The slashdot posting is a "troll" -- designed to create controversy, foaming at the mouth -- even seizures by some slashdot readers! (well...the seizures are probably unlikely...).
Seriously -- the slashdot post claims it is the mp3 format conversion that is "illegal". While it is mentioned as part of what the defendant did -- it isn't the point of their complaint -- "on page 15" (haven't read the entire complaint... not feeling especially masochistic this morning) it's that they compressed the song into the mp3 format that is noted for making it easier to store and transfer music files between devices (and computers) *and* putting it in his Kazaa shared folder. According to page 15, this was done for his wife's benefit. However, consistent with rulings, I believe, in past cases, they pointing out that the man is (perhaps unwittingly) making the files sharable through kazaa on a "public network" (assumption on my part -- unless man has private, internal, separate net that he is sharing the files through to his wife) which has been previously used as "sufficient guilt".
They've won cases on this point in the past and they have a point: just as content or media on a public web-page can be considered a Copyright violation -- why not on a public kazaa-share directory?
On the other hand -- I seem to remember some cases where something was retrieved off a webserver and the web site owners were trying to make the case that it was meant to be "private" so it was a violation of the computer security laws that they "broke into another person's computer (by using the commercially standard information sharing protocol, HTTP). Personally I think that one is fairly bogus -- but which way do people want it?
We can't laugh at the litigants there who left their computer open to public perusal over http or ftp who want to claim their computer was "violated" and then turn around when someone deliberately puts a file in their shared public folder under an information sharing protocol's shared(public) directory. It's inconsistent.
OTOH (again), the husband might claim he was unaware that people other than his wife could download the mp3's he put in his shared directory for his wife. Now this seems unlikely to anyone, at all knowledgeable about computers, but I have to think of people with computer skills like my grandmother or grandfather -- some people might not think of putting a file in a shared folder in his house for his wife as "public sharing".... might be a mitigating factor, but they are admitting to putting their mp3's in a publicly-shared folder on the internet. That seems like it might be sufficient evidence (in "their world") that the defendant was culpable.
It wasn't, simply, the "mp3" format, that the original slashdot poster characterized as the basis for prosecution, but that he was sharing them over Kazaa.
I hope the defendant is well versed in previous case law (as he's representing himself). IANAL and I've not read the rest of the 20-some page complaint, so its hard to characterize the rest of the RIAA's case, but the point of the slashdot posting was that he converted his songs into mp3. That wasn't the point of page 15 -- making it a perfect example, IMO, of how non-lawyers can easily be mislead by legal jargon.
Hey, I'm waiting for the say when they impound crosswalks for being used in the commission of jaywalking.
These laws are designed to replace the less and less popular war on cannabis.
Just like the head of the FBI's narcotic enforcement came from alcohol prohibition enforcement, I'm sure that those involved in the next war on the American people will come from cannabis prohibition. Other drugs won't provide anything close to the confiscation-resources that todays police organizations and prisons will need to stay in operation at current levels and continue to grow. Perhaps C. prohibition ending is premature, but it's looking closer with, at least, medical approval -- and when that happens, the whole fraudulent house of cards the anti-freedom lobby has concocted against the harm of marijuana will fall apart -- especially the nonsense about cannabis smoking causing cancer.
It doesn't. No more than chewing gum causes mouth cancer (as chewing tobacco does). The cancer is in the tobacco (most likely the deadly poison, nicotine, a natural, powerful insecticide). Doesn't matter what form you take it -- still is shown to cause cancer, but so far, no form of cannabis consumption is associated with an increase in cancer -- especially true for smoking! Among other studies, the largest was Kaiser Health Care's several year, 60,000+ member study that showed no increase in cancers among marijuana smokers. More than one study has shown a lowering of cancer-cases in those who smoke cannabis over those who abstain, but the figures are usually "close", and are quietly ignored.
Anyway -- the police need their forfeiture/confiscation income -- it has provided the largest police budget increase with almost every town now affording "SWAT" teams and even mid-size towns financing things like police helicopters with the forfeited money.
Forfeiture should be considered a denial of property (punishment) without due process.
If this new law comes into effect -- police will have a new tool to go after anyone who's machine gets "infected" as well as those offering open-WiFi access points, and likely those even used to "discuss" illegal file trading (discussion of illegal event with anyone = conspiracy under federal law). This could be used with a VERY broad brush...*ug*
USB2 was so "obsolete" as soon as Firewire 400 was released. Oh...yeah, USB2 was released after FW400...USB2 was obsolete upon release -- they should have gone with higher performance FW400. With the same hard disk years ago, I tried a speed test over 3 buses: ATA, USB2, FW400. Performance for ATA & FW both topped out in the low 20's: ATA ~25MB/s, FW400: ~24MB/s. But USB2 -- topped out at 12MB/s. (USB1.1 was around 1.2MB/).
Anything I tried comparing FW400 & USB2 showed FW400 both faster and more reliable. Now FW800 is out and it does work noticeably faster than FW400.
USB2 is for "toys", not for system critical hardware. Maybe it is ok for talking to lower capacity USB devices, but for something close to a high-speed external and portable protocol, FW800 seems to do quite well.
Dunno about compared to ESata, one prob with FW800, is it seems to be faster than the hard disks I've tested, so far, so I don't know its top speed or how it fares next to ESata, but USB?? I don't know why, but it's 480Mb/s seems to run measurably slower than FW's 400Mb/s speed and, obviously, is no comparison compared to FW800.
It's a hard point to argue if you had only two options, food, or a laptop, the food seems a better choice.
If only it had been an apple... but then people would complain about how "the children" should have to choose between having and eating, but at least they'd have a choice!
