So far it looks like the FCC's current regulation of radio frequencies is:
1) Make it impossible for small radio stations to exist on the FM band.
2) Make it easy for Mega-conglomerates to control all broadcasts on the FM band.
3) See above rules and swap FM for whatever band you are talking about.
The reality is a pretty grim one. The FCC hasn't opened the small footprint radio station applications in many years, so smaller voices are not being given the opportunity to speak.
I do not however think that the FCC should be shut down. The FCC needs to be about seeing that access to means of communication is not monopolized by a few commercial interests. What the FCC, and their "sponsors" don't seem to understand is that competition really is good for everybody.
The definition of SPAM is what needs to be defined. Bulk unsolicited commercial e-mail is a plague on the face of the internet. I work for a mid-sized ISP, and we have to spend thousands to protect our customers from this stuff. If we do not, the volume of B.U.C.E. would effectively be a DoS attack on our customers.
It is much easier to determine which snail mail is legit. I think the laws around faxes would be a much better precedent, since this issue is using the resources of the receiver. You have every right to advertise to me, however, you do not have the right to charge me to view your advertisement.
The best equivalent that I can come up with is this. You are sitting on your front porch and a man walks into your garage takes out a ladder and some paint and proceeds to write his product info and e-mail address on the walls of your house, then smiling and saying e-mail me and walking away.
It is going to at least cost you time to repaint over what he painted, and you might be justified in wanting to purchase a fence, a mean dog, and some of those no tresspassing signs.
Your "Free" speech ends when it costs someone else.
The other thing we need to do is this:
All you slashdotters out there tell every last one of your relatives, friends and coworkers to NEVER purchase anything from someone who e-mailed them. If this wasn't effective on some level, spammers wouldn't be doing it.
I think that there are some things that you can do to start.
1) When you go to buy something on credit, ask yourself Do I absolutely need this now? Or can I wait until I have saved up the money to buy this outright?
2) Realize that there will not be an off switch provided as long as the world economy is so dependent on consumer spending.
3) Be a complete nerd and actually make monthly budgets and track your purchases. (Don't forget to budget some money to be frivolous with.)
It is amazing how much less money I spend, now that I am actually paying attention to what I am doing. You will amaze yourself with how much money you are able to save, and how much less frenetic your life becomes.
We want to be able to walk into a car delership, bank, electronics store and walk out with whtever it is we want on credit. The only way this is possible is for the financiers to have access to our "credit history" to see what interest level they can shaft us with. If we are so ticked with identity theft, the quickest cure is for us to have a little patience and wait a couple of days for purchase confirmation on big ticket items, and callbacks on others.
Let's say you go to an online merchant and made a purchase. The financial institution should then call you at the phone numbers of record, that you gave when you opened the account, to confirm that it is indeed you that is making the purchase. This would maybe slow us down, and horror of horrors may force us to actually think about whether or not we actually need whatever it is that we are purchasing.
We have been so trained to want things instantly that we are willing to give up part of our financial security for immediate "satisfaction".
Sorry for the rant, but it isn't just the companies that are to blame, and a solution that punishes the institutions without challenging our ways of thinking about the way we approach our finances is only going to change the problem's appearance, not fix it.
Everyone that has posted has an opinion, Some of them make more sense than others, but none of us are lawyers. The best thing for you to do is to get advice from an attorney. NOW! Before a disgruntled employee other than you calls the BSA or other agency.
It sounds to me like your vendor is playing a little loosely with facts. There are plenty of purchase points for CRTs. I like http://www.newegg.com/ for hardware purchasing, but also check out http://www.buy.com/ and http://www.cdw.com/. Those are the major vendors, but there are tons of others out there that will sell you the high quality CRTs that you need, and won't BS you about CRTs going away. As many of the other articles are saying LCDs may be popular, but CRTs are still the better, and more cost effective, solution.
My recommendation is to get a new vendor.
I'll give you Firefly and Farscape, but 2001 and Blade Runner were both so BORING that I fell asleep at the theater. The books were great, and they were written to be books, not screenplays, and there was no way that the nuances of the books would translate well into film.
For another point, ANYTHING is marketable, if done correctly. Most "popular" Sci-fi is just well marketed, not always well written. Most "unpopular" sci-fi may be well written, but not well marketed. However, there has been Sci-Fi that was well written and well marketed. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for example. I personally didn't enjoy the film since it seemed to be more a vehicle for toys than a real tribute to the ideas and themes of Adam's books, but it was well marketed, and the original stuff was well written.
