Maybe the confession is a lie -- maybe it isn't. I doubt they're current friends though because of the affair Nina had with Sturgeon. Seriously, though, if the court isn't going to let in information concerning the quality of the friends Nina took, that would be pretty unfair. Thus far, the prosecutor's case is a bunch of people saying "she would never leave her kids -- she was a wonderful mother and her kids meant everything to her". This plus some conjecture that Hans killed her because of some odd behavior on his part. The case seems extremely thin to me. I'm embarrassed that someone could get life in prison, or death, based on conjecture and virtually no evidence of guilt.
No need to swipe anything -- China just buys up companies. For example, GM owas producing neodymium magnets which are used in everything from "Smart Bombs" to hard drives. In 1995, it sold the business to Sextant Group (Chinese) although a promise was extracted from the feds (because this was tech important to defense) to leave production here in America. Bush said naught when Sextant packed off everything to China: http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/685/ Excerpt:
U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Indiana) appealed to the Bush administration last fall to use powers under the 1988 Exon-Florio Amendment to the defense bill to block the transfer of the Valparaiso plant on national security grounds because the operation supplied 80 percent of magnets needed for smart bombs. The plant's move to China was denounced in lengthy magazine exposés from both the right (Insight) and left (Counterpunch). But the Bush administration did nothing.
As far as defenses go, don't forget her former boyfriend Sturgeon who has admitted to 7 or 8 killings -- just not Nina. That's really creepy. He could have murdered Nina to set up Hans for some sort of revenge purpose. All conjecture on my part of course.
If you've been reading along from day 1, you'll note that Reiser was continuously interrupting his attorney and DuBois was constantly asking to have things read back. The judge told Reiser to knock it off a bunch of times, and finally said "that's it". That's why the record wasn't read back, bad behavior on Reiser's part. Reiser doesn't like his attorney either.
Anyway, since/. is now going to ruin my user-experience at that blog anyway, I'd suggest starting at day one and reading forward -- you'll have to go back 4 pages from the top.
Actually, it seemed laid out well enough from TFA:
Bill Cobb, president of eBay North America, laid out the rationale for the move. "[O]verall, the current feedback system isn't where it should be," wrote Cobb. "Today, the biggest issue with the system is that buyers are more afraid than ever to leave honest, accurate feedback because of the threat of retaliation. In fact, when buyers have a bad experience on eBay, the final straw for many of them is getting a negative feedback, especially of a retaliatory nature."
TFA also has this interesting stat: "eBay's data shows that sellers are eight times more likely to retaliate in kind against negative feedback, a figure that has grown dramatically over the years."
I mean, if that doesn't prove the sleaziness of regular "for a living" ebay sellers, I don't know what would.
True, the entire transaction is complete when money and goods change hands. However, the buyer's part in that is complete when the buyer pays. I'm willing to bet you have 99.99% positive or better on those 10k transactions. The reason you do is exemplified by an experience I had. I paid for an item within an hour or two of the auction close -- it was supposed to ship priority mail. Three weeks later I finally received it, postmarked more than 2 weeks after the auction's end. I left a neutral in the form of: "item as described, shipping took 3 weeks". Then I got hit with negative feedback. My solution -- I won't leave feedback before a seller does, and because sellers never do the right thing, I end up leaving none. As a seller, whether you engage in retaliation or not, you are benefiting from it because disgruntled buyers are much less likely to be honest about their transaction with you.
The current system basically requires tit-for-tat positives, or nobody says a word. Explain to me how you would solve that issue with your buyer-leaves-feedback-first preference?
Ebay must realize that there are people like me who put absolutely no faith in the sellers' ratings. In fact, if I see a person has a thousand or more sales, and 100% positive feedback, that makes me MORE suspicious, not less. It's obvious such a seller is just gaming the system because out of a 1000 people, no matter how good you are, not everyone is going to be happy (right or wrong, there will be more than a few complainers per 1000 people). I almost never buy anything on Ebay because I don't trust the system, and if I do buy something, it's from someone with fewer than 100 transactions on an account more 3 years old. I feel more trust in the occasional ebayer -- it's the regulars who seem the most sleazy. Anyway, if Ebay wants to expand its business, it must do something about the millions of people who will browse but rarely bid. That means seller ratings must be meaningful.
