I think it was called the Jupiter rocket or something like that. About 5x-10x the lift capacity of the Saturn V.
You're thinking of von Braun's design for the Nova. Although ostensibly for the Moon program, von Braun wanted a rocket that would eventually be able to put astronauts on Mars. There's a ton of good information here; I've summarized the most important bits below.
Kennedy's 1961 challenge to NASA ruled out the construction of a Nova-class Moon rocket--NASA felt that there wouldn't be time to construct the specialized facilities required to build such a rocket. The size of the Saturn V was limited by the size of the existing construction facilities in Michaud, Louisiana.
The name Nova was, however, assigned to the class of rockets that were to succeed the Saturn V; unfortunately none of these rockets ever made it off the drawing board.
Is there some hidden potential energy in a disk of Red Hat? Should AnandTech be doing a review to see which distro has the best energy loss ratio?
Sure. There's an absolutely incredible amount of potential energy in a Red Hat disc. To harness this energy, you will require:
one Red Hat CD;
a large industrial boiler unit;
one steam turbine;
a very long pair of tongs;
one lead apron; and
one antimatter Red Hat CD.
All Linux distros seem to store roughly the same amount of energy--probably due to the common kernel code. I have not reviewed BSD products at this point, though I may investigate them after I find my eyebrows.
f caught, the journalist would go to jail, but charges would be thrown out...I don't remember how everything worked, and I'm too lazy to type it into google:-)
Er, no.
If I tried to sneak a gun past security (now, or five years ago) I'd go to prison for it, even if I waved my 'journalist' card. Should potential hijackers get a free pass because they happen to write articles for the Podunk Gazette? Come on...
'Officer, I wasn't stealing this car for real. I'm just writing an article on the poor security of the Ford Mustang...'
'Officer, I wasn't really robbing the bank. I was just researching an article on defective dye packs...'
They could probably get very similar savings if they oursourced to WVa or TN and be sung praises as heros for boosting local American economies.
On the other hand, some people like the 'city' lifestyle. Many individuals probably find it less jarring to move from New York or San Francisco to Toronto or Montreal than to West Virginia.
You still get theatres, museums, cultural events, nightlife, and public transit--and you get to pay for all of it in Canadian dollars. As a bonus, you get lower crime and smaller rents.
Actually, if your workforce is happy living in the suburbs, then their cost of living gets even lower, just as in the United States. Sure, you could move to Tennessee, but you could just as easily move to Manitoba.
Well I stated those points above: Marketing, visibility, name recognition, and likely, increased business.
I reiterate that the NYT does not require additional marketing to gain visibility or name recognition--their market is already familiar with their product. I note that we can use the acronym NYT without explanation on Slashdot (not just in this particular thread, either) without confusing anybody. They already have visibility on the web--just not an elevated PageRank for their stories.
Sure, they might sell a few more photos--but at what cost? Right now, they're pulling in something like $20 million per year from Lexis-Nexis for access to archived content. If they open up their archives online, they're setting themselves up for a per-year cost in bandwidth and storage, plus giving up their deals with Lexis-Nexis and others. Just to break even, they'd have to sell (roughly) an additional quarter million of those $95 photos--something I just don't see happening.
If they wanted to spend $20 million per year on a project to increase their visibility, then they could just take out several full-page ads in...themselves. (It would take about a year of weekday full-page ads to exhaust the full amount.)
The New York Times may not be publicly funded per se, as in receiving tax revenue.
But neither would they exist without the public arena to obtain news and to sell newspapers.
Actually, you inadvertently raise another good point. As a successful business earning healthy revenues from the sale of its archived content (among other sources) the New York Times also pays local, state, and federal taxes. It also uses some of its revenue to hire reporters and photographers all over the world.
Yes, they make some money while they're at it. That's because they're perceived as being good at what they do, and aside from a few missteps the Times generally seems to give value for the money.
Finally, they do give something away to the community: free online access to their current content.
To suggest that the Times owes us all their content free online because they wouldn't exist without the modern world strikes me as a tad disingenuous. I'm hard-pressed to think of any business that could exist in anything close to its present form without the public area of our society.
The Times really ought to open up its archive and let everyone, including Lexis-Nexis, have free access.
Is the Times going to throw away tens of millions of dollars in fees from organizations like Lexis-Nexis in exchange for a) a higher Google PageRank, and b) a warm fuzzy feeling?
They're not a publically funded organization; they're free to do as they see fit with their content. They certainly don't owe it to the rest of us to give away their product for free, indefinitely, just because we want them to.
