Israel is still occupying territory in defiance of international law
And where is the use of armed insurgents authorized by the UN to remedy this?
Israel occupied Lebanon and sponsored Christian Arab militias that had been torturing people for years.
And this became Iran's problem why?
Notice I'm not saying that Israel is "right", nor does it represent all that is good in the region. But Iran is doing exactly what people accuse the US of doing - meddling in the affairs of other countries. Their low-grade warfare really does prevent any kind of peace in the region. You can't have peace in that region without security.
I think the use for FLAC is when you only want to do the ripping and tagging part once, but you want to maintain the flexibility to convert to other formats.
I always found this cumbersome, but I understand the rationale. I started when I couldn't justify so much hard drive space, so I went with LAME --alt-preset extreme MP3. I've never had to transcode them.
CD bought from a store is what I use for archiving.
But who wants to re-rip every time they upgrade their gear?
I did most of my ripping prior to FLAC being a realistic option - heck even AAC was still considered synonymous with Apple lock-in - so I used LAME --preset extreme. I figure it's a good bet that MP3 will be supported in damn near everything for as long as it is useful to store your own music.
The boiling and freezing point of pure water are useful information.
Freezing? Sure. 32F. There now you are all done:)
Boiling? Even as a mechanical engineer, I never use the boiling point of water for anything. It even changes depending on what altitude you live at. Even if I designed steam plants, I'd have to refer to tables because it varies so much with pressure... so 100C would still be useless. In fact, the boiling point of sugar has been more useful to me (I used to make candy).
So I'd say that in exchange for knowing that water freezes at around 32F, you no longer have to memorize the number 37C for human body temperature.:)
Depressingly, I have both F and C thermometers in the house, so I have to do both.
Or the Shah? Yeah, that was kind of my point. People constantly go on about the Shah and how he was installed by the CIA. I don't think anyone could deny that the CIA was involved. The US definitely has done some things that I am not proud of, so clandestine, some overt - and I don't think that one is any better or worse than the other.
All that said, Iran still is not an innocent victim. They are actively supporting a shadow war against Israel, so any Israeli (or their ally the US) strike at Iran doesn't exactly fill me with indignation. elrouse0 was trying to paint Iran in a better light than the US, and I was just pointing out that they were in fact screwing around in other countries' affairs, just as the US has done. I don't think Iran can claim moral high ground. Frankly, any argument based on moral high ground is going nowhere, so I'm not sure why I stuck my nose in.
According to Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics, the Arab population in 2010 was estimated at 1,573,000, representing 20.4% of the country's population.
and
Projections based on 2010 data, predicted that Arab Israelis will constitute 25% of Israel's population by 2025.
Of course they have - they are pretty much as close as one can get to sworn enemies. I'm just pointing out that Iran isn't a victim here - they are actively involved in hostilities with Israel, and have been for longer than I can remember.
2. Trade is good for everyone, and it's good for peace.
In general I agree with this, but oil is a different beast. Oil can be extracted by foreign contractors and nearly all the proceeds can be kept by the powers-that-be. It's one of those rare exceptions, probably because it generates huge revenue without involving any of the people who happen to live in the country. The leaders can build palaces and build huge armies - they don't need the people for anything, really. And even if they piss off the entire civilized world, the uncivilized world will still buy the oil. In short, there is no real incentive for peace.
What have trade sanctions on Cuba accomplished?
Well, nothing - but it should be noted that only the US is really sanctioning them. It's a pain, but not something that would suffocate the economy - Castro managed that all by himself.
What have trade sanctions on North Korea accomplished?
I'm not quite sure "nothing" is the right answer here, but I'm certain that this regime would have collapsed by now if not for the direct support of China - the sanctions don't mean much when the huge country just across your border isn't on board. It would be like putting sanctions on Canada but not getting the US on board.
Israel is constantly taunting Iran with their bullshit.
Yeah, the worst is the way that Israel keeps arming and supporting these armed insurgents on the Iranian border, just because they don't think that the Iranian state is legitimate. Pure evil.
you should ask yourself what countries Iran has invaded in modern history
Does Hezbollah count? Or are we only counting official military activity. Because if that's the case, the CIA's help to the Shah shouldn't count either.
Iran has done at least as much harm to stability in the mideast as the US, they just don't do it with "shock and awe". Israel is a major irritant to mideast stability, and Iran is one of the biggest reasons.
