Has there ever been a case of a government database which hasn't been misused?
It is possible there is something at the USGS or NOAH but if that is the case and its doubtful then its only because nobody remembered to make those organizations part of Homeland-Security yet.
When you consider the potential catastophe that even one acident could cause it will almost never be safe enough. The debris from the last suttle accident was spread accross multiple states!
I used to be very anti-nuclear simply because dispite the excelent safety record the damage as a result form an acident has the potential to be so incredible. That said there have only been two major incidents with nuclear electrical plants. TMI was basically a non-issue in the end, but chernobyl, resulted in 336,000 people haveing to be reloacated and something like 10,000 people or the six million or so exposed to high levels of fallout are estimated to have died or will die as a direct result of that exposure.
I recongize that we have an energy crisis and that nuclear electric plants are probably the ONLY real viable answer but we must work on the safety issues. This is not like a gas plant where a disaster might cause an explosion that kills a thousand people in the immediate area, an accident will disrupt millions of people.
Waste is also a serious issue for safety reasons we really can't just shoot it into the sun, at least not today and not tomorow, maybe some day maybe. Its even a problem to transport it to a disposal site safely, but those are engineering problems we probably can solve in the near term. The trouble is where to dispose of it. Even the Yuka(sp?) is not looking like such a good idea as of late. Care to volunteer your back yard?
Nuclear most like is the answer to the energy question, but IT IS NOT A TURN KEY solution most of is proponants make it out to be. We need to start working on it and now.
you pervert! When I looked at that I really though it was a pair of eyes where the whites were big, like they were wide open (surpized maybe). Now I all I see is tits, tits every where damn you, err ahh wait, THANK YOU!
Its just the destruction of our language. It used to bother me as well but I have just learned to accept it. The main reason is most common phrases were just goofy coloquialisms of days gone by, and have also completly changed meaning.
For instance: "Close enough for government work" when originally coined supposedly sometime in the federalist period actally meant that the job was done very well.
Some time in the sixties when the government was precived to be inept by many it took on a new meaning entirely. Now when you say that you mean something more like: "I did a crapy job but it will probably do."
I am writing to confirm I have recived your DMCA take down notice. It is my position at this time that the document your take down notice referenced is not protected by copyright. I wish to be in full compliance with all laws and desire to respect the property of others. If you feel my assesment of your rights to this document is infact in error please contact me to discuss the matter in greater detail. I am sure we can reach a mutally agreeable resolution.
PS.
Just as an FYI you may be asked to appear in court in the near future. I casually mentioned the situation to somone at the prosecutors office they mumbled something about forgery and uttering charges and asked me to send the origial documents to them. I did so because its a bad idea to make those people upset. I tell you this in case you would like to contact them about recovering your original media incase you thing it will be helpful for our discussion.
Its also worth noteing that Hotmail was developed as its own brand and has lots of pre-M$ ownership users like me still. I doubt I would have selected hotmail in its present form over the competition but then again I am not going to give up an e-mail address I have had for more then a decade. Hotmail was more or less the first player, and the old hats introduced their pals to it and so on and so fourth. Its a success because of its legacy. Current versions of Windows are only successful due to legacy, users do nothing but complain. Unlike Windows M$ can't even calim Hotmail's legacy.
Actually I don't think you are considering the broader implications.
The real villians here are those individuals in our national government. They have the responsibility to make our society function in a mannor that promotes the general(everyones) wellfare at least thats what it says is the reason for the government in its founding documnet.
Our society is more or less based on two principles, people are basicaly good, and a free market will produce a good enough distribution of wealth while creating ensentive to produce additional wealth rather then more ways to redistubute existing wealth.
If those two principles really addressed every situation we would have no need for the government at all. Lots people claibing to libertarian who don't know what a libertarian actually is think this is the case and we need no government. --This is wrong.
The governments role should be to massage the situations that don't fit the two priniciples until they do fit, AND ONLY until they fit so the natural system can continue to work. A good example are common resources like air, we all share it and its quite possible that even though I am a good person I don't understand the impact of certain chemicals on the Ozone, government is doing us all a service by say offering tax breaks to manufactures so they can offset the costs of moveing to cleaner processes.
Another example is creating intelectual property rights. The market is only good at regulating scare items. Arts, Entertainment, results of pure research, etc are almost always virtually unlimited in the sense that they can be reproduced at nearly no cost. The government has the responsibility to ensure that there is some insentive to continue to develop these public goods. The y need to make more profitiable for people with these talents to produce these outputs rather then do something else.
That is ALL they need to do though. The government has a RESPONSIBILITY to the majority to stop there. They don't need and should not make these things hugely profitable. The government should be setting copyright durration, patent durration, and penalties for violating these rules high enough that the group of people who are talented in and would enjoy the vocation chose to be actors, writers, cancer researchers, etc over say programers, electricians, cooks, weavers etc etc.
In stead what we have is a government that is not representing the will of the majority. It is infact representing a small minority. Its makeing there practice of these vocations so profitable they have drivers and live in 40,000 sqft homes. They then turn around and use this wealth to run cartels and actually make it impossible for others to profit in these vocations. Which in fact denies society lots of potentially valuable intelectual work, and very disporportionitly to the actual value being produced by this minorty group shifts wealth from the rest of market in their directions.