We may not like their business model, but it's difficult to assert that it is a failure.
I don't even want a photographic print! A 200x200 pixel bitmap would be fine! (and hardly damaging to their photo sales)
Just because a business could offer a service, doesn't mean that they're required to do so.
They might also face restrictions imposed by the original source of the photo--they might have purchased it from another news source or an independent photographer with certain limits on redistribution or resale.
Finally, the parent has implied that he/she wouldn't be willing to pay very much for the photo anyway--he/she just wants a low-res image to show someone for fun. Why would the Times want to spend all kinds of money and deal with all the technical hassles of providing a service to people who won't buy anything anyway?
They're the New York Times--they don't need to give away archived content for goodwill or brand recognition. What do they gain by making that archive available?
it would be nice if cellphones didn't have to file downtime reports, not because of terrorist threats, but that would mean that cellular phones are less regulated by the FCC.
Sometimes regulation is a good thing. This is why my landline has five nines of reliability. Lack of regulation contributed to last summer's east coast blackout.
Downtime reports accessible to the public (at least in the aggregate by city, say, if not by cell) might also give the buying public the ability to make better-informed decisions. Right now, we're stuck working with anecdotal evidence at best. With this information, I can say to myself, "Company X is up 97% of the time, while Company Y is up 99.5%. Now I know why X is cheaper." I can make decisions based on real data, rather than, "My brother's roommate told me that his cell service seems to be down all the time."
To suggest that reporting on outages is an onerous task that will put the 'little guys' out of business is a red herring. One cell tower costs how much--anybody?--more money than I make in a year, certainly. Further, I imagine that there are very few companies that operate just one cell. Any company that owns towers already will have regulatory compliance people who work full time to comply with FCC rules and shepherd paperwork. If someone has to spend a couple days writing software to automatically compile outage reports, it's a drop in the bucket.
they buy $800 hammers and expect to be able to dictate how to run a successful company? please.
First, the government isn't trying to nationalize the cell phone companies--in question here is having them report on their service. Second, how many times does the myth of the $800 hammer have to be debunked? Briefly, it was $600 in the news reports, and $435 on paper. $420 of that was an accounting artifact--the details were published here at least five years ago. So the $800 hammer actually was fifteen dollars.
I gather that very expensive hammers are also occasionally purchased for special applications. In certain environments, you want a hammer that is light, durable, non-sparking, and non-magnetic, and that sort of thing can legitimately cost a lot of money.
Here's another one. That stewardess who allegedly called her husband had to use a phone built into the plane, because her cellphone was in her purse, which she couldn't get to because the terrorists were in the way and stuff....
Well, hooo-kay then, how did she activate it without her credit card, which was presumably back in her purse as well?
This is the problem with many conspiracy theories--they ask such simple, obvious questions, that clearly point to no rational explanation besides conspiracy.
Er, no. First of all, you're begging the question of whether or not the stewardess in question actually had no access to her credit card. How about this--if I were a steward(ess), I'd realize that carrying a purse or backpack while I worked was impractical. I'd also realize that I was travelling all over the country, and that I might end up staying in a strange city on any given night (weather diversion, mechanical trouble, etc.). Lastly, I might realize that my purse/bag/backpack could be stolen while I'm off at the other end of the plane, and I might not know about it until after the passengers were long gone.
What would I do in such a situation? I'd stuff my driver's license, a credit card, and (especially for international flights) my passport into the pocket of my uniform where they would be easy for me to keep track of. I wouldn't carry my phone on me, because a)it's bulkier than the cards, and b)I'm not allowed to use it on the plane anyway.
For that matter, the stewardess could have just borrowed a card from someone seated near the phones. If the plane I was on was hijacked, I wouldn't begrudge someone a few minutes of toll charges.
The question of debris is addressed by a well-written sibling post. Briefly, a struggle for control in the cockpit could easily result in deliberate or accidental rapid maneouvres that result in greater-than-design stresses on the airframe. Consequently, bits shake loose. If you stomp on the rudder pedal of an airliner while flying at anything close to cruising speed, you're going to rip stuff off. (Think about what would happen to your car if you turned the steering wheel abruptly all the way to the right while on the Interstate.)
If those are the best of the 'hundred unanswered questions' and 'strange incongruities', then I'm afraid it's a pretty weak conspiracy. Hint: lack of information does not necessarily mean conspiracy--sometimes it just means that we can't get all of the information.
