"A list of stuff that people can blow up if they want to screw with us"
Please. If someone actually has the resources (men and a lot of materials) to blow up a refinery, port, or power plant, then in all likelyhood they have the intelligence (in both senses of the word) to pick one of those targets on their own. Heck, a simple Google search can get you a list of refineries, or, say, a list of the "supernodes" for internet connectivity in the US.
And if you don't have those resources, then a terrorism "wish list" is about as significant as the three page Christmas wish list the teenager of the house just handed us. Doesn't matter what you want, you're not going to get it.
I could probably make a good case for public knowledge of such things anyway. That way people who live near them would know that a little extra vigilence might be in order.
Finally, critical targets need to be properly defended, regardless of whether or not they're on some list.
HP, Dell, Lenovo and so on earned their positions. All of them sell "me too", mostly interchangeable products. You could take off the Dell or HP logos and swap them around between any of their various POS plastic boxes, and no one would notice. Or care.
Sony, at least, tries to do some industrial design on the hardware side, but still falls down when it comes to executing on the software side. And -- as the article implies and unlike Apple -- they lack the willpower to let one division cannibalize the sales of another.
Personally, I think all of them fell prey to the idea you suggested: that consumers are stupid, and as such, will buy all of the least common denominator crap we can sell.
It's marketing, backed up with often exceptional products.
If it were just marketing, anyone could do it. If the products were junk people wouldn't buy them again and again. They do. If the products were junk then the rest of the tech industry wouldn't be falling all over themselves trying to get their own "me too" products into the market.
Or are you saying that no other company in the world has a marketing department?
I'm getting really tired of hearing otherwise educated people tell me that Apple's success is "just" due to marketing.
Exception and not the rule? I suspect it would be easier for most people who carry a notebook daily to do without the extra size and weight, and then grab an external drive from your suitcase on those rare occasions when you actually want rent a movie from a gas station...;)
No, the "on rails" comment refers to the fact that it's a shooter where you can aim and dodge, but movement is controlled by the game. You're moved into position, you shoot everything that moves, and then you're taken to the next position. Repeat as needed. Rinse.
Think of a shoot-em-up video arcade game like Time Crisis or House of the Dead.
Re:What's the deal with the rush of TSA stories re
on
TSA Pats Down 3-Year-Old
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· Score: 2, Informative
We're doing it wrong. Here's a great article on how Israel handles security at their airports. Note the emphasis on training PEOPLE as opposed to buying and trusting multi-million dollar machines to do the job.
Ummmm... what? As a general rule, 256kbps AAC is roughly considered to be equivalent to 320kbps MP3, since the AAC codec is a much better codec with superior sound quality.
Define good? Less tax may be good... until it interferes with your ability to support your infrastructure and your society. And prevents you from paying your bills.
"Smaller more efficient government is good?" I'm all for efficiency, as it translates to being more productive. But usually this is just a code phrase for deregulation. Which hasn't worked all that well, has it? Deregulation of the housing markets lead to massive abuses by banks and lenders. Deregulation (actually, NO regulation) of derivative markets also lead to massive abuses and the more recent bailout of the banking system.
Though I agree with you to one extent: I think we need LESS government involvement in the lives of it's citizens... but MORE involvement in business and corporate affairs. Time and again, through the S&L crisis, Enron, political PACs, offshore tax dodges, oil spills... big business has shown again and again that it really, really can't be trusted to play with matches without parental supervision.
What, in software? Because where I come from no one buys a box of "Windows", they buy computers, and in that case they can buy Apple... or Sony, or HP, or Dell, or Acer, or Asus, or... you get the idea.
Besides, both Apple and Microsoft provide standardized platforms on which other people can build. As someone who grew up with Apple-DOS, ProDOS, MS-DOS, PC-DOS, DR-DOS, UCSD, Windows, and OS/2, I'm here to tell you that we really don't want every device with it's own OS, anymore than we want every household appliance with it's own different and unique wall plug. Or have fifteen different game consoles, each with fifteen different and incompatible sets of games. Or a dozen different cell phone OS's, each with a dozen different APIs.
Multiple OS's actually work to limit consumer choice, limit transportability of software, and prevent developers from easily targeting a mass audience.
Yep. Better that we increase the national debt by funding more social security, medicare, and medicade. Oh, and don't forget building and buying a few more supercarriers.
The global population growth rate is already decreasing. In many industrialized nations the rate is negative.
Of course, those facts will do nothing to alter your existing preconceptions, in that all of those "other people" need to have fewer children and make do with less.