Slightly reverse-diagonal from that -- how long would $200 last them if they were paid in dollars -- now how much would they get if it were in Euros? If they got the cash -- what if they were paid in Zimbabwe dollars? with 14,841% (to 20,000%) annual inflation?
Maybe instead of food money it might be good to give "credit" with which they could buy "certain" goods -- like 1) food stores, 2) Farm and basic technology items (solar power, stills - water is a prob in many areas)...
As some others point out -- no matter how well they are "fed" by foreign Aid departments -- no one will see that they get laptops (which are still seen as 'luxury' goods by many). Computers aren't like "appliances" like "TV's or Refrigerators, that you can just plug in and use for 10-15 years. Unfortunately computers haven't gotten to the same commodity level as the phone or TV. Few governments, certainly virtually no western governments, would commit to a policy of computers being as essential as phones, TV or radio -- for to do so would require government pressure for prices to drop and their reliability and usability to go up significantly.
We all know the benefit of computers in our lives, but government officials can act remarkably stupid when it comes to doing things that benefit the people over their corporate sponsors. Can you imagine a US president, for example, trying to require anything from computer makers along the lines of price, stability, upgradability, etc. Think about their actions toward the sainted auto-industry -- requiring a rise in fleet MPG's that is virtually 'no increased requirement' -- and even then putting it off 13 years to 2020. No spine.
Another reason for people getting computers over food -- computers can be seen as a one-time event. If food is given, it creates another empty stomach in the future -- creating a need for of the same in the future. There's also Maslov's hierarchy of Needs that states how 'hungry' people won't even thing about higher level needs & wants -- they are more easily controlled if you control their food.
At the same time, computers can be a strong catalyst for citizen eductation outside of approved channels. It appears, I believe it was Uganda, that recently decided that laptops for their 2 million children were not necessary and that learning computer skills wasn't something the ruler's children needed to learn...keeping them ignorant is important -- besides, if citizens started browsing the WWW in an oppressive country, then the government would have to spend alot of money to erect a "Chinese Wall" around their country's internet 'borders'. That's something a poorer country couldn't easily afford -- better to not encourage easy internet access by handing out computers to the peasantry...:-/
Not at the point where you talk into the microphone. It's pretty easy to detect, and given just how annoying it is to sit next to a person talking into their cell phone... it wouldn't take long for your seat neighbour would complain to the stewardess. ----
This doesn't seem like a good reason since they allow phonecalls on their backseat phones -- the same problem would exist.
Second problem: "I call bullshoot!" From your description, I don't think you have ever sat next to someone on a cellphone while they were talking, while on an airplane.
People talk on cell phones 'loudly' because as they outside volume goes "up and down" due to background noise, they don't adjust their voice "back down". It is similar to the "comical" situation where someone says something meant to be private against "background noise", but the background noise drops to zero, suddenly, and they end up shouting whatever it was they meant to be "private".
On an airline, most people are *fairly* quiet! People are trying to read, on their computers, sleeping, watching a "silent" movie (unless you pay for earphones, or, are on a long or business-class flight. With people sitting, and with the generally "constant" drone of the engines and external air noise, they usually adjust their voice volume to not offend others. In contrast, kids flying are famously (and/or stereotypically) known for being 'annoying' because they are more often "oblivious" of their volume. Some kids are well behaved, but those who aren't stereotype it for the rest.
It's not likely someone wearing earphones and a separate microphone would be *that* much more obvious than someone listening to computer audio using voice for input. Might not be able to talk for hours on end, but it would certainly be less obvious than someone talking on a seat-back phone -- which is allowed.
What the airlines likely mean is that they are not going to supply *service* that would "easily" enable voice-IP to work reliably. It's not likely that they would have the bandwidth or latency requirements for a plane-load of people to use VOIP, satisfactorily.
While the law requires an operator to report obscene materials, it doesn't seem to mention any requirement that they search or filter for such materials. How many public hot spots monitor and/or filter their clientèle's internet traffic?
"The only reliable means we have of producing energy are fuel powered reactors/power stations and hydro-electric plants and these are what a country should base it's energy policy on.
From what I've read in "New Scientist", fissionable nuclear material is going the same way as oil -- in fact, we have fewer years supply of Uranium than coal, which are predicted, currently to last about 400 years. Not that coal is a good way to power anything, but I wouldn't put all my hopes in nuclear fission. Nuclear fusion doesn't look like it will provide any answers, either, unless we figure out a way to harness the equivalent force of a sun's gravity to contain the thermonuclear reaction. The energy requirements of containment appear to make fusion, as a power source, infeasible in the foreseeable future.:-(
The most promising source of new energy: geothermal. One can build geothermal generation plants almost anywhere that sits on top of a sufficiently hot heat source -- like the stored heat energy of the earth. Tapping into geothermal energy to meet the power demands of the 21st appears far more likely than development of fusion (even though fusion is certainly more portable). With geothermal, , humanity would have enough power to sustain us until humanity shuffles, either, off its mortal coil or off off this earthly rock (to other 'earthly' rocks!).
As for there being "simply no other alternative" than fission...you aren't thinking very hard (not that I'm against nuclear fission, but if the fuel is already in as short of supply as it appears, it better not be our only alternative).
Same was true for XP SP1 and SP2. Applications were hardest hit in SP1, networking in SP2, but SP2 tended to, outright, break things more than just slow them down.
In the past, MS has usually slowed down the previous release with patches and Service Packs, so installing a new OS was an upgrade, mostly because of large rewrites, instead of the "spaghettified" code that had been patched into place.