IMHO, the reason why OS GUIs tend to suck is that there's no one to argue with. When the developer sits down, he thinks about it for awhile and develops what he thinks is best.
I don't know--if an OSS programmer writes something that is hard to use, two things will happen:
1. People will complain. Long and loud.
2. People will write patches or offer constructive criticism.
Some developers will design solid UIs from the start, requiring only minor tweaks. Some will create freakish monstrosities requiring many iterations and possibly a fork to fix. Some programs will remain unspeakably awful, probably because nobody needs their functionality enough to use them and demand repairs.
Remember, this sort of thing happens with closed-source proprietary products, too. IBM and Microsoft are well represented in the Interface Hall of Shame alongside many smaller developers.
Hubble is in the wrong place - it is inoperable for half the time, since the earth blocks its view as it orbits...
Not necessarily true. Hubble is in orbit at a fairly shallow inclination (28 degrees). Picture the Solar System--the Sun and Earth-Moon system are all in the same 'horizontal' plane; Hubble's orbit is slanted about thirty degrees from that, but still pretty close. Pointing 'up' or 'down' out of that plane, neither Sun, Moon, nor Earth ever enters its field of view.
approach to fighting crime. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)
(x) Criminals can easily use it to locate targets ( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money ( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks (x) It will stop crime for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it (x) Society will not put up with it ( ) Microsoft will not put up with it ( ) The police will not put up with it (x) Requires too much cooperation from criminals (x) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once (x) Government cannot afford to alienate potential voters (x) Anyone could pseudonymously destroy anyone else's career or business
Specifically, your plan fails to account for
( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it (x) Lack of centrally controlling authority for RFID (x) Foreign sources of custom RFID tags (x) Ease of phishing for tags addresses (x) Asshats (x) Jurisdictional problems (x) Unpopularity of weird new implants ( ) Huge investment in existing enforcement methods (x) Areas without RFID sensors ( ) Willingness of users to implant RFID tags received by mail (x) Eternal arms race involved in all monitoring approaches (x) Extreme profitability of crime (x) Joe jobs and/or identity theft (x) Technically illiterate politicians ( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with criminals (x) Dishonesty on the part of criminals themselves ( ) Outlook
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
(x) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been shown practical ( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable ( ) Blacklists suck ( ) Whitelists suck ( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud ( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks (x) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually (x) Walking about should be free (x) Why should we have to trust you and your monitoring agents? (x) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses:D (x) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem (x) I don't want the government watching everywhere I go (x) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough
Furthermore, this is what I think about you:
(x) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work. ( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it. ( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!
For all the folks that are wondering aloud about whether or not the scambaiters are vulnerable to a lawsuit for taking the scammers' $80, you can rest easy.
A court will not award damages to a party that has 'unclean hands'. The scammers are attempting to negotiate a contract by which they have no itention of abiding--indeed, by which they cannot abide (they don't have eighteen billion dollars, now do they?)--and which would be illegal even if they could carry through their promises. Loosely speaking, the terms: Scammer gives Baiter $80, Baiter gives Scammer $18000, Scammer gives Baiter $millions.
Consequently, the doctrine of clean hands (Link, Link) would tend to preclude successful legal action by the scammers. No court would enforce the contract, and trying to get the original $80 back would expose the scammer to far more costs and probably criminal prosecution.
Terry Pratchett, in one of his inimitable footnotes (from the novel Hogfather), presents the following philosophical fable.
'Possibly the gods exist, and possibly they do not. So why not believe in them in any case? If it's all true you'll go to a lovely place when you die, and if it isn't then you've lost nothing, right?' When he died he woke up in a circle of gods holding nasty-looking sticks and one of them said, 'We're going to show you what we think of Mr. Clever Dick in these parts...'
I say speak the language of the country you're living in. It's official language, and properly as best you can.
This bi,tri-lingual shiz really gets annoying to a great many people. If you live here, speak "American" please! If not, at least get your green card/citizenship before you bitch about things!
Hm. Why does it get annoying? Some other people speak other languages. Shrug. Worried about the cost of offering government services in other languages? Yep--it costs money. Probably would cost more money to leave people sick and cold if doctors, lawyers, shopkeepers, and teachers decided not to speak to them.
A lot of countries are successfully bi- and even tri-lingual (in that all government business is conducted in all of the 'official' langauges) while providing support where appropriate in dozens of other languages.
