One of these days, you're going to be in a theater alone and confused, wishing that the loud guy three rows back was there to explain to his friend and everyone else in a ten-foot radius the obvious thing that just happened.
Once we have nanorobots that work off blood sugar, that will be exciting. That might be a good time to become paranoid too. The question that comes to my mind: Who'll be the first to sponsor this research, Coke or Pepsi?
The summary reminds me of a commercial from several years back that purportedly allowed you to give your own car a jump start through the cigarette lighter. One of the selling points for the device was how it was supposedly better than the actual battery in your car. To prove it, they hooked a multimeter up to each one, while the voiceover said, "Your normal car battery has only 12 volts of energy. But {our product} has 48 volts of energy!"
This was almost as good as the one where one of those ionic air filters was "electrostatically charged... like a magnet!"
Eventually, one of these advertising agencies got tired of being ridiculed. When they made a commercial for one of those "shake vigorously to charge" flashlights that has a magnet that moves through a coil when you, er, shake it, they actually put Ampere's Law in integral form on the screen to prove how smart they are.
You need to have a long needle going into your abdomen in order to get pure enough DNA to make a clone. Baldercrap! You only need a forkful of back growth scrapings to make a clone!
The real problem is not that an individual cable TV provider has too large a market share. The problem is that there is no competition among providers because of regional, not national, monopoly status.
Just remember, there's been a lot of malware coming out of Russia lately, particularly from the Russian Business Network. Will LiveJournal's new owners start giving us free popups and keyloggers as surprise gifts? Too early to know for certain, but this deal moves them a bit closer to RBN's arena, and zombifying LJ's userbase would be a big feather in their cap.
Block your Flash and Javascript, just in case. 'Course, that's good advice no matter where you surf.
Projects like this are, more often than not, the result of a competitive proposal review process, although sometimes the solicitor can have in mind a particular research group when writing the solicitation.
It's not pork because such money is not directly budgeted by Congress to go toward the specific research group or project.
Exactly. There was an incident this past week where numerous websites registered under the.cn TLD but hosted somewhere near Chicago were finding their way into many Google search results. The only purpose of the sites was to gain high pagerank and infect unfortunate clicker-onners with malware. The problem was discovered and reported by folks outside Google, so Google wants to make sure that people have a way to report such problems before they get out of hand.
Whether this is a losing battle or not is anybody's guess.
Witness the power of the free market at work. When you've been fixing prices for decades to shore up your profits, you shouldn't be surprised when that system comes crashing down, once an innovation comes along that turns your industry on its head.
This is how OPEC will feel, if ever we get off our asses and start making commercially viable electric cars.
How about we blame Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and the other "Hawks" for single-mindedly pushing a US foreign policy doctrine of preemption, which led to a war based on falsified "evidence" of a laughable "threat" to the US? Keep in mind two things: the intelligence coming out of the end of the Clinton administration indicated that Saddam had WMDs - Clinton himself has said so - and furthermore, Saddam was trying to make it seem like he still had WMDs because he feared the threat of war from Iran.
In terms of mismanagement of the first half of the war, though, I agree with you that Rumsfeld should catch a lot of the blame. He was touting the leaner meaner military at the time, and it became clear later that substantially higher numbers of troops were required to pacify the country. Further, the events shortly after the regime's fall, such as taking very little response to the looting of museums and the rapid increase in crime, indicated that the military was taking a hands-off approach, which was the wrong answer since the power vacuum contributed greatly to the rise of al Qaeda and the Shiite militias.
Fortunately, things are taking some significant upturns there, and while I don't credit the troop surge with the beginnings of this success - largely, it's al Qaeda overplaying their hand and Muqtada al Sadr calling off his men that made it possible - it is fortuitous that the surge allowed us to press that advantage so that legitimate Iraqi military and police forces could set themselves up.
Yeah, but imagine if the MPAA only had to go through one federal regulatory agency to get their way, instead of through a bunch of cable companies and their local and state regulators.
Really, this is a case of "Whoever wins, we (the consumers) lose." The cable companies don't want the FCC getting into the cable industry's business because they fear the FCC mandating all sorts of extra crap from them that could potentially benefit the consumer without giving them the chance to profit from it. On the other hand, the content industry would probably be happy with the FCC getting more involved, because they could use the FCC as a tool for pushing DRM, unskippable advertising, etc., through the cable and into the consumer's face.
The reality is, there's already at least some regulation of the cable industries at the municipal and state levels, and this is a good thing, because like most other pole-mounted services, cable is almost always regionally monopolized. My biggest fear is that the involvement of the FCC in cable industry regulation would end up being tantamount to deregulation, causing state and local regulations (such as municipal franchise licensing) to go directly out the window and raising prices across the board for consumers with no corresponding improvements in service.
RIAA: "Alright, it's $.03 for the song, $200 for lawyers and $549.97 for your reelection campaign and all the free downloads of "The Gap Band" you can handle? How's that sound judge? Judge? Judge? Is this thing on?" Judge: Um... you do know that federal judges are appointed, not elected, right?
RIAA: Nonsense! Everybody has a price. Ours is just spectacularly high.
There's no expectation that an average person would gain the ability to perform a retinal scan or a full-body search on me just by my walking down the street. They would, however, be able to see where I'm going and even follow me if they so chose, and they could collect fingerprints and possibly DNA by checking items that I've touched along the way.
If an average person is able to do those things, why should I object to the fact that the police have the ability to do it as well (though pretty obviously not the resources)?