We the people are being robbed! This nation was once outraged by the Andrew Carnigie and Henry Ford, they cried how they were robber barons, when they were infact producing real value. They had some unjustified help from government rent seeking to be sure but nothing on the order of what the RIAA/MPAA/Big Pharma is getting. The behavior of those groups and our government's relationship with them make it a joke to call the figure heads of the industrial revolution Robber Barons.
I am getting tired of reading how good at her job she was and how much time she had been doing it excuses her lying.
Lying is WRONG, I don't think anyone can make a serious case against my next statememt. If you can please by all means try:
Society as a whole should discorage or at least avoid rewarding liers.
Serious this kind of gross misrepresentation is dangerous. Its this total lack of integrity that is destroying this nation. Just look at our politicans and leaders for cry out loud. With each passing year we get progressively worse cheats and crooks. Unless you want a whole generation of young people growing up honesty is not important we damn well better toss this woman out on her ass and as publicly as possible. She should not have been allow to resign she SHOULD HAVE BEEN FIRED imediately.
This is crazy would you want someone doing surgery on you because hell they read some medical text books and figured they could do the job, so what the heck. That is exactly the kind of example you set by letting this person stay where she is.
Thre are a couple things we should all take away from this. 1. Its time to serious start looking at morality, honesty, and integrity because if we let them slip away we will no longer be a great people, just a bunch of criminals who had rich parents. That sentiment exists around the world about Americans already, lets not let it be true.
2. Policies where a person is not let in the door just because they don't have a degree certification etc, is in most situations extreemly short sited. If your somebody responsible for hireing maybe you should get off your lazy ass and come up with a way to evaluate applications beyond how long the list of initials and acronyms tacked on to there name is. Academic Degrees might be a good inidicatior of ability but just because somebody does not have one, is not a reason to just dismiss them.
No its not like that at all. When you get a random e-mail like that from somebody you never met there is at least some really really {insert about seventeen more reallys here} possibility that its on the up and up. If you get a letter like that addressed from the RIAA you KNOW its a scam.
As a Medical Doctor, Practicing Criminal Lawyer, Professor of Cosmology, Licensed Elevator Inspector Life Guard, and offical Breast Examiner; I am truely shocked that someone would misrepresent themselves in such a fashion.
Since when does needing to rethink a few scientific models, and go back and gather some data again now that we know we might have measured wrong constitue a crisis?
I don't understand this or think its at all fair. We should not be imposing rules on the poor kill droids that are contrary to their nature. A kill droid so be free to romp and do what it does best kill anything and everything.
Honestly this strikes me like thoes people who adopt dogs that are prone to barking and then put collars on them to shock them when they do it. Its unfair I say, and worng to force something to act contrary to its nature. If you don't want a dog that barks much you should adopt a bread which is not given to barking or maybe just get a cat.
The same is true for robots. If you don't want a robot that runs around killing everything it detects especially you then you should forgo adopting or building a kill droid. Maybe go get yourself one of thoes more friendly industrial breads that enjoys welding steel pannels onto cars or if space is a concern some types of robots are very small and even enjoy roaming around your home vacuming the floor for you as they do. There is an appropriate type of robot for almost ever situation. Please be responsible and only adopt a kill droid if you have adequate supplies of victims for it to kill.
Al Sharpton, you are idiot, a stupid clown who deserves to be called by the title n****r. Oh and incase you were wondering it has nothing to do with the color of your skin, the characteristics of your hair or anything else superficial like that. It has everything to do with your repeated demonstration of idiocy. Most people are able to grasp simple civics lessons. Most public figurers are over the course of decades able to figure out how the American system works.
This is America Al, the country where people have a right to express ideas whether they are popular or not, I agree Imus made an unfair generalization. I bet most people agree with that. The thing is he as a write to express his thoughts. You and the rest of this nation have the responsibility to evaluate them and dismiss them if you find them to be without merit.
Tell me Al, why is it that you are allowed to run your mouth but other people can't? I am sure that the people Imus was referring too had their feeling hurt. What about when you say awful things. Like when you and Jackson accused him of intentionally flooding New Orleans. That would be a monstrous crime. As hated as he is by so many he is not a monster and with no real evidence that is a horrible thing to say. What about his feelings, why do you have a write to hurt people when nobody else does?
You have made many baseless charges against a political party I associate myself with thought the years. Often you accuse us of being bigoted racist oppressors. The fact is most of us are not. I consider it a hurtful and unfair generalization. I don't personally feel any less insulted by it then I suppose the girls Imus was talking about might feel about what he said. Still I am not out there trying to stop you from spreading your lies. I am not trying to take your mike away. I don't go out and protest loudly for news agencies to stop carrying your hate filled sound bytes.
When confronted with your lies I respond calmly and intelligently to them. I work to convince people of their false hood by my own actions and presentation of concrete examples from history showing them to be wrong. Above all I respect peoples freedom to say and think whatever they like.