Nobody is pandering to the great moderate middle. That may have been true decades ago, but as more and more people leave the two parties, you end up with two radicalized parties and candidates who play to the extremes, ignoring the middle.
And yeah, I know Ron Paul wouldn't bring peace to the world. He would bring it to America, and as we aren't the United States of the World, that's what mainly counts. Of course I'm aware that as president, he wouldn't be able to effectuate many of his policies without a willing congress.
Now I'm starting to boil a bit -- who gives a rip if he "steals" from the parties. Plainly anyone who would vote for Ron Paul didn't belong to either of the corrupt-more-of-the-same-six-of-one-half-dozen-of-the-other political parties. And besides, I've never voted Republican in my life so Ron Paul isn't your regular spoiler. Actually, it doesn't even make sense to call Ron Paul a spoiler by "stealing" Democrat votes. Isn't that the goal of any candidate, to get the votes of everyone?
What this country really needs, is to have the two major parties knee-capped, bashed over the head, and left for dead. If that happened, we might get over these fuzzy headed "spoiler" ideas and get some real solutions. Of course, maybe nothing would change, but if things stay as they are, it's a certainty that nothing will change.
I'm not voting "lesser of evils" anymore. If RP isn't running, there will certainly be a libertarian candidate. Of course the libertarian won't win, but if I vote for someone I hate, I'm wasting my vote. Given the choice of wasting my vote for someone I hate, or for someone I like a bit, on this particular lesser of evils situation, I'll chose wasting my vote on the person I like.
Thank goodness there is no chance for Ron Paul to win. I mean, if he did win we might stop killing innocent people or borrowing ourself into a debt so deep we'll have to reneg on it and slip into 3d world status. Thank goodness we have the two major parties, MSM, and voters like you to ensure we ever get a candidate with a sense of reality, humanity, or responsibility.
re McD's coffee incident: Not only did they have prior notice as you note (there were numerous other incidents), the coffee in question gave her 3d degree burns in the groin area.
To those tempted to use McD's coffee a a snarky "example" of the legal system gone awry, consider that a 3d degree burn is where the skin is totally destroyed down to the flesh, and then think about you might do if the skin was totally burned off your cock.
People who buy into the whole "McD's coffee"="lawyers bad" argument are suckers. I've been reading "Free Lunch" (interview with author) and it's just disgusting. Like John Snow, treasury secretary, who slashed maintenance for CSX (rail freight) causing 2 billion dollars extra profit. Train derails, many injured and eight die. Caused by a switch installed backwards, held together by a rusty nail, maintenance records falsified. Eventually, 50 million awarded as punitive damages. Of course, CSX paid none of it -- because it was an Amtrack train running on CSX tracks, taxpayers paid it.
So here you have a guy who murders people, profits, gets promoted in government, has to pay nothing for his evil acts, and people like him and his administration tell you that lawyers are the problem. Wake the fuck up!
I guess I'm more concerned about the honesty aspect. If I can honestly say "I have no idea" and the standard is one which everyone knows I'm telling the truth, it seems to be 1) more ethical, and 2) safer anyway. But the idea just isn't realistic -- without actual magic (as in wizards and all that), it doesn't make natural sense that there would be a system that would allow keyless, passwordless access only to me.
The problem is that you know there is a second password. I suppose it's impossible, but the perfect system would make it so you didn't know either password.
... we could see laws similar to Great Britain's where you are forced to hand over passwords.
Is it possible to create a security system in which the user has neither key (digital, biometric, mechanical, whatever) nor a password which would still allow the user to access the device but exclude all others? I guess that sounds like a stupid question, but it seems perfect security would require a method that does not use a key of any sort because keys can be taken, and uses a password nobody knows (not even the user), but which allows the user to apply the unknown password to the device and use it. This unknown password though, is sounding like a key, and if so, anyone who got it could use it.