Also, a great many people for whom English is not a first language may well have green cards or full citizenship. They should be perfectly welcome to petition the government to fund multilingual services--there are lots of English-speaking special interest groups that receive funding for their pet projects; most of those are probably quite a bit smaller than the number of speakers of Spanish, or Cantonese, or French in the United States.
Even if they speak functional English, many people may be more comfortable conducting business or dealing with the government in their first language. I can write legibly with my left hand, but I know that for important documents I want to use my right--this is a similar situation. Similarly, I can muddle through government documents in French (I live in Canada) but I much prefer the English version. If I were an immigrant, I'd hope that I could do things like apply for a drivers' license or ask about income taxes in my own language, just to be sure that I correctly understood the rules.
What is "American"? In some parts of the United States, large areas probably speak more Spanish than English--should services in English be optional? Should service in Spanish be forbidden, since the majority of the country speaks English? Should we consider it hypocritical to criticize regimes elsewhere that deliberately suppress minority languages and cultures if such a policy were brought forth?
Incidentally, the first sentence quoted contains several grammatical errors, including the ever-popular superfluous apostrophe in the possessive its. I presume that the parent poster is a native speaker of English, who has been educated in that langauge and immersed in its use since birth. If the parent still doesn't use the English language correctly, is it fair to expect its exclusive and immediate adoption by all new immigrants?
Note that there's no limitation of that clause to software derived from the licensed one, which IMHO means as soon as I accepted this license for a specific piece of software, I'm entitled to use all the licensor's patents covering that code freely in any project, even those not derived from this (i.e. basically the licensor is completely opening up the patents used in that code).
Actually, this seems to be implicit in the GPL as well. If you license under GPL a program that contains a patented algorithm, then presuming you have the authority to use said patent in the first place then you've effectively freed the patent for use by anyone for any purpose who acquires a copy of the GPLd software.
All of the following steps are kosher under GPL (as long as the products are also GPLd), are they not?
Extract the function which uses the patented algorithm;
Insert that function into another GPLd program;
Change the variable names;
Clean up the implementation, tweak for new usage.
Presto. Writing code that implements the patented algorithm from scratch has the same net effect as carrying out the steps listed above. Therefore the patented algorithm is effectively free in the wild, as long as it's part of GPLd software.
Think about what you're saying. Everybody's statements should be evaluated carefully, not based on their personal bias, but based on the logic of the statements themselves. If you disregard a person's statements because of who they are, then you're not listening to them.
Actually, I think personal bias is something that should always be considered. For individuals with a personal interest (financial or political), it is as important to listen to what they are not saying as to what they are saying.
I agree wholeheartedly that statements should be evaluated on their own logical and factual merits, but that doesn't go nearly far enough. By selectively emphasizing or omitting information, and through careful choice of words, it is possible to present completely factual statements that are nevertheless entirely misleading.
My own training is in the sciences, so I'm particularly sensitive to media use and abuse of scientific concepts. The ever-popular Dihydrogen Monoxide parodies ("It's in your water at very high concentrations!" "Inhalation of DHMO leads to rapid asphyxiation!" "Dihydrogen Monoxide is found in all malignant tumours!" "The Federal Government refuses to limit DHMO in foods!") are disturbingly close to the scare tactics used by opponents of water fluoridation or genetically modified organisms. Because I'm familiar with the background, and because I know to check original, peer-reviewed sources, I see the holes.
Richard Dreyfuss may well feel very strongly about the issue of regulating indecency on the air. Nevertheless, the cynic in me wants to check on a few things. Who drafted the statement? Who vetted it? Was he encouraged to prepare it? What isn't being said?
I agree with you that they're taking advantage of the free publicity, but if you attack their argument on that basis, what you have in an "ad hominem" falacy, which means YOUR argument holds no water.
Oops...now you're making a logical slip. Even if an individual makes an apparent ad hominem attack, it does not mean that the position he or she has taken is factually faulty.
In this case, it is quite appropriate to evaluate the biases of the speaker. Is there a genuine chilling effect, or is this hype to push the show? Would the FCC ever come down hard on PBS, particularly on a first offence?
By bleeping three phrases, the show's mouthpieces get an opportunity to spout off to the press about the trampling of their freedoms...and coincidentally get to mention their all-new so-hot-they-had-to-censor-it series, airing tonight on PBS! Remember, what is being presented is the opinion of a speaker and an organization--it is entirely correct to consider the biases of the individuals and groups that put forth that opinion.
So, to summarize...
Ad hominem attack: Richard Dreyfuss' opinion on the FCC and indecency statutes should be ignored because he is an actor and in it for the money.
