I'm not so sure about that... technically, Enter the Matrix isn't so hot. There's nothing in it that hasn't been done before, but it still sells. It's got a world-wide recognizable franchise behind it, and enough hype to go to Saturn and back. It's still a one-dimensional game... you're a good guy with guns and you shoot the bad guys with guns, or you pummel them into submission.
Duke Nukem Forever could be a good game when/if it comes out, and still make money. Or, it could be an absolutely fantastic display of modern technology with a great cast, excellent story, and exemplory gameplay and become a fan-favorite that makes tons of money on its release, and only gets more as time goes on. I'm betting on the former...
Do you have a job? I would guess not, but if so, do you have to DO anything in that job? In my job, if I tell the people that pay my salary that I'm going to do XYZ, and if I don't do it, I no longer have a job. 3D Realms hasn't released ONE SINGLE GAME since Shadow Warrior in 1996 (I think it was 96), and EVEN THEN, they had someone else do most of the development.
We're all pissed off at 3DR because you're exactly right! They haven't said anything in years! I have no problem if they say the game will be done "when it's done", but don't tell me that that time will be 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, or 2002 unless you're sure you can guess within a year or so. It's been S-E-V-E-N years since Duke Nukem 3D. Half-Life wasn't out then... the 3D Acceleration revolution hadn't happened... your computer was probably about 100mhz, and your video card might have had 512kb of ram on it, if it had any at all.
And before you say anything, no, I don't think 3D Realms OWES me anything. I think they owe Take Two something, specifically Duke Nukem Forever. Take Two has been hyping this game and releasing marketing materials based off information they got from 3D Realms... now they're pissed because they've been spending so much money on marketing a product that now has the longest development schedule in the long, sad history of overdue video games. Daikatana didn't even take 7 years!
The way I see it, NetFlix has been setting themselves up for the past few years in a fantastic position to be the first video-on-demand company, when the technology permits. Imagine it from their point of view... You have hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of customers who are generally satisfied with you. Now there's this new-fangled technology that lets people (*gasp*) download movies to their computer for a limited time (for the first week... until the hackers and crackers of the world break that encryption too) and you can watch it immediately! All of a sudden, you have people that own computers, are willing to pay at least $20 a month to you, and who love movies, all waiting at your website for the next video-on-demand title that comes out. From my perspective, it looks like they've been planning it for a long time... and it looks like an excellent plan.
The last place I worked had the grand plan of becoming just barely large enough to blip in the radar of the "big boys", then sell out, make the owners rich and screw the employees (unless the "big boys" needed more people). It's really sad that people don't have bigger asperations than to just annoy a larger company into purchasing them. That being said, I don't think NetFlix had that goal in mind when they started. They probably did what most successful businesses do when they start... they saw a demand (or potential demand), and came up with a good way to distribute the supply (supplied the supply just doesn't sound right). Also, it would be prudent to mention that in this case, NetFlix is the incumbent, and Walmart is the challenger. NetFlix already has a customer-base and a good reputation. Walmart is hated in some circles simply because it's a large company (not in my circle, but I know people that will only go to Ma-and-Pa shops).
Technically (and you WILL NEED to get technical), IT professionals with salaries are exempt. The $27.63 per hour only comes into effect if the person is paid hourly. HOWEVER, there's still hope. The company you work for must have employees engaged in commerce (sale of goods or services) and had gross sales volume of over $500,000 in order for the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to apply.
Second, your primary duty (assuming you're an IT person), must be:
The application of systems analysis techniques and procedures, including consulting with users, to determine hardware, software, or system functional specifications)
The design, development, documentation, analysis, creating, testing, or modification of computer systems or programs, including prototypes, based on and related to user or system design specifications.
The design, documentation, testing, creating, or modification of computer programs related to machine operating systems.
A combination of duties described above.
For those of you who are wondering, that basically means System Analysts, Software Engineer, or Programmer. It does NOT include telephone technical support or a "senior network administrator / project manager (see this article on pages 4 and 9... sorry, no direct link to the opinion letter, although if you get a copy of it, let me know).
To fit the Computer Exemption, secondary duties can NOT take up more than 20% (or 40% for "service establishments") of your time. For the Management Exemption, you must supervise at least 2 employees, have the authority to hire or fire people (or make recommendations that carry weight), and not spend more than 20% or 40% (see above) of your time on secondary duties.
I was burned by my last employer, and I'm looking to get him back... so I've done lots of homework about this kind of thing. If you're interested in any of the documents I have, or have anything to offer, my e-mail address is netadm2000@hotmail.com.
3G, 2.5G, 4G, 18G... Je(pun intended)sus, how many G's can a human being take before his brain is squashed into the size of a pee in the back of his skull?
There are a few posts about specific unused IP's being stolen, while the used ones went on working as normal... is that what happened, or did what's-his-name in Northern California take over the whole class C, similar to taking over a domain? If it was the latter, I'm surprised nobody's tried it before... given that it's really not extremely difficult to move a domain from one person to another, it can't be too hard to do the same for a block of IP's.