Even if you have the disposable income, the Air might not appeal. It's essentially a Macbook with a bunch of stuff stripped out, a slower processor, and a redesigned case. The remote cd-rom application is not all that amazing -- I imagine it's just some rehash of Appletalk. It's sort of like an extreme version of the Macbook "black" penalty -- except now it's an extra $800.
And mods note -- I'm not an Apple hater. I spring for $2k powerbooks, well, now it'll be macbook pros, for my office (replace at 3 year intervals) and I have a Macbook which I use as my personal kick around machine, and before that, a 12 inch iBook.
Another problem with the Air is the same problem the Macbook has -- it's WIDE. The 12in iBook made a great travel computer. The macbook is on the wide side and feels a little more delicate than the iBook. If the Air had a smaller footprint, it would make sense in the product line. As it is, it looks like an expensive wide wafer -- fewer features than a Macbook at nearly twice the price. Even for people with money to burn, it doesn't seem the best place to burn it.
Sure we may need better fuels then oil however here in the US we have massive reserves of it in Alaska where we cannot drill for oil there.
ANWR is not the be all end all that drillers tout. There are between 6-16 billion recoverable barrels (from pro-drilling site). Right now, refineries use about 15 million barrels of oil per day (from the EIA -- scroll to bottom).
That means the US uses around 5.4 billion barrels of oil per year. If you buy the pro-driller propaganda, ANWR is AT BEST, 3 years worth of supply. If you took the highest estimate of oil in the ground and assumed the magically ability to extract all 30 billion barrels -- that's 6 years of supply.
ANWR is just another method to enrich Cheney -- like the logic of paying contractor truck drivers 120k per year to drive truck in Iraq when a regular soldier makes about 1/6th of that. But that's another tale.
In my view, the better plan is to consider ANWR to be "money in the bank". Oil price increases are just starting. We'd be better off sitting on it for 50 years because by then, we'll be lamenting the days oil only cost $90-100 per barrel.
Writeroom looks OK, but it does take over the whole screen. Macs already have Pico, so just fire up a terminal and go. If you want green on black, just set your terminal to display that way.
Slashdot Mirror
Finding hydrocarbons on another planet is not the same as finding long chain hydrocarbons on another planet.
Next up -- we'll need to find a planet with enough oxygen to import to earth so we can actually burn the excess imported hydrocarbons.
Works for corn.
Where's a mirror? I'd like to read ....
hang on, someone's at the door.
Take off, you hosehead
I'm not waiting till 2084 -- I'm making a tinfoil sombrero tonight!
Maybe the confession is a lie -- maybe it isn't. I doubt they're current friends though because of the affair Nina had with Sturgeon. Seriously, though, if the court isn't going to let in information concerning the quality of the friends Nina took, that would be pretty unfair. Thus far, the prosecutor's case is a bunch of people saying "she would never leave her kids -- she was a wonderful mother and her kids meant everything to her". This plus some conjecture that Hans killed her because of some odd behavior on his part. The case seems extremely thin to me. I'm embarrassed that someone could get life in prison, or death, based on conjecture and virtually no evidence of guilt.
Excerpt:
As far as defenses go, don't forget her former boyfriend Sturgeon who has admitted to 7 or 8 killings -- just not Nina. That's really creepy. He could have murdered Nina to set up Hans for some sort of revenge purpose. All conjecture on my part of course.
If you've been reading along from day 1, you'll note that Reiser was continuously interrupting his attorney and DuBois was constantly asking to have things read back. The judge told Reiser to knock it off a bunch of times, and finally said "that's it". That's why the record wasn't read back, bad behavior on Reiser's part. Reiser doesn't like his attorney either.
/. is now going to ruin my user-experience at that blog anyway, I'd suggest starting at day one and reading forward -- you'll have to go back 4 pages from the top.