The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 seeks to address discrimination in loans made to individuals and businesses from low and moderate-income neighborhoods.... The law, however, emphasizes that an institution's CRA activities should be undertaken in a safe and sound manner, and does NOT require institutions to make high-risk loans that may bring losses to the institution.
The banking system encouraged "liar loans" so that they would have more mortages to package up into bonds and bundled into CDOs. They made more money off investment securities than they ever did simply lending money, and the CDO market was COMPLETELY unregulated. You can't create mortgage packages without mortgages to back them up.
Then hedge funds like Magnetar got into the act, and fueled the boom even further.
Want to see pure greed in action? Check out Magnetar, who deliberately created investments DESIGNED to fail, specifically so they could bet against them in the market.
"Their agenda in the last two years was "fuck you republicans, we'll pass whatever we want whether you (or the electorate) want it"."
Which is almost exactly what the Republicans did the last time they had full control of the presidency and senate. Only in their case, it was "We'll pass whatever the lobbyists and our corporate taskmasters tell us to pass, thank you very much."
Tax-breaks? Done. Income tax reduction? Done. Increase defense spending? Done. Reduce banking system regualatory oversite? Done. "Reform" bankruptcy laws? Done. Bail out Wall Street? Sure. Invade Iraq? Why not?
The Department of Defense's budget for 2010 is $680 billion. As said below, Israel got $3 billion last year, or less than one half of one percent of the current budget.
"Typo3 is one CMS that you can set to check the incoming IP and make sure it's the same as the IP that originally authenticated."
If you snatched someone's cookies over free WiFi at a coffeehouse, you probably HAVE the same IP address as they do, since all the server sees is the coffeehouse's gateway IP address.
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"A list of stuff that people can blow up if they want to screw with us"
Please. If someone actually has the resources (men and a lot of materials) to blow up a refinery, port, or power plant, then in all likelyhood they have the intelligence (in both senses of the word) to pick one of those targets on their own. Heck, a simple Google search can get you a list of refineries, or, say, a list of the "supernodes" for internet connectivity in the US.
And if you don't have those resources, then a terrorism "wish list" is about as significant as the three page Christmas wish list the teenager of the house just handed us. Doesn't matter what you want, you're not going to get it.
I could probably make a good case for public knowledge of such things anyway. That way people who live near them would know that a little extra vigilence might be in order.
Finally, critical targets need to be properly defended, regardless of whether or not they're on some list.
HP, Dell, Lenovo and so on earned their positions. All of them sell "me too", mostly interchangeable products. You could take off the Dell or HP logos and swap them around between any of their various POS plastic boxes, and no one would notice. Or care.
Sony, at least, tries to do some industrial design on the hardware side, but still falls down when it comes to executing on the software side. And -- as the article implies and unlike Apple -- they lack the willpower to let one division cannibalize the sales of another.
Personally, I think all of them fell prey to the idea you suggested: that consumers are stupid, and as such, will buy all of the least common denominator crap we can sell.
Well. Some will. And some won't.
It's marketing, backed up with often exceptional products.
If it were just marketing, anyone could do it. If the products were junk people wouldn't buy them again and again. They do. If the products were junk then the rest of the tech industry wouldn't be falling all over themselves trying to get their own "me too" products into the market.
Or are you saying that no other company in the world has a marketing department?
I'm getting really tired of hearing otherwise educated people tell me that Apple's success is "just" due to marketing.
Exception and not the rule? I suspect it would be easier for most people who carry a notebook daily to do without the extra size and weight, and then grab an external drive from your suitcase on those rare occasions when you actually want rent a movie from a gas station... ;)
No, the "on rails" comment refers to the fact that it's a shooter where you can aim and dodge, but movement is controlled by the game. You're moved into position, you shoot everything that moves, and then you're taken to the next position. Repeat as needed. Rinse.
Think of a shoot-em-up video arcade game like Time Crisis or House of the Dead.
We're doing it wrong. Here's a great article on how Israel handles security at their airports. Note the emphasis on training PEOPLE as opposed to buying and trusting multi-million dollar machines to do the job.
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/744199---israelification-high-security-little-bother
Ummmm... what? As a general rule, 256kbps AAC is roughly considered to be equivalent to 320kbps MP3, since the AAC codec is a much better codec with superior sound quality.
"Less taxes is good."
Define good? Less tax may be good... until it interferes with your ability to support your infrastructure and your society. And prevents you from paying your bills.
"Smaller more efficient government is good?" I'm all for efficiency, as it translates to being more productive. But usually this is just a code phrase for deregulation. Which hasn't worked all that well, has it? Deregulation of the housing markets lead to massive abuses by banks and lenders. Deregulation (actually, NO regulation) of derivative markets also lead to massive abuses and the more recent bailout of the banking system.
