Discountlaptops.com eems to have an excellent selection, good prices, and no Windows. Check them out. I don't actually have any experience with them, but they seem like a pretty good dealer.
1 chemical lab equipped with a gas chromatograph machine and other stuff ($several million)
a few qualified chemists ($2+ million/year)
quite a bit of time to figure out the electrolyte composition. Some more time to figure out how to manufacture it. Even more time to figure out how to manufacture it without losing money and on the equipment they have.
Total - many million dollars and several years. It would probably be cheaper to figure out a better electrolyte mixture than to reverse engineer someone else's.
This is opposed to bribing a worker in a Taiwanese capacitor factory to look at the mixture used (probably less than $5K for the whole deal). They would already know what kind of chemicals they use, what chemical process it is, etc. The total cost would be very small, and they could immediately start manufacturing those capacitors, since they would have the manufacturing data.
Leaking and exploding capacitors can be caused by many things. Like applying voltage higher than they are rated for/with the wrong polarity. Obviously, bad electrolyte would react with the capacitor causing it to fail in the same manner. Nothing odd about that; poor quality electronic components have existed since the beginning of the electronics industry.
Mplayer is by FAR one of the best products anyone ever made for Linux. I think they have a right to be arrogant. Can you name anything else which contains so much unique functionality? How many players before mplayer could play divx, quicktime, realmedia, windows media, etc with lightning speed? Also, how many projects release new versions every 2 months which contain tons of improvements and new features?
On the other hand, Debian is a crusty BSD wannabe known mainly for its juvenile religious zealotry, outdated software packages, and user un-friendliness. As far as I know, they did not create anything that anyone except themselves actually uses. I would say that Debian is more arrogant in this situation, considering that their own work is much less unique, sophisticated, or usable. I'll recognize Debian's right to whine, flame, and complain only when their distribution becomes at least as innovative, productive, and practically useful as mplayer currently is.
Actually, DON'T use low heat, unless you can still melt the joint in less than a second. "Low" heat is not that low, and will lift traces if applied for too long, but it's harder to desolder when it can't adequately warm up the joint.
Am I saying I like Palladium? I hate the fucking thing. My point is that some of the general population really does want it, even if some of them are not aware of that. Why do you think Microsoft wants that shit in every computer? They need to move copies of Windows. Media center PCs promise to be more popular than desktop PCs. Microsoft wants to make PCs with Windows into something as ubiquitous as TVs. Microsoft will not survive unless it can sustain exponential sales growth, and they know it perfectly well. Hence the xbox, drm PCs, and all the other shit they're coming up with.
I don't give a shit, though. I doubt they will make the palladium stuff permanently-on. Just won't work very well. And I couldn't give less of a shit about the stuff that Palladium would protect. Hollywood movies and Britney Spears? Give me a break.
The size of the games market is largely irrelevant to the total platform penetration. If the mac had 10,000,000 users but none/few of them wanted to play Quake 3, it would not be a better platform for it than something with 100,000 users of which 30% would buy the game. Depending on these percentages, Mac vs. Linux could go either way.
Strange. When I buy motherboards, I don't ever look for or see any windows certified stickers. Neither do any OEMs. It's blazingly obvious that any PC motherboard will run windows unless it's defective. Assuming a non-certified board is cheaper by $30 (probably how much that TCPA stuff costs) that's what I or the OEM could get.
No, the real reason that this stuff is being pushed for is that Microsoft wants a PC in every living room. Heard of their Windows XP Media Center edition? People like it, too.
Don't you think they'd like it more if they could buy MP3s and stuff for it over the net? Of course they would. Would any company in their right mind sell that stuff without secure DRM? Probably not. That's where Palladium comes in.
Do people want DRM-enabled PCs? Not really. Do they want 'Media center' PCs? Hell yeah. DRM is pretty much a requirement for one of these, and Palladium makes it secure.
Why would mobo people put that shit into their motherboards? Because their customers demand it. You may not know it, but some people really want to watch hollywood movies on their computers. That's what palladium is for, and that's why everything is shifting in that direction. You're pointing at the wrong people.