Farnsworth: Lie down here and we'll do some tests. If Fry is out there, then Leela's brain could be acting as a five-pound Ouija board. Leela: Is this some sort of brain scanner? Farnsworth: Some sort, yes. In France, it's called a guillotine. Leela: Professor! Can't you examine my brain without removing it? Farnsworth: Yes, easily!
Slashdot Mirror
One of these days, you're going to be in a theater alone and confused, wishing that the loud guy three rows back was there to explain to his friend and everyone else in a ten-foot radius the obvious thing that just happened.
I can think of much cheaper ways to kill people. Practically any other way, in fact.
I find this sketch particularly apropos somehow. (Or this while it lasts.)
H.R.4279
Fear leads to patents. Patents lead to lawsuits. Lawsuits lead to suffering....
Have you seen Yoda's hands? He'd have to use the Force just to type all those parentheses!
Plus, even RIAA-employed trolls can post to Slashdot.
The summary reminds me of a commercial from several years back that purportedly allowed you to give your own car a jump start through the cigarette lighter. One of the selling points for the device was how it was supposedly better than the actual battery in your car. To prove it, they hooked a multimeter up to each one, while the voiceover said, "Your normal car battery has only 12 volts of energy. But {our product} has 48 volts of energy!"
This was almost as good as the one where one of those ionic air filters was "electrostatically charged... like a magnet!"
Eventually, one of these advertising agencies got tired of being ridiculed. When they made a commercial for one of those "shake vigorously to charge" flashlights that has a magnet that moves through a coil when you, er, shake it, they actually put Ampere's Law in integral form on the screen to prove how smart they are.
The real problem is not that an individual cable TV provider has too large a market share. The problem is that there is no competition among providers because of regional, not national, monopoly status.
Just remember, there's been a lot of malware coming out of Russia lately, particularly from the Russian Business Network. Will LiveJournal's new owners start giving us free popups and keyloggers as surprise gifts? Too early to know for certain, but this deal moves them a bit closer to RBN's arena, and zombifying LJ's userbase would be a big feather in their cap.
Block your Flash and Javascript, just in case. 'Course, that's good advice no matter where you surf.
Projects like this are, more often than not, the result of a competitive proposal review process, although sometimes the solicitor can have in mind a particular research group when writing the solicitation.
It's not pork because such money is not directly budgeted by Congress to go toward the specific research group or project.
Exactly. There was an incident this past week where numerous websites registered under the .cn TLD but hosted somewhere near Chicago were finding their way into many Google search results. The only purpose of the sites was to gain high pagerank and infect unfortunate clicker-onners with malware. The problem was discovered and reported by folks outside Google, so Google wants to make sure that people have a way to report such problems before they get out of hand.
Whether this is a losing battle or not is anybody's guess.
Oh, wait, no, the other one.
Nu-cu-lar.
Witness the power of the free market at work. When you've been fixing prices for decades to shore up your profits, you shouldn't be surprised when that system comes crashing down, once an innovation comes along that turns your industry on its head.
This is how OPEC will feel, if ever we get off our asses and start making commercially viable electric cars.
In terms of mismanagement of the first half of the war, though, I agree with you that Rumsfeld should catch a lot of the blame. He was touting the leaner meaner military at the time, and it became clear later that substantially higher numbers of troops were required to pacify the country. Further, the events shortly after the regime's fall, such as taking very little response to the looting of museums and the rapid increase in crime, indicated that the military was taking a hands-off approach, which was the wrong answer since the power vacuum contributed greatly to the rise of al Qaeda and the Shiite militias.
Fortunately, things are taking some significant upturns there, and while I don't credit the troop surge with the beginnings of this success - largely, it's al Qaeda overplaying their hand and Muqtada al Sadr calling off his men that made it possible - it is fortuitous that the surge allowed us to press that advantage so that legitimate Iraqi military and police forces could set themselves up.
Yeah, but imagine if the MPAA only had to go through one federal regulatory agency to get their way, instead of through a bunch of cable companies and their local and state regulators.
Really, this is a case of "Whoever wins, we (the consumers) lose." The cable companies don't want the FCC getting into the cable industry's business because they fear the FCC mandating all sorts of extra crap from them that could potentially benefit the consumer without giving them the chance to profit from it. On the other hand, the content industry would probably be happy with the FCC getting more involved, because they could use the FCC as a tool for pushing DRM, unskippable advertising, etc., through the cable and into the consumer's face.
The reality is, there's already at least some regulation of the cable industries at the municipal and state levels, and this is a good thing, because like most other pole-mounted services, cable is almost always regionally monopolized. My biggest fear is that the involvement of the FCC in cable industry regulation would end up being tantamount to deregulation, causing state and local regulations (such as municipal franchise licensing) to go directly out the window and raising prices across the board for consumers with no corresponding improvements in service.
RIAA: Nonsense! Everybody has a price. Ours is just spectacularly high.
I'll counter your prediction with a gem of my own:
There won't be any ad-free DVDs. At least, not legal ones.
Hey, I never said I'd install it! ;)
There's no expectation that an average person would gain the ability to perform a retinal scan or a full-body search on me just by my walking down the street. They would, however, be able to see where I'm going and even follow me if they so chose, and they could collect fingerprints and possibly DNA by checking items that I've touched along the way.
If an average person is able to do those things, why should I object to the fact that the police have the ability to do it as well (though pretty obviously not the resources)?
Farnsworth: Lie down here and we'll do some tests. If Fry is out there, then Leela's brain could be acting as a five-pound Ouija board.
Leela: Is this some sort of brain scanner?
Farnsworth: Some sort, yes. In France, it's called a guillotine.
Leela: Professor! Can't you examine my brain without removing it?
Farnsworth: Yes, easily!