Are you indeed the intel employee? If so, glad to meet you. I have to say that I do not feel qualified to judge what went on between you and intel -- my impression was that what you were doing was legal, but you ticked off the wrong people. If so, that's a sign of a bad government.
Bad governments do have casualties, and ours hasn't been getting better.
Nonetheless, the general policy that I stated still remains general. My experience has been that people who knowingly play the wrong side of the law do have a character flaw that makes dealing with them quite risky. That is very different than a person who unknowingly treads where they were prohibited, or from a person who was treading where they were allowed, and got stomped out of convenience.
I am not yet ready to declare this a FUD. I am not concerned with ionizing radiation in the case of microwaves. That, instead, is a concern with too many X-rays (at least in the former soviet union, where x-ray burns are a common phenomenon, or near the poles, where the ozone holes have an effect, or for those who fly a lot).
Rather, what I would be concerned with would be protein transformations that took away the limitation on brain cell replication. This, then, would stimulate early tumor formaton.
[check out this link for support of this concern] http://www.scienceblog.com/community/mod ules.php?n ame=News&file=article&sid=1577
Although the studies mentioned above did not find an increase in cancer rates, it is my impression that brain cancer rates have indeed increased overall in the last 20 years, significantly.
If you have better information that counteracts these two *officially unpublished* studies [though I have heard that the studies remain unpublished because of cell phone industry pressure, that is an unprovable allegation], I would be glad to hear it.
Listen, his position of not hiring ex-black-hats makes a ton of sense, whether or not ex-black-hats are the best at detecting security flaws.
A person who has been a black hat has been so, specifically because they did not have the moral fortitude to remain on the white side. Now, that can change when there is a profound revelation [Dr. Laura Schlessinger], or when there is a ton of incentive [G.W. Bush], or because they were caught and decided the price was too high [many haxors who have been caught flip in this way] or it can appear to change when convenient [psychotics.]
But the fact is, you don't really know why it changed, and therefore you don't really know if it changed. So you don't let ex-black-hats work for your company, period.
Now, if a black hat did have some profound change, that doesn't mean that there isn't work for him. Assuming that it is not prohibited by court order, he can start donating information to the security watchdog groups, and they can verify the information on their own. If it is illegal for them to be using the internet or interfacing with computers, they can wait until it is again allowed. Or they often can instead put their skills to use building new systems, or writing code for a supposedly secure system -- on paper.
Anyhow, I have no idea whether the claim is true or untrue, that ex-black-hats make good white hats. But Morse's position makes a lot of sense.
When thinking about the wired vs. wireless, don't forget the health issues: the correlations between cell phone usage (that is, microwave frequency radio near the ear) and inner-ear nerve cancer, and the correlations between ozone exposure and leukemia. Although your direct exposure is bound to be less intense for internet than for a cell phone, you have to consider that 24-hour exposure is going to make that more significant.
Because of this, I'd suggest wired, LCD monitors, and with good ventilation for the power supplies.
But then there comes another issue: when standards upgrade and you want to upgrade as well, how easy or difficult will it be to change your system? For this reason, I would suggest running the wires behind screw-in molding, or a self-latching molding if you can get it. I'd make the molding large enough to hold at least four cables, maybe larger. Where you have such things as a false cieling [kitchens] or false floor, make use of those. Finally, color-code and tag everything, at both ends and whereever it can be accessed, and make up a master plan of the house cabling. Put that master plan in an envelope that is taped into the router's enclosure, and another copy of the master plan on the inside of the house's circuit-breaker box. Make sure that the master plan references everything by color, so that future owners can easily track things.
I can't say that I am a developer, though I have assisted very lightly in one or two items.
But I am an OSS user. And I do have a SME, and I believe that software patents are a very bad idea, especially for open source, but also in their own right.
And I do trust Bruce to represent me quite well. I wish he would, since I, having an SME that is a little too S, cannot afford to go, either in terms of time or of money.
I think that if it is possible to affect this, now is definitely the time -- but that said, part of me believes that this is all fixed. At least in America, it would be. Maybe Brussels is different.
[PS : to be technically correct, I am not an owner. My wife is. However, I am training my wife in how to run the business, as well as 3 other people. So I am kindof the ghost in the machine. Therefore, I can speak of the SME as "mine" in a way that is very true.]
Also, I should mention that we do prepublishing. Good luck in getting rid of the software patent, though!
... considering that I live in Lithuania, are the MP3 software patents valid in my country?
I'd love to install LAME and compress some songs down to MP3s. But I can't find out whether LAME would be legal here. I even tried writing to Thomson, to find out either if LAME was infringing or if there was another program I *could* use, but didn't get an answer.
--- Anyhow, on the front of software patents and IP, I tend to divide rights into those that are inherent, and those that are granted. Inherent rights are those that cannot be taken away: the right to travel, the right to work, the right to property, the right to learn, the right to think or believe as you choose. Granted rights are those that can be taken away just by not giving them: the right to a free education, for example.