C is just as arbitrary as F. Temperature scales are one place where the metric system adds nothing of value. Everything must me converted to Kelvin in most useful calculations anyway.
The original F scale was based on the temperature of icy seawater (0) and the human body temperature (100), which are no more or less arbitrary than the boiling and freezing point of pure water. In fact, icy seawater and a human body are much easier to come by, depending on where you live:)
I'm a big fan of meters, grams, and liters - mostly because I work in engineering. But I really don't care what temperature scale I'm working in, except when I'm doing thermodynamic analysis - and even then the conversion is trivial and generally has to be done anyway (because most thermometers are in C or F and not K or R).
That's best for filenames or anywhere that it will get sorted, but in international correspondence I find that YYYY-MMM-DD in any order is the only unambiguous date format. (e.g. 2001-Jan-01, 01-Jan-2001, Jan-01-2001). The downside is that it is in English, but then again, so is my correspondence:)
Like all ideology, my statement will get crushed by reality. I really can't argue your point, because I believe firmly in pragmatism - and what is a "good idea" changes based on the point-of-view. I was speaking from the point-of-view of society at large.
Nevertheless, if our system encourages vigilantism, it needs to be fixed. The whole point of the justice and court system is to prevent that sort of thing.
I'm sure that is a problem for a small collection of people out there, but I've never encountered a place where AT&T had a better overall signal than Verizon's network. Not saying the scenario you paint is impossible, just uncommon. Also, T-Mobile shares towers with AT&T, so you'd likely get good service with them as well. Finally, there are a number of prepaid companies that use AT&T's network (Net10 and TracFone at least).
If the place you aren't getting signal is at your home, you can get a SIP phone number for about $2/month plus 1 cent a minute or use something like Google Voice for free. There is also Vonage, Magic Jack, Obi, and a bunch of other plug-n-play options out there.
Worst case, anyone in the US can get a minimal home line over copper wires for about $20/month and use any service they like on that.
Vigilante justice is NEVER a good idea, which is why I feel strongly that authorities should be able to arbitrate disputes. If there is no route through the authorities, then people will turn to vigilantism - and then issue like you mention come up.
If I took somebody else's iPad and dropped it inside someone's car, I also don't think a search warrant would be the way to go.
Of course not - but that isn't what happened here. It's hard to tell from the article because I am reading the translation, but it seems that the accuser actually knows the accused - the cops know who both parties are, they know what the accusation is, and they know where the iPad in question is. It makes me wonder if something else isn't going on, like whether there is a disputed sale or transfer of ownership or something. Otherwise it seems like a pretty clear cut case, and people are rarely this stupid. (Yes, I just said that...)
In Holland, like in most of the civilized world, people don't have pistols in their nightstand.
That's great, but when the authorities cannot help citizens with their grievances, eventually this will lead to vigilantism. On the surface, it looks like the police are being quite noble by protecting the rights of the accused. However, this leaves the victim two choices: eat the $500 or bypass the authorities.
Personally I would put an ad on Craigslist saying that I'll give $500 to the person who does the cops' job for them and fetches my iPad.
Yeah, I wasn't really siding with AT&T's decision so much as not at all surprised by it... it certainly seems like the knee-jerk reaction that I would expect from a normal human. You are probably right that AT&T could still profit off of the guy in the long term and it may not be the most rational decision - but people and companies run by people are (dare I say rarely?) often not rational.
Maybe it's just my faulty memory, but it used to be pretty common that companies would go above and beyond to ensure customer loyalty; now it seems they offer their services as a privilege; if you're not happy with them, too bad, because they really don't need your business. There's something wrong with that.
You maybe are showing your age? LOL. Yes, I remember when companies looked after their existing customers. The first time I ever encountered one of these "offer only available for new customers" things, I couldn't believe it and cancelled on the spot. Now I'm used to it, and I guess society is too. The main reason I hate Comcast and Verizon so much is that every 6 months to 1 year I have to call and cancel my service and switch back to the other. It seems silly, but it saves several hundred dollars per year, so I keep at it. I just went to T-Mobile prepay, and when they tried to keep me as post-paid they offered me all these great rates that mysteriously weren't available when I was shopping around with the non-retention customer service rep. I told her it was too late, and just put me on prepay - saves me $40/month. How is that a way to treat a customer?