It seems to me that Blackboard released a project that worked correctly(lets pretend ok) on a specified list of operating systems.
Microsoft released a new operating system and never claimed that all your old stuff will still work, just that you most likely can still use your old stuff. That product works(lets pretend ok) as specified. Its also worth noteing Microsoft continues to sell their previous system.
If there are any problems the only people who deserve blame are those working at the IT departments at these schools. Perhaps they should have validated all the software the school depends on when using Vista before deploying it. Just a thought.
I know this is Slashdot (hence the car analogy) but holding M$ responsible for this or Blackboard makes no sense at all. Suppose I order a turbo charger from Eaton, for a 1975 Ford Mustang. Next I get all pissed and acuse Ford and or Eaton of scewing up when the thing will not fit on my 2005 Ford Mustang.
Seriously these is a preschool skill, they give you some pegs and a board with holes. You have some round pegs and some square ones, as well as round holes, and square ones. You are supposed to take away something form the experience of playing with these items. One that they are good for thowing at the kid you don't like, and two that some things don't fit together and others do. Its your task as a human being to study things and figure out how and what they can be used for or combined with.
s the front man for several big music companies and as long as their names (Sony, BMG, etc) are out of the headlines, it is doing its job.
Which is why we need to start putting these names in print! We need to start makeing the RIAA's image one and the same with its member organizations. If you want to restrict how they can behave that is the way. Obviously you should try and list the member owning the media the the suit is over but these articals should always mention the RIAA something like this.
The RIAA, an organization supported by members including EMI, Sony, Universal, Warner and others, is sueing... for...
This is factually correct so I doubt the RIAA or the labels have any wiggle room to go after libel. Although IANAL. If we start assoicating the RIAAs actions with the names of the member companies in the publics eye the member companies will start to make the RIAA less off putting.
Right and odds are he did not even bother to make sure the motherboard NIC was a real NIC. You don't see it in server boards much yet thank goodness but lots of desktops have sudo NICs which do most of their work in software. That could explain those 5% frame rate jumps right there. I suspect you'd get that improvement with ANY real NIC, no need for your $50 mid range, an old NE2000 would likely deliver.
That situation is not the same. It would be evident to many people that the patches are indeed quality and that credentials or not the individual is talented. Then again as a potential employer I would be extremely cautious about hireling someone who misrepresents himself for no good reason. What else is he going to lie about? Could I ever expect any truthfulness from him especially when he does have a reason to lie?
Back to the issue at hand though.. In this case its not something like code that either works or does not, is readable by others or isn't. This is much more esoteric type information that can only be validated by people who really have done the research or will do it. It may even require specially qualified people to do the work, as I don't even know where outside the "Mid-evil Source Book" to go looking for original documents much of the field is based on. All the work he did is tainted and un-trustworthy and unless or until someone does the work, and at that point they might as well have produced it themselves. So yes his contribution is effectively reduced to nothing at this point.
Stuff on wiki stands based on our faith in others, when that faith becomes compromised so does the information unless its based on easily observed and verified facts or highly repeatable efforts, like running some computer code to see what is does.
But we already know what happens when something becomes non-scarce - it's price drops to zero, as can be seen by logging onto any big filesharing network.
Maybe that is the point here... Certain types of "information" are now so ubiquitous that they are infact worth just about zero. Maybe we should not worry so much about wether the system will encorage people to produce entertainment, or even art. Maybe we as a society are producing too much entertainment.
I hate to say this but it is after all the option nobody seems to be considering, perhaps we have reached a point where this stuff is so easily had that without a questionably legal cartel to artifically prop up prices supply is in excess of demand. If less entertainment was produced people might not choose to patronize those who produce work they like, they might thing hey given the releative SCARCITY of media products I like maybe it would be fun to have the physical materials that normally come with or join their subscription service to get their new stuff sooner, whatever. As it stands now there is so much out there for everybody that I think most consumers can't figure out what they *want* but they can get *everything* free so they do and end up buying nothing.
I think there certainly *is* a market for music, film, art, etc just not as big of one as has been created by legislative and technological(DRM) rent seeking the industry has engaged in. The amount of value this society places on these products has become HIGHLY distorted. I bet if we roll back copyright rules to what they were at the end of the nineteenth centry and call the *IAAs what they are organizations that enable illegal colusion and price fixing we get as a result in a pretty short time frame:
1. A much smaller entertainment industry dollars and cents wise 2. A much smaller entertainment industry in terms of product output 3. Much higher quality entertainment products that are produced 4. Consumers paying(voluntarily) for a much larger portion of the entertaiment products they use 5. A functioning market place where consumers reward producers for stuff they like and stuff they don't like sits unsold on shelves and ceased to be prodcued. Since the industry would no longer be able to afford the marketing power to tell people they like something when the really don't.
To play some games, you must have Windows at this time. I would rather than people who must have a copy, find a way to get it free. This way they are not financially tied into MS, and they are not any more inclined to invest any money into MS.
Gee -I'd rather then have ABSOULTLY no possibility of running windows without paying for, that way they'd have a financial intrest in finding ways to sever their ties with M$ and might be willing to spend part of what they would have on Vista to facilitate their transition to a more open platform. In my opion the more M$ charges for Windows and the harder it is to pirate the better the software landscape will end up looking.