The problem is that granted rights require the government to convince someone else to give up one of their inherent rights, at least in part. Sometimes this works -- but if the government tries to take away too many inherent rights, then it falls easily [note Afghanistan for an extreme example, USSR for a lesser example].
Why have granted rights? Well, a country with inherent rights and much charity doesn't need granted rights -- but I have yet to see that happen. A country with just inherent rights, on the other hand, is prone to violence, because unsuccessful people do not willingly just lie down and die. So we do give up some of our inherent rights for granted rights and less violence. But that is not to say that granted rights are good, or good for the economy. They're not. They're outright harmful to economies, because they encourage undesirable behavior, and discourage desirable behavior.
Now, opening up the borders to trade and the movement of labor is an excellent example of restoring inherent rights [travel, working, trade] by removing granted rights [right to have no competition, right to nationalism.] However, that doesn't mean that everything is good.
Software patents, as far as I can tell, are a granted right that takes away from the inherent right of working, that is productive labor.
Even from a distance, it sounds like BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG. Just before Easter I saw one powering a gigantic glider, and it was noisy. Plus, they don't have all that long a life. 20 hours is unusual. 20 minutes is a lot more common. Yeah, his X-jet will last longer, but this cruise missile uses a fairly normal pulse jet. And his X-jet isn't fully developed yet.
If you go to his diary page, you'll see that he's in new Zealand. Aside from that, I kindof wonder what the meaning is of the little "Dragon" written in Russian at the top-right-hand side of the page here on his website.
Let's see... Congress has a huge new debt cieling that it's about to approve, and the dollar has fallen to new lows, and invester confidence is in the toilet tank, and somebody thinks that they'll be able to deduct something from their taxes?
I had someone send me a schedule in MS Word format. I opened it and looked at it on KWord.
After some disagreement about what it said, I took it to MS Word, and sure enough, the document was completely different. I think I was seeing something that had been deleted and replaced, actually.
Likewise, equations, pictures, tables, all do not translate successfully, regularly. Shoot, MS Word can't even read old MS Word files, and sometimes can't read new MS Word files, you would think that they have the full source code available within their company, anyhow.
If I were directing a government, I would INSIST that no public document be kept in MS Word format. MS Word format is not stable, and documents are not even safe if you buy the licensed software.
[P.S. : I have had the same trouble with AbiWord and OpenOffice -- but I uninstalled those on my system, because they are slower than KWord.]
I've been thinking about a project that requires a mySQL server, perl/php, and https. Of course, I don't have those skills to do what I want: that is the kind of thing you can buy, though.
So anyhow, I remembered a text ad from Kuro5hin, from half a year ago. So I went over *to* kuro5hin, found the ad, clicked through, got an email address, and sent a specific question.
I don't know whether I'll buy from them: I give about a 5-10% chance of buying at all, even if the price is right. However, I can definitely say that text ads do work. Yeah, I'm blind to them, when I need to get stuff done. But for that same reason, I appreciate the consideration that is involved in a text ad, so when I have free time, I really do read them and remember them.
Security extends to the business of business, too
on
Securing Your Network?
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· Score: 1
I live in a 2nd-world country where I was informed that the local authorities will steal your business.
One problem with that: they can't.
To steal my business, they'd have to know the processes, and be able to do the work I do. They can't do it, though. Of course, if they want to learn, they have to get through my security procedures:
(1) They have to deal honestly with me. No shiftlessness, no "secret plans", no coming and asking for money or a loan [I loan *once*, then wait for repayment, except with widows], and then if I say no, saying "well, I know how I'll get the money anyhow..." As you say, diversify: limit your losses.
(2) They have to work hard, even when the payoff seems small. Sorry, I can't pay a lot: business expenses beyond paper and wages include taxes and regulations, but that mean business expenses are big. BUT if they work hard, then as soon as I can justify paying them a reasonable or good wage, I will.
(3) They have to be self motivated: if they are capable of carrying a large section of the business, they are also going to be capable of expanding it.
Once they get past those three security procedures, THEY DON'T NEED TO STEAL MY BUSINESS! I make them partners. And by then? They've earned it, and they're capable, and they're interested in the welfare of business.
Meanwhile, on the computer we do have passwords.
Other things I do to help keep the place secure: keep the computers working as much as possible. [A computer with a happy worker is safer than a computer in a safe.] Don't let in people who have no business being there. Don't attract too much publicity in any case. Don't steal from others: you make them want to find a way to steal from you, just to get back. Maintain an attitude of justice and openness: it comes back to haunt you, and that's a good thing. Don't be trivial with other people's lives -- hiring, firing, and such: it is better to pay a lower wage that you can keep on paying, even during dry periods, than to pay a higher wage and then lay the workers off.
Those are *my* basic security measures. Maybe they'll work: we'll see.
To type fast, use hall-effect touchpads on either side of the computer, and simply redesign the keyboard for one of three modes: one-pad (left-or-right), stylus, or two-pad.
People who want to learn to type on it quickly will find it takes less than a month to be proficient. And if the human-factors engineering is good, then they may find that they can type faster on it than with a normal keyboard.