The only whipping by a New Yorker can do at 40MPH is in a taxi - not too many with cars, you know. You are thinking of the bridge and tunnel crew.
Though it is true that only tourists wait on the corners - the rest of us jaywalk or cross as soon as it is "clear".
These frogs - I have no idea where they live. Wildlife is so scarce that we notice ants. The only things that you see on Manhattan are pigeons, rats, mice, and hawks. I don't think I was ever bitten by a mosquito, though we do have bedbugs now. And roaches - god are there roaches. You only need one nasty neighbor to harbor those things and the whole building gets infested. Yay for poison. Central park has a few songbirds, but mostly starlings and sparrows - Brooklyn has geese in Prospect Park. You see seagulls and stuff in the shore areas or wherever there is garbage (ahem, Staten Island, ahem). I see people fishing (!!!) occasionally, which is just nuts. This frog was found in the Bronx, Staten Island, and in New Jersey - with the population centered around Yankee Stadium (!!!) so Manhattan isn't really relevant anyway.
Actually, I should stop saying "we" since I don't live there anymore.
Yeah, I cheated and downloaded a huge torrent with every Disney film ever made and the kids hit that constantly.
(An aside... Disney, if you don't want me to steal "Jungle Book", then freaking sell it to me. And no, I'm not going to buy a used or hoarded copy... the stupid thing is 40 years old! Shouldn't even be in copyright, let alone $40-75 on Amazon.)
I'm not sure how you would define "bug free", but I imagine some language could be constructed that would add only 3 or 4 pounds to the final draft.:) My inclination would be to hire a 3rd party on another contract that gets paid per found bug, with some kind of arbitration when disagreements arise.
Heh, yeah, but I can't imagine anyone having 580 movies that they really want to watch again.
But your point stands - the service is only as good as the company behind it.
Still, even some of the geeks I work with whose interest doesn't lie in the piracy arts would have trouble with the encoding procedure. These are guys who can get a late 90s game running on Windows 7, but start talking about codecs and bitrates and 2-pass encoding and container formats and their eyes glaze over in boredom.
Slashdot Mirror
Israel is still occupying territory in defiance of international law
And where is the use of armed insurgents authorized by the UN to remedy this?
Israel occupied Lebanon and sponsored Christian Arab militias that had been torturing people for years.
And this became Iran's problem why?
Notice I'm not saying that Israel is "right", nor does it represent all that is good in the region. But Iran is doing exactly what people accuse the US of doing - meddling in the affairs of other countries. Their low-grade warfare really does prevent any kind of peace in the region. You can't have peace in that region without security.
I think the use for FLAC is when you only want to do the ripping and tagging part once, but you want to maintain the flexibility to convert to other formats.
I always found this cumbersome, but I understand the rationale. I started when I couldn't justify so much hard drive space, so I went with LAME --alt-preset extreme MP3. I've never had to transcode them.
CD bought from a store is what I use for archiving.
But who wants to re-rip every time they upgrade their gear?
I did most of my ripping prior to FLAC being a realistic option - heck even AAC was still considered synonymous with Apple lock-in - so I used LAME --preset extreme. I figure it's a good bet that MP3 will be supported in damn near everything for as long as it is useful to store your own music.
The boiling and freezing point of pure water are useful information.
Freezing? Sure. 32F. There now you are all done :)
Boiling? Even as a mechanical engineer, I never use the boiling point of water for anything. It even changes depending on what altitude you live at. Even if I designed steam plants, I'd have to refer to tables because it varies so much with pressure... so 100C would still be useless. In fact, the boiling point of sugar has been more useful to me (I used to make candy).
So I'd say that in exchange for knowing that water freezes at around 32F, you no longer have to memorize the number 37C for human body temperature. :)
Depressingly, I have both F and C thermometers in the house, so I have to do both.
IronPython, Jython?
Or the Shah? Yeah, that was kind of my point. People constantly go on about the Shah and how he was installed by the CIA. I don't think anyone could deny that the CIA was involved. The US definitely has done some things that I am not proud of, so clandestine, some overt - and I don't think that one is any better or worse than the other.
