Bill Clinton was once asked, "Do you know of a single nation that has ever taxed and spent itself into prosperity?" He didn't have an answer. I suspect that if you asked Cary Sherman and the studio executive crowd "Do you know of a single major industry that has ever litigated itself into prosperity by suing its own customers?" that they wouldn't have an answer either. I exclude the legal profession from the short list of valid responses, since suing themselves into prosperity is their industry, and I also exclude the RIAA since they are lawyers.
I know someone that recently installed Norton Systemworks on his machine. When he was done and had rebooted the system, all but four entries had disappeared from Add/Remove Programs, apparently for good. Needless to say, he was pissed.
How is it relevant ? The complaint was that twiddling the right bit in the Registry could render the whole system unbootable. The point is that the same thing can happen on any system.
Not to dispute your conclusion, but one relevant aspect is that it seems to happen one hell of a lot more often in registry-based systems. For example, my development system at work is XP-based, and for no apparent reason my Recycle Bin disappeared. Off the desktop, My Computer, just gone. No idea where it went. I first tried Microsoft's "Recycle Bin Recovery" procedure to re-enter the appropriate keys: no dice, the corruption was deeper. Fortunately found a registry tweaks site that had a reg file that restored all the required keys. I was lucky that time, other times I've been less so.
As a developer, I do use the registry for storing some settings, but only non-critical ones. I don't like the idea of putting my customer's configuration data (and in the software I work on, there's a lot of it) into the registry. Too risky, and there's no easy way for a customer to back anything up. Personally, I've never really seen the light when it comes to application data storage using the registry. I've been burned too many times.
So they tie everything up in court again for another ten years while the EU decides what to do with them. In the meantime, their protocols remain effectively proprietary.
You can't win with Microsoft. They're incorrigible.
You can lie about anything, so long as you keep repeating the lie more often and more loudly than those who trying to expose it. That will always work so long as people take what they see and hear at face value, and can't be bothered to look a little deeper.
You might want to double-check what happens when air at several thousand PSI moving very very quickly hits anything. The friction causes an enormous temperature rise. I saw what happened to an office where a high-pressure line behind a concrete wall broke, blasted its way through, and burned everything in the room into a cinder.
Why that line was run behind an office wall I don't know. Maybe they figured the concrete would protect against a break. They were wrong.
Look, this is a war. It's a war in which every single species that ever existed on this planet have been soldiers. It's unavoidable, and in the long run none of us will win, but we still go down fighting. From the lowliest bacterium to a human being, we all take it to the bitter end.
In any conflict, a legitimate tactic is the delaying action. We may effectively eradicate malaria by using this technique, or another one, or perhaps several in combination. Or we may not... but by delaying the spread of this disease, even for a while, we've saved some millions of human lives. By the time malaria does adapt, if it does, hopefully we've stayed ahead of the game and have a new plan of attack. There's no other way. Life evolves. So must the defenses against it.
I agree, you can never completely wipe out a microbe... hell, there are a few cases of bubonic plague every year, and we all know how much of Europe's population fell to the Black Death. On the other hand, with enough effort you can certainly suppress a deadly pathogen to the point where it is no longer a serious threat. We've succeeded in doing that for a vast number of different conditions. Yes, they can return in force. Yes, defense requires constant vigilance. Yes, it is expensive. And yes, you do it anyway because the alternative is suffering and death.
And worse, it's not a very efficient process. Filling that tank will a. take a while and b. dissipate a lot of heat. Compressing air is not a good way to store energy.
A gallon of gasoline contains about 131 megajoules of energy per U.S. gallon. Rather a terrifying amount of chemical energy, when you think about it. For example, the tank in my car holds about 18 gallons, which means there's roughly 2,358 megajoules of energy in it. However, there's no possibility of all that energy being released in an explosion. Only a fuel-air mixture can explode: liquid gasoline can burn at the interface but not explode. Even if your tank were nearly empty of liquid gasoline and was full of a critical mixture, the resulting explosion would be tiny compared to the total energy in a full tank.