Well, MandrakeClub is not much different from Apple's.Mac. They didn't do such a good job disguising its real purpose as Apple did, but essentially it's the same. You pay a fairly high pricefor a marginally useful service (homepage hosting and email vs downloads of packaged rpms and forums and stuff). Apparently, the apple folks don't mind paying a bunch of cash for that shit, and Mandrake does essentially the same thing. Apple does offer more services, though.
Thank you for your polite reply to my post. However, I would like to point out the problems I personally see with Libertarianism. Please keep in mind that these are not some kind of preconceived notions. Some of my views agree with those of the Libertarians, but I don't think the advertised goals of that party are consistent with its platform. To me, Libertarianism seems like a platform that favors private corporations to the extreme.
As an example of what I see wrong with Libertarian politics, let's examine the page about the education proposal. It is basically the voucher system that has been proposed many times; it also shares the problems of the voucher system. It allegedly seeks to solve the problems of poor kids being forced to attend a sub-par public school by distributing tax money to private schools on a voucher system.
The advantages seem obvious. With the current system, private schools are typically known for their educational excellence. The voucher system seems to be capable of bringing this excellence to every child. However, this is not so.
Imagine a school system based on vouchers. Suppose that you are a low-income family. You have a voucher that you may spend at local schools A, B, C, and D.
Schools A and B are very selective, choosing only the brightest kids from the best families that could afford such an education even if the vouchers were not offered. Since they are private, they can use any criteria they want to determine eligibility, including family status and income as well as academic potential. They will most likely reject your child, because they will not want to contaminate their prestige with poor kids from ghetto neighborhoods. Even if they accept him/her, they will still charge too much (on top of the voucher) to be affordable.
School C is for the middle class. It is fairly large, and many children go there; it is comparable to a today's mid-to-upper-level public school. However, it has to charge a fee of $2000/year per student to deliver a decent educational experience. Remember, it does not get as much funding as a typical public school. Your poor family cannot afford this extra expense. Thus, your only option is school D.
School D is a mid-size school, composed mostly of poor students from ghettoish urban neighborhoods. It is privately run. It does not have enough teachers, and the ones that it does have are inexperienced, underpaid, and overworked. Many students who go to this school have problems. Unlike today's public schools, school D does not have significant funding. Furthermore, it is being run for profit, and 30% of the voucher money goes right into the pocket of a rich local businessman. Since there is no Dept. of Education, virtually nobody enforces minimum standards, develops the cirriculum, or oversees this school. Many of its graduates are unable to read and write, and none go on to college. However, you have to send your child to this school, because none of the others will take him/her.
This would be a typical scenario of a voucher-based school system. As you can see, it causes much more problems than it solves. However, Libertarians propose similar systems for healthcare, law enforcement, the justice system, and all kinds of other things.
As you can see, this system would heavily favor the rich and the upper classes and significantly hurt the lower classes. Negligible benefits may be provided to the middle class. Such a divisive system would propel any country that adopted it back into the middle ages, when the system of class division permeated every pore of society.
Although you would be paying slightly fewer taxes to the government, you would spend much more on the things the government normally gives back to you. No, the "corrupt politicians" don't magically suck up all the money they get. Probably around 95% of it is given back to you through direct and indirect benefits.
Also, I would suggest reading a book about the Great Depression. Before and during the depression, welfare was provided by private charities, exactly as you propose. It did not work very well; poverty was rampant and welfare money were scarce. The Depression was solved only through government intervention and direct government investment in the population through taxes.
In short, my beef with Libertarianism is that it aims to give everyone the same responsibilities. Do you think that a person with $50 million/yr income should pay as much/little for healthcare as a person with $10,000/yr income? Congratulations, you're a Libertarian.
Anyway, I do not want this rant to be insulting or degrading to you or your beliefs; I'm just trying to politely explain my disagreement. Please reply, as I'm genuinely interested in your take on this. Keep in mind that I'm not interested in starting flamewars, so don't assume I'm just trolling.