Then you get the problem of who gets to speak for how long. 9000 people all trying to speak sounds an awfully lot like the NYSE floor.
So if you're really going to do that, and have a democratic-based republic, then perhaps you need to have the 9000 break into self-selected groups of 30 for every issue, and then from those 30 debate, and vote one person up to the main floor.
So a bill would go something like:
(1) posted as is (2) Congressmen see it. (3) Debate groups form (4) Bill gets modifications suggested (5) Representatives get chosen to the main committee (6) Main committee discusses/passes things back to the original committees (7) Original committees either agree or disagree, and if they disagree possibly form an ambush committee (8) Main committee schedules a vote -- but look! Ambush committee can also post their bill as a counter option, with their reasons against it (9) All congressmen have an opportunity to vote. (10) Friendships get broken . . . (11) Profit!
Let's remember why the German Army abandoned Microsoft. Their internal emails were going through Denver, and that was out of the box Windows.
So I think that it's pretty clear that Microsoft *already has* backdoors for the NSA to insert their noses. Of course, that means that there are also backdoors for hackers, but the US government is going to consider that a reasonable cost-benefit ratio, and just nail individual crackers to the wall.
But you cannot do that with Open-source software, with any reasonable effectiveness.
So it isn't saying that OpenBSD causes or aids terrorism, but just that if people have an alternative to the NSA's preferred choice, then they won't be open to snooping. And the NSA feels that snooping is 100% necessary, now that we have terrorists in the world.
Actually, I think that this *can* be good, if OpenBSD abandons America and its dependency on DARPA [also the NSA]. What began with PGP and US/Non-US distributions is going to have to extend just a tad farther, to "Non-US/whatever they'll let you have" distributions, and all based outside of the US. Not good for Americans, but excellent for *future* Canadians, French, and Germans.
While I'm at it, though: may I also drop a note? This last Iraq war shows that the internet, with its spammail system, is completely controlled by DARPA. Why not take the opportunity to design a completely different, parallel system that is *not* based on the US military? And while you're at it, make it unspammable. Then people can use Microsoft SpamOut look, or they can go over to OpenBSD/Linux, and get a whole new system. We have the optical cable sitting around -- why not jump for it? Start it with a conference in Europe, and let it go from there.
My wife had long commented that she had a number of stones, but that she didn't have a nice star sapphire.
Add to that, the fact that since star sapphires can be manufactured, nobody wants to pay for a real one [followed by the fact that nobody wants a fake one, since they all must be fake], so good star sapphires were relatively hard to find.
So anyhow, for our engagement, I went down to Rocky's Gold and Silver in Weyers Cave, VA, and saw a 5mm x 7 mm estate star sapphire mounted with four microdimonds in a nice silver ring. Since it was old, it also was natural.
I asked my girlfriend what she thought about estate jewelry, and she said that it just meant to her that an old person had had it before her, and she liked old people, so it was no problem.
So anyhow, the ring was listed at $70; they had it on automatic estate-item markdown of 20%, so it was $56. That wasn't too bad. Anyhow, she liked it, and I guess she liked me, because we're married and have a son now.
In general, you might want to check out estate jewelry and see what your girlfriend thinks. Diamonds dive in price if they're not new; gold doesn't, but there isn't that much gold in a ring.
PS: if you're not near the intersection of I-81 and I-64E, don't bother with who Rocky's Gold and Silver are. If you are near there, be advised that this was 1995 or so, and I can't guarantee that they haven't changed. But their deals were great back then. Since they did deal honestly and well, I feel honor bound to give their name and location.
I'm still learning, every day, how the system is set up to let the bad guys screw the innocent, and having more system just doesn't seem to cut it.
My most recent problem is with www.picusnet.com [really omegacomminc]; because I was headed out of the country, I tried to downgrade my ISP service to email; they said sure. 7 months later I get a bill for ISP service. I try to call their customer service [no answer], so I go to their web site, and discover that if you use their online customer service, you agree to a whole new TOS. So I read that, and it says essentially that they can without warning and retroactively change your billing rate at will, and you will pay it, and if you don't you will pay for their collection and lawyer fees too.
So I immediately disconnected, called their signup number and said "disconnect me". They said "send an email to billing@omegacomminc saying that you're disconnecting and why. So I did. That all happened *before* the bill was due.
So now, this month, I get a collection agency letter from Connecticut at my American address; they want $45 for services unauthorized and unrendered, plus collection agency fee.
***BLACK BLACK OUTLOOK***
Of course, I'm still not in America.
So I've sent them *another letter*, this time through registered mail, saying all this, and giving dates and all that. But looking at the collection agency letter, they essentially say "don't pay, and we'll go get a judgement..." And now I'm thinking, the way some states are set up are so that businesses based in that state and paying taxes there can run a racket, and I suppose connecticut *could* be one of them. Ideally, with me having sent these letters, the collection agency would have to present them to a judge before he could get a judgement. In which case, the judgement should be in my favor. But why bother, if it benefits the state coffers? Much better, to tell people halfway across the country or the world, "spend $2000 coming here, or give $140 extortion to this upstanding instate company, or pay $500 afterwards."