Well in gerneral I would agree with you about the customers being partly to blame for overblowing the situation. As a customer if you think you are MISTAKENLY being under charged then if you're an honest person you should speak up.
Now if I am shopping online for item X and I see Best Buy is selling it for $50 on their site and I show up at the store and its $45, when we check again I would probably make the assumption the price was lowered, knowing lots of web pricing really can change moment to moment based automatic vendor feeds and cost plus rules etc etc.. I am going to pay for item X and go gome. My transaction completed I will never likely look into the matter again.
Suppose however I get to Best Buy and item X is $55. I might say to them hey I saw it on your site for $50 and that is what brought me over here, could you let me have it for that? There is nothing wrong or imoral about that, they are after all free to say no. Its a free market in any given transaction both parties should feel the exchange is to their gain. If either does not then the transaction does not happen. Now lets suppose I leave the store with out X. I go back online and start searching for X at a cost of the $50 I was willing to pay or less. Well gee-wiz Best Buy pops up again, odd. I now think I do have a little right to be miffed. To me it now appears they lied about their offerings to get me in the store where they hoped I would roll over and pay their higher price. This is now essencially false advertising and its illegal.
We've been doing selective breeding of plants and animals for a very long time and there's nothing unusual or unnatural about it.
True there is nothing unnatural about selective breading and cross breading, which in many cases is nothing like modern GM efforts at all.
If I am doing selective breading on plants and animals I do it over generations, I allow the ones that have traits I like or lack to traits I don't like to reproduce and deny those that don't meet my criteria the chance to do that. In the end with luck I create a population that only has DNA for the traits I want. In no part of that process can I introduce something that was not already there. Maybe some natural mutation happens in their that I like and I can encourage it but that would be dumb luck and it might still be impossible because often when such changes happen if they are at all impactful the organism stants a good chance of being unable to procreate. This is natures defense against run-away evolution if you will.
If I am doing cross breading again I am heavily restricted by nature. Mostly I can't bread any two organisms that are not already very similar and because they are so similar they likely have a common evolutionary parent anyway. If I want to combine different species I can't the offspring won't be able to reproduce, that is basically the defineition of species.
If I am doing GM work then there is nothing stoping me from mixing some fish genes into a tomato, this has been done. That is not a natural combination that nature would ever allow. We don't what the results will be. This is very similar to the problem we face with lots of processed foods. Sugar for instance requires other compounds to digest, in nature these are usually present in the same plant that contains the sugar. In soda those are not there and will be striped from my body as a result when I drink the soda. This is ok as long as I eat other stuff and consume only so much soda. The thing is as a consumer I know that soda has nutritional issues and I can take mitigating steps if I want to drink it, like eat some leafy sald. I can't know wether my spinich has been fucked with or not.
You seem as racist regarding East Indian folks as the parent was about us Americans(not they we are a race exactly). I am not at all sure what your tring to prove.
The truth is it cuts both ways. It is no surprise to me that people from there who live her or maybe from here whose parents were from there are more then a little arogant. I mean really most of them are quite successful and probably as a group more so then average Americans. Why because they represet the group of Indians who were smart enough to get out of there. Which was likely not easy. So yea, of course they are going to be successful in other persuits.
The thing is they got lots of folks back home who actually spend years studying to work in a call center. That is proof enough that on Average East Indian people are probably no better and no worse them Americans, of which many can't seem to lead productive lives either.
Cut the racist bullshit for the msot part we are all about the same. You can find really bright people as well as worthless trash amoung any population. Most of the world order comes down to who happened to have what resources when and good ideas about how to use them. Yes, we have had much better leadership in recent history, that is a fact.
India had a pretty advanced culture though when Northern European peoples like, my ancestors were still effectivly hunter gathers. Give it a few centuries and they might leap frog us here in the states again who knows?
Full disclosure:I would happen to be a middle class white guy.
Its a nice thought and as a private organization or individual it might make sense but its not going to make sense to lots of corporate decision makers. Publicly admiting the Microsoft is threating to sue you is *Not* going to help your stock price any. Changes are you own some stock in the business yourself, so there is even a personal motiviation. Also there is going to be a long and costly legal battle if you decide to go the mat with M$. You can't afford to half ass your defense, if you lose its gonna really hurt so the only option is win, that is going to take dollars that you may not want to spend, because you could use them to be otherwise competivie, or you might not even have those dollars.
No for most public companies its going to be cheaper to bow to M$ extortion, hint M$ will customize their demands so that is the case, then to fight them. Its no surpise at all M$ can basically shake down corporate FOSS users. Until the patent/copyright situation is really resolved and sadly I don't think the SCO case is going to fully resolve it, especially the patent side, M$ can bully anyone they want.
Which is exactly what Novell was trying to stop ostensibly, although I think their motives were far less pure personaly.
Slashdot Mirror
Has there ever been a case of a government database which hasn't been misused?
It is possible there is something at the USGS or NOAH but if that is the case and its doubtful then its only because nobody remembered to make those organizations part of Homeland-Security yet.