Not ad hominem attack: Richard Dreyfuss' statements concerning the FCC should be evaluated carefully in the context of the pressure to promote his show and increase viewership.
In addition to my mentioned head injuries, I've broken my elbow, wrist, 10 ribs (at various times of course) my jaw, my right foot (twice) a couple of fingers and toes and had my knees so tore up I'm 33 and looking at knee replacments...
Have you seen the movie The Shawshank Redemption? Tommy is a fairly young man who has been convicted once again for breaking and entering. After relating the tale of his most recent arrest, and describing how he had served time all over the state, the protagonist Andy asks him a question.
Andy Dufresne: Maybe you should try a new career. Tommy: What's that? Andy: I said, since you don't have much success as a thief, you should try a new career. Tommy: Oh, yeah? Well, what do you know about it Al Capone?
I mean, I'm glad you've found a hobby that you enjoy, but maybe if you've broken most of the bones in your body, crippled your knees, and nearly killed yourself more than once...it might be time to consider a sport that's a little safer. Skydiving, for example. Cheers!:)
No one has time to watch all their favorite shows whenever they want, and many people would rather fork over 10 bucks a month to downoa their favorite shows than fork over a few hundred upfront for a PVR.
You missed one--people would also rather pay 10 bucks per month to watch their favourite shows...instead of coughing up thirty, fifty, or a hundred bucks per month to pay for all the specialty cable or satellite channels.
Whether the studios, networks, and cable providers would be willing to play under those circumstances is an open question, of course.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, such devices are very easy to construct and operate:
I will forego the traditional (5) Profit!!! step, since it should seem obvious.You're thinking of von Braun's design for the Nova. Although ostensibly for the Moon program, von Braun wanted a rocket that would eventually be able to put astronauts on Mars. There's a ton of good information here; I've summarized the most important bits below.
Kennedy's 1961 challenge to NASA ruled out the construction of a Nova-class Moon rocket--NASA felt that there wouldn't be time to construct the specialized facilities required to build such a rocket. The size of the Saturn V was limited by the size of the existing construction facilities in Michaud, Louisiana.
The name Nova was, however, assigned to the class of rockets that were to succeed the Saturn V; unfortunately none of these rockets ever made it off the drawing board.
Also, he didn't mod himself up, so someone must agree with him...
But what am I doing debating accountability with someone who is posting AC?
That's 'cuz you misspelled 'beleaguered'. :D
Sure. There's an absolutely incredible amount of potential energy in a Red Hat disc. To harness this energy, you will require:
All Linux distros seem to store roughly the same amount of energy--probably due to the common kernel code. I have not reviewed BSD products at this point, though I may investigate them after I find my eyebrows.Er, no.
If I tried to sneak a gun past security (now, or five years ago) I'd go to prison for it, even if I waved my 'journalist' card. Should potential hijackers get a free pass because they happen to write articles for the Podunk Gazette? Come on...
'Officer, I wasn't stealing this car for real. I'm just writing an article on the poor security of the Ford Mustang...'
'Officer, I wasn't really robbing the bank. I was just researching an article on defective dye packs...'
On the other hand, some people like the 'city' lifestyle. Many individuals probably find it less jarring to move from New York or San Francisco to Toronto or Montreal than to West Virginia.
You still get theatres, museums, cultural events, nightlife, and public transit--and you get to pay for all of it in Canadian dollars. As a bonus, you get lower crime and smaller rents.
Actually, if your workforce is happy living in the suburbs, then their cost of living gets even lower, just as in the United States. Sure, you could move to Tennessee, but you could just as easily move to Manitoba.
I reiterate that the NYT does not require additional marketing to gain visibility or name recognition--their market is already familiar with their product. I note that we can use the acronym NYT without explanation on Slashdot (not just in this particular thread, either) without confusing anybody. They already have visibility on the web--just not an elevated PageRank for their stories.
Sure, they might sell a few more photos--but at what cost? Right now, they're pulling in something like $20 million per year from Lexis-Nexis for access to archived content. If they open up their archives online, they're setting themselves up for a per-year cost in bandwidth and storage, plus giving up their deals with Lexis-Nexis and others. Just to break even, they'd have to sell (roughly) an additional quarter million of those $95 photos--something I just don't see happening.
If they wanted to spend $20 million per year on a project to increase their visibility, then they could just take out several full-page ads in...themselves. (It would take about a year of weekday full-page ads to exhaust the full amount.)