Ummm... enough of my rant. I wonder if anyone knows whether my worries are justified... but at this point I can't find myself in support of any more law and order than we've got now. I'm up to my neck in unjust laws and orders. And, of course, let's not forget that this same Senate is keeping law and order down in Iraq, and Afghanistan, and Venezuela, and Argentina.
The evolution of languages differs from the evolution of species because branches can converge. The Fortran branch, for example, seems to be merging with the descendants of Algol. In theory this is possible for species too, but it's so unlikely that it has probably never happened.
Ummm... how about lichen? our mitochondria?
What about the parasitic relationships that become mutually beneficial, such as the numerous bacteria in our gut and on our skin, and then eventually become necessary for life?
Merging actually does happen -- it just doesn't happen in the way he was thinking, that DNA become identical and cross-species fertility occurs. Rather, the two organisms live closer and closer, until they merge.
Come to think of it, although it isn't on the species level, the concept of merging species isn't too different than sexual reproduction.
Quite simply, a lot of the stuff that gets approval on slashdot is beyond what I find acceptable for my own viewing [goatse comes immediately to mind...]
Same goes for movies: I seldom go to one, but if I do, I've first read the reviews.
Nonetheless, this might be good. Could someone, as an "anonymous coward", perhaps, post a spoiler. [Moderators: please don't vote up the spoiler -- let it remain hidden to those who don't wish it spoiled]. What's the basic plot? What's the basic premise? How deep is the theme? [For an idea: Stephen King is actually quite deep. His Randall Flag is symbolic for "grand ol flag".]
I'd also like to get some idea of what the content is, as well. Swearing I can handle. Cartoons hacking each other apart I can handle too. However, sometimes nudity, and definitely sex, are a problem for my Y chromosome to handle. So if this is generally for me to avoid, please say so. If there is just one scene for me to avoid, please say that.
You may or may not be able to answer my questions about this. It concerns who makes quality plate printers. Essentially, if I want to do cheap, moderate-quality, low-run offset printing [say, 5000-8000 copies], I can laser-print onto a sheet of plastic paper. Then I punch holes in the plastic, and that's my offset-printer plate.
Now, it used to be that the HPLJ5000 was the best there was. It had a nice, high-power fixing engine. After that, it was something like Xantec. That was before HP took Lucent's VP-marketing for their new president. [I still have a DJ1120c from *before* that time, but more recent DJ*** printers die with amazing speed.] So I bear some concern about whether the HPLJ5000 even *can* still do the trick.
So would you know the answer to this one? Is it still the LJ5000? Or is there a different one that is better for the job?
BTW, in a way, "the ghost in the machine" that makes all these computers run successfully, is strangely reminiscent of the Automat, that old restaurant with automatic machines that produced your food. You found the machine with the food you liked; you put in your nickels, and turned the crank. All kinds of excellent food were there, and only one employee, a woman who exchanged nickels for dollars.
Of course, what you didn't realize was that the "machines" were just highly decorated doors. The employees were all *behind* the machines, stocking them, making sure that they worked, probably a few of them were paid to turn the selection when you pressed the "turn" button, for all I know.
As much effort as it takes to keep a computer running, the computer seems strangely like that fictitious automatic restaurant that was so popular in the early 70's.
If you are in NYC, there's one on 5th Avenue. There also was an excellent article in Smithsonian, about 2 years ago.
Tablet prog contest has same prob (+how to fix it)
on
Fishing for Ideas
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· Score: 1
I was over at sourceforge, and saw a M$ advertisement for a contest for software for their Tablet Computer.
So anyhow, I went over and saw the same kind of thing there.
However, in that contest, they were giving away a couple free (okay, not free when you read what comes next) tablet computers to the winners who would write applications for the Tablet computer.
However, win or lose, if you entered, you guaranteed that you had full rights to the software, and transferred all said rights to M$ for nothing.
With that kind of a deal, I would say -- they could pull it off -- but not like this. What they need to provide is not a Tablet computer, but a guaranteed job / contract for 5 years, 40 hrs/wk, $50/hr.
Do that, and I could see them getting entries.
This way? Anyone stupid enough to enter is too stupid to be hired by Microsoft.
You take a 2-colored, metal-coated ping-pong ball [it can be done], and suspend it in air on a cushion of air jets. [Also can be done.]
Now stabilize it rotationally. Now stick two or three metal brushes lightly against it, and hit it with some charge. Will it spin? Will it spin continuously faster?
If so, how?
Or alternatively, we can have 3 metalized ping pong balls on three jets of air [that is, infinitely thing strings, you might say] and each brushing against three metalic brushes. Will these spin and accelerate continuously faster?
Suppose, instead of balancing them on air jets, we used strong magnetism and magneticized balls. Will it work then?