This time, they bit off too much in Vista -- so much that they didn't have the resources to release XP-SP3 before Vista's initial release. However, I have great confidence that Microsoft will work hard to address Vista's performance deficit (relative to XP) in XP's next service pack.:-(
"it's bloody fucking ironic how Apple decided only ATT would be its bitch in the US and went for Tmobile on the other side of the ocean" - It makes sense. Apple wouldn't want either eliminated -- competition, in this case, is good for Apple.
Actually -- they were all guilty...how do we know? Um -- they wouldn't have been arrested if they weren't guilty! Isn't that how our legal system works [sic[k]]? Assumption of guilt upon getting an arrest warrant?
In theory, I agree with much of what you say -- up to a point.
If the "tubes" are full, one needs a way to prioritize traffic.
BUT, there are some exceptions and questions:
1) Why are the tubes full? Weren't telecom companies given billions of dollars SPECIFICALLYto expand coverage and upgrade capacity? Isn't it true that all of that money was taken and used by the companies, yet there was no measurable increase in coverage or speed to show where the money went?
If telecom companies are given money to upgrade bandwidth, and instead, they upgrade their profit margins and stock value, should they be given free reign to now charge customers "extra" for providing the services that the government (US public) already paid for? How many times do we need to pay for the capital upgrades?
2) Often, the companies that engage in rate-limiting, or auto-termination of streams do so to increase their bottom line without having to spend money in R&D. Do we need to go back to stricter regulation of those who own local infrastructure (probably), to guarantee that some percentage of the money is being wisely "managed" and used in infrastructure upgrades?
I don't know how long it has been going on (maybe forever), but I, personally, noticed it more starting in the 90's: When there was an oversupply of cash and returns were good, companies took those monies and churned them into "profit" -- and *instead* of investing in research, companies (I first noticed it with Sony, but they are not the only guilty parties) invested in "Partitioning available resources and products to create more "grades of service or product" to more effectively extract maximum money from the consumer while providing no increase in value. Instead, companies provide "Negative decreases in functionality".
This is not like computer science where a double negative = a positive; negative decrease != increase. The company designs a high level model, say a "1000 series". The price for the product, as designed, is aimed at $1000 (or Euro, Pound, etc) price point. Their incremental cost for producing each successive unit is $150 (for example). Like disk-drive manufacturer practice of releasing multiple capacities of a drive that have the same internal capacity, but only show "diminished" capacity when bought as a smaller drive. Some drive manufacturers, sell a 100GB model -- say 1 platter. Well, they'll also sell the same drive for 80GB, 60GB and 40GB drives -- just formatted differently with the firmware enforcing the capacity. I remember one manufacturer selling a 40GB, where if you removed a jumper it became a 100-200GB drive. They needed the 40GB to sell into lower price niches or provide replacements for older model disks under warranty.
The bottom line to the consumer -- they don't get any better hardware or product for the higher price product -- it's just the the lower priced products are programmed down in features.
It is the same in the telecom & network provider industry. The provider may have access to 5-10x the capacity, if they wanted to activate all of their "dark fiber". The fiber and connections are already there -- they just have to flip a switch to activate them. But by keeping a large fraction "dark", they artificially decrease supply to convince consumers and regulators that they need more money to provide better service -- all the while keeping 30-90% of their real capacity "off line".
They tell consumers (and federal regulating agencies), that they are operating at capacity. But it is disingenuous. It's the capacity of what they have enabled, but not what what is possible with the currently installed infrastructure.
This is why America doesn't have as much innovation anymore as other countries. In America, prices are set to extract the most money from everyone unrelated to costs to provide those services. The consumer is "ripped off". Rather than telling the consumer (say with "disks"), 1st 500GB platte
Don't suppose anyone bothered to mirror the content or site -- seems to be "unreachable" for some reason, now. Interesting, attempting to traceroute the path it seems like something is screwed up at cogentco.com. Why do my packets first...well start with them in San Jose, then: SFO (CIA tap office location) MCI(3 hops), boston(2 hops), then jfk, london(2), amsterdam, Frankfurt Germany?, Hamberg Germany(?) then 3 more I can't decipher, then finally jumps off the "data com demarc[ation] point to another provider (prqinet.net?), then no responses after that (after 26 hops!).
traceroute to wikileaks.org (88.80.13.160), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets...local routes...