Though I agree with you to one extent: I think we need LESS government involvement in the lives of it's citizens... but MORE involvement in business and corporate affairs. Time and again, through the S&L crisis, Enron, political PACs, offshore tax dodges, oil spills... big business has shown again and again that it really, really can't be trusted to play with matches without parental supervision.
"The oligopoly is between Microsoft and Apple..."
What, in software? Because where I come from no one buys a box of "Windows", they buy computers, and in that case they can buy Apple... or Sony, or HP, or Dell, or Acer, or Asus, or... you get the idea.
Besides, both Apple and Microsoft provide standardized platforms on which other people can build. As someone who grew up with Apple-DOS, ProDOS, MS-DOS, PC-DOS, DR-DOS, UCSD, Windows, and OS/2, I'm here to tell you that we really don't want every device with it's own OS, anymore than we want every household appliance with it's own different and unique wall plug. Or have fifteen different game consoles, each with fifteen different and incompatible sets of games. Or a dozen different cell phone OS's, each with a dozen different APIs.
Multiple OS's actually work to limit consumer choice, limit transportability of software, and prevent developers from easily targeting a mass audience.
Yep. Better that we increase the national debt by funding more social security, medicare, and medicade. Oh, and don't forget building and buying a few more supercarriers.
This assumes that you didn't burn through all of the fruit on the lower branches first, and now have no energy left to climb higher.
Who was the science fiction author with the "Earth as poluted womb" concept? If you won't be born, you die in your own wastes.
256kbps AAC isn't good enough for you?
"The Tea Party supports free trade."
I don't think that word means what you think it means.
"Try to spot the Americans. There are usually few to none."
That's because it would require Americans to actually work. Or worse, study.
Now, if you need someone to watch football or play video games.....
So what's the future of OS X Server? Especially with no real rack-mount servers to run it on?
Seems to me Apple should update OS X Server to run on ANY server platform. They won't, of course.
So goodbye XServe, and goodbye OS X Server. Been a nice ride...
(And in case you think I'm wrong, remember the recent story about Apple dropping Java? Hard to have server software without Java support.)
The global population growth rate is already decreasing. In many industrialized nations the rate is negative.
Of course, those facts will do nothing to alter your existing preconceptions, in that all of those "other people" need to have fewer children and make do with less.
I think we should stop teaching math, history, grammar, science, and anything else "difficult". Let the Chinese learn all of the that hard stuff.
Just hand a new kid entering school a WalMart employee orientation video on how to greet customers at the door, and let them get to work.
The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 seeks to address discrimination in loans made to individuals and businesses from low and moderate-income neighborhoods. ... The law, however, emphasizes that an institution's CRA activities should be undertaken in a safe and sound manner, and does NOT require institutions to make high-risk loans that may bring losses to the institution.
In short, no.
The banking system encouraged "liar loans" so that they would have more mortages to package up into bonds and bundled into CDOs. They made more money off investment securities than they ever did simply lending money, and the CDO market was COMPLETELY unregulated. You can't create mortgage packages without mortgages to back them up.
Then hedge funds like Magnetar got into the act, and fueled the boom even further.
Want to see pure greed in action? Check out Magnetar, who deliberately created investments DESIGNED to fail, specifically so they could bet against them in the market.
http://www.propublica.org/article/the-magnetar-trade-how-one-hedge-fund-helped-keep-the-housing-bubble-going
"Their agenda in the last two years was "fuck you republicans, we'll pass whatever we want whether you (or the electorate) want it"."
Which is almost exactly what the Republicans did the last time they had full control of the presidency and senate. Only in their case, it was "We'll pass whatever the lobbyists and our corporate taskmasters tell us to pass, thank you very much."
Tax-breaks? Done. Income tax reduction? Done. Increase defense spending? Done. Reduce banking system regualatory oversite? Done. "Reform" bankruptcy laws? Done. Bail out Wall Street? Sure. Invade Iraq? Why not?
The Department of Defense's budget for 2010 is $680 billion. As said below, Israel got $3 billion last year, or less than one half of one percent of the current budget.
Care to try again?
"...it seems the newer generation would likely just get frustrated and give up and go play something else."
Or go dig up a cheat.
Play the game at the highest difficulty levels. Practice shooting and aiming on the fly. DO NOT STAND STILL.
There's such a thing as a mute switch, you know...
"Typo3 is one CMS that you can set to check the incoming IP and make sure it's the same as the IP that originally authenticated."
If you snatched someone's cookies over free WiFi at a coffeehouse, you probably HAVE the same IP address as they do, since all the server sees is the coffeehouse's gateway IP address.
IOW, that won't help either.