Slashdot Mirror
Are you indeed the intel employee? If so, glad to meet you. I have to say that I do not feel qualified to judge what went on between you and intel -- my impression was that what you were doing was legal, but you ticked off the wrong people. If so, that's a sign of a bad government.
Bad governments do have casualties, and ours hasn't been getting better.
Nonetheless, the general policy that I stated still remains general. My experience has been that people who knowingly play the wrong side of the law do have a character flaw that makes dealing with them quite risky. That is very different than a person who unknowingly treads where they were prohibited, or from a person who was treading where they were allowed, and got stomped out of convenience.
http://www.microwavenews.com/mobilephone.html
d ules.php?n ame=News&file=article&sid=1577
I am not yet ready to declare this a FUD. I am not concerned with ionizing radiation in the case of microwaves. That, instead, is a concern with too many X-rays (at least in the former soviet union, where x-ray burns are a common phenomenon, or near the poles, where the ozone holes have an effect, or for those who fly a lot).
Rather, what I would be concerned with would be protein transformations that took away the limitation on brain cell replication. This, then, would stimulate early tumor formaton.
[check out this link for support of this concern]
http://www.scienceblog.com/community/mo
Although the studies mentioned above did not find an increase in cancer rates, it is my impression that brain cancer rates have indeed increased overall in the last 20 years, significantly.
If you have better information that counteracts these two *officially unpublished* studies [though I have heard that the studies remain unpublished because of cell phone industry pressure, that is an unprovable allegation], I would be glad to hear it.
Listen, his position of not hiring ex-black-hats makes a ton of sense, whether or not ex-black-hats are the best at detecting security flaws.
A person who has been a black hat has been so, specifically because they did not have the moral fortitude to remain on the white side. Now, that can change when there is a profound revelation [Dr. Laura Schlessinger], or when there is a ton of incentive [G.W. Bush], or because they were caught and decided the price was too high [many haxors who have been caught flip in this way] or it can appear to change when convenient [psychotics.]
But the fact is, you don't really know why it changed, and therefore you don't really know if it changed. So you don't let ex-black-hats work for your company, period.
Now, if a black hat did have some profound change, that doesn't mean that there isn't work for him. Assuming that it is not prohibited by court order, he can start donating information to the security watchdog groups, and they can verify the information on their own. If it is illegal for them to be using the internet or interfacing with computers, they can wait until it is again allowed. Or they often can instead put their skills to use building new systems, or writing code for a supposedly secure system -- on paper.
Anyhow, I have no idea whether the claim is true or untrue, that ex-black-hats make good white hats. But Morse's position makes a lot of sense.
When thinking about the wired vs. wireless, don't forget the health issues: the correlations between cell phone usage (that is, microwave frequency radio near the ear) and inner-ear nerve cancer, and the correlations between ozone exposure and leukemia. Although your direct exposure is bound to be less intense for internet than for a cell phone, you have to consider that 24-hour exposure is going to make that more significant.
Because of this, I'd suggest wired, LCD monitors, and with good ventilation for the power supplies.
But then there comes another issue: when standards upgrade and you want to upgrade as well, how easy or difficult will it be to change your system? For this reason, I would suggest running the wires behind screw-in molding, or a self-latching molding if you can get it. I'd make the molding large enough to hold at least four cables, maybe larger. Where you have such things as a false cieling [kitchens] or false floor, make use of those. Finally, color-code and tag everything, at both ends and whereever it can be accessed, and make up a master plan of the house cabling. Put that master plan in an envelope that is taped into the router's enclosure, and another copy of the master plan on the inside of the house's circuit-breaker box. Make sure that the master plan references everything by color, so that future owners can easily track things.
I can't say that I am a developer, though I have assisted very lightly in one or two items.
But I am an OSS user. And I do have a SME, and I believe that software patents are a very bad idea, especially for open source, but also in their own right.
And I do trust Bruce to represent me quite well. I wish he would, since I, having an SME that is a little too S, cannot afford to go, either in terms of time or of money.
I think that if it is possible to affect this, now is definitely the time -- but that said, part of me believes that this is all fixed. At least in America, it would be. Maybe Brussels is different.
[PS : to be technically correct, I am not an owner. My wife is. However, I am training my wife in how to run the business, as well as 3 other people. So I am kindof the ghost in the machine. Therefore, I can speak of the SME as "mine" in a way that is very true.]
Also, I should mention that we do prepublishing. Good luck in getting rid of the software patent, though!
... considering that I live in Lithuania, are the MP3 software patents valid in my country?
I'd love to install LAME and compress some songs down to MP3s. But I can't find out whether LAME would be legal here. I even tried writing to Thomson, to find out either if LAME was infringing or if there was another program I *could* use, but didn't get an answer.
---
Anyhow, on the front of software patents and IP, I tend to divide rights into those that are inherent, and those that are granted. Inherent rights are those that cannot be taken away: the right to travel, the right to work, the right to property, the right to learn, the right to think or believe as you choose. Granted rights are those that can be taken away just by not giving them: the right to a free education, for example.