So is it certain IP's that weren't being used, or a large block of IP's that were just read internally from the servers and directed to where the servers thought they should go?
NO, NO, NO!!! The idea of passing laws is not so the government can turn a profit. The idea of laws is to protect the rights of citizens. You don't make rape legal just because prosecuting rapists isn't a profit center for the government.
I never said anything about the government turning a profit on those kinds of laws. I said it would be too costly, and the rest of the country shouldn't have to pay for little annoyances that good parents should be able to take care of.
Let's say that you had no law against junk faxes and that, as a result of it being legal, every fax owner received an average of 50 of junk faxes per day. What is the cost to those owners for paper, toner/ink, and wear and tear on their fax machines to each receive over 18,000 pages of junk faxes per year?
Well, given that each ream of paper holds 500 sheets, and a box of reams holds 8-10 reams, that comes to around 4000 - 5000 sheets per box. Each box is around $30. So, assuming you get the grand total of 50 junk faxes per day (which I doubt) then 18,000 would cost about $120, worst case scenario. Also, assuming that each page is 5% covered in black ink, and the ink cartridge is $100 (assuming that the cartridge can print 8000 pages at 5% coverage, as is now basically standard on any relatively large-scale fax machine / printer), then you're looking at the grand total of $45 worth of ink for the year. The equation is ((Cost per cartridge / (Percent of average coverage X number of pages per cartridge)) X total number of pages throughout the year... In this case, (($100 / (5 X 8000)) X 18,000. Now, how many fax machines in the country, on average? Maybe 10,000,000, if that? So, you're talking about $145,000,000 worth of junk faxes per year. Not a bad total, IF each one gets 50 junk faxes a day. How much does it cost to pass a law and keep the paperwork going? Over $145,000,000 for the first year? I don't know... My point was that the cost for junk faxes and junk e-mail to the economy is lower than the cost of having the government intervene and create more laws. I'm absolutely sure you completely missed that point in my previous post. Take a minute to consider it...
I don't want to hear of you filing a lawsuit against anyone for anything after that remark. If your kids are injured because of defective playground equipment, no lawsuits. If a plumber burns down your house by not being careful when soldering, you don't sue him. If a drunk driver kills or maims a member of your family, no court cases.
I never said there was anything wrong with using the court system. I just think there are too many laws to parent FOR people. Why is talking to your child so difficult now? Who tells your kids about sex? Who tells them about drugs? Who tells them about smoking? All three of those are being usurped by the government so the biological PARENTS don't have to.
In the two examples you gave, the people doing their jobs aren't interfering with my family or my ability as a parent. They screwed up in THEIR jobs, and should have to pay for it. It's quite a bit different when someone else does your job and you have to pay for it (IE, the government doing your parental duties, but you dealing with your discipline-lacking child).
What we are paying for is spam and one reason that we are paying for so much of it is because people like you get up in arms every time someone discusses anti-spam legislation. According to a Ferris Research report released in December of last year, spam costs U.S. businesses $8.9 billion per year -- and that figure is going up.
Really? $8.9 Billion? Wow... sounds like a great opportunity for a NEW INDUSTRY devoted to stopping spam! And there's no laws necessary! I could start a company that makes ANTI-SPAM software and sell it! If it's good software, I can sell it for $100, and after I sell thousands of copies, no more cost to the economy... instead, I'll create jobs for programmers and R&D people and give them large salaries, which they can
Concerning your argument about faxes... How many individuals had fax machines in 1991, let alone businesses? I'm sure it wasn't over my estimate of 100 million e-mail addresses in this country alone (and that's probably a VERY conservative estimate). Because of the TCPA law, how many lawsuits were filed?
What you need to do is take the amount of money that's coming in from fines, subtract the amount of overhead for creating the law (salaries, paperwork, time, etc.) and see how well that law is REALLY doing. Then, take the total number of now-illegal faxes that occured in 1990, and divide that into the number of lawsuits / fines that occured in 1992 (give it a year, just in case), and you should have an adequate ratio of faxes:fines. Now, take that ratio and apply it to e-mail. Let's say you have 1 million junk faxes, and only 1000 fines. That give us a ratio of 1:1000. Applied to e-mail, if we estimate an incredibly conservative number of 100 million, that means it'll be around 100,000 lawsuits and fines. If there's a $500 fine, similar to the fax law, that's $500,000. Let's just increase that to $50,000,000, just for argument's sake. Do you really think $50 million is enough to pass a law and keep the paperwork and everything for it active for a year? Maybe it'll interest you to know that the federal budget is in the TRILLIONS of dollars...
It's fairly obvious that you see the court system as your personal savior, and that's fine if it works for you. I prefer to be my own judge of what's acceptable and not acceptable to me and my family. The only real difference is that I pay for my own judgments, and the rest of the country pays for yours.
Well, let me ask you this... in the long run, what's more harmful for the child, out of the following choices:
1. The child sees a sexual act in a spam message, and you, being the responsible, intelligent and loving parent you are, explain to them what they're seeing, and how it's morally right or wrong.
Or...