First, the RFC specifies proxying mechanisms. Proxying != mirroring. Yes, a proxy can cache. It's a grey area of the copyright law -- automatically-generated headers do not necessarily constitute the permission of the content owner, especially since the content owner can't always control the headers generated by his server (i.e. in a shared environment).
However, what people are proposing is to set up a mirror. A mirror is NOT an RFC proxy. It does not require intervention from the client (setting the web browser) and is not covered by any RFC I know of. It would be a completely non-standard solution.
A proxy would be completely inappropriate in this situation. Proxies are set up by ISPs and network operators, not people who merely provide links (like slashdot). If you want to use a proxy cache, use the one provided by your ISP. A slashdot-operated proxy would also require everyone to set up his/her web browser to use the proxy, and the proxy would have to relay the content for every web site accessed by the web browser, whether or not it is linked to by Slashdot. Otherwise, it would not be an RFC-compliant solution, and my comment about lack of standard caching/mirroring mechanisms would still stand.
About the website "brought to its knees" -- this is the problem and the responsibility of the site operator. If it's a P133, you cannot reasonably expect it to have 100% availability under any reasonable load. If you want that, get a Sun E5500 or an IBM mainframe or something. However, there is no reason to need a personal website to be 100% available, so a P133 may suffice. If you want to ensure that the amount of traffic to the website is limited, configure the web server to limit it. Hell, protect it with a password or restrict it to a certain subnet.
The main complain that people have are unexpected bandwidth bills. This is 100% their fault. A webserver can easily be configured to reject requests after the bandwidth limit has been exhausted. This can be configured per-hour, so as to not make a site unavailable for an entire month. One can easily configure a traffic shaper or throttling. The point is: if you have a limited amount of network resources available, it is your responsibility to avoid their exhaustion. This does not involve fancy network hardware -- any decent OS and web server has these features built-in or easily installable.
My point is: it is your responsibility to make sure that your web server does not misbehave. If you have a quota, it's your responsibility not to exceed it -- not Slashdot's or anyone else's.
IMHO, states should think about eliminating unnecessary government programs instead of looking for more revenue. That's the best in the long run. It ensures a fiscially responsible government that isn't bloated. It also allows private companies (who can do the jobs for cheaper) to save money and provide better services.
This is a collection of preconceived misconceptions. First, let's discuss "unnecessary government programs." Typically, these don't exist. If something is not necessary, it gets cut. Most of the things you think are unnecessary are really very necessary, though perhaps not for you. For example, you may not be in a public school or have children that go to a public school, but I don't think you would consider public school unnecessary. The same applies to many other programs -- senior benefits, medical programs, education, parks and conservation, whatever. If you still don't agree, please name a specific government program which you consider unnecessary.
Now let's address the other issue - the mistaken belief that a private company can save money and provide better services than a government agency. You are 100% mistaken on this count. Private companies are inherently more costly than government agencies. They not only need to provide the same service, but they also need to make a healthy profit - often to the tune of 30-60%. Thus, a well-managed company would have to charge 30-60% more than a well-managed government agency.
Now enter the reality. Most companies are fairly poorly managed. Companies that deal with the government are particularly notorious in that regard. Thus, they would be less efficient, and would have to charge much more in order to make a profit. Furthermore, profit-boosting initiatives in such companies would most likely focus on cutting costs and reducing services as much as possible while still charging the taxpayers or its clients a hefty fee.
To sum up: with a private company, you typically get a poorly-managed, government-sponsored monopoly that provides fewer services of inferior quality to taxpayers while charging more than the equivalent government agency and, many times, still having problems with making money.
For example, if the US Postal Service (one of the more efficient government agencies -- how many times have they lost or stolen one of your letters? How does their price compare with Fedex?) was suddenly replaced by a private company, you would have an unreliable mail system with 75-cent postage that would lose your mail at least once a week and constantly beg for more government subsidies. It would also need constant government intervention and regulation to keep it from acting completely unreasonably.
These types of things have happened many times, both in and out of the US. Just read about Edison Schools to get an idea of what this would be like. And next time, I would suggest advocating laws that would make government agencies more efficient rather than replacing them with poorly-managed, profit-driven corporations.