The problem is that granted rights require the government to convince someone else to give up one of their inherent rights, at least in part. Sometimes this works -- but if the government tries to take away too many inherent rights, then it falls easily [note Afghanistan for an extreme example, USSR for a lesser example].
Why have granted rights? Well, a country with inherent rights and much charity doesn't need granted rights -- but I have yet to see that happen. A country with just inherent rights, on the other hand, is prone to violence, because unsuccessful people do not willingly just lie down and die. So we do give up some of our inherent rights for granted rights and less violence. But that is not to say that granted rights are good, or good for the economy. They're not. They're outright harmful to economies, because they encourage undesirable behavior, and discourage desirable behavior.
Now, opening up the borders to trade and the movement of labor is an excellent example of restoring inherent rights [travel, working, trade] by removing granted rights [right to have no competition, right to nationalism.] However, that doesn't mean that everything is good.
Software patents, as far as I can tell, are a granted right that takes away from the inherent right of working, that is productive labor.
Even from a distance, it sounds like
BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG. Just before Easter I saw one powering a gigantic glider, and it was noisy. Plus, they don't have all that long a life. 20 hours is unusual. 20 minutes is a lot more common. Yeah, his X-jet will last longer, but this cruise missile uses a fairly normal pulse jet. And his X-jet isn't fully developed yet.
You can't have these in cities.
But aside from that, it's a nice idea.
If you go to his diary page, you'll see that he's in new Zealand. Aside from that, I kindof wonder what the meaning is of the little "Dragon" written in Russian at the top-right-hand side of the page here on his website.
http://www.aardvark.co.nz/pjet/
Let's see... Congress has a huge new debt cieling that it's about to approve, and the dollar has fallen to new lows, and invester confidence is in the toilet tank, and somebody thinks that they'll be able to deduct something from their taxes?
Definitely time to go back to school.
I had someone send me a schedule in MS Word format.
I opened it and looked at it on KWord.
After some disagreement about what it said, I took it to MS Word, and sure enough, the document was completely different. I think I was seeing something that had been deleted and replaced, actually.
Likewise, equations, pictures, tables, all do not translate successfully, regularly. Shoot, MS Word can't even read old MS Word files, and sometimes can't read new MS Word files, you would think that they have the full source code available within their company, anyhow.
If I were directing a government, I would INSIST that no public document be kept in MS Word format. MS Word format is not stable, and documents are not even safe if you buy the licensed software.
[P.S. : I have had the same trouble with AbiWord and OpenOffice -- but I uninstalled those on my system, because they are slower than KWord.]
So anyhow, I remembered a text ad from Kuro5hin, from half a year ago. So I went over *to* kuro5hin, found the ad, clicked through, got an email address, and sent a specific question.
I don't know whether I'll buy from them: I give about a 5-10% chance of buying at all, even if the price is right. However, I can definitely say that text ads do work. Yeah, I'm blind to them, when I need to get stuff done. But for that same reason, I appreciate the consideration that is involved in a text ad, so when I have free time, I really do read them and remember them.
I live in a 2nd-world country where I was informed that the local authorities will steal your business.
One problem with that: they can't.
To steal my business, they'd have to know the processes, and be able to do the work I do. They can't do it, though. Of course, if they want to learn, they have to get through my security procedures:
(1) They have to deal honestly with me. No shiftlessness, no "secret plans", no coming and asking for money or a loan [I loan *once*, then wait for repayment, except with widows], and then if I say no, saying "well, I know how I'll get the money anyhow..." As you say, diversify: limit your losses.
(2) They have to work hard, even when the payoff seems small. Sorry, I can't pay a lot: business expenses beyond paper and wages include taxes and regulations, but that mean business expenses are big. BUT if they work hard, then as soon as I can justify paying them a reasonable or good wage, I will.
(3) They have to be self motivated: if they are capable of carrying a large section of the business, they are also going to be capable of expanding it.
Once they get past those three security procedures, THEY DON'T NEED TO STEAL MY BUSINESS! I make them partners. And by then? They've earned it, and they're capable, and they're interested in the welfare of business.
Meanwhile, on the computer we do have passwords.
Other things I do to help keep the place secure: keep the computers working as much as possible. [A computer with a happy worker is safer than a computer in a safe.] Don't let in people who have no business being there. Don't attract too much publicity in any case. Don't steal from others: you make them want to find a way to steal from you, just to get back. Maintain an attitude of justice and openness: it comes back to haunt you, and that's a good thing. Don't be trivial with other people's lives -- hiring, firing, and such: it is better to pay a lower wage that you can keep on paying, even during dry periods, than to pay a higher wage and then lay the workers off.
Those are *my* basic security measures. Maybe they'll work: we'll see.
To type fast, use hall-effect touchpads on either side of the computer, and simply redesign the keyboard for one of three modes: one-pad (left-or-right), stylus, or two-pad.
People who want to learn to type on it quickly will find it takes less than a month to be proficient. And if the human-factors engineering is good, then they may find that they can type faster on it than with a normal keyboard.