The best Sci-Fi should be "marketable", of course that depends on what you define marketable as.
Mel Brooks had it right. Star Wars started out as a cult classic, but has becoming an advertising gimmick like all of the other films out there. If you watch any Sci-Fi on TV or film you are just paying to watch a however long toy/ game commercial.
Check out http://www.vivato.com/. I have been installing their products, and recently did a baseball stadium. The signal penetrated the concrete construction into the team offices behind the dugout. Good stuff.
I have the leatherman Pulse. It comes with a locking mechanism that holds a fully extended tool in place. I have had it for a year so far and the tools aren't loose.
A majority of the SPAM that I receive comes from sites hosted by china-netcom. (according to SPAM-Cop)http://www.spamcop.net As far as I can tell, I have no options that I can use. I am sure that I am just receiving a trickle of SPAM that my ISP is letting through. I personally know the owner of my isp, and am very happy with it. My questions are: What can I do against foreign spammers? and What can I do to help my ISP fight SPAM?
Everywhere I go I hear "It's the game's fault." or "It's the media's fault." or even "That violent music." When you live in a militaristic culture that teaches violence as the best form of conflict resolution, and the people that kids have over them put violence into practice in daily policy, why is there such a huge surprise when the kids do violent things? If you want your kids to not be violent, you have to set the example for them. Banning violent games, toys or art is putting a band-aid over a bomb crater. Outlawing firearms does no good either. Until the underlying culture of violence is challenged it won't matter what you ban.
Once again MS is pushing the boundaries of security.... in the wrong direction. Now not only the government, but anyone with a receiver can view what you are doing. Is it just me, or can anyone else feel "Big Brother's" eyes opening a little wider?
Anytime you are giving up any freedom to be more "secure", you are simply locking the door to your own cell. That cell will be called "your" house or "your" apartment. We are already having our freedom to congregate in public taken away, ask any protester who has something non-mainstream to say. Now we are pondering letting our freedom of movement without government interference be taken away. I, contrary to what many conservative types believe, am not against this country. I love this country enough to not let it get wrecked by shortsighted policies that are only band-aids over what needs surgery to fix.
Slashdot Mirror
So far it looks like the FCC's current regulation of radio frequencies is: 1) Make it impossible for small radio stations to exist on the FM band. 2) Make it easy for Mega-conglomerates to control all broadcasts on the FM band. 3) See above rules and swap FM for whatever band you are talking about. The reality is a pretty grim one. The FCC hasn't opened the small footprint radio station applications in many years, so smaller voices are not being given the opportunity to speak. I do not however think that the FCC should be shut down. The FCC needs to be about seeing that access to means of communication is not monopolized by a few commercial interests. What the FCC, and their "sponsors" don't seem to understand is that competition really is good for everybody.
The definition of SPAM is what needs to be defined. Bulk unsolicited commercial e-mail is a plague on the face of the internet. I work for a mid-sized ISP, and we have to spend thousands to protect our customers from this stuff. If we do not, the volume of B.U.C.E. would effectively be a DoS attack on our customers. It is much easier to determine which snail mail is legit. I think the laws around faxes would be a much better precedent, since this issue is using the resources of the receiver. You have every right to advertise to me, however, you do not have the right to charge me to view your advertisement. The best equivalent that I can come up with is this. You are sitting on your front porch and a man walks into your garage takes out a ladder and some paint and proceeds to write his product info and e-mail address on the walls of your house, then smiling and saying e-mail me and walking away. It is going to at least cost you time to repaint over what he painted, and you might be justified in wanting to purchase a fence, a mean dog, and some of those no tresspassing signs. Your "Free" speech ends when it costs someone else. The other thing we need to do is this: All you slashdotters out there tell every last one of your relatives, friends and coworkers to NEVER purchase anything from someone who e-mailed them. If this wasn't effective on some level, spammers wouldn't be doing it.
I think that there are some things that you can do to start.
1) When you go to buy something on credit, ask yourself Do I absolutely need this now? Or can I wait until I have saved up the money to buy this outright?
2) Realize that there will not be an off switch provided as long as the world economy is so dependent on consumer spending.
3) Be a complete nerd and actually make monthly budgets and track your purchases. (Don't forget to budget some money to be frivolous with.)
It is amazing how much less money I spend, now that I am actually paying attention to what I am doing. You will amaze yourself with how much money you are able to save, and how much less frenetic your life becomes.