2. The government steps in and makes spam e-mail illegal because there's no viable solution for checking the age of an e-mail recipient before sending the message. Given how government generally operates, it should only be 3-5 years before snail-mail junk is outlawed also, leading to several hundreds (if not thousands) of lawsuits within a year. After that, probably another 2-3 years until someone comes up with the idea that since they don't approve of some e-mail or snail-mail they're getting, it's offensive and unwanted, therefore, must be spam... leading to more legislation defining the term "spam" and "unwanted commercial e-mail", eventually leading to the breakdown of even more of individual's basic human rights, especially Freedom of Speech, Press, and (although not specifically mentioned in the Constitution), Privacy. (My sig has particular relevance here.)
Granted, I'm not going to run aroun showing dirty pictures to kids, but in the grand scheme of things, there are only 2 groups of people that can do anything about it -- government, and IT. We're the IT, so let's try to come up with a solution before the government starts.
Does the field still prohibit any natural force acting upon it to move through or damage it? If so, then it's effective a force field... and it would seem that it does, given that it can hold back air from a vacuum (which qualifies as a "force"). Nobody cares about the technical definition of the terms "force field" or "plasma field". They care about whether they could make a door that sound won't pass through (2 of these fields with a vacuum in the middle) but you could see through and walk through (given that 15000 degrees Kelvin wouldn't harm you... read the rest of the comments by people far more knowledgable than I in matters of physics).
Here's my question: Does it have to be completely surrounded by some kind of magnetic/copper thingamabob (too lazy to look it up right now)? By "completely surrounded", I mean X, Y, and Z Axis? Or, is it only necessary to surround it on 2 dimensions, X and Y? If only 2 dimensions are necessary, then the applications for this are almost too numerous to mention. Sound-proof walls, doors, windows (that never open or shut... rather just turn off), Star Trekie type inventions, etc. Depending on how cheaply they can reproduce a field, we could be seeing these types of devices practically everywhere. Suddenly I don't think Star Trek is too far fetched...
I never played Phantasy Star 1 or 2, but I bought 3, and to this day, it's one of my all-time favorite RPG's. You started with 1 person, played through about 1/4 - 1/3 of the game, then picked a wife from the women in your party, had a child, then played the kid (after he grew up a bit) through another 1/4 - 1/3 of the game... then did the same thing over again. There were 7 possible lead-characters with 4 possible endings, depending on which lead character you were. I played through it for 3 of them, but never got around to the fourth.
One of the other things I liked about it was the story. I won't ruin it for anyone who hasn't played it, but in the third generation (after you get married and have kids twice), you realize that your "world" isn't at all what you thought it was... so afterwards, you play through it again to see if it all fits, and yes, it does.
I would absolutely LOVE it if they made a remake of Phantasy Star 3 for the PS2 (or even PS3, whenever it comes out)... but they'd have to put a lot of time and effort into it... not one of those Final Fantasy "remakes" that turns out to be a cinematic opening and a cinematic closing, with the same graphics, sounds, badly-translated dialogue, etc. in between. Then again, I'd also love to see a Metal Gear 1 and 2 (not Solid) remake...
Lord of the Rings is so popular because it's so detailed and complex. JRR Tolkien INVENTED several languages just so he could use phrases here and there in reference in the books, and all put together, including The Hobbit and the Silmarillion, there aren't even 2000 pages worth. It's the same reason the Dune series is so popular. Frank Herbert seemed to actually like in the Dune universe, and could convey thoughts, actions, visions, conversations, etc. that happened in that universe to a degree that very, very few authors can.
I won't deny that the Riftwar Saga by Raymond Feist is an excellent Fantasy series, but I personally don't think it holds a candle to LOTR. My reason is simple: I haven't read all of them. In fact, I haven't read any of them. I read half-way through the first book, and lost interest... and I'm pretty faithful about finishing books (and series) that I start.
I should also mention that the book "Magician" was originally published in one hard-back novel, but was split into 2 books when they went to paperback. They are called "Magician: Apprentice" and "Magician: Master".
And you'll do that in the time it takes for the police to hand the warrant to you, walk in and take your computer? Chances are that if you're in their sights, you're going down in one way or another. Unfortunate, really... As far as I know, there is no law to enforce a large company to continue getting profits when they refuse to cooperate with the public.
There doesn't need to be any Pro-RIAA realots to release fake files... The RIAA itself does it. For starters, look up whatever popular CD that is supposed to be released a few weeks from now, then go to Amazon to get the track list, then do a search on Kazaa for those tracks. Chances are, you'll get some track of an interview, or the chorus sung over and over for 4 minutes, like they did with Eminem's Without Me, or Linkin Park's new album, Meteora.
It depends on how far they want to go. It's relatively difficult to completely wipe a hard drive clean, especially for 99.9% of the people that download songs off Kazaa.
When you delete a file, you're not really removing that file's existence from your hard drive. You're telling the operating system (or the file system... whatever) that the file should no longer be linked, and to consider that space available for writing. Then, the next time you try to save something, the operating system writes over the area that the deleted file is.