8 v3498.mpd01.sjc01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.6.233) 161.348 ms 161.539 ms 167.410 ms
9 t2-3.mpd01.sfo01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.1.129) 168.583 ms 171.663 ms 171.805 ms 10 t9-3.ccr02.mci01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.24.118) 177.341 ms 178.538 ms 184.640 ms 11 g9-0-0.core01.mci01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.5.205) 177.806 ms * 177.290 ms 12 t3-1.mpd01.mci01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.2.218) 294.490 ms 300.275 ms 297.979 ms 13 t8-3.mpd01.bos01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.7.82) 288.242 ms 290.003 ms 286.007 ms 14 g11-0-0.core01.bos01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.5.21) 236.221 ms 239.490 ms 241.507 ms 15 p0-0.core02.jfk02.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.7.78) 229.525 ms 235.227 ms 234.020 ms 16 p4-0.core02.lon01.atlas.cogentco.com (66.28.4.254) 227.766 ms 228.737 ms 233.529 ms 17 p0-0.core01.lon01.atlas.cogentco.com (130.117.2.77) 200.527 ms 202.008 ms 205.540 ms 18 p3-0.core01.ams03.atlas.cogentco.com (130.117.0.197) 208.782 ms 211.774 ms 215.764 ms 19 p9-0.core02.fra03.atlas.cogentco.com (130.117.0.229) 214.010 ms 217.255 ms 218.990 ms 20 p12-0.core01.ham01.atlas.cogentco.com (130.117.1.186) 218.737 ms 218.981 ms 220.220 ms 21 p0-0.core01.cph01.atlas.cogentco.com (130.117.2.126) 230.211 ms 231.204 ms 230.948 ms 22 p5-0.core01.sto01.atlas.cogentco.com (130.117.3.38) 241.431 ms 242.163 ms 241.673 ms 23 t1-4.ccr01.sto01.atlas.cogentco.com (130.117.0.74) 209.269 ms 213.613 ms 214.002 ms 24 dcs-data-com.demarc.cogentco.com (149.6.168.10) 208.787 ms 213.087 ms 218.007 ms 25 vlan582.ge0.cr0.sth3.prqinet.net (82.96.53.22) 195.795 ms 202.088 ms 204.282 ms 26 ge0.tr0.sth3.prqinet.net (88.80.5.3) 195.785 ms 196.559 ms 195.836 ms 27 * * * 28 * * * 29 * * * 30 * * *
Reminds me of an episode of the cartoon, er "Manga", "Bleach" series ("Adult Swim" on "Cartoon Network") where the principle and a secondary were both getting into one of those "I'm a 5 times stronger than I was before" "Well I'm 10 times stronger" "Well I'm 20", "I'm 100"..1000, million, infinity "are not, "are too"....etc. I think the target audience for that particular show is aimed at teens (Which may not be far off the age of some of the posters -- especially if you are referring to mental age)...:-)
It depends on the state in the US -- specifically, in techno-centric California, such non compete agreements are not only unenforceable, but are also *illegal* to put in an employment contract. What you do on your own time with your own computer is "yours" unless it substantially overlaps the major business of your company -- then the company will probably win as they'll likely have more legal and monetary resources to carry on a lengthy legal battle.:-(
Given that, supposedly, ALL AT&T traffic is routed through NSA sniffers, that might "alarm" non-US governments. Let them argue about net-control all they want, but as long as the US *is* the hub for most world calls, they may have some resistance.
I hope Canada has no financial ties with the US. Otherwise they'll find some punishing language buried in some upcoming bill tying the US's honoring those "ties" unless RCMP's come up with a "technology solution" to punish online file sharer's. Hmmm...some Commie Republocrat Demblican is probably trying to figure this out as we speak.
Who created the bias, the researchers, sponsors, or reporters (or who?)? Manipulating "correlations" is so common as to be laughable (sadly). You've just thrown the credibility of the entire human race into question!:-)
Seriously -- nearly every study showing harm of cannabis is done using correlational studies showing that various 'ills' increase with use, when, more often than not, there's already a connection showing cannabis being used to treat the 'ill'... (so of course, one finds more use of it in a population suffering from some 'ill').
One of the great benefits of the internet (and Google), is finding writeups with different "spins" by different authors about the same baseline topics. You can even occasionally see the base article come out from some small local news source, then slowly see different news entities pick up the article adding their own spin. From there other organizations pick up one of the "spin" loaded articles -- not every bothering to read the original... It's no wonder so much contradictory crap gets thrown around the internet when really people are only playing that message game where you whisper your hearing of the story to your neighbor -- the final messages may bear little resemblance to the original news item.
Then people square off against each other based on the non-real, created comments that had nothing to do with the original piece.... Virtually no one bothers too look at the originals -- most famous "big" disinformation campaign appeared to be mostly spun by the UK's Telegraph pushing their "correlation" of some mental illnesses with cannabis use -- when, from the studies, it was just as obvious that cannabis was more frequently used to self-medicate by those showing early signs or those having a latent pre-disposal toward some mental condition.
It's all so much bull that's fed to the masses to support some editor's or some paper's particular bent for a particular spin on a story that day.
Could he run in a third party? Or heck -- how about a "fourth" party: the Colbert party? If he can't get on the ballot, could he get a a "mention" via "write-in" candidates?
Sigh. Democans be just as moronic as Republicrats.
Well....good reason to buy Dell. Dunno if they will change it, or if it applies to all versions of Windows, but I was told by a support person that a Dell OEM Win disk (I've done it with XP-Pro, all Service Packs) that I should not have to enter a serial number or be "validated" by MS if I'm installing the OEM disk onto a Dell machine. So far has been true.
Windows "Genuine Disadvantage" still does its checking to download various tools, but at least the initial setup is more hassle free.
As for OEM versions not being transferable -- maybe, but a friend bought a copy of WinXP over the internet and when it arrived, it was a "Dell" OEM disk with older artwork. He was installing onto a generic "white box". He had to call MS to verify, but they didn't have any problem providing a confirmation code. He was, as far as we know, using a unique serial number, but it was an OEM version.
Are you sure about the "non-transferable" bit? Since most OEM's won't give you a windows refund (which MS's license claims is available from your vendor if you don't agree to their terms). With most OEM's refusing refunds (at least Dell does, claiming it is part of the package cost), it seems you cannot get the refund MS "promises". As a result, I think it should be resalable. I can't see a judge enforcing the non-resalable clause if MS has no way to return the OS for a refund (presuming you don't want it: running another OS).
Of course this all assumes their "click-to-run" license is valid. From other legal cases, this is, at least, questionable, if not legally unenforceable.
Does a lynch mob qualify as wisdom of crowds? How about a riot?
One person's wisdom = another's foolhardiness.
If it is just "the ghost in the machine", where the parts show intelligence beyond what would be indicated by merely the sum of their parts, why call it 'wisdom', or is this a new way of justifying mob-rule? 1/2:-)
Slashdot Mirror
Someone labeled this 'funny' -- seems more "insightful" with "funny" as a 'side-effect'...
The slashdot posting is a "troll" -- designed to create controversy, foaming at the mouth -- even seizures by some slashdot readers! (well...the seizures are probably unlikely...).