All that said, Iran still is not an innocent victim. They are actively supporting a shadow war against Israel, so any Israeli (or their ally the US) strike at Iran doesn't exactly fill me with indignation. elrouse0 was trying to paint Iran in a better light than the US, and I was just pointing out that they were in fact screwing around in other countries' affairs, just as the US has done. I don't think Iran can claim moral high ground. Frankly, any argument based on moral high ground is going nowhere, so I'm not sure why I stuck my nose in.
They want the land with as few filthy non-jews as possible.
Well, then they are doing a pretty poor job:
and
Of course they have - they are pretty much as close as one can get to sworn enemies. I'm just pointing out that Iran isn't a victim here - they are actively involved in hostilities with Israel, and have been for longer than I can remember.
2. Trade is good for everyone, and it's good for peace.
In general I agree with this, but oil is a different beast. Oil can be extracted by foreign contractors and nearly all the proceeds can be kept by the powers-that-be. It's one of those rare exceptions, probably because it generates huge revenue without involving any of the people who happen to live in the country. The leaders can build palaces and build huge armies - they don't need the people for anything, really. And even if they piss off the entire civilized world, the uncivilized world will still buy the oil. In short, there is no real incentive for peace.
What have trade sanctions on Cuba accomplished?
Well, nothing - but it should be noted that only the US is really sanctioning them. It's a pain, but not something that would suffocate the economy - Castro managed that all by himself.
What have trade sanctions on North Korea accomplished?
I'm not quite sure "nothing" is the right answer here, but I'm certain that this regime would have collapsed by now if not for the direct support of China - the sanctions don't mean much when the huge country just across your border isn't on board. It would be like putting sanctions on Canada but not getting the US on board.
That's exactly Theophany's point. The axis of evil speech did not precipitate the ill relations with Iran, nor their desire for a nuclear program.
Israel is constantly taunting Iran with their bullshit.
Yeah, the worst is the way that Israel keeps arming and supporting these armed insurgents on the Iranian border, just because they don't think that the Iranian state is legitimate. Pure evil.
you should ask yourself what countries Iran has invaded in modern history
Does Hezbollah count? Or are we only counting official military activity. Because if that's the case, the CIA's help to the Shah shouldn't count either.
Iran has done at least as much harm to stability in the mideast as the US, they just don't do it with "shock and awe". Israel is a major irritant to mideast stability, and Iran is one of the biggest reasons.
C is just as arbitrary as F. Temperature scales are one place where the metric system adds nothing of value. Everything must me converted to Kelvin in most useful calculations anyway.
The original F scale was based on the temperature of icy seawater (0) and the human body temperature (100), which are no more or less arbitrary than the boiling and freezing point of pure water. In fact, icy seawater and a human body are much easier to come by, depending on where you live :)
I'm a big fan of meters, grams, and liters - mostly because I work in engineering. But I really don't care what temperature scale I'm working in, except when I'm doing thermodynamic analysis - and even then the conversion is trivial and generally has to be done anyway (because most thermometers are in C or F and not K or R).
That's best for filenames or anywhere that it will get sorted, but in international correspondence I find that YYYY-MMM-DD in any order is the only unambiguous date format. (e.g. 2001-Jan-01, 01-Jan-2001, Jan-01-2001). The downside is that it is in English, but then again, so is my correspondence :)
Like all ideology, my statement will get crushed by reality. I really can't argue your point, because I believe firmly in pragmatism - and what is a "good idea" changes based on the point-of-view. I was speaking from the point-of-view of society at large.
Nevertheless, if our system encourages vigilantism, it needs to be fixed. The whole point of the justice and court system is to prevent that sort of thing.
I'm sure that is a problem for a small collection of people out there, but I've never encountered a place where AT&T had a better overall signal than Verizon's network. Not saying the scenario you paint is impossible, just uncommon. Also, T-Mobile shares towers with AT&T, so you'd likely get good service with them as well. Finally, there are a number of prepaid companies that use AT&T's network (Net10 and TracFone at least).
If the place you aren't getting signal is at your home, you can get a SIP phone number for about $2/month plus 1 cent a minute or use something like Google Voice for free. There is also Vonage, Magic Jack, Obi, and a bunch of other plug-n-play options out there.
Worst case, anyone in the US can get a minimal home line over copper wires for about $20/month and use any service they like on that.
Vigilante justice is NEVER a good idea, which is why I feel strongly that authorities should be able to arbitrate disputes. If there is no route through the authorities, then people will turn to vigilantism - and then issue like you mention come up.