I don't think formatting actually deletes the files either... I think it just tells the file system that all the space is available for writing. (I may be wrong, but I don't think I am.)
You can get around problems like that with certain higher-end programs, but the only way to be 100% sure there's nothing there would be to format, write the entire disk until it's 100% full, then format again.
It really doesn't matter which version of DOS it was. His point was made... and made very well, I might add. In case you missed it, he said that he, like millions of others (probably) pirated DOS in its hay-day, and continued to use Microsoft products because they became dependent on them.
Ironically, Microsoft has the same problem as Linux... Microsoft has never had a product that's stable enough or reliable enough to use in high-availability server situations... just like Linux has never had a product that's as effective as almost any version of Windows on the desktop. Microsoft and Linux BOTH have to figure out a way to squeeze into the opposite market -- Microsoft into the server market, and Linux into the desktop market. Now I'm going to say something that'll REALLY piss most/.er's off... Microsoft has done a much better job getting into the server market than Linux has done getting into the desktop market.
The article says that Ballmer plans to "increase our advertising budget significantly for all our audiences". Does anyone else see that as treating the symptom rather than the disease? The point of the article was that Microsoft doesn't seem to have anything to persuade people to buy its products, so instead of INNOVATING, they're going to "persuade" people that they need Microsoft. The problem isn't that people don't need Microsoft, the problem is that Microsoft isn't creating anything new and exciting in the computer world... and increasing the advertising budget by all the money in Fort Knox isn't going to change that.
I use ZModem almost daily also. I have SecureCRT, and it's a lot easier to just type "rz" then select whatever files you want to upload rather than opening an FTP window, connecting, changing permissions, then transferring the files. Besides, if you're already root and you don't allow logins directly to root, then FTP is even more of a pain.
If they're correct about the 6000x speed increase, that would mean a 56k modem could transmit at 336mb... seems just *slightly* off to me. However, assuming they're correct and there actually IS a 6000x increase in transmission speed, does that mean a T1 suddenly would jump from a potential 1.5mb link to a 9000mb (or 9gb) link? I hope so... I'd love to get the 2.3gb version Matrix Reloaded in less than 3 seconds...
The people that found this country understood what they were doing when they made the Constitution. They made it amendable in case the future held things they didn't expect... but they also wanted to keep the checks and balances they intended 225 years ago. One of those was between the states and the federal government. Think about where they came from... They came from places where the federal government got out of control and nobody could do anything about it. The Tories and the Whigs are the same as the Democrats and Republicans today. They sit at tables and go round and round until everyone loses interest and gets frustrated and nothing is ever fixed. One of the things the Founding Fathers did NOT want is a state-mandated religion... and by them saying that, over the next 200 years it's gotten to point that saying the word "God" in any publicly owned building can get you fined. That's ridiculous.
Another thing they didn't want is a federal income tax. They had no problem with sales tax, as long as it was kept within reason, but the first Secretary of Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, wrote an article about the views on income tax and sales tax in the Federalist papers (No. 21). The link to a good portion of that article is here.
The Founding Fathers knew the dangers of having a government too powerful, and even built in provisions for a revolt, should things get out of control. The most obvious provision is the right to bear arms, which is the 2nd amendment. Apparently they thought the right to bear arms was just slightly less important than the right to freedom of speech, press, assembly, and religion.
At the same time, the Founding Fathers did make a few mistakes... they didn't allow black people or women to vote. In their day, they didn't recognize those individuals as people in the same standing in society as land-owning white males. That's why they made the Constitution amendable... but not alterable.
Saying that any country that allows their citizens to vote is a democracy is a very, very dangerous assumption. By that logic, Iraq was a democracy. Obviously, there are more criterion to meet to be a democracy than allowing people to vote.
Again, I have to say that relativity is of some value in comparison, but it's only a comparison... not a static evaluation. Let me put it this way... there's far more room for improvement than there was 100 years ago. Does that make my stance a little more understandable?
I would suggest you read the Constitution if you don't understand the planned interactions between the federal government and the states. I'm not going to go into great detail, but I would highly recommend reading the original documents that defined and gave birth to this nation... then reconsider your thoughts about anarchy and democracy.
While I'm on that topic, the United States is not a democracy. It never was, and hopefully never will be. We are a Representative Republic. Again, read the Constitution if you need further clarification.
So the rest of society dictates your morals? Ouch... So you must be one of those people who thinks that since everyone is doing it, it must be OK, right? Economics has a direct effect on others, so those others have to be concerned with how things are going.
You might as well say that since Windows XP is the best Windows version yet, there's no need to go any further. Just because it's the best available doesn't mean it's good. Yes, the United States has some of the lowest taxes in the world, and it's the best country in the developed world (arguably)... doesn't mean it's good. It means it's RELATIVELY good. It's perspective that you lack. Sure, this country is wonderful in most respects... doesn't mean it can't be better, or that it's good. It just means that the other countries in the world with higher taxes are worse (in that respect).