... not feeling especially masochistic this morning) it's that they compressed the song into the mp3 format that is noted for making it easier to store and transfer music files between devices (and computers) *and* putting it in his Kazaa shared folder. According to page 15, this was done for his wife's benefit. However, consistent with rulings, I believe, in past cases, they pointing out that the man is (perhaps unwittingly) making the files sharable through kazaa on a "public network" (assumption on my part -- unless man has private, internal, separate net that he is sharing the files through to his wife) which has been previously used as "sufficient guilt".
Seriously -- the slashdot post claims it is the mp3 format conversion that is "illegal". While it is mentioned as part of what the defendant did -- it isn't the point of their complaint -- "on page 15" (haven't read the entire complaint
They've won cases on this point in the past and they have a point: just as content or media on a public web-page can be considered a Copyright violation -- why not on a public kazaa-share directory?
On the other hand -- I seem to remember some cases where something was retrieved off a webserver and the web site owners were trying to make the case that it was meant to be "private" so it was a violation of the computer security laws that they "broke into another person's computer (by using the commercially standard information sharing protocol, HTTP). Personally I think that one is fairly bogus -- but which way do people want it?
We can't laugh at the litigants there who left their computer open to public perusal over http or ftp who want to claim their computer was "violated" and then turn around when someone deliberately puts a file in their shared public folder under an information sharing protocol's shared(public) directory. It's inconsistent.
OTOH (again), the husband might claim he was unaware that people other than his wife could download the mp3's he put in his shared directory for his wife. Now this seems unlikely to anyone, at all knowledgeable about computers, but I have to think of people with computer skills like my grandmother or grandfather -- some people might not think of putting a file in a shared folder in his house for his wife as "public sharing".... might be a mitigating factor, but they are admitting to putting their mp3's in a publicly-shared folder on the internet. That seems like it might be sufficient evidence (in "their world") that the defendant was culpable.
It wasn't, simply, the "mp3" format, that the original slashdot poster characterized as the basis for prosecution, but that he was sharing them over Kazaa.
I hope the defendant is well versed in previous case law (as he's representing himself). IANAL and I've not read the rest of the 20-some page complaint, so its hard to characterize the rest of the RIAA's case, but the point of the slashdot posting was that he converted his songs into mp3. That wasn't the point of page 15 -- making it a perfect example, IMO, of how non-lawyers can easily be mislead by legal jargon.
Hey, I'm waiting for the say when they impound crosswalks for being used in the commission of jaywalking.
These laws are designed to replace the less and less popular war on cannabis.
Just like the head of the FBI's narcotic enforcement came from alcohol prohibition enforcement, I'm sure that those involved in the next war on the American people will come from cannabis prohibition. Other drugs won't provide anything close to the confiscation-resources that todays police organizations and prisons will need to stay in operation at current levels and continue to grow. Perhaps C. prohibition ending is premature, but it's looking closer with, at least, medical approval -- and when that happens, the whole fraudulent house of cards the anti-freedom lobby has concocted against the harm of marijuana will fall apart -- especially the nonsense about cannabis smoking causing cancer.
It doesn't. No more than chewing gum causes mouth cancer (as chewing tobacco does). The cancer is in the tobacco (most likely the deadly poison, nicotine, a natural, powerful insecticide). Doesn't matter what form you take it -- still is shown to cause cancer, but so far, no form of cannabis consumption is associated with an increase in cancer -- especially true for smoking! Among other studies, the largest was Kaiser Health Care's several year, 60,000+ member study that showed no increase in cancers among marijuana smokers. More than one study has shown a lowering of cancer-cases in those who smoke cannabis over those who abstain, but the figures are usually "close", and are quietly ignored.
Anyway -- the police need their forfeiture/confiscation income -- it has provided the largest police budget increase with almost every town now affording "SWAT" teams and even mid-size towns financing things like police helicopters with the forfeited money.
Forfeiture should be considered a denial of property (punishment) without due process.
If this new law comes into effect -- police will have a new tool to go after anyone who's machine gets "infected" as well as those offering open-WiFi access points, and likely those even used to "discuss" illegal file trading (discussion of illegal event with anyone = conspiracy under federal law). This could be used with a VERY broad brush...*ug*
USB2 was so "obsolete" as soon as Firewire 400 was released. Oh...yeah, USB2 was released after
FW400...USB2 was obsolete upon release -- they should have gone with higher performance FW400. With the same hard disk years ago, I tried a speed test over 3 buses: ATA, USB2, FW400.
Performance for ATA & FW both topped out in the low 20's: ATA ~25MB/s, FW400: ~24MB/s. But USB2 -- topped out at 12MB/s. (USB1.1 was around 1.2MB/).
Anything I tried comparing FW400 & USB2 showed FW400 both faster and more reliable. Now FW800 is out and it does work noticeably faster than FW400.
USB2 is for "toys", not for system critical hardware. Maybe it is ok for talking to lower capacity USB devices, but for something close to a high-speed external and portable protocol, FW800 seems to do quite well.
Dunno about compared to ESata, one prob with FW800, is it seems to be faster than the hard disks I've
tested, so far, so I don't know its top speed or how it fares next to ESata, but USB?? I don't know why,
but it's 480Mb/s seems to run measurably slower than FW's 400Mb/s speed and, obviously, is no comparison compared to FW800.
It's a hard point to argue if you had only two options, food, or a laptop, the food seems a better choice.
... but then people would complain about how "the children" should have to choose between having and eating, but at least they'd have a choice!
:-/
If only it had been an apple
Slightly reverse-diagonal from that -- how long would $200 last them if they were paid in dollars -- now how much would they get if it were in Euros? If they got the cash -- what if they were paid in Zimbabwe dollars? with 14,841% (to 20,000%) annual inflation?