That's not true for a tank full of compressed air. I wouldn't want to be anywhere near a similarly-sized tank of compressed air with that much potential energy in it. My tank full of hydrocarbons is as safe as a helium balloon in comparison.
No thanks. I've seen what extremely high-pressure air can do when it gets out... everything it touches turns to a sheet of flame. And if one of those tanks were to fail, the resulting explosion would be substantial.
Yes it is. There's a difference between pointing a gun at your head and pulling a trigger, or swallowing a bottle of pills... and simply refusing a treatment that is maintaining a life that you no longer want. I hope you can see that. He was fortunate that, had he decided now was the time to die, he wouldn't have required the services of a Dr. Kevorkian to help him, nor would the State have been required to keep him alive against his will. His doctor made that point to me. Many people with such debilitating conditions have a much harder time making the decision to go, because they must take some specific action to terminate their lives. That's hard. It's even worse when, by the time you reach that point, you're physically unable to do anything about it.
And it was selfish of me because he didn't want me to. He had zero hope of ever having anything resembling a normal life, was completely bedridden and virtually immobile, dependent upon a dialysis machine, taking cardiac meds every hour or two, insulin injections every six or so, unable to eat anything he liked, and crying out in constant pain. Frankly, I can't forget that and it's been over ten years. It wasn't 'til the last six months that I could get them to authorize narcotics since his other conditions made those drugs extremely dangerous (otherwise I'd have gotten hold of them some other way.) But that was the most peaceful time he'd had in years, and we both got to say all that needed to be said. He eventually had a fatal stroke, probably because of the Dilaudid, though I'll never know for sure.
As he put it, "my only concern is the effect my death will have on you." That was why he stuck it out as long as he could, and why I couldn't bring myself to do the right thing and let him go, to tell him it was okay. Looking back, I should have. The time will come when I'll have to go through something like that again: I doubt it will be any easier, I don't really know how I'll handle it. Like I said, though, it's a tough call and our society really doesn't have a simple mechanism for dealing with the end of a life. And, if we really value human life as much as we say we do, maybe that's the way it should be.
On the other hand, the money already being collected isn't going to the artists, and given the fundamentally corrupt nature of that business, I don't see how letting them get their hands in the public till is a good idea.
In the end, it all comes down to quality of life. Existence, in and of itself, isn't sufficient, although some would say it is. Our society (like most other "civilized" cultures) hasn't really figured out how to deal with people suffering unending pain and misery. Is shooting them in the head the answer? Some would say so... but that's rather uncivilized at best, and rather brutal by our standards. Of course, there's always euthanasia, but everyone's afraid that, should that practice become legal and popular that they'll be put down before they're ready, because most of us aren't in control of our own destinies at the end. That's a justifiable fear, I might add: I've seen it happen. There's less respect for life in our medical system than the people that run it would like you to believe.
There reality is that there are no simple solutions that are compatible with American law, and tradition, and our belief in the value of human life (and yes, I know that we mow each other down by the thousands in cars every day.) There really aren't, and that's the problem.
A couple of years before my father died (he had diabetes mellitus, with a capital "D") he was on peritoneal dialysis due to total renal failure, in constant severe neuropathic pain until they put him on Dilaudid, suffered multiple strokes and heart attacks... at one point he said to me, "I think I should go off the dialysis". That would have meant a coma, and death. It's an easy way out, because they cannot force treatment on you: you only have to refuse it and die.
If I had to go through it again, I wouldn't have talked him out of it. That was selfish of me, although I didn't understand that at the time. You live and you learn.
Slashdot Mirror
Does Oracle actually make "thousands of products"?
but there's a line between protection, and fanaticism.
There's a line between protection and racketeering, and I think they crossed it.
Bill Clinton was once asked, "Do you know of a single nation that has ever taxed and spent itself into prosperity?" He didn't have an answer. I suspect that if you asked Cary Sherman and the studio executive crowd "Do you know of a single major industry that has ever litigated itself into prosperity by suing its own customers?" that they wouldn't have an answer either. I exclude the legal profession from the short list of valid responses, since suing themselves into prosperity is their industry, and I also exclude the RIAA since they are lawyers.