Do you understand that caching websites without the author's permission is illegal? There is no standard HTTP mechanism for caching, and copying the page and giving it off as yours would surely spark many lawsuits.
I have no sympathy for someone who does not set up his webserver to prevent this type of DOS. At the very least, this is lazy. If you don't lock your front door, you shouldn't complain about burglars. If I had a site that got slashdotted, I would be glad for the extra publicity, not bitchy about the traffic.
If, on the other hand, Slashdot mirrored my site without asking permission, I would be somewhat pissed. I would not only have no chance to update it, but people would also not know the URL of that site, and I might not get my ad revenue.
Western corporations destroyed their economies? Can you name one that destroyed the native industries of, say, Vietnam before Nike came there? The truth is, those countries never HAD any industries, so none were to be destroyed. At best, they had a corrupt government, a primitive agricultural economy, and 98% unemployment. Do you think that's preferable to working in a Nike factory?
WTF are you talking about? First, the ISPs didn't legislate anything - the restriction is in the contract you signed. Second, they prohibit sharing your line with people OUTSIDE your household, not with multiple devices. Third, what the hell does terrorism, the RIAA and the MPAA have to do with telephone service?
How about you read your post before posting it next time? It makes no sense whatsoever.
The rear of the monitor cannot possibly produce any emissions. Emissions are produced when electrons strike the phosphors/glass on the front of the tube. Since a CRT shoots electrons from the back to the front, there are no significant emissions coming from the back.
Slashdot Mirror
Discountlaptops.com eems to have an excellent selection, good prices, and no Windows. Check them out. I don't actually have any experience with them, but they seem like a pretty good dealer.
That would be:
1 capacitor (0.05)
1 chemical lab equipped with a gas chromatograph machine and other stuff ($several million)
a few qualified chemists ($2+ million/year)
quite a bit of time to figure out the electrolyte composition. Some more time to figure out how to manufacture it. Even more time to figure out how to manufacture it without losing money and on the equipment they have.
Total - many million dollars and several years. It would probably be cheaper to figure out a better electrolyte mixture than to reverse engineer someone else's.
This is opposed to bribing a worker in a Taiwanese capacitor factory to look at the mixture used (probably less than $5K for the whole deal). They would already know what kind of chemicals they use, what chemical process it is, etc. The total cost would be very small, and they could immediately start manufacturing those capacitors, since they would have the manufacturing data.
Leaking and exploding capacitors can be caused by many things. Like applying voltage higher than they are rated for/with the wrong polarity. Obviously, bad electrolyte would react with the capacitor causing it to fail in the same manner. Nothing odd about that; poor quality electronic components have existed since the beginning of the electronics industry.
Mplayer is by FAR one of the best products anyone ever made for Linux. I think they have a right to be arrogant. Can you name anything else which contains so much unique functionality? How many players before mplayer could play divx, quicktime, realmedia, windows media, etc with lightning speed? Also, how many projects release new versions every 2 months which contain tons of improvements and new features?
On the other hand, Debian is a crusty BSD wannabe known mainly for its juvenile religious zealotry, outdated software packages, and user un-friendliness. As far as I know, they did not create anything that anyone except themselves actually uses. I would say that Debian is more arrogant in this situation, considering that their own work is much less unique, sophisticated, or usable. I'll recognize Debian's right to whine, flame, and complain only when their distribution becomes at least as innovative, productive, and practically useful as mplayer currently is.
Buying a processor with Palladium support is like buying a DVD player with DIVX support.
:)
Your sig is outdated, dude. I'd love a player with DivX support
Actually, DON'T use low heat, unless you can still melt the joint in less than a second. "Low" heat is not that low, and will lift traces if applied for too long, but it's harder to desolder when it can't adequately warm up the joint.