Anyway, since
Wish I knew what you were selling -- you sound like a good person to buy stuff from. If Ebay was filled with sellers like you, ebay would rule.
TFA also has this interesting stat: "eBay's data shows that sellers are eight times more likely to retaliate in kind against negative feedback, a figure that has grown dramatically over the years."
I mean, if that doesn't prove the sleaziness of regular "for a living" ebay sellers, I don't know what would.
True, the entire transaction is complete when money and goods change hands. However, the buyer's part in that is complete when the buyer pays. I'm willing to bet you have 99.99% positive or better on those 10k transactions. The reason you do is exemplified by an experience I had. I paid for an item within an hour or two of the auction close -- it was supposed to ship priority mail. Three weeks later I finally received it, postmarked more than 2 weeks after the auction's end. I left a neutral in the form of: "item as described, shipping took 3 weeks". Then I got hit with negative feedback. My solution -- I won't leave feedback before a seller does, and because sellers never do the right thing, I end up leaving none. As a seller, whether you engage in retaliation or not, you are benefiting from it because disgruntled buyers are much less likely to be honest about their transaction with you.
The current system basically requires tit-for-tat positives, or nobody says a word. Explain to me how you would solve that issue with your buyer-leaves-feedback-first preference?
Ebay must realize that there are people like me who put absolutely no faith in the sellers' ratings. In fact, if I see a person has a thousand or more sales, and 100% positive feedback, that makes me MORE suspicious, not less. It's obvious such a seller is just gaming the system because out of a 1000 people, no matter how good you are, not everyone is going to be happy (right or wrong, there will be more than a few complainers per 1000 people). I almost never buy anything on Ebay because I don't trust the system, and if I do buy something, it's from someone with fewer than 100 transactions on an account more 3 years old. I feel more trust in the occasional ebayer -- it's the regulars who seem the most sleazy. Anyway, if Ebay wants to expand its business, it must do something about the millions of people who will browse but rarely bid. That means seller ratings must be meaningful.
Nobody is pandering to the great moderate middle. That may have been true decades ago, but as more and more people leave the two parties, you end up with two radicalized parties and candidates who play to the extremes, ignoring the middle.
And yeah, I know Ron Paul wouldn't bring peace to the world. He would bring it to America, and as we aren't the United States of the World, that's what mainly counts. Of course I'm aware that as president, he wouldn't be able to effectuate many of his policies without a willing congress.
Now I'm starting to boil a bit -- who gives a rip if he "steals" from the parties. Plainly anyone who would vote for Ron Paul didn't belong to either of the corrupt-more-of-the-same-six-of-one-half-dozen-of-the-other political parties. And besides, I've never voted Republican in my life so Ron Paul isn't your regular spoiler. Actually, it doesn't even make sense to call Ron Paul a spoiler by "stealing" Democrat votes. Isn't that the goal of any candidate, to get the votes of everyone?
What this country really needs, is to have the two major parties knee-capped, bashed over the head, and left for dead. If that happened, we might get over these fuzzy headed "spoiler" ideas and get some real solutions. Of course, maybe nothing would change, but if things stay as they are, it's a certainty that nothing will change.
I'm not voting "lesser of evils" anymore. If RP isn't running, there will certainly be a libertarian candidate. Of course the libertarian won't win, but if I vote for someone I hate, I'm wasting my vote. Given the choice of wasting my vote for someone I hate, or for someone I like a bit, on this particular lesser of evils situation, I'll chose wasting my vote on the person I like.
Thank goodness there is no chance for Ron Paul to win. I mean, if he did win we might stop killing innocent people or borrowing ourself into a debt so deep we'll have to reneg on it and slip into 3d world status. Thank goodness we have the two major parties, MSM, and voters like you to ensure we ever get a candidate with a sense of reality, humanity, or responsibility.
Not true. Hillary Clinton would be there to help get the bloodshed going.