We want to be able to walk into a car delership, bank, electronics store and walk out with whtever it is we want on credit. The only way this is possible is for the financiers to have access to our "credit history" to see what interest level they can shaft us with. If we are so ticked with identity theft, the quickest cure is for us to have a little patience and wait a couple of days for purchase confirmation on big ticket items, and callbacks on others.
Let's say you go to an online merchant and made a purchase. The financial institution should then call you at the phone numbers of record, that you gave when you opened the account, to confirm that it is indeed you that is making the purchase. This would maybe slow us down, and horror of horrors may force us to actually think about whether or not we actually need whatever it is that we are purchasing.
We have been so trained to want things instantly that we are willing to give up part of our financial security for immediate "satisfaction".
Sorry for the rant, but it isn't just the companies that are to blame, and a solution that punishes the institutions without challenging our ways of thinking about the way we approach our finances is only going to change the problem's appearance, not fix it.
Everyone that has posted has an opinion, Some of them make more sense than others, but none of us are lawyers. The best thing for you to do is to get advice from an attorney. NOW! Before a disgruntled employee other than you calls the BSA or other agency.
It sounds to me like your vendor is playing a little loosely with facts. There are plenty of purchase points for CRTs. I like http://www.newegg.com/ for hardware purchasing, but also check out http://www.buy.com/ and http://www.cdw.com/. Those are the major vendors, but there are tons of others out there that will sell you the high quality CRTs that you need, and won't BS you about CRTs going away. As many of the other articles are saying LCDs may be popular, but CRTs are still the better, and more cost effective, solution. My recommendation is to get a new vendor.
I'll give you Firefly and Farscape, but 2001 and Blade Runner were both so BORING that I fell asleep at the theater. The books were great, and they were written to be books, not screenplays, and there was no way that the nuances of the books would translate well into film. For another point, ANYTHING is marketable, if done correctly. Most "popular" Sci-fi is just well marketed, not always well written. Most "unpopular" sci-fi may be well written, but not well marketed. However, there has been Sci-Fi that was well written and well marketed. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for example. I personally didn't enjoy the film since it seemed to be more a vehicle for toys than a real tribute to the ideas and themes of Adam's books, but it was well marketed, and the original stuff was well written. The best Sci-Fi should be "marketable", of course that depends on what you define marketable as.
Mel Brooks had it right. Star Wars started out as a cult classic, but has becoming an advertising gimmick like all of the other films out there. If you watch any Sci-Fi on TV or film you are just paying to watch a however long toy/ game commercial.
Check out http://www.vivato.com/. I have been installing their products, and recently did a baseball stadium. The signal penetrated the concrete construction into the team offices behind the dugout. Good stuff.
I have the leatherman Pulse. It comes with a locking mechanism that holds a fully extended tool in place. I have had it for a year so far and the tools aren't loose.
A majority of the SPAM that I receive comes from sites hosted by china-netcom. (according to SPAM-Cop)http://www.spamcop.net As far as I can tell, I have no options that I can use. I am sure that I am just receiving a trickle of SPAM that my ISP is letting through. I personally know the owner of my isp, and am very happy with it. My questions are: What can I do against foreign spammers? and What can I do to help my ISP fight SPAM?
Everywhere I go I hear "It's the game's fault." or "It's the media's fault." or even "That violent music." When you live in a militaristic culture that teaches violence as the best form of conflict resolution, and the people that kids have over them put violence into practice in daily policy, why is there such a huge surprise when the kids do violent things? If you want your kids to not be violent, you have to set the example for them. Banning violent games, toys or art is putting a band-aid over a bomb crater. Outlawing firearms does no good either. Until the underlying culture of violence is challenged it won't matter what you ban.
Once again MS is pushing the boundaries of security.... in the wrong direction. Now not only the government, but anyone with a receiver can view what you are doing. Is it just me, or can anyone else feel "Big Brother's" eyes opening a little wider?
Anytime you are giving up any freedom to be more "secure", you are simply locking the door to your own cell. That cell will be called "your" house or "your" apartment.
We are already having our freedom to congregate in public taken away, ask any protester who has something non-mainstream to say.
Now we are pondering letting our freedom of movement without government interference be taken away.
I, contrary to what many conservative types believe, am not against this country. I love this country enough to not let it get wrecked by shortsighted policies that are only band-aids over what needs surgery to fix.