Am I saying I like Palladium? I hate the fucking thing. My point is that some of the general population really does want it, even if some of them are not aware of that. Why do you think Microsoft wants that shit in every computer? They need to move copies of Windows. Media center PCs promise to be more popular than desktop PCs. Microsoft wants to make PCs with Windows into something as ubiquitous as TVs. Microsoft will not survive unless it can sustain exponential sales growth, and they know it perfectly well. Hence the xbox, drm PCs, and all the other shit they're coming up with.
I don't give a shit, though. I doubt they will make the palladium stuff permanently-on. Just won't work very well. And I couldn't give less of a shit about the stuff that Palladium would protect. Hollywood movies and Britney Spears? Give me a break.
The size of the games market is largely irrelevant to the total platform penetration. If the mac had 10,000,000 users but none/few of them wanted to play Quake 3, it would not be a better platform for it than something with 100,000 users of which 30% would buy the game. Depending on these percentages, Mac vs. Linux could go either way.
Strange. When I buy motherboards, I don't ever look for or see any windows certified stickers. Neither do any OEMs. It's blazingly obvious that any PC motherboard will run windows unless it's defective. Assuming a non-certified board is cheaper by $30 (probably how much that TCPA stuff costs) that's what I or the OEM could get.
No, the real reason that this stuff is being pushed for is that Microsoft wants a PC in every living room. Heard of their Windows XP Media Center edition? People like it, too.
Don't you think they'd like it more if they could buy MP3s and stuff for it over the net? Of course they would. Would any company in their right mind sell that stuff without secure DRM? Probably not. That's where Palladium comes in.
Do people want DRM-enabled PCs? Not really. Do they want 'Media center' PCs? Hell yeah. DRM is pretty much a requirement for one of these, and Palladium makes it secure.
Relative to you, pigs ARE intelligent. AND they taste better. Win-win situation, isn't it?
"Sponsor" a vegetarian today.
If a rapist is in jail, they are not raping anybody.
Are you sure about that?
Stop Prisoner Rape
Why would mobo people put that shit into their motherboards? Because their customers demand it. You may not know it, but some people really want to watch hollywood movies on their computers. That's what palladium is for, and that's why everything is shifting in that direction. You're pointing at the wrong people.
It's less compressible because most encryption software compresses data. Double compression doesn't work. Duh.
Well, MandrakeClub is not much different from Apple's .Mac. They didn't do such a good job disguising its real purpose as Apple did, but essentially it's the same. You pay a fairly high pricefor a marginally useful service (homepage hosting and email vs downloads of packaged rpms and forums and stuff). Apparently, the apple folks don't mind paying a bunch of cash for that shit, and Mandrake does essentially the same thing. Apple does offer more services, though.
Thank you for your polite reply to my post. However, I would like to point out the problems I personally see with Libertarianism. Please keep in mind that these are not some kind of preconceived notions. Some of my views agree with those of the Libertarians, but I don't think the advertised goals of that party are consistent with its platform. To me, Libertarianism seems like a platform that favors private corporations to the extreme.
As an example of what I see wrong with Libertarian politics, let's examine the page about the education proposal. It is basically the voucher system that has been proposed many times; it also shares the problems of the voucher system. It allegedly seeks to solve the problems of poor kids being forced to attend a sub-par public school by distributing tax money to private schools on a voucher system.
The advantages seem obvious. With the current system, private schools are typically known for their educational excellence. The voucher system seems to be capable of bringing this excellence to every child. However, this is not so.
Imagine a school system based on vouchers. Suppose that you are a low-income family. You have a voucher that you may spend at local schools A, B, C, and D.
Schools A and B are very selective, choosing only the brightest kids from the best families that could afford such an education even if the vouchers were not offered. Since they are private, they can use any criteria they want to determine eligibility, including family status and income as well as academic potential. They will most likely reject your child, because they will not want to contaminate their prestige with poor kids from ghetto neighborhoods. Even if they accept him/her, they will still charge too much (on top of the voucher) to be affordable.
School C is for the middle class. It is fairly large, and many children go there; it is comparable to a today's mid-to-upper-level public school. However, it has to charge a fee of $2000/year per student to deliver a decent educational experience. Remember, it does not get as much funding as a typical public school. Your poor family cannot afford this extra expense. Thus, your only option is school D.
