under all of these stupid laws that are meant to "protect us" from ourselves, becuase if you ask any politician, we're all just a bunch of idiots that go around shooting ourselves, mixing drano with comet, growing our own food on "our" land (that we don't really own as long as we have to pay tax on it), and GOD FORBID, PAINTING OUR OWN FSCKING GARAGE DOORS!
End of rant.. .
36dBm is most definitely 3.981 Watts. If you had read my post in its entirety, you would have known that a dBm is a dB referred to a MILLIWATT. 10 ** 3.6 is 3981, so 36dBm is 3981 MILLIWATTS, or 3.981 Watts.
Here's a helpful table for you, in case you need math help in the future:
-30dBm = 1 Microwatt
-20dBm = 10 Microwatts
-10dBm = 100 Microwatts, or 0.1 Milliwatt
+0dBm = 1 Milliwatt
+3dBm = ~2 Milliwatts
+6dBm = ~4 Milliwatts
+10dBm = 10 Milliwatts
+20dBm = 100 Milliwatts
+30dBm = 1 Watt, or 1000 Milliwatts
+33dBm = ~2 Watt, or ~2000 Milliwatts
+36dBm = ~4 Watt, or ~4000 Milliwatts
Hope this helps...
At least I'll finally know who moved my cheese...
Welcome to Rome....