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not so sure about that... technically, Enter the Matrix isn't so hot. There's nothing in it that hasn't been done before, but it still sells. It's got a world-wide recognizable franchise behind it, and enough hype to go to Saturn and back. It's still a one-dimensional game... you're a good guy with guns and you shoot the bad guys with guns, or you pummel them into submission.
Duke Nukem Forever could be a good game when/if it comes out, and still make money. Or, it could be an absolutely fantastic display of modern technology with a great cast, excellent story, and exemplory gameplay and become a fan-favorite that makes tons of money on its release, and only gets more as time goes on. I'm betting on the former...
Do you have a job? I would guess not, but if so, do you have to DO anything in that job? In my job, if I tell the people that pay my salary that I'm going to do XYZ, and if I don't do it, I no longer have a job. 3D Realms hasn't released ONE SINGLE GAME since Shadow Warrior in 1996 (I think it was 96), and EVEN THEN, they had someone else do most of the development.
We're all pissed off at 3DR because you're exactly right! They haven't said anything in years! I have no problem if they say the game will be done "when it's done", but don't tell me that that time will be 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, or 2002 unless you're sure you can guess within a year or so. It's been S-E-V-E-N years since Duke Nukem 3D. Half-Life wasn't out then... the 3D Acceleration revolution hadn't happened... your computer was probably about 100mhz, and your video card might have had 512kb of ram on it, if it had any at all.
And before you say anything, no, I don't think 3D Realms OWES me anything. I think they owe Take Two something, specifically Duke Nukem Forever. Take Two has been hyping this game and releasing marketing materials based off information they got from 3D Realms... now they're pissed because they've been spending so much money on marketing a product that now has the longest development schedule in the long, sad history of overdue video games. Daikatana didn't even take 7 years!
The way I see it, NetFlix has been setting themselves up for the past few years in a fantastic position to be the first video-on-demand company, when the technology permits. Imagine it from their point of view... You have hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of customers who are generally satisfied with you. Now there's this new-fangled technology that lets people (*gasp*) download movies to their computer for a limited time (for the first week... until the hackers and crackers of the world break that encryption too) and you can watch it immediately! All of a sudden, you have people that own computers, are willing to pay at least $20 a month to you, and who love movies, all waiting at your website for the next video-on-demand title that comes out. From my perspective, it looks like they've been planning it for a long time... and it looks like an excellent plan.
The last place I worked had the grand plan of becoming just barely large enough to blip in the radar of the "big boys", then sell out, make the owners rich and screw the employees (unless the "big boys" needed more people). It's really sad that people don't have bigger asperations than to just annoy a larger company into purchasing them. That being said, I don't think NetFlix had that goal in mind when they started. They probably did what most successful businesses do when they start... they saw a demand (or potential demand), and came up with a good way to distribute the supply (supplied the supply just doesn't sound right). Also, it would be prudent to mention that in this case, NetFlix is the incumbent, and Walmart is the challenger. NetFlix already has a customer-base and a good reputation. Walmart is hated in some circles simply because it's a large company (not in my circle, but I know people that will only go to Ma-and-Pa shops).
Second, your primary duty (assuming you're an IT person), must be:
The application of systems analysis techniques and procedures, including consulting with users, to determine hardware, software, or system functional specifications)
The design, development, documentation, analysis, creating, testing, or modification of computer systems or programs, including prototypes, based on and related to user or system design specifications.
The design, documentation, testing, creating, or modification of computer programs related to machine operating systems.
A combination of duties described above.
For those of you who are wondering, that basically means System Analysts, Software Engineer, or Programmer. It does NOT include telephone technical support or a "senior network administrator / project manager (see this article on pages 4 and 9... sorry, no direct link to the opinion letter, although if you get a copy of it, let me know).
To fit the Computer Exemption, secondary duties can NOT take up more than 20% (or 40% for "service establishments") of your time. For the Management Exemption, you must supervise at least 2 employees, have the authority to hire or fire people (or make recommendations that carry weight), and not spend more than 20% or 40% (see above) of your time on secondary duties.
I was burned by my last employer, and I'm looking to get him back... so I've done lots of homework about this kind of thing. If you're interested in any of the documents I have, or have anything to offer, my e-mail address is netadm2000@hotmail.com.
3G, 2.5G, 4G, 18G... Je(pun intended)sus, how many G's can a human being take before his brain is squashed into the size of a pee in the back of his skull?
There are a few posts about specific unused IP's being stolen, while the used ones went on working as normal... is that what happened, or did what's-his-name in Northern California take over the whole class C, similar to taking over a domain? If it was the latter, I'm surprised nobody's tried it before... given that it's really not extremely difficult to move a domain from one person to another, it can't be too hard to do the same for a block of IP's.
So is it certain IP's that weren't being used, or a large block of IP's that were just read internally from the servers and directed to where the servers thought they should go?
NO, NO, NO!!! The idea of passing laws is not so the government can turn a profit. The idea of laws is to protect the rights of citizens. You don't make rape legal just because prosecuting rapists isn't a profit center for the government.
I never said anything about the government turning a profit on those kinds of laws. I said it would be too costly, and the rest of the country shouldn't have to pay for little annoyances that good parents should be able to take care of.