The trouble is when will rocketry be safe enough.
When you consider the potential catastophe that even one acident could cause it will almost never be safe enough. The debris from the last suttle accident was spread accross multiple states!
I used to be very anti-nuclear simply because dispite the excelent safety record the damage as a result form an acident has the potential to be so incredible. That said there have only been two major incidents with nuclear electrical plants. TMI was basically a non-issue in the end, but chernobyl, resulted in 336,000 people haveing to be reloacated and something like 10,000 people or the six million or so exposed to high levels of fallout are estimated to have died or will die as a direct result of that exposure.
I recongize that we have an energy crisis and that nuclear electric plants are probably the ONLY real viable answer but we must work on the safety issues. This is not like a gas plant where a disaster might cause an explosion that kills a thousand people in the immediate area, an accident will disrupt millions of people.
Waste is also a serious issue for safety reasons we really can't just shoot it into the sun, at least not today and not tomorow, maybe some day maybe. Its even a problem to transport it to a disposal site safely, but those are engineering problems we probably can solve in the near term. The trouble is where to dispose of it. Even the Yuka(sp?) is not looking like such a good idea as of late. Care to volunteer your back yard?
Nuclear most like is the answer to the energy question, but IT IS NOT A TURN KEY solution most of is proponants make it out to be. We need to start working on it and now.
you pervert! When I looked at that I really though it was a pair of eyes where the whites were big, like they were wide open (surpized maybe). Now I all I see is tits, tits every where damn you, err ahh wait, THANK YOU!
Its just the destruction of our language. It used to bother me as well but I have just learned to accept it. The main reason is most common phrases were just goofy coloquialisms of days gone by, and have also completly changed meaning.
For instance:
"Close enough for government work" when originally coined supposedly sometime in the federalist period actally meant that the job was done very well.
Some time in the sixties when the government was precived to be inept by many it took on a new meaning entirely. Now when you say that you mean something more like:
"I did a crapy job but it will probably do."
Dear sir,
I am writing to confirm I have recived your DMCA take down notice. It is my position at this time that the document your take down notice referenced is not protected by copyright. I wish to be in full compliance with all laws and desire to respect the property of others. If you feel my assesment of your rights to this document is infact in error please contact me to discuss the matter in greater detail. I am sure we can reach a mutally agreeable resolution.
PS.
Just as an FYI you may be asked to appear in court in the near future. I casually mentioned the situation to somone at the prosecutors office they mumbled something about forgery and uttering charges and asked me to send the origial documents to them. I did so because its a bad idea to make those people upset. I tell you this in case you would like to contact them about recovering your original media incase you thing it will be helpful for our discussion.
Sincerly,
Its also worth noteing that Hotmail was developed as its own brand and has lots of pre-M$ ownership users like me still. I doubt I would have selected hotmail in its present form over the competition but then again I am not going to give up an e-mail address I have had for more then a decade. Hotmail was more or less the first player, and the old hats introduced their pals to it and so on and so fourth. Its a success because of its legacy. Current versions of Windows are only successful due to legacy, users do nothing but complain. Unlike Windows M$ can't even calim Hotmail's legacy.
Actually I don't think you are considering the broader implications.
The real villians here are those individuals in our national government. They have the responsibility to make our society function in a mannor that promotes the general(everyones) wellfare at least thats what it says is the reason for the government in its founding documnet.
Our society is more or less based on two principles, people are basicaly good, and a free market will produce a good enough distribution of wealth while creating ensentive to produce additional wealth rather then more ways to redistubute existing wealth.
If those two principles really addressed every situation we would have no need for the government at all. Lots people claibing to libertarian who don't know what a libertarian actually is think this is the case and we need no government. --This is wrong.
The governments role should be to massage the situations that don't fit the two priniciples until they do fit, AND ONLY until they fit so the natural system can continue to work. A good example are common resources like air, we all share it and its quite possible that even though I am a good person I don't understand the impact of certain chemicals on the Ozone, government is doing us all a service by say offering tax breaks to manufactures so they can offset the costs of moveing to cleaner processes.
Another example is creating intelectual property rights. The market is only good at regulating scare items. Arts, Entertainment, results of pure research, etc are almost always virtually unlimited in the sense that they can be reproduced at nearly no cost. The government has the responsibility to ensure that there is some insentive to continue to develop these public goods. The y need to make more profitiable for people with these talents to produce these outputs rather then do something else.
That is ALL they need to do though. The government has a RESPONSIBILITY to the majority to stop there. They don't need and should not make these things hugely profitable. The government should be setting copyright durration, patent durration, and penalties for violating these rules high enough that the group of people who are talented in and would enjoy the vocation chose to be actors, writers, cancer researchers, etc over say programers, electricians, cooks, weavers etc etc.
In stead what we have is a government that is not representing the will of the majority. It is infact representing a small minority. Its makeing there practice of these vocations so profitable they have drivers and live in 40,000 sqft homes. They then turn around and use this wealth to run cartels and actually make it impossible for others to profit in these vocations. Which in fact denies society lots of potentially valuable intelectual work, and very disporportionitly to the actual value being produced by this minorty group shifts wealth from the rest of market in their directions.