School D is a mid-size school, composed mostly of poor students from ghettoish urban neighborhoods. It is privately run. It does not have enough teachers, and the ones that it does have are inexperienced, underpaid, and overworked. Many students who go to this school have problems. Unlike today's public schools, school D does not have significant funding. Furthermore, it is being run for profit, and 30% of the voucher money goes right into the pocket of a rich local businessman. Since there is no Dept. of Education, virtually nobody enforces minimum standards, develops the cirriculum, or oversees this school. Many of its graduates are unable to read and write, and none go on to college. However, you have to send your child to this school, because none of the others will take him/her.
This would be a typical scenario of a voucher-based school system. As you can see, it causes much more problems than it solves. However, Libertarians propose similar systems for healthcare, law enforcement, the justice system, and all kinds of other things.
As you can see, this system would heavily favor the rich and the upper classes and significantly hurt the lower classes. Negligible benefits may be provided to the middle class. Such a divisive system would propel any country that adopted it back into the middle ages, when the system of class division permeated every pore of society.
Although you would be paying slightly fewer taxes to the government, you would spend much more on the things the government normally gives back to you. No, the "corrupt politicians" don't magically suck up all the money they get. Probably around 95% of it is given back to you through direct and indirect benefits.
Also, I would suggest reading a book about the Great Depression. Before and during the depression, welfare was provided by private charities, exactly as you propose. It did not work very well; poverty was rampant and welfare money were scarce. The Depression was solved only through government intervention and direct government investment in the population through taxes.
In short, my beef with Libertarianism is that it aims to give everyone the same responsibilities. Do you think that a person with $50 million/yr income should pay as much/little for healthcare as a person with $10,000/yr income? Congratulations, you're a Libertarian.
Anyway, I do not want this rant to be insulting or degrading to you or your beliefs; I'm just trying to politely explain my disagreement. Please reply, as I'm genuinely interested in your take on this. Keep in mind that I'm not interested in starting flamewars, so don't assume I'm just trolling.
First, the RFC specifies proxying mechanisms. Proxying != mirroring. Yes, a proxy can cache. It's a grey area of the copyright law -- automatically-generated headers do not necessarily constitute the permission of the content owner, especially since the content owner can't always control the headers generated by his server (i.e. in a shared environment).
However, what people are proposing is to set up a mirror. A mirror is NOT an RFC proxy. It does not require intervention from the client (setting the web browser) and is not covered by any RFC I know of. It would be a completely non-standard solution.
A proxy would be completely inappropriate in this situation. Proxies are set up by ISPs and network operators, not people who merely provide links (like slashdot). If you want to use a proxy cache, use the one provided by your ISP. A slashdot-operated proxy would also require everyone to set up his/her web browser to use the proxy, and the proxy would have to relay the content for every web site accessed by the web browser, whether or not it is linked to by Slashdot. Otherwise, it would not be an RFC-compliant solution, and my comment about lack of standard caching/mirroring mechanisms would still stand.
About the website "brought to its knees" -- this is the problem and the responsibility of the site operator. If it's a P133, you cannot reasonably expect it to have 100% availability under any reasonable load. If you want that, get a Sun E5500 or an IBM mainframe or something. However, there is no reason to need a personal website to be 100% available, so a P133 may suffice. If you want to ensure that the amount of traffic to the website is limited, configure the web server to limit it. Hell, protect it with a password or restrict it to a certain subnet.
The main complain that people have are unexpected bandwidth bills. This is 100% their fault. A webserver can easily be configured to reject requests after the bandwidth limit has been exhausted. This can be configured per-hour, so as to not make a site unavailable for an entire month. One can easily configure a traffic shaper or throttling. The point is: if you have a limited amount of network resources available, it is your responsibility to avoid their exhaustion. This does not involve fancy network hardware -- any decent OS and web server has these features built-in or easily installable.
My point is: it is your responsibility to make sure that your web server does not misbehave. If you have a quota, it's your responsibility not to exceed it -- not Slashdot's or anyone else's.