Let's say that you had no law against junk faxes and that, as a result of it being legal, every fax owner received an average of 50 of junk faxes per day. What is the cost to those owners for paper, toner/ink, and wear and tear on their fax machines to each receive over 18,000 pages of junk faxes per year?
Well, given that each ream of paper holds 500 sheets, and a box of reams holds 8-10 reams, that comes to around 4000 - 5000 sheets per box. Each box is around $30. So, assuming you get the grand total of 50 junk faxes per day (which I doubt) then 18,000 would cost about $120, worst case scenario. Also, assuming that each page is 5% covered in black ink, and the ink cartridge is $100 (assuming that the cartridge can print 8000 pages at 5% coverage, as is now basically standard on any relatively large-scale fax machine / printer), then you're looking at the grand total of $45 worth of ink for the year. The equation is ((Cost per cartridge / (Percent of average coverage X number of pages per cartridge)) X total number of pages throughout the year... In this case, (($100 / (5 X 8000)) X 18,000. Now, how many fax machines in the country, on average? Maybe 10,000,000, if that? So, you're talking about $145,000,000 worth of junk faxes per year. Not a bad total, IF each one gets 50 junk faxes a day. How much does it cost to pass a law and keep the paperwork going? Over $145,000,000 for the first year? I don't know... My point was that the cost for junk faxes and junk e-mail to the economy is lower than the cost of having the government intervene and create more laws. I'm absolutely sure you completely missed that point in my previous post. Take a minute to consider it...
I don't want to hear of you filing a lawsuit against anyone for anything after that remark. If your kids are injured because of defective playground equipment, no lawsuits. If a plumber burns down your house by not being careful when soldering, you don't sue him. If a drunk driver kills or maims a member of your family, no court cases.
I never said there was anything wrong with using the court system. I just think there are too many laws to parent FOR people. Why is talking to your child so difficult now? Who tells your kids about sex? Who tells them about drugs? Who tells them about smoking? All three of those are being usurped by the government so the biological PARENTS don't have to.
In the two examples you gave, the people doing their jobs aren't interfering with my family or my ability as a parent. They screwed up in THEIR jobs, and should have to pay for it. It's quite a bit different when someone else does your job and you have to pay for it (IE, the government doing your parental duties, but you dealing with your discipline-lacking child).
What we are paying for is spam and one reason that we are paying for so much of it is because people like you get up in arms every time someone discusses anti-spam legislation. According to a Ferris Research report released in December of last year, spam costs U.S. businesses $8.9 billion per year -- and that figure is going up.
Really? $8.9 Billion? Wow... sounds like a great opportunity for a NEW INDUSTRY devoted to stopping spam! And there's no laws necessary! I could start a company that makes ANTI-SPAM software and sell it! If it's good software, I can sell it for $100, and after I sell thousands of copies, no more cost to the economy... instead, I'll create jobs for programmers and R&D people and give them large salaries, which they can
Concerning your argument about faxes... How many individuals had fax machines in 1991, let alone businesses? I'm sure it wasn't over my estimate of 100 million e-mail addresses in this country alone (and that's probably a VERY conservative estimate). Because of the TCPA law, how many lawsuits were filed?
What you need to do is take the amount of money that's coming in from fines, subtract the amount of overhead for creating the law (salaries, paperwork, time, etc.) and see how well that law is REALLY doing. Then, take the total number of now-illegal faxes that occured in 1990, and divide that into the number of lawsuits / fines that occured in 1992 (give it a year, just in case), and you should have an adequate ratio of faxes:fines. Now, take that ratio and apply it to e-mail. Let's say you have 1 million junk faxes, and only 1000 fines. That give us a ratio of 1:1000. Applied to e-mail, if we estimate an incredibly conservative number of 100 million, that means it'll be around 100,000 lawsuits and fines. If there's a $500 fine, similar to the fax law, that's $500,000. Let's just increase that to $50,000,000, just for argument's sake. Do you really think $50 million is enough to pass a law and keep the paperwork and everything for it active for a year? Maybe it'll interest you to know that the federal budget is in the TRILLIONS of dollars...
It's fairly obvious that you see the court system as your personal savior, and that's fine if it works for you. I prefer to be my own judge of what's acceptable and not acceptable to me and my family. The only real difference is that I pay for my own judgments, and the rest of the country pays for yours.
Well, let me ask you this... in the long run, what's more harmful for the child, out of the following choices:
1. The child sees a sexual act in a spam message, and you, being the responsible, intelligent and loving parent you are, explain to them what they're seeing, and how it's morally right or wrong.
Or...
2. The government steps in and makes spam e-mail illegal because there's no viable solution for checking the age of an e-mail recipient before sending the message. Given how government generally operates, it should only be 3-5 years before snail-mail junk is outlawed also, leading to several hundreds (if not thousands) of lawsuits within a year. After that, probably another 2-3 years until someone comes up with the idea that since they don't approve of some e-mail or snail-mail they're getting, it's offensive and unwanted, therefore, must be spam... leading to more legislation defining the term "spam" and "unwanted commercial e-mail", eventually leading to the breakdown of even more of individual's basic human rights, especially Freedom of Speech, Press, and (although not specifically mentioned in the Constitution), Privacy. (My sig has particular relevance here.)