Maybe instead of food money it might be good to give "credit" with which they could buy "certain" goods -- like 1) food stores, 2) Farm and basic technology items (solar power, stills - water is a prob in many areas)...
As some others point out -- no matter how well they are "fed" by foreign Aid departments -- no one will see that they get laptops (which are still seen as 'luxury' goods by many). Computers aren't like "appliances" like "TV's or Refrigerators, that you can just plug in and use for 10-15 years. Unfortunately computers haven't gotten to the same commodity level as the phone or TV. Few governments, certainly virtually no western governments, would commit to a policy of computers being as essential as phones, TV or radio -- for to do so would require government pressure for prices to drop and their reliability and usability to go up significantly.
We all know the benefit of computers in our lives, but government officials can act remarkably stupid when it comes to doing things that benefit the people over their corporate sponsors. Can you imagine a US president, for example, trying to require anything from computer makers along the lines of price, stability, upgradability, etc. Think about their actions toward the sainted auto-industry -- requiring a rise in fleet MPG's that is virtually 'no increased requirement' -- and even then putting it off 13 years to 2020. No spine.
Another reason for people getting computers over food -- computers can be seen as a one-time event. If food is given, it creates another empty stomach in the future -- creating a need for of the same in the future. There's also Maslov's hierarchy of Needs that states how 'hungry' people won't even thing about higher level needs & wants -- they are more easily controlled if you control their food.
At the same time, computers can be a strong catalyst for citizen eductation outside of approved channels. It appears, I believe it was Uganda, that recently decided that laptops for their 2 million children were not necessary and that learning computer skills wasn't something the ruler's children needed to learn...keeping them ignorant is important -- besides, if citizens started browsing the WWW in an oppressive country, then the government would have to spend alot of money to erect a "Chinese Wall" around their country's internet 'borders'. That's something a poorer country couldn't easily afford -- better to not encourage easy internet access by handing out computers to the peasantry...
Not at the point where you talk into the microphone. It's pretty easy to detect, and given just how annoying it is to sit next to a person talking into their cell phone ... it wouldn't take long for your seat neighbour would complain to the stewardess.
----
This doesn't seem like a good reason since they allow phonecalls on their backseat phones -- the same problem would exist.
Second problem: "I call bullshoot!" From your description, I don't think you have ever sat next to someone on a cellphone while they were talking, while on an airplane.
People talk on cell phones 'loudly' because as they outside volume goes "up and down" due to background noise, they don't adjust their voice "back down". It is similar to the "comical" situation where someone says something meant to be private against "background noise", but the background noise drops to zero, suddenly, and they end up shouting whatever it was they meant to be "private".
On an airline, most people are *fairly* quiet! People are trying to read, on their computers, sleeping, watching a "silent" movie (unless you pay for earphones, or, are on a long or business-class flight. With people sitting, and with the generally "constant" drone of the engines and external air noise, they usually adjust their voice volume to not offend others. In contrast, kids flying are famously (and/or stereotypically) known for being 'annoying' because they are more often "oblivious" of their volume. Some kids are well behaved, but those who aren't stereotype it for the rest.
It's not likely someone wearing earphones and a separate microphone would be *that* much more obvious than someone listening to computer audio using voice for input. Might not be able to talk for hours on end, but it would certainly be less obvious than someone talking on a seat-back phone -- which is allowed.
What the airlines likely mean is that they are not going to supply *service* that would "easily" enable voice-IP to work reliably. It's not likely that they would have the bandwidth or latency requirements for a plane-load of people to use VOIP, satisfactorily.
While the law requires an operator to report obscene materials, it doesn't seem to mention any requirement that they search or filter for such materials. How many public hot spots monitor and/or filter their clientèle's internet traffic?
...who would have guessed that? ... Certainly not the "loudest" /. posters on the subject ;-/
Hasn't this been debunked as a myth?
Usually, it is ignorance that breeds fear.
"The only reliable means we have of producing energy are fuel powered reactors/power stations and hydro-electric plants and these are what a country should base it's energy policy on.
:-(
From what I've read in "New Scientist", fissionable nuclear material is going the same way as oil -- in fact, we have fewer years supply of Uranium than coal, which are predicted, currently to last about 400 years. Not that coal is a good way to power anything, but I wouldn't put all my hopes in nuclear fission. Nuclear fusion doesn't look like it will provide any answers, either, unless we figure out a way to harness the equivalent force of a sun's gravity to contain the thermonuclear reaction. The energy requirements of containment appear to make fusion, as a power source, infeasible in the foreseeable future.
The most promising source of new energy: geothermal. One can build geothermal generation plants almost anywhere that sits on top of a sufficiently hot heat source -- like the stored heat energy of the earth. Tapping into geothermal energy to meet the power demands of the 21st appears far more likely than development of fusion (even though fusion is certainly more portable). With geothermal, , humanity would have enough power to sustain us until humanity shuffles, either, off its mortal coil or off off this earthly rock (to other 'earthly' rocks!).
As for there being "simply no other alternative" than fission...you aren't thinking very hard (not that I'm against nuclear fission, but if the fuel is already in as short of supply as it appears, it better not be our only alternative).
Same was true for XP SP1 and SP2. Applications were hardest hit in SP1, networking in SP2, but SP2 tended to, outright, break things more than just slow them down.
:-(
In the past, MS has usually slowed down the previous release with patches and Service Packs, so installing a new OS was an upgrade, mostly because of large rewrites, instead of the "spaghettified" code that had been patched into place.
This time, they bit off too much in Vista -- so much that they didn't have the resources to release XP-SP3 before Vista's initial release. However, I have great confidence that Microsoft will work hard to address Vista's performance deficit (relative to XP) in XP's next service pack.