Then you get the problem of who gets to speak for how long. 9000 people all trying to speak sounds an awfully lot like the NYSE floor.
So if you're really going to do that, and have a democratic-based republic, then perhaps you need to have the 9000 break into self-selected groups of 30 for every issue, and then from those 30 debate, and vote one person up to the main floor.
So a bill would go something like:
(1) posted as is
(2) Congressmen see it.
(3) Debate groups form
(4) Bill gets modifications suggested
(5) Representatives get chosen to the main committee
(6) Main committee discusses/passes things back to the original committees
(7) Original committees either agree or disagree, and if they disagree possibly form an ambush committee
(8) Main committee schedules a vote -- but look! Ambush committee can also post their bill as a counter option, with their reasons against it
(9) All congressmen have an opportunity to vote.
(10) Friendships get broken
.
.
.
(11) Profit!
Let's remember why the German Army abandoned Microsoft. Their internal emails were going through Denver, and that was out of the box Windows.
So I think that it's pretty clear that Microsoft *already has* backdoors for the NSA to insert their noses. Of course, that means that there are also backdoors for hackers, but the US government is going to consider that a reasonable cost-benefit ratio, and just nail individual crackers to the wall.
But you cannot do that with Open-source software, with any reasonable effectiveness.
So it isn't saying that OpenBSD causes or aids terrorism, but just that if people have an alternative to the NSA's preferred choice, then they won't be open to snooping. And the NSA feels that snooping is 100% necessary, now that we have terrorists in the world.
Actually, I think that this *can* be good, if OpenBSD abandons America and its dependency on DARPA [also the NSA]. What began with PGP and US/Non-US distributions is going to have to extend just a tad farther, to "Non-US/whatever they'll let you have" distributions, and all based outside of the US. Not good for Americans, but excellent for *future* Canadians, French, and Germans.
While I'm at it, though: may I also drop a note? This last Iraq war shows that the internet, with its spammail system, is completely controlled by DARPA. Why not take the opportunity to design a completely different, parallel system that is *not* based on the US military? And while you're at it, make it unspammable. Then people can use Microsoft SpamOut look, or they can go over to OpenBSD/Linux, and get a whole new system. We have the optical cable sitting around -- why not jump for it? Start it with a conference in Europe, and let it go from there.
My wife had long commented that she had a number of stones, but that she didn't have a nice star sapphire.
Add to that, the fact that since star sapphires can be manufactured, nobody wants to pay for a real one [followed by the fact that nobody wants a fake one, since they all must be fake], so good star sapphires were relatively hard to find.
So anyhow, for our engagement, I went down to Rocky's Gold and Silver in Weyers Cave, VA, and saw a 5mm x 7 mm estate star sapphire mounted with four microdimonds in a nice silver ring. Since it was old, it also was natural.
I asked my girlfriend what she thought about estate jewelry, and she said that it just meant to her that an old person had had it before her, and she liked old people, so it was no problem.
So anyhow, the ring was listed at $70; they had it on automatic estate-item markdown of 20%, so it was $56. That wasn't too bad. Anyhow, she liked it, and I guess she liked me, because we're married and have a son now.
In general, you might want to check out estate jewelry and see what your girlfriend thinks. Diamonds dive in price if they're not new; gold doesn't, but there isn't that much gold in a ring.
PS: if you're not near the intersection of I-81 and I-64E, don't bother with who Rocky's Gold and Silver are. If you are near there, be advised that this was 1995 or so, and I can't guarantee that they haven't changed. But their deals were great back then. Since they did deal honestly and well, I feel honor bound to give their name and location.
They say "Isn't it nice when something just works?" as a Linux banner unfurls.
I'm still learning, every day, how the system is set up to let the bad guys screw the innocent, and having more system just doesn't seem to cut it.
My most recent problem is with www.picusnet.com [really omegacomminc]; because I was headed out of the country, I tried to downgrade my ISP service to email; they said sure. 7 months later I get a bill for ISP service. I try to call their customer service [no answer], so I go to their web site, and discover that if you use their online customer service, you agree to a whole new TOS. So I read that, and it says essentially that they can without warning and retroactively change your billing rate at will, and you will pay it, and if you don't you will pay for their collection and lawyer fees too.
So I immediately disconnected, called their signup number and said "disconnect me". They said "send an email to billing@omegacomminc saying that you're disconnecting and why. So I did. That all happened *before* the bill was due.
So now, this month, I get a collection agency letter from Connecticut at my American address; they want $45 for services unauthorized and unrendered, plus collection agency fee.
***BLACK BLACK OUTLOOK***
Of course, I'm still not in America.
So I've sent them *another letter*, this time through registered mail, saying all this, and giving dates and all that. But looking at the collection agency letter, they essentially say "don't pay, and we'll go get a judgement..." And now I'm thinking, the way some states are set up are so that businesses based in that state and paying taxes there can run a racket, and I suppose connecticut *could* be one of them. Ideally, with me having sent these letters, the collection agency would have to present them to a judge before he could get a judgement. In which case, the judgement should be in my favor. But why bother, if it benefits the state coffers? Much better, to tell people halfway across the country or the world, "spend $2000 coming here, or give $140 extortion to this upstanding instate company, or pay $500 afterwards."