Granted, I'm not going to run aroun showing dirty pictures to kids, but in the grand scheme of things, there are only 2 groups of people that can do anything about it -- government, and IT. We're the IT, so let's try to come up with a solution before the government starts.
Does the field still prohibit any natural force acting upon it to move through or damage it? If so, then it's effective a force field... and it would seem that it does, given that it can hold back air from a vacuum (which qualifies as a "force"). Nobody cares about the technical definition of the terms "force field" or "plasma field". They care about whether they could make a door that sound won't pass through (2 of these fields with a vacuum in the middle) but you could see through and walk through (given that 15000 degrees Kelvin wouldn't harm you... read the rest of the comments by people far more knowledgable than I in matters of physics).
Here's my question: Does it have to be completely surrounded by some kind of magnetic/copper thingamabob (too lazy to look it up right now)? By "completely surrounded", I mean X, Y, and Z Axis? Or, is it only necessary to surround it on 2 dimensions, X and Y? If only 2 dimensions are necessary, then the applications for this are almost too numerous to mention. Sound-proof walls, doors, windows (that never open or shut... rather just turn off), Star Trekie type inventions, etc. Depending on how cheaply they can reproduce a field, we could be seeing these types of devices practically everywhere. Suddenly I don't think Star Trek is too far fetched...
I never played Phantasy Star 1 or 2, but I bought 3, and to this day, it's one of my all-time favorite RPG's. You started with 1 person, played through about 1/4 - 1/3 of the game, then picked a wife from the women in your party, had a child, then played the kid (after he grew up a bit) through another 1/4 - 1/3 of the game... then did the same thing over again. There were 7 possible lead-characters with 4 possible endings, depending on which lead character you were. I played through it for 3 of them, but never got around to the fourth.
One of the other things I liked about it was the story. I won't ruin it for anyone who hasn't played it, but in the third generation (after you get married and have kids twice), you realize that your "world" isn't at all what you thought it was... so afterwards, you play through it again to see if it all fits, and yes, it does.
I would absolutely LOVE it if they made a remake of Phantasy Star 3 for the PS2 (or even PS3, whenever it comes out)... but they'd have to put a lot of time and effort into it... not one of those Final Fantasy "remakes" that turns out to be a cinematic opening and a cinematic closing, with the same graphics, sounds, badly-translated dialogue, etc. in between. Then again, I'd also love to see a Metal Gear 1 and 2 (not Solid) remake...
Lord of the Rings is so popular because it's so detailed and complex. JRR Tolkien INVENTED several languages just so he could use phrases here and there in reference in the books, and all put together, including The Hobbit and the Silmarillion, there aren't even 2000 pages worth. It's the same reason the Dune series is so popular. Frank Herbert seemed to actually like in the Dune universe, and could convey thoughts, actions, visions, conversations, etc. that happened in that universe to a degree that very, very few authors can.
I won't deny that the Riftwar Saga by Raymond Feist is an excellent Fantasy series, but I personally don't think it holds a candle to LOTR. My reason is simple: I haven't read all of them. In fact, I haven't read any of them. I read half-way through the first book, and lost interest... and I'm pretty faithful about finishing books (and series) that I start.
I should also mention that the book "Magician" was originally published in one hard-back novel, but was split into 2 books when they went to paperback. They are called "Magician: Apprentice" and "Magician: Master".
If there was a mod called "Scary" I would give you +5 points...
Richard Simmons in Lord of the Rings? Oh dear god, what has the world come to?
And you'll do that in the time it takes for the police to hand the warrant to you, walk in and take your computer? Chances are that if you're in their sights, you're going down in one way or another. Unfortunate, really... As far as I know, there is no law to enforce a large company to continue getting profits when they refuse to cooperate with the public.
There are still ways of retrieving data from smashed or damages hard drives. Take a look... here are a couple of the companies that are doing it:
Data Recovery Specalist
Cherry Systems Data Recovery
Action Front Data Recovery Labs
DTI Data Recovery
There are lots of places doing it... including from fire and water damage.
There doesn't need to be any Pro-RIAA realots to release fake files... The RIAA itself does it. For starters, look up whatever popular CD that is supposed to be released a few weeks from now, then go to Amazon to get the track list, then do a search on Kazaa for those tracks. Chances are, you'll get some track of an interview, or the chorus sung over and over for 4 minutes, like they did with Eminem's Without Me, or Linkin Park's new album, Meteora.
It depends on how far they want to go. It's relatively difficult to completely wipe a hard drive clean, especially for 99.9% of the people that download songs off Kazaa.
When you delete a file, you're not really removing that file's existence from your hard drive. You're telling the operating system (or the file system... whatever) that the file should no longer be linked, and to consider that space available for writing. Then, the next time you try to save something, the operating system writes over the area that the deleted file is.