"it's bloody fucking ironic how Apple decided only ATT would be its bitch in the US and went for Tmobile on the other side of the ocean" - It makes sense. Apple wouldn't want either eliminated -- competition, in this case, is good for Apple.
Actually -- they were all guilty...how do we know? Um -- they wouldn't have been arrested if they weren't guilty! Isn't that how our legal system works [sic[k]]? Assumption of guilt upon getting an arrest warrant?
In theory, I agree with much of what you say -- up to a point.
If the "tubes" are full, one needs a way to prioritize traffic.
BUT, there are some exceptions and questions:
1) Why are the tubes full? Weren't telecom companies given billions of dollars SPECIFICALLYto expand coverage and upgrade capacity? Isn't it true that all of that money was taken and used by the companies, yet there was no measurable increase in coverage or speed to show where the money went?
If telecom companies are given money to upgrade bandwidth, and instead, they upgrade their profit margins and stock value, should they be given free reign to now charge customers "extra" for providing the services that the government (US public) already paid for? How many times do we need to pay for the capital upgrades?
2) Often, the companies that engage in rate-limiting, or auto-termination of streams do so to increase their bottom line without having to spend money in R&D. Do we need to go back to stricter regulation of those who own local infrastructure (probably), to guarantee that some percentage of the money is being wisely "managed" and used in infrastructure upgrades?
I don't know how long it has been going on (maybe forever), but I, personally, noticed it more starting in the 90's: When there was an oversupply of cash and returns were good, companies took those monies and churned them into "profit" -- and *instead* of investing in research, companies (I first noticed it with Sony, but they are not the only guilty parties) invested in "Partitioning available resources and products to create more "grades of service or product" to more effectively extract maximum money from the consumer while providing no increase in value. Instead, companies provide " Negative decreases in functionality".
This is not like computer science where a double negative = a positive; negative decrease != increase. The company designs a high level model, say a "1000 series". The price for the product, as designed, is aimed at $1000 (or Euro, Pound, etc) price point. Their incremental cost for producing each successive unit is $150 (for example). Like disk-drive manufacturer practice of releasing multiple capacities of a drive that have the same internal capacity, but only show "diminished" capacity when bought as a smaller drive. Some drive manufacturers, sell a 100GB model -- say 1 platter. Well, they'll also sell the same drive for 80GB, 60GB and 40GB drives -- just formatted differently with the firmware enforcing the capacity. I remember one manufacturer selling a 40GB, where if you removed a jumper it became a 100-200GB drive. They needed the 40GB to sell into lower price niches or provide replacements for older model disks under warranty.
The bottom line to the consumer -- they don't get any better hardware or product for the higher price product -- it's just the the lower priced products are programmed down in features.
It is the same in the telecom & network provider industry. The provider may have access to 5-10x the capacity, if they wanted to activate all of their "dark fiber". The fiber and connections are already there -- they just have to flip a switch to activate them. But by keeping a large fraction "dark", they artificially decrease supply to convince consumers and regulators that they need more money to provide better service -- all the while keeping 30-90% of their real capacity "off line".
They tell consumers (and federal regulating agencies), that they are operating at capacity. But it is disingenuous. It's the capacity of what they have enabled, but not what what is possible with the currently installed infrastructure.
This is why America doesn't have as much innovation anymore as other countries. In America, prices are set to extract the most money from everyone unrelated to costs to provide those services. The consumer is "ripped off". Rather than telling the consumer (say with "disks"), 1st 500GB platte
Don't suppose anyone bothered to mirror the content or site -- seems to be "unreachable" for some reason, now. ...well start with them in San Jose, then:
...local routes...
Interesting, attempting to traceroute the path it seems like something is screwed up at
cogentco.com. Why do my packets first
SFO (CIA tap office location)
MCI(3 hops), boston(2 hops), then jfk, london(2), amsterdam, Frankfurt Germany?, Hamberg Germany(?)
then 3 more I can't decipher, then finally jumps off the "data com demarc[ation] point to another
provider (prqinet.net?), then no responses after that (after 26 hops!).