IMHO, states should think about eliminating unnecessary government programs instead of looking for more revenue. That's the best in the long run. It ensures a fiscially responsible government that isn't bloated. It also allows private companies (who can do the jobs for cheaper) to save money and provide better services.
This is a collection of preconceived misconceptions. First, let's discuss "unnecessary government programs." Typically, these don't exist. If something is not necessary, it gets cut. Most of the things you think are unnecessary are really very necessary, though perhaps not for you. For example, you may not be in a public school or have children that go to a public school, but I don't think you would consider public school unnecessary. The same applies to many other programs -- senior benefits, medical programs, education, parks and conservation, whatever. If you still don't agree, please name a specific government program which you consider unnecessary.
Now let's address the other issue - the mistaken belief that a private company can save money and provide better services than a government agency. You are 100% mistaken on this count. Private companies are inherently more costly than government agencies. They not only need to provide the same service, but they also need to make a healthy profit - often to the tune of 30-60%. Thus, a well-managed company would have to charge 30-60% more than a well-managed government agency.
Now enter the reality. Most companies are fairly poorly managed. Companies that deal with the government are particularly notorious in that regard. Thus, they would be less efficient, and would have to charge much more in order to make a profit. Furthermore, profit-boosting initiatives in such companies would most likely focus on cutting costs and reducing services as much as possible while still charging the taxpayers or its clients a hefty fee.
To sum up: with a private company, you typically get a poorly-managed, government-sponsored monopoly that provides fewer services of inferior quality to taxpayers while charging more than the equivalent government agency and, many times, still having problems with making money.
For example, if the US Postal Service (one of the more efficient government agencies -- how many times have they lost or stolen one of your letters? How does their price compare with Fedex?) was suddenly replaced by a private company, you would have an unreliable mail system with 75-cent postage that would lose your mail at least once a week and constantly beg for more government subsidies. It would also need constant government intervention and regulation to keep it from acting completely unreasonably.
These types of things have happened many times, both in and out of the US. Just read about Edison Schools to get an idea of what this would be like. And next time, I would suggest advocating laws that would make government agencies more efficient rather than replacing them with poorly-managed, profit-driven corporations.
Do you understand that caching websites without the author's permission is illegal? There is no standard HTTP mechanism for caching, and copying the page and giving it off as yours would surely spark many lawsuits.
I have no sympathy for someone who does not set up his webserver to prevent this type of DOS. At the very least, this is lazy. If you don't lock your front door, you shouldn't complain about burglars. If I had a site that got slashdotted, I would be glad for the extra publicity, not bitchy about the traffic.
If, on the other hand, Slashdot mirrored my site without asking permission, I would be somewhat pissed. I would not only have no chance to update it, but people would also not know the URL of that site, and I might not get my ad revenue.
Dude. It's easier to pick the lock than to memorize the key. Read the lockpicking faq or something. Takes about 30 seconds to pick a 5-pin lock.
Western corporations destroyed their economies? Can you name one that destroyed the native industries of, say, Vietnam before Nike came there? The truth is, those countries never HAD any industries, so none were to be destroyed. At best, they had a corrupt government, a primitive agricultural economy, and 98% unemployment. Do you think that's preferable to working in a Nike factory?
WTF are you talking about? First, the ISPs didn't legislate anything - the restriction is in the contract you signed. Second, they prohibit sharing your line with people OUTSIDE your household, not with multiple devices. Third, what the hell does terrorism, the RIAA and the MPAA have to do with telephone service?
How about you read your post before posting it next time? It makes no sense whatsoever.
Nope. If nobody is buying them, none have to be produced.
Most (all?) monitors have a protection circuit that shuts it down if it starts to emit too much x-ray.
The rear of the monitor cannot possibly produce any emissions. Emissions are produced when electrons strike the phosphors/glass on the front of the tube. Since a CRT shoots electrons from the back to the front, there are no significant emissions coming from the back.
Almost every country regulated printing presses and issued special licenses for them until fairly recently. I would suggest reading a history book.