We the people are being robbed! This nation was once outraged by the Andrew Carnigie and Henry Ford, they cried how they were robber barons, when they were infact producing real value. They had some unjustified help from government rent seeking to be sure but nothing on the order of what the RIAA/MPAA/Big Pharma is getting. The behavior of those groups and our government's relationship with them make it a joke to call the figure heads of the industrial revolution Robber Barons.
I am getting tired of reading how good at her job she was and how much time she had been doing it excuses her lying.
Lying is WRONG, I don't think anyone can make a serious case against my next statememt. If you can please by all means try:
Society as a whole should discorage or at least avoid rewarding liers.
Serious this kind of gross misrepresentation is dangerous. Its this total lack of integrity that is destroying this nation. Just look at our politicans and leaders for cry out loud. With each passing year we get progressively worse cheats and crooks. Unless you want a whole generation of young people growing up honesty is not important we damn well better toss this woman out on her ass and as publicly as possible. She should not have been allow to resign she SHOULD HAVE BEEN FIRED imediately.
This is crazy would you want someone doing surgery on you because hell they read some medical text books and figured they could do the job, so what the heck. That is exactly the kind of example you set by letting this person stay where she is.
Thre are a couple things we should all take away from this.
1. Its time to serious start looking at morality, honesty, and integrity because if we let them slip away we will no longer be a great people, just a bunch of criminals who had rich parents. That sentiment exists around the world about Americans already, lets not let it be true.
2. Policies where a person is not let in the door just because they don't have a degree certification etc, is in most situations extreemly short sited. If your somebody responsible for hireing maybe you should get off your lazy ass and come up with a way to evaluate applications beyond how long the list of initials and acronyms tacked on to there name is. Academic Degrees might be a good inidicatior of ability but just because somebody does not have one, is not a reason to just dismiss them.
No its not like that at all. When you get a random e-mail like that from somebody you never met there is at least some really really {insert about seventeen more reallys here} possibility that its on the up and up. If you get a letter like that addressed from the RIAA you KNOW its a scam.
As a Medical Doctor, Practicing Criminal Lawyer, Professor of Cosmology, Licensed Elevator Inspector Life Guard, and offical Breast Examiner; I am truely shocked that someone would misrepresent themselves in such a fashion.
Since when does needing to rethink a few scientific models, and go back and gather some data again now that we know we might have measured wrong constitue a crisis?
I don't understand this or think its at all fair. We should not be imposing rules on the poor kill droids that are contrary to their nature. A kill droid so be free to romp and do what it does best kill anything and everything.
Honestly this strikes me like thoes people who adopt dogs that are prone to barking and then put collars on them to shock them when they do it. Its unfair I say, and worng to force something to act contrary to its nature. If you don't want a dog that barks much you should adopt a bread which is not given to barking or maybe just get a cat.
The same is true for robots. If you don't want a robot that runs around killing everything it detects especially you then you should forgo adopting or building a kill droid. Maybe go get yourself one of thoes more friendly industrial breads that enjoys welding steel pannels onto cars or if space is a concern some types of robots are very small and even enjoy roaming around your home vacuming the floor for you as they do. There is an appropriate type of robot for almost ever situation. Please be responsible and only adopt a kill droid if you have adequate supplies of victims for it to kill.
An open letter to Al Sharpton
Al Sharpton, you are idiot, a stupid clown who deserves to be called by the title n****r. Oh and incase you were wondering it has nothing to do with the color of your skin, the characteristics of your hair or anything else superficial like that. It has everything to do with your repeated demonstration of idiocy. Most people are able to grasp simple civics lessons. Most public figurers are over the course of decades able to figure out how the American system works.
This is America Al, the country where people have a right to express ideas whether they are popular or not, I agree Imus made an unfair generalization. I bet most people agree with that. The thing is he as a write to express his thoughts. You and the rest of this nation have the responsibility to evaluate them and dismiss them if you find them to be without merit.
Tell me Al, why is it that you are allowed to run your mouth but other people can't? I am sure that the people Imus was referring too had their feeling hurt. What about when you say awful things. Like when you and Jackson accused him of intentionally flooding New Orleans. That would be a monstrous crime. As hated as he is by so many he is not a monster and with no real evidence that is a horrible thing to say. What about his feelings, why do you have a write to hurt people when nobody else does?
You have made many baseless charges against a political party I associate myself with thought the years. Often you accuse us of being bigoted racist oppressors. The fact is most of us are not. I consider it a hurtful and unfair generalization. I don't personally feel any less insulted by it then I suppose the girls Imus was talking about might feel about what he said. Still I am not out there trying to stop you from spreading your lies. I am not trying to take your mike away. I don't go out and protest loudly for news agencies to stop carrying your hate filled sound bytes.
When confronted with your lies I respond calmly and intelligently to them. I work to convince people of their false hood by my own actions and presentation of concrete examples from history showing them to be wrong. Above all I respect peoples freedom to say and think whatever they like.