I don't think formatting actually deletes the files either... I think it just tells the file system that all the space is available for writing. (I may be wrong, but I don't think I am.)
You can get around problems like that with certain higher-end programs, but the only way to be 100% sure there's nothing there would be to format, write the entire disk until it's 100% full, then format again.
It really doesn't matter which version of DOS it was. His point was made... and made very well, I might add. In case you missed it, he said that he, like millions of others (probably) pirated DOS in its hay-day, and continued to use Microsoft products because they became dependent on them.
/.er's off... Microsoft has done a much better job getting into the server market than Linux has done getting into the desktop market.
Ironically, Microsoft has the same problem as Linux... Microsoft has never had a product that's stable enough or reliable enough to use in high-availability server situations... just like Linux has never had a product that's as effective as almost any version of Windows on the desktop. Microsoft and Linux BOTH have to figure out a way to squeeze into the opposite market -- Microsoft into the server market, and Linux into the desktop market. Now I'm going to say something that'll REALLY piss most
The article says that Ballmer plans to "increase our advertising budget significantly for all our audiences". Does anyone else see that as treating the symptom rather than the disease? The point of the article was that Microsoft doesn't seem to have anything to persuade people to buy its products, so instead of INNOVATING, they're going to "persuade" people that they need Microsoft. The problem isn't that people don't need Microsoft, the problem is that Microsoft isn't creating anything new and exciting in the computer world... and increasing the advertising budget by all the money in Fort Knox isn't going to change that.
I use ZModem almost daily also. I have SecureCRT, and it's a lot easier to just type "rz" then select whatever files you want to upload rather than opening an FTP window, connecting, changing permissions, then transferring the files. Besides, if you're already root and you don't allow logins directly to root, then FTP is even more of a pain.
If they're correct about the 6000x speed increase, that would mean a 56k modem could transmit at 336mb... seems just *slightly* off to me. However, assuming they're correct and there actually IS a 6000x increase in transmission speed, does that mean a T1 suddenly would jump from a potential 1.5mb link to a 9000mb (or 9gb) link? I hope so... I'd love to get the 2.3gb version Matrix Reloaded in less than 3 seconds...
The people that found this country understood what they were doing when they made the Constitution. They made it amendable in case the future held things they didn't expect... but they also wanted to keep the checks and balances they intended 225 years ago. One of those was between the states and the federal government. Think about where they came from... They came from places where the federal government got out of control and nobody could do anything about it. The Tories and the Whigs are the same as the Democrats and Republicans today. They sit at tables and go round and round until everyone loses interest and gets frustrated and nothing is ever fixed. One of the things the Founding Fathers did NOT want is a state-mandated religion... and by them saying that, over the next 200 years it's gotten to point that saying the word "God" in any publicly owned building can get you fined. That's ridiculous.
Another thing they didn't want is a federal income tax. They had no problem with sales tax, as long as it was kept within reason, but the first Secretary of Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, wrote an article about the views on income tax and sales tax in the Federalist papers (No. 21). The link to a good portion of that article is here.
The Founding Fathers knew the dangers of having a government too powerful, and even built in provisions for a revolt, should things get out of control. The most obvious provision is the right to bear arms, which is the 2nd amendment. Apparently they thought the right to bear arms was just slightly less important than the right to freedom of speech, press, assembly, and religion.
At the same time, the Founding Fathers did make a few mistakes... they didn't allow black people or women to vote. In their day, they didn't recognize those individuals as people in the same standing in society as land-owning white males. That's why they made the Constitution amendable... but not alterable.
Saying that any country that allows their citizens to vote is a democracy is a very, very dangerous assumption. By that logic, Iraq was a democracy. Obviously, there are more criterion to meet to be a democracy than allowing people to vote.
Again, I have to say that relativity is of some value in comparison, but it's only a comparison... not a static evaluation. Let me put it this way... there's far more room for improvement than there was 100 years ago. Does that make my stance a little more understandable?
I would suggest you read the Constitution if you don't understand the planned interactions between the federal government and the states. I'm not going to go into great detail, but I would highly recommend reading the original documents that defined and gave birth to this nation... then reconsider your thoughts about anarchy and democracy.
While I'm on that topic, the United States is not a democracy. It never was, and hopefully never will be. We are a Representative Republic. Again, read the Constitution if you need further clarification.
So the rest of society dictates your morals? Ouch... So you must be one of those people who thinks that since everyone is doing it, it must be OK, right? Economics has a direct effect on others, so those others have to be concerned with how things are going.
You might as well say that since Windows XP is the best Windows version yet, there's no need to go any further. Just because it's the best available doesn't mean it's good. Yes, the United States has some of the lowest taxes in the world, and it's the best country in the developed world (arguably)... doesn't mean it's good. It means it's RELATIVELY good. It's perspective that you lack. Sure, this country is wonderful in most respects... doesn't mean it can't be better, or that it's good. It just means that the other countries in the world with higher taxes are worse (in that respect).
This is just naive. Can you name any software released in the past 5 years that hasn't required any patches at all?