Ummm... enough of my rant. I wonder if anyone knows whether my worries are justified... but at this point I can't find myself in support of any more law and order than we've got now. I'm up to my neck in unjust laws and orders. And, of course, let's not forget that this same Senate is keeping law and order down in Iraq, and Afghanistan, and Venezuela, and Argentina.
*ack*.
Ummm... how about lichen? our mitochondria? What about the parasitic relationships that become mutually beneficial, such as the numerous bacteria in our gut and on our skin, and then eventually become necessary for life?
Merging actually does happen -- it just doesn't happen in the way he was thinking, that DNA become identical and cross-species fertility occurs. Rather, the two organisms live closer and closer, until they merge.
Come to think of it, although it isn't on the species level, the concept of merging species isn't too different than sexual reproduction.
Quite simply, a lot of the stuff that gets approval on slashdot is beyond what I find acceptable for my own viewing [goatse comes immediately to mind...]
Same goes for movies: I seldom go to one, but if I do, I've first read the reviews.
Nonetheless, this might be good. Could someone, as an "anonymous coward", perhaps, post a spoiler. [Moderators: please don't vote up the spoiler -- let it remain hidden to those who don't wish it spoiled]. What's the basic plot? What's the basic premise? How deep is the theme? [For an idea: Stephen King is actually quite deep. His Randall Flag is symbolic for "grand ol flag".]
I'd also like to get some idea of what the content is, as well. Swearing I can handle. Cartoons hacking each other apart I can handle too. However, sometimes nudity, and definitely sex, are a problem for my Y chromosome to handle. So if this is generally for me to avoid, please say so. If there is just one scene for me to avoid, please say that.
You may or may not be able to answer my questions about this. It concerns who makes quality plate printers. Essentially, if I want to do cheap, moderate-quality, low-run offset printing [say, 5000-8000 copies], I can laser-print onto a sheet of plastic paper. Then I punch holes in the plastic, and that's my offset-printer plate.
Now, it used to be that the HPLJ5000 was the best there was. It had a nice, high-power fixing engine. After that, it was something like Xantec. That was before HP took Lucent's VP-marketing for their new president. [I still have a DJ1120c from *before* that time, but more recent DJ*** printers die with amazing speed.] So I bear some concern about whether the HPLJ5000 even *can* still do the trick.
So would you know the answer to this one? Is it still the LJ5000? Or is there a different one that is better for the job?
In the case of slashdot, "The anonymous coward."
BTW, in a way, "the ghost in the machine" that makes all these computers run successfully, is strangely reminiscent of the Automat, that old restaurant with automatic machines that produced your food. You found the machine with the food you liked; you put in your nickels, and turned the crank. All kinds of excellent food were there, and only one employee, a woman who exchanged nickels for dollars.
Of course, what you didn't realize was that the "machines" were just highly decorated doors. The employees were all *behind* the machines, stocking them, making sure that they worked, probably a few of them were paid to turn the selection when you pressed the "turn" button, for all I know.
As much effort as it takes to keep a computer running, the computer seems strangely like that fictitious automatic restaurant that was so popular in the early 70's.
If you are in NYC, there's one on 5th Avenue. There also was an excellent article in Smithsonian, about 2 years ago.
I was over at sourceforge, and saw a M$ advertisement for a contest for software for their Tablet Computer.
So anyhow, I went over and saw the same kind of thing there.
However, in that contest, they were giving away a couple free (okay, not free when you read what comes next) tablet computers to the winners who would write applications for the Tablet computer.
However, win or lose, if you entered, you guaranteed that you had full rights to the software, and transferred all said rights to M$ for nothing.
With that kind of a deal, I would say -- they could pull it off -- but not like this. What they need to provide is not a Tablet computer, but a guaranteed job / contract for 5 years, 40 hrs/wk, $50/hr.
Do that, and I could see them getting entries.
This way? Anyone stupid enough to enter is too stupid to be hired by Microsoft.
You take a 2-colored, metal-coated ping-pong ball [it can be done], and suspend it in air on a cushion of air jets. [Also can be done.]
Now stabilize it rotationally. Now stick two or three metal brushes lightly against it, and hit it with some charge. Will it spin? Will it spin continuously faster?
If so, how?
Or alternatively, we can have 3 metalized ping pong balls on three jets of air [that is, infinitely thing strings, you might say] and each brushing against three metalic brushes. Will these spin and accelerate continuously faster?
Suppose, instead of balancing them on air jets, we used strong magnetism and magneticized balls. Will it work then?
Why, or why not?
Just offhand, charge and magnetism match up, in that one is the speed-of-light adjustment of the other.
So if you can get electrostatic spin, then there may be some interesting applications towards electric/mechanical energy force mechanism.
My problem is that I can't see how electrostatic spin is different from magnetism.
Oh well, it isn't important: it's their invention, not mine.