Go ahead and continue to make my case;
I saw the 8-bit tie, I sure wish that was real. I think it would be lots of fun at LAN parties.
It seems to me that Blackboard released a project that worked correctly(lets pretend ok) on a specified list of operating systems.
Microsoft released a new operating system and never claimed that all your old stuff will still work, just that you most likely can still use your old stuff. That product works(lets pretend ok) as specified. Its also worth noteing Microsoft continues to sell their previous system.
If there are any problems the only people who deserve blame are those working at the IT departments at these schools. Perhaps they should have validated all the software the school depends on when using Vista before deploying it. Just a thought.
I know this is Slashdot (hence the car analogy) but holding M$ responsible for this or Blackboard makes no sense at all. Suppose I order a turbo charger from Eaton, for a 1975 Ford Mustang. Next I get all pissed and acuse Ford and or Eaton of scewing up when the thing will not fit on my 2005 Ford Mustang.
Seriously these is a preschool skill, they give you some pegs and a board with holes. You have some round pegs and some square ones, as well as round holes, and square ones. You are supposed to take away something form the experience of playing with these items. One that they are good for thowing at the kid you don't like, and two that some things don't fit together and others do. Its your task as a human being to study things and figure out how and what they can be used for or combined with.
s the front man for several big music companies and as long as their names (Sony, BMG, etc) are out of the headlines, it is doing its job.
... for...
Which is why we need to start putting these names in print! We need to start makeing the RIAA's image one and the same with its member organizations. If you want to restrict how they can behave that is the way. Obviously you should try and list the member owning the media the the suit is over but these articals should always mention the RIAA something like this.
The RIAA, an organization supported by members including EMI, Sony, Universal, Warner and others, is sueing
This is factually correct so I doubt the RIAA or the labels have any wiggle room to go after libel. Although IANAL. If we start assoicating the RIAAs actions with the names of the member companies in the publics eye the member companies will start to make the RIAA less off putting.
Right and odds are he did not even bother to make sure the motherboard NIC was a real NIC. You don't see it in server boards much yet thank goodness but lots of desktops have sudo NICs which do most of their work in software. That could explain those 5% frame rate jumps right there. I suspect you'd get that improvement with ANY real NIC, no need for your $50 mid range, an old NE2000 would likely deliver.
That situation is not the same. It would be evident to many people that the patches are indeed quality and that credentials or not the individual is talented. Then again as a potential employer I would be extremely cautious about hireling someone who misrepresents himself for no good reason. What else is he going to lie about? Could I ever expect any truthfulness from him especially when he does have a reason to lie?
Back to the issue at hand though.. In this case its not something like code that either works or does not, is readable by others or isn't. This is much more esoteric type information that can only be validated by people who really have done the research or will do it. It may even require specially qualified people to do the work, as I don't even know where outside the "Mid-evil Source Book" to go looking for original documents much of the field is based on. All the work he did is tainted and un-trustworthy and unless or until someone does the work, and at that point they might as well have produced it themselves. So yes his contribution is effectively reduced to nothing at this point.
Stuff on wiki stands based on our faith in others, when that faith becomes compromised so does the information unless its based on easily observed and verified facts or highly repeatable efforts, like running some computer code to see what is does.
But we already know what happens when something becomes non-scarce - it's price drops to zero, as can be seen by logging onto any big filesharing network.
Maybe that is the point here... Certain types of "information" are now so ubiquitous that they are infact worth just about zero. Maybe we should not worry so much about wether the system will encorage people to produce entertainment, or even art. Maybe we as a society are producing too much entertainment.
I hate to say this but it is after all the option nobody seems to be considering, perhaps we have reached a point where this stuff is so easily had that without a questionably legal cartel to artifically prop up prices supply is in excess of demand. If less entertainment was produced people might not choose to patronize those who produce work they like, they might thing hey given the releative SCARCITY of media products I like maybe it would be fun to have the physical materials that normally come with or join their subscription service to get their new stuff sooner, whatever. As it stands now there is so much out there for everybody that I think most consumers can't figure out what they *want* but they can get *everything* free so they do and end up buying nothing.
I think there certainly *is* a market for music, film, art, etc just not as big of one as has been created by legislative and technological(DRM) rent seeking the industry has engaged in. The amount of value this society places on these products has become HIGHLY distorted. I bet if we roll back copyright rules to what they were at the end of the nineteenth centry and call the *IAAs what they are organizations that enable illegal colusion and price fixing we get as a result in a pretty short time frame:
1. A much smaller entertainment industry dollars and cents wise
2. A much smaller entertainment industry in terms of product output
3. Much higher quality entertainment products that are produced
4. Consumers paying(voluntarily) for a much larger portion of the entertaiment products they use
5. A functioning market place where consumers reward producers for stuff they like and stuff they don't like sits unsold on shelves and ceased to be prodcued. Since the industry would no longer be able to afford the marketing power to tell people they like something when the really don't.
To play some games, you must have Windows at this time. I would rather than people who must have a copy, find a way to get it free. This way they are not financially tied into MS, and they are not any more inclined to invest any money into MS.