traceroute to wikileaks.org (88.80.13.160), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets
8 v3498.mpd01.sjc01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.6.233) 161.348 ms 161.539 ms 167.410 ms
9 t2-3.mpd01.sfo01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.1.129) 168.583 ms 171.663 ms 171.805 ms
10 t9-3.ccr02.mci01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.24.118) 177.341 ms 178.538 ms 184.640 ms
11 g9-0-0.core01.mci01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.5.205) 177.806 ms * 177.290 ms
12 t3-1.mpd01.mci01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.2.218) 294.490 ms 300.275 ms 297.979 ms
13 t8-3.mpd01.bos01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.7.82) 288.242 ms 290.003 ms 286.007 ms
14 g11-0-0.core01.bos01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.5.21) 236.221 ms 239.490 ms 241.507 ms
15 p0-0.core02.jfk02.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.7.78) 229.525 ms 235.227 ms 234.020 ms
16 p4-0.core02.lon01.atlas.cogentco.com (66.28.4.254) 227.766 ms 228.737 ms 233.529 ms
17 p0-0.core01.lon01.atlas.cogentco.com (130.117.2.77) 200.527 ms 202.008 ms 205.540 ms
18 p3-0.core01.ams03.atlas.cogentco.com (130.117.0.197) 208.782 ms 211.774 ms 215.764 ms
19 p9-0.core02.fra03.atlas.cogentco.com (130.117.0.229) 214.010 ms 217.255 ms 218.990 ms
20 p12-0.core01.ham01.atlas.cogentco.com (130.117.1.186) 218.737 ms 218.981 ms 220.220 ms
21 p0-0.core01.cph01.atlas.cogentco.com (130.117.2.126) 230.211 ms 231.204 ms 230.948 ms
22 p5-0.core01.sto01.atlas.cogentco.com (130.117.3.38) 241.431 ms 242.163 ms 241.673 ms
23 t1-4.ccr01.sto01.atlas.cogentco.com (130.117.0.74) 209.269 ms 213.613 ms 214.002 ms
24 dcs-data-com.demarc.cogentco.com (149.6.168.10) 208.787 ms 213.087 ms 218.007 ms
25 vlan582.ge0.cr0.sth3.prqinet.net (82.96.53.22) 195.795 ms 202.088 ms 204.282 ms
26 ge0.tr0.sth3.prqinet.net (88.80.5.3) 195.785 ms 196.559 ms 195.836 ms
27 * * *
28 * * *
29 * * *
30 * * *
Reminds me of an episode of the cartoon, er "Manga", "Bleach" series ("Adult Swim" on "Cartoon Network") where the principle and a secondary were both getting into one of those "I'm a 5 times stronger than I was before" "Well I'm 10 times stronger" "Well I'm 20", "I'm 100" ..1000, million, infinity "are not, "are too"....etc. I think the target audience for that particular show is aimed at teens (Which may not be far off the age of some of the posters -- especially if you are referring to mental age)...:-)
It depends on the state in the US -- specifically, in techno-centric California, such non compete agreements are not only unenforceable, but are also *illegal* to put in an employment contract. What you do on your own time with your own computer is "yours" unless it substantially overlaps the major business of your company -- then the company will probably win as they'll likely have more legal and monetary resources to carry on a lengthy legal battle. :-(
Sorry, but...that's not remotely true....
Given that, supposedly, ALL AT&T traffic is routed through NSA sniffers, that might "alarm" non-US governments. Let them argue about net-control all they want, but as long as the US *is* the hub for most world calls, they may have some resistance.
I hope Canada has no financial ties with the US. Otherwise they'll find some punishing language buried in some upcoming bill tying the US's honoring those "ties" unless RCMP's come up with a "technology solution" to punish online file sharer's. Hmmm...some Commie Republocrat Demblican is probably trying to figure this out as we speak.
Who created the bias, the researchers, sponsors, or reporters (or who?)? Manipulating "correlations" is so common as to be laughable (sadly). You've just thrown the credibility of the entire human race into question! :-)
Seriously -- nearly every study showing harm of cannabis is done using correlational studies showing that various 'ills' increase with use, when, more often than not, there's already a connection showing cannabis being used to treat the 'ill'... (so of course, one finds more use of it in a population suffering from some 'ill').
One of the great benefits of the internet (and Google), is finding writeups with different "spins" by different authors about the same baseline topics. You can even occasionally see the base article come out from some small local news source, then slowly see different news entities pick up the article adding their own spin. From there other organizations pick up one of the "spin" loaded articles -- not every bothering to read the original... It's no wonder so much contradictory crap gets thrown around the internet when really people are only playing that message game where you whisper your hearing of the story to your neighbor -- the final messages may bear little resemblance to the original news item.
Then people square off against each other based on the non-real, created comments that had nothing to do with the original piece.... Virtually no one bothers too look at the originals -- most famous "big" disinformation campaign appeared to be mostly spun by the UK's Telegraph pushing their "correlation" of some mental illnesses with cannabis use -- when, from the studies, it was just as obvious that cannabis was more frequently used to self-medicate by those showing early signs or those having a latent pre-disposal toward some mental condition.
It's all so much bull that's fed to the masses to support some editor's or some paper's particular bent for a particular spin on a story that day.
-l
Could he run in a third party?
Or heck -- how about a "fourth" party: the Colbert party?
If he can't get on the ballot, could he get a a "mention" via "write-in" candidates?
Sigh. Democans be just as moronic as Republicrats.
Well....good reason to buy Dell. Dunno if they will change it, or if it applies to all versions of Windows, but I was told by a support person that a Dell OEM Win disk (I've done it with XP-Pro, all Service Packs) that I should not have to enter a serial number or be "validated" by MS if I'm installing the OEM disk onto a Dell machine. So far has been true.
Windows "Genuine Disadvantage" still does its checking to download various tools, but at least the initial setup is more hassle free.
As for OEM versions not being transferable -- maybe, but a friend bought a copy of WinXP over the internet and when it arrived, it was a "Dell" OEM disk with older artwork. He was installing onto a generic "white box". He had to call MS to verify, but they didn't have any problem providing a confirmation code. He was, as far as we know, using a unique serial number, but it was an OEM version.
Are you sure about the "non-transferable" bit? Since most OEM's won't give you a windows refund (which MS's license claims is available from your vendor if you don't agree to their terms). With most OEM's refusing refunds (at least Dell does, claiming it is part of the package cost), it seems you cannot get the refund MS "promises". As a result, I think it should be resalable. I can't see a judge enforcing the non-resalable clause if MS has no way to return the OS for a refund (presuming you don't want it: running another OS).
Of course this all assumes their "click-to-run" license is valid. From other legal cases, this is, at least, questionable, if not legally unenforceable.
Does a lynch mob qualify as wisdom of crowds? How about a riot?
:-)
One person's wisdom = another's foolhardiness.
If it is just "the ghost in the machine", where the parts show intelligence beyond what would be indicated by merely the sum of their parts, why call it 'wisdom', or is this a new way of justifying mob-rule? 1/2
"The biggest concern seems to be finding the glitches in the system instead of reconsidering automated arms altogether." ---
Yeah...it was controlled by computers, no doubt. Probably shouldn't bother to debug them -- just get rid of them altogether!...
Those darn computers cause nothing but trouble...