Students still can (and do) have static IP addresses; now, however, you have to fill out a form to get one.
Fill that sucker out and there goes your plausible deniability.
I know someone that recently installed Norton Systemworks on his machine. When he was done and had rebooted the system, all but four entries had disappeared from Add/Remove Programs, apparently for good. Needless to say, he was pissed.
How is it relevant ? The complaint was that twiddling the right bit in the Registry could render the whole system unbootable. The point is that the same thing can happen on any system.
Not to dispute your conclusion, but one relevant aspect is that it seems to happen one hell of a lot more often in registry-based systems. For example, my development system at work is XP-based, and for no apparent reason my Recycle Bin disappeared. Off the desktop, My Computer, just gone. No idea where it went. I first tried Microsoft's "Recycle Bin Recovery" procedure to re-enter the appropriate keys: no dice, the corruption was deeper. Fortunately found a registry tweaks site that had a reg file that restored all the required keys. I was lucky that time, other times I've been less so.
As a developer, I do use the registry for storing some settings, but only non-critical ones. I don't like the idea of putting my customer's configuration data (and in the software I work on, there's a lot of it) into the registry. Too risky, and there's no easy way for a customer to back anything up. Personally, I've never really seen the light when it comes to application data storage using the registry. I've been burned too many times.
... the connection (via AI) between the hard sciences and the soft sciences.
Did someone go and invent a working artificial intelligence and not tell anyone? This link might make sense when we actually have AI.
So they tie everything up in court again for another ten years while the EU decides what to do with them. In the meantime, their protocols remain effectively proprietary.
You can't win with Microsoft. They're incorrigible.
You can lie about anything, so long as you keep repeating the lie more often and more loudly than those who trying to expose it. That will always work so long as people take what they see and hear at face value, and can't be bothered to look a little deeper.
I've never been there ... but I watch CSI now and then.
You might want to double-check what happens when air at several thousand PSI moving very very quickly hits anything. The friction causes an enormous temperature rise. I saw what happened to an office where a high-pressure line behind a concrete wall broke, blasted its way through, and burned everything in the room into a cinder.
Why that line was run behind an office wall I don't know. Maybe they figured the concrete would protect against a break. They were wrong.
Look, this is a war. It's a war in which every single species that ever existed on this planet have been soldiers. It's unavoidable, and in the long run none of us will win, but we still go down fighting. From the lowliest bacterium to a human being, we all take it to the bitter end.
... but by delaying the spread of this disease, even for a while, we've saved some millions of human lives. By the time malaria does adapt, if it does, hopefully we've stayed ahead of the game and have a new plan of attack. There's no other way. Life evolves. So must the defenses against it.
... hell, there are a few cases of bubonic plague every year, and we all know how much of Europe's population fell to the Black Death. On the other hand, with enough effort you can certainly suppress a deadly pathogen to the point where it is no longer a serious threat. We've succeeded in doing that for a vast number of different conditions. Yes, they can return in force. Yes, defense requires constant vigilance. Yes, it is expensive. And yes, you do it anyway because the alternative is suffering and death.
In any conflict, a legitimate tactic is the delaying action. We may effectively eradicate malaria by using this technique, or another one, or perhaps several in combination. Or we may not
I agree, you can never completely wipe out a microbe
I believe Las Vegas is in Nevada.
Too bad that doesn't apply so easily to humans. It might be nice to get rid of the ignorance-ridden older models.
UFB.
Hell, they can have their own Linux distro if they really wanted to do that too.
"Your product must be validated before you can proceed. Click here to learn more about the advantages of owning Genuine Linux."
It's part of a philosophy called "know thine enemy." Generally good practice, whether in business or at war.
"I fear we have awakened a sleeping giant."
At which point he stood up and threw his wheelchair at the wall.
And worse, it's not a very efficient process. Filling that tank will a. take a while and b. dissipate a lot of heat. Compressing air is not a good way to store energy.
... everything it touches turns to a sheet of flame. And if one of those tanks were to fail, the resulting explosion would be substantial.