That ain't nothin'. Once I was passed on the right by full size Suburban -- I looked over and the lady was folding laundry.
re McD's coffee incident: Not only did they have prior notice as you note (there were numerous other incidents), the coffee in question gave her 3d degree burns in the groin area.
To those tempted to use McD's coffee a a snarky "example" of the legal system gone awry, consider that a 3d degree burn is where the skin is totally destroyed down to the flesh, and then think about you might do if the skin was totally burned off your cock.
People who buy into the whole "McD's coffee"="lawyers bad" argument are suckers. I've been reading "Free Lunch" (interview with author) and it's just disgusting. Like John Snow, treasury secretary, who slashed maintenance for CSX (rail freight) causing 2 billion dollars extra profit. Train derails, many injured and eight die. Caused by a switch installed backwards, held together by a rusty nail, maintenance records falsified. Eventually, 50 million awarded as punitive damages. Of course, CSX paid none of it -- because it was an Amtrack train running on CSX tracks, taxpayers paid it.
So here you have a guy who murders people, profits, gets promoted in government, has to pay nothing for his evil acts, and people like him and his administration tell you that lawyers are the problem. Wake the fuck up!
I guess I'm more concerned about the honesty aspect. If I can honestly say "I have no idea" and the standard is one which everyone knows I'm telling the truth, it seems to be 1) more ethical, and 2) safer anyway. But the idea just isn't realistic -- without actual magic (as in wizards and all that), it doesn't make natural sense that there would be a system that would allow keyless, passwordless access only to me.
The problem is that you know there is a second password. I suppose it's impossible, but the perfect system would make it so you didn't know either password.
Is it possible to create a security system in which the user has neither key (digital, biometric, mechanical, whatever) nor a password which would still allow the user to access the device but exclude all others? I guess that sounds like a stupid question, but it seems perfect security would require a method that does not use a key of any sort because keys can be taken, and uses a password nobody knows (not even the user), but which allows the user to apply the unknown password to the device and use it. This unknown password though, is sounding like a key, and if so, anyone who got it could use it.
Even if you have the disposable income, the Air might not appeal. It's essentially a Macbook with a bunch of stuff stripped out, a slower processor, and a redesigned case. The remote cd-rom application is not all that amazing -- I imagine it's just some rehash of Appletalk. It's sort of like an extreme version of the Macbook "black" penalty -- except now it's an extra $800.
And mods note -- I'm not an Apple hater. I spring for $2k powerbooks, well, now it'll be macbook pros, for my office (replace at 3 year intervals) and I have a Macbook which I use as my personal kick around machine, and before that, a 12 inch iBook.
Another problem with the Air is the same problem the Macbook has -- it's WIDE. The 12in iBook made a great travel computer. The macbook is on the wide side and feels a little more delicate than the iBook. If the Air had a smaller footprint, it would make sense in the product line. As it is, it looks like an expensive wide wafer -- fewer features than a Macbook at nearly twice the price. Even for people with money to burn, it doesn't seem the best place to burn it.
ANWR is not the be all end all that drillers tout. There are between 6-16 billion recoverable barrels (from pro-drilling site). Right now, refineries use about 15 million barrels of oil per day (from the EIA -- scroll to bottom).
That means the US uses around 5.4 billion barrels of oil per year. If you buy the pro-driller propaganda, ANWR is AT BEST, 3 years worth of supply. If you took the highest estimate of oil in the ground and assumed the magically ability to extract all 30 billion barrels -- that's 6 years of supply.
ANWR is just another method to enrich Cheney -- like the logic of paying contractor truck drivers 120k per year to drive truck in Iraq when a regular soldier makes about 1/6th of that. But that's another tale.
In my view, the better plan is to consider ANWR to be "money in the bank". Oil price increases are just starting. We'd be better off sitting on it for 50 years because by then, we'll be lamenting the days oil only cost $90-100 per barrel.
Writeroom looks OK, but it does take over the whole screen. Macs already have Pico, so just fire up a terminal and go. If you want green on black, just set your terminal to display that way.