But neither would they exist without the public arena to obtain news and to sell newspapers.
Actually, you inadvertently raise another good point. As a successful business earning healthy revenues from the sale of its archived content (among other sources) the New York Times also pays local, state, and federal taxes. It also uses some of its revenue to hire reporters and photographers all over the world.
Yes, they make some money while they're at it. That's because they're perceived as being good at what they do, and aside from a few missteps the Times generally seems to give value for the money.
Finally, they do give something away to the community: free online access to their current content.
To suggest that the Times owes us all their content free online because they wouldn't exist without the modern world strikes me as a tad disingenuous. I'm hard-pressed to think of any business that could exist in anything close to its present form without the public area of our society.
Is the Times going to throw away tens of millions of dollars in fees from organizations like Lexis-Nexis in exchange for a) a higher Google PageRank, and b) a warm fuzzy feeling?
They're not a publically funded organization; they're free to do as they see fit with their content. They certainly don't owe it to the rest of us to give away their product for free, indefinitely, just because we want them to.
We may not like their business model, but it's difficult to assert that it is a failure.
Just because a business could offer a service, doesn't mean that they're required to do so.
They might also face restrictions imposed by the original source of the photo--they might have purchased it from another news source or an independent photographer with certain limits on redistribution or resale.
Finally, the parent has implied that he/she wouldn't be willing to pay very much for the photo anyway--he/she just wants a low-res image to show someone for fun. Why would the Times want to spend all kinds of money and deal with all the technical hassles of providing a service to people who won't buy anything anyway?
They're the New York Times--they don't need to give away archived content for goodwill or brand recognition. What do they gain by making that archive available?
Sometimes regulation is a good thing. This is why my landline has five nines of reliability. Lack of regulation contributed to last summer's east coast blackout.
Downtime reports accessible to the public (at least in the aggregate by city, say, if not by cell) might also give the buying public the ability to make better-informed decisions. Right now, we're stuck working with anecdotal evidence at best. With this information, I can say to myself, "Company X is up 97% of the time, while Company Y is up 99.5%. Now I know why X is cheaper." I can make decisions based on real data, rather than, "My brother's roommate told me that his cell service seems to be down all the time."
To suggest that reporting on outages is an onerous task that will put the 'little guys' out of business is a red herring. One cell tower costs how much--anybody?--more money than I make in a year, certainly. Further, I imagine that there are very few companies that operate just one cell. Any company that owns towers already will have regulatory compliance people who work full time to comply with FCC rules and shepherd paperwork. If someone has to spend a couple days writing software to automatically compile outage reports, it's a drop in the bucket.
they buy $800 hammers and expect to be able to dictate how to run a successful company? please.
First, the government isn't trying to nationalize the cell phone companies--in question here is having them report on their service. Second, how many times does the myth of the $800 hammer have to be debunked? Briefly, it was $600 in the news reports, and $435 on paper. $420 of that was an accounting artifact--the details were published here at least five years ago. So the $800 hammer actually was fifteen dollars.
I gather that very expensive hammers are also occasionally purchased for special applications. In certain environments, you want a hammer that is light, durable, non-sparking, and non-magnetic, and that sort of thing can legitimately cost a lot of money.
Well, hooo-kay then, how did she activate it without her credit card, which was presumably back in her purse as well?
This is the problem with many conspiracy theories--they ask such simple, obvious questions, that clearly point to no rational explanation besides conspiracy.
Er, no. First of all, you're begging the question of whether or not the stewardess in question actually had no access to her credit card. How about this--if I were a steward(ess), I'd realize that carrying a purse or backpack while I worked was impractical. I'd also realize that I was travelling all over the country, and that I might end up staying in a strange city on any given night (weather diversion, mechanical trouble, etc.). Lastly, I might realize that my purse/bag/backpack could be stolen while I'm off at the other end of the plane, and I might not know about it until after the passengers were long gone.
What would I do in such a situation? I'd stuff my driver's license, a credit card, and (especially for international flights) my passport into the pocket of my uniform where they would be easy for me to keep track of. I wouldn't carry my phone on me, because a)it's bulkier than the cards, and b)I'm not allowed to use it on the plane anyway.
For that matter, the stewardess could have just borrowed a card from someone seated near the phones. If the plane I was on was hijacked, I wouldn't begrudge someone a few minutes of toll charges.