Gee -I'd rather then have ABSOULTLY no possibility of running windows without paying for, that way they'd have a financial intrest in finding ways to sever their ties with M$ and might be willing to spend part of what they would have on Vista to facilitate their transition to a more open platform. In my opion the more M$ charges for Windows and the harder it is to pirate the better the software landscape will end up looking.
Well in gerneral I would agree with you about the customers being partly to blame for overblowing the situation. As a customer if you think you are MISTAKENLY being under charged then if you're an honest person you should speak up.
Now if I am shopping online for item X and I see Best Buy is selling it for $50 on their site and I show up at the store and its $45, when we check again I would probably make the assumption the price was lowered, knowing lots of web pricing really can change moment to moment based automatic vendor feeds and cost plus rules etc etc.. I am going to pay for item X and go gome. My transaction completed I will never likely look into the matter again.
Suppose however I get to Best Buy and item X is $55. I might say to them hey I saw it on your site for $50 and that is what brought me over here, could you let me have it for that? There is nothing wrong or imoral about that, they are after all free to say no. Its a free market in any given transaction both parties should feel the exchange is to their gain. If either does not then the transaction does not happen. Now lets suppose I leave the store with out X. I go back online and start searching for X at a cost of the $50 I was willing to pay or less. Well gee-wiz Best Buy pops up again, odd. I now think I do have a little right to be miffed. To me it now appears they lied about their offerings to get me in the store where they hoped I would roll over and pay their higher price. This is now essencially false advertising and its illegal.
Police are bad if society functioned properly we would have not need for them.
We've been doing selective breeding of plants and animals for a very long time and there's nothing unusual or unnatural about it.
True there is nothing unnatural about selective breading and cross breading, which in many cases is nothing like modern GM efforts at all.
If I am doing selective breading on plants and animals I do it over generations, I allow the ones that have traits I like or lack to traits I don't like to reproduce and deny those that don't meet my criteria the chance to do that. In the end with luck I create a population that only has DNA for the traits I want. In no part of that process can I introduce something that was not already there. Maybe some natural mutation happens in their that I like and I can encourage it but that would be dumb luck and it might still be impossible because often when such changes happen if they are at all impactful the organism stants a good chance of being unable to procreate. This is natures defense against run-away evolution if you will.
If I am doing cross breading again I am heavily restricted by nature. Mostly I can't bread any two organisms that are not already very similar and because they are so similar they likely have a common evolutionary parent anyway. If I want to combine different species I can't the offspring won't be able to reproduce, that is basically the defineition of species.
If I am doing GM work then there is nothing stoping me from mixing some fish genes into a tomato, this has been done. That is not a natural combination that nature would ever allow. We don't what the results will be. This is very similar to the problem we face with lots of processed foods. Sugar for instance requires other compounds to digest, in nature these are usually present in the same plant that contains the sugar. In soda those are not there and will be striped from my body as a result when I drink the soda. This is ok as long as I eat other stuff and consume only so much soda. The thing is as a consumer I know that soda has nutritional issues and I can take mitigating steps if I want to drink it, like eat some leafy sald. I can't know wether my spinich has been fucked with or not.
You seem as racist regarding East Indian folks as the parent was about us Americans(not they we are a race exactly). I am not at all sure what your tring to prove.
The truth is it cuts both ways.
It is no surprise to me that people from there who live her or maybe from here whose parents were from there are more then a little arogant. I mean really most of them are quite successful and probably as a group more so then average Americans. Why because they represet the group of Indians who were smart enough to get out of there. Which was likely not easy. So yea, of course they are going to be successful in other persuits.
The thing is they got lots of folks back home who actually spend years studying to work in a call center. That is proof enough that on Average East Indian people are probably no better and no worse them Americans, of which many can't seem to lead productive lives either.
Cut the racist bullshit for the msot part we are all about the same. You can find really bright people as well as worthless trash amoung any population. Most of the world order comes down to who happened to have what resources when and good ideas about how to use them. Yes, we have had much better leadership in recent history, that is a fact.
India had a pretty advanced culture though when Northern European peoples like, my ancestors were still effectivly hunter gathers. Give it a few centuries and they might leap frog us here in the states again who knows?
Full disclosure:I would happen to be a middle class white guy.
Its a nice thought and as a private organization or individual it might make sense but its not going to make sense to lots of corporate decision makers. Publicly admiting the Microsoft is threating to sue you is *Not* going to help your stock price any. Changes are you own some stock in the business yourself, so there is even a personal motiviation. Also there is going to be a long and costly legal battle if you decide to go the mat with M$. You can't afford to half ass your defense, if you lose its gonna really hurt so the only option is win, that is going to take dollars that you may not want to spend, because you could use them to be otherwise competivie, or you might not even have those dollars.
No for most public companies its going to be cheaper to bow to M$ extortion, hint M$ will customize their demands so that is the case, then to fight them. Its no surpise at all M$ can basically shake down corporate FOSS users. Until the patent/copyright situation is really resolved and sadly I don't think the SCO case is going to fully resolve it, especially the patent side, M$ can bully anyone they want.
Which is exactly what Novell was trying to stop ostensibly, although I think their motives were far less pure personaly.