If I took somebody else's iPad and dropped it inside someone's car, I also don't think a search warrant would be the way to go.
Of course not - but that isn't what happened here. It's hard to tell from the article because I am reading the translation, but it seems that the accuser actually knows the accused - the cops know who both parties are, they know what the accusation is, and they know where the iPad in question is. It makes me wonder if something else isn't going on, like whether there is a disputed sale or transfer of ownership or something. Otherwise it seems like a pretty clear cut case, and people are rarely this stupid. (Yes, I just said that...)
LOL, thanks for the story - one of my favorite Slashdot posts :)
That's still illegal: possession of stolen property. Watch out who you buy from.
In Holland, like in most of the civilized world, people don't have pistols in their nightstand.
That's great, but when the authorities cannot help citizens with their grievances, eventually this will lead to vigilantism. On the surface, it looks like the police are being quite noble by protecting the rights of the accused. However, this leaves the victim two choices: eat the $500 or bypass the authorities.
Personally I would put an ad on Craigslist saying that I'll give $500 to the person who does the cops' job for them and fetches my iPad.
Yeah, I wasn't really siding with AT&T's decision so much as not at all surprised by it... it certainly seems like the knee-jerk reaction that I would expect from a normal human. You are probably right that AT&T could still profit off of the guy in the long term and it may not be the most rational decision - but people and companies run by people are (dare I say rarely?) often not rational.
Maybe it's just my faulty memory, but it used to be pretty common that companies would go above and beyond to ensure customer loyalty; now it seems they offer their services as a privilege; if you're not happy with them, too bad, because they really don't need your business. There's something wrong with that.
You maybe are showing your age? LOL. Yes, I remember when companies looked after their existing customers. The first time I ever encountered one of these "offer only available for new customers" things, I couldn't believe it and cancelled on the spot. Now I'm used to it, and I guess society is too. The main reason I hate Comcast and Verizon so much is that every 6 months to 1 year I have to call and cancel my service and switch back to the other. It seems silly, but it saves several hundred dollars per year, so I keep at it. I just went to T-Mobile prepay, and when they tried to keep me as post-paid they offered me all these great rates that mysteriously weren't available when I was shopping around with the non-retention customer service rep. I told her it was too late, and just put me on prepay - saves me $40/month. How is that a way to treat a customer?
The only whipping by a New Yorker can do at 40MPH is in a taxi - not too many with cars, you know. You are thinking of the bridge and tunnel crew.
Though it is true that only tourists wait on the corners - the rest of us jaywalk or cross as soon as it is "clear".
These frogs - I have no idea where they live. Wildlife is so scarce that we notice ants. The only things that you see on Manhattan are pigeons, rats, mice, and hawks. I don't think I was ever bitten by a mosquito, though we do have bedbugs now. And roaches - god are there roaches. You only need one nasty neighbor to harbor those things and the whole building gets infested. Yay for poison. Central park has a few songbirds, but mostly starlings and sparrows - Brooklyn has geese in Prospect Park. You see seagulls and stuff in the shore areas or wherever there is garbage (ahem, Staten Island, ahem). I see people fishing (!!!) occasionally, which is just nuts. This frog was found in the Bronx, Staten Island, and in New Jersey - with the population centered around Yankee Stadium (!!!) so Manhattan isn't really relevant anyway.
Actually, I should stop saying "we" since I don't live there anymore.
Yeah, I cheated and downloaded a huge torrent with every Disney film ever made and the kids hit that constantly.
(An aside... Disney, if you don't want me to steal "Jungle Book", then freaking sell it to me. And no, I'm not going to buy a used or hoarded copy... the stupid thing is 40 years old! Shouldn't even be in copyright, let alone $40-75 on Amazon.)
I'm not sure how you would define "bug free", but I imagine some language could be constructed that would add only 3 or 4 pounds to the final draft. :) My inclination would be to hire a 3rd party on another contract that gets paid per found bug, with some kind of arbitration when disagreements arise.
Heh, yeah, but I can't imagine anyone having 580 movies that they really want to watch again.
But your point stands - the service is only as good as the company behind it.
Still, even some of the geeks I work with whose interest doesn't lie in the piracy arts would have trouble with the encoding procedure. These are guys who can get a late 90s game running on Windows 7, but start talking about codecs and bitrates and 2-pass encoding and container formats and their eyes glaze over in boredom.