The question of debris is addressed by a well-written sibling post. Briefly, a struggle for control in the cockpit could easily result in deliberate or accidental rapid maneouvres that result in greater-than-design stresses on the airframe. Consequently, bits shake loose. If you stomp on the rudder pedal of an airliner while flying at anything close to cruising speed, you're going to rip stuff off. (Think about what would happen to your car if you turned the steering wheel abruptly all the way to the right while on the Interstate.)
If those are the best of the 'hundred unanswered questions' and 'strange incongruities', then I'm afraid it's a pretty weak conspiracy. Hint: lack of information does not necessarily mean conspiracy--sometimes it just means that we can't get all of the information.
I don't know--if an OSS programmer writes something that is hard to use, two things will happen:
1. People will complain. Long and loud.
2. People will write patches or offer constructive criticism.
Some developers will design solid UIs from the start, requiring only minor tweaks. Some will create freakish monstrosities requiring many iterations and possibly a fork to fix. Some programs will remain unspeakably awful, probably because nobody needs their functionality enough to use them and demand repairs.
Remember, this sort of thing happens with closed-source proprietary products, too. IBM and Microsoft are well represented in the Interface Hall of Shame alongside many smaller developers.
Not necessarily true. Hubble is in orbit at a fairly shallow inclination (28 degrees). Picture the Solar System--the Sun and Earth-Moon system are all in the same 'horizontal' plane; Hubble's orbit is slanted about thirty degrees from that, but still pretty close. Pointing 'up' or 'down' out of that plane, neither Sun, Moon, nor Earth ever enters its field of view.
Your post advocates a
:D
(x) technical ( ) legislative ( ) market-based ( ) vigilante
approach to fighting crime. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)
(x) Criminals can easily use it to locate targets
( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
(x) It will stop crime for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
(x) Society will not put up with it
( ) Microsoft will not put up with it
( ) The police will not put up with it
(x) Requires too much cooperation from criminals
(x) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
(x) Government cannot afford to alienate potential voters
(x) Anyone could pseudonymously destroy anyone else's career or business
Specifically, your plan fails to account for
( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
(x) Lack of centrally controlling authority for RFID
(x) Foreign sources of custom RFID tags
(x) Ease of phishing for tags addresses
(x) Asshats
(x) Jurisdictional problems
(x) Unpopularity of weird new implants
( ) Huge investment in existing enforcement methods
(x) Areas without RFID sensors
( ) Willingness of users to implant RFID tags received by mail
(x) Eternal arms race involved in all monitoring approaches
(x) Extreme profitability of crime
(x) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
(x) Technically illiterate politicians
( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with criminals
(x) Dishonesty on the part of criminals themselves
( ) Outlook
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
(x) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been shown practical
( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
( ) Blacklists suck
( ) Whitelists suck
( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
(x) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
(x) Walking about should be free
(x) Why should we have to trust you and your monitoring agents?
(x) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
(x) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
(x) I don't want the government watching everywhere I go
(x) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough
Furthermore, this is what I think about you:
(x) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!
A court will not award damages to a party that has 'unclean hands'. The scammers are attempting to negotiate a contract by which they have no itention of abiding--indeed, by which they cannot abide (they don't have eighteen billion dollars, now do they?)--and which would be illegal even if they could carry through their promises. Loosely speaking, the terms: Scammer gives Baiter $80, Baiter gives Scammer $18000, Scammer gives Baiter $millions.
Consequently, the doctrine of clean hands (Link, Link) would tend to preclude successful legal action by the scammers. No court would enforce the contract, and trying to get the original $80 back would expose the scammer to far more costs and probably criminal prosecution.
Terry Pratchett, in one of his inimitable footnotes (from the novel Hogfather), presents the following philosophical fable.
This bi,tri-lingual shiz really gets annoying to a great many people. If you live here, speak "American" please! If not, at least get your green card/citizenship before you bitch about things!
Hm. Why does it get annoying? Some other people speak other languages. Shrug. Worried about the cost of offering government services in other languages? Yep--it costs money. Probably would cost more money to leave people sick and cold if doctors, lawyers, shopkeepers, and teachers decided not to speak to them.
A lot of countries are successfully bi- and even tri-lingual (in that all government business is conducted in all of the 'official' langauges) while providing support where appropriate in dozens of other languages.
Also, a great many people for whom English is not a first language may well have green cards or full citizenship. They should be perfectly welcome to petition the government to fund multilingual services--there are lots of English-speaking special interest groups that receive funding for their pet projects; most of those are probably quite a bit smaller than the number of speakers of Spanish, or Cantonese, or French in the United States.