A gallon of gasoline contains about 131 megajoules of energy per U.S. gallon. Rather a terrifying amount of chemical energy, when you think about it. For example, the tank in my car holds about 18 gallons, which means there's roughly 2,358 megajoules of energy in it. However, there's no possibility of all that energy being released in an explosion. Only a fuel-air mixture can explode: liquid gasoline can burn at the interface but not explode. Even if your tank were nearly empty of liquid gasoline and was full of a critical mixture, the resulting explosion would be tiny compared to the total energy in a full tank.
That's not true for a tank full of compressed air. I wouldn't want to be anywhere near a similarly-sized tank of compressed air with that much potential energy in it. My tank full of hydrocarbons is as safe as a helium balloon in comparison.
No thanks. I've seen what extremely high-pressure air can do when it gets out
Will this be a successful product? Hard to say. But I wouldn't hold your breath.
No, it isn't.
... and simply refusing a treatment that is maintaining a life that you no longer want. I hope you can see that. He was fortunate that, had he decided now was the time to die, he wouldn't have required the services of a Dr. Kevorkian to help him, nor would the State have been required to keep him alive against his will. His doctor made that point to me. Many people with such debilitating conditions have a much harder time making the decision to go, because they must take some specific action to terminate their lives. That's hard. It's even worse when, by the time you reach that point, you're physically unable to do anything about it.
Yes it is. There's a difference between pointing a gun at your head and pulling a trigger, or swallowing a bottle of pills
And it was selfish of me because he didn't want me to. He had zero hope of ever having anything resembling a normal life, was completely bedridden and virtually immobile, dependent upon a dialysis machine, taking cardiac meds every hour or two, insulin injections every six or so, unable to eat anything he liked, and crying out in constant pain. Frankly, I can't forget that and it's been over ten years. It wasn't 'til the last six months that I could get them to authorize narcotics since his other conditions made those drugs extremely dangerous (otherwise I'd have gotten hold of them some other way.) But that was the most peaceful time he'd had in years, and we both got to say all that needed to be said. He eventually had a fatal stroke, probably because of the Dilaudid, though I'll never know for sure.
As he put it, "my only concern is the effect my death will have on you." That was why he stuck it out as long as he could, and why I couldn't bring myself to do the right thing and let him go, to tell him it was okay. Looking back, I should have. The time will come when I'll have to go through something like that again: I doubt it will be any easier, I don't really know how I'll handle it. Like I said, though, it's a tough call and our society really doesn't have a simple mechanism for dealing with the end of a life. And, if we really value human life as much as we say we do, maybe that's the way it should be.
Redundant, my ass. I was the first one to say that.
On the other hand, the money already being collected isn't going to the artists, and given the fundamentally corrupt nature of that business, I don't see how letting them get their hands in the public till is a good idea.
In the end, it all comes down to quality of life. Existence, in and of itself, isn't sufficient, although some would say it is. Our society (like most other "civilized" cultures) hasn't really figured out how to deal with people suffering unending pain and misery. Is shooting them in the head the answer? Some would say so ... but that's rather uncivilized at best, and rather brutal by our standards. Of course, there's always euthanasia, but everyone's afraid that, should that practice become legal and popular that they'll be put down before they're ready, because most of us aren't in control of our own destinies at the end. That's a justifiable fear, I might add: I've seen it happen. There's less respect for life in our medical system than the people that run it would like you to believe.
... at one point he said to me, "I think I should go off the dialysis". That would have meant a coma, and death. It's an easy way out, because they cannot force treatment on you: you only have to refuse it and die.
There reality is that there are no simple solutions that are compatible with American law, and tradition, and our belief in the value of human life (and yes, I know that we mow each other down by the thousands in cars every day.) There really aren't, and that's the problem.
A couple of years before my father died (he had diabetes mellitus, with a capital "D") he was on peritoneal dialysis due to total renal failure, in constant severe neuropathic pain until they put him on Dilaudid, suffered multiple strokes and heart attacks
If I had to go through it again, I wouldn't have talked him out of it. That was selfish of me, although I didn't understand that at the time. You live and you learn.