Even if they speak functional English, many people may be more comfortable conducting business or dealing with the government in their first language. I can write legibly with my left hand, but I know that for important documents I want to use my right--this is a similar situation. Similarly, I can muddle through government documents in French (I live in Canada) but I much prefer the English version. If I were an immigrant, I'd hope that I could do things like apply for a drivers' license or ask about income taxes in my own language, just to be sure that I correctly understood the rules.
What is "American"? In some parts of the United States, large areas probably speak more Spanish than English--should services in English be optional? Should service in Spanish be forbidden, since the majority of the country speaks English? Should we consider it hypocritical to criticize regimes elsewhere that deliberately suppress minority languages and cultures if such a policy were brought forth?
Incidentally, the first sentence quoted contains several grammatical errors, including the ever-popular superfluous apostrophe in the possessive its. I presume that the parent poster is a native speaker of English, who has been educated in that langauge and immersed in its use since birth. If the parent still doesn't use the English language correctly, is it fair to expect its exclusive and immediate adoption by all new immigrants?
Actually, this seems to be implicit in the GPL as well. If you license under GPL a program that contains a patented algorithm, then presuming you have the authority to use said patent in the first place then you've effectively freed the patent for use by anyone for any purpose who acquires a copy of the GPLd software.
All of the following steps are kosher under GPL (as long as the products are also GPLd), are they not?
Presto. Writing code that implements the patented algorithm from scratch has the same net effect as carrying out the steps listed above. Therefore the patented algorithm is effectively free in the wild, as long as it's part of GPLd software.Actually, I think personal bias is something that should always be considered. For individuals with a personal interest (financial or political), it is as important to listen to what they are not saying as to what they are saying.
I agree wholeheartedly that statements should be evaluated on their own logical and factual merits, but that doesn't go nearly far enough. By selectively emphasizing or omitting information, and through careful choice of words, it is possible to present completely factual statements that are nevertheless entirely misleading.
My own training is in the sciences, so I'm particularly sensitive to media use and abuse of scientific concepts. The ever-popular Dihydrogen Monoxide parodies ("It's in your water at very high concentrations!" "Inhalation of DHMO leads to rapid asphyxiation!" "Dihydrogen Monoxide is found in all malignant tumours!" "The Federal Government refuses to limit DHMO in foods!") are disturbingly close to the scare tactics used by opponents of water fluoridation or genetically modified organisms. Because I'm familiar with the background, and because I know to check original, peer-reviewed sources, I see the holes.
Richard Dreyfuss may well feel very strongly about the issue of regulating indecency on the air. Nevertheless, the cynic in me wants to check on a few things. Who drafted the statement? Who vetted it? Was he encouraged to prepare it? What isn't being said?
Oops...now you're making a logical slip. Even if an individual makes an apparent ad hominem attack, it does not mean that the position he or she has taken is factually faulty.
In this case, it is quite appropriate to evaluate the biases of the speaker. Is there a genuine chilling effect, or is this hype to push the show? Would the FCC ever come down hard on PBS, particularly on a first offence?
By bleeping three phrases, the show's mouthpieces get an opportunity to spout off to the press about the trampling of their freedoms...and coincidentally get to mention their all-new so-hot-they-had-to-censor-it series, airing tonight on PBS! Remember, what is being presented is the opinion of a speaker and an organization--it is entirely correct to consider the biases of the individuals and groups that put forth that opinion.
So, to summarize...
Ad hominem attack: Richard Dreyfuss' opinion on the FCC and indecency statutes should be ignored because he is an actor and in it for the money.
Not ad hominem attack: Richard Dreyfuss' statements concerning the FCC should be evaluated carefully in the context of the pressure to promote his show and increase viewership.
(Score: -1, Didn't get joke)
Have you seen the movie The Shawshank Redemption? Tommy is a fairly young man who has been convicted once again for breaking and entering. After relating the tale of his most recent arrest, and describing how he had served time all over the state, the protagonist Andy asks him a question.
I mean, I'm glad you've found a hobby that you enjoy, but maybe if you've broken most of the bones in your body, crippled your knees, and nearly killed yourself more than once...it might be time to consider a sport that's a little safer. Skydiving, for example. Cheers!You missed one--people would also rather pay 10 bucks per month to watch their favourite shows...instead of coughing up thirty, fifty, or a hundred bucks per month to pay for all the specialty cable or satellite channels.
Whether the studios, networks, and cable providers would be willing to play under those circumstances is an open question, of course.