I'm a believer in the firmly rooted idea that when you're in a public place, you're willingly presenting yourself to the view of others and there is no reasonable expectation of privacy. This was a problem for me when I took a photo of a stranger's car because I believed she was abusing the disabled placard system. It was on private property-- a mini-mall-- but still in a public place. Neither of us could understand the other's point of view. While I can understand her not wanting me to take a picture of _her_, it was difficult for me to accept her angry and indignant view that I needed her permission to photograph her car. She retaliated by taking a photo of _me_ (ha!). Needless to say a device in her pocket that could have disabled my digital camera would have bothered me greatly. Which is why if something like this ever comes to market, I'm going to stick with the 1965 Pentax SLR, which is entirely mechanical, instead of the more modern Kodak digital. Seems like DRM is just making us go back to older but DRM-free tech:/
I know several police officers and to be honest, I have a lot less faith in them than you do. They don't run around high strung just waiting to jump on someone, they drive around in their patrol cars and do a lot of traffic stops for minor violations. Some of them, in fact, are people you would probably not want to be armed.
In any case it's just plain dumb to rely on public service to "protect" you in your home. First of all they don't do that. The job of the police is to catch criminals and investigate crime after the fact, and to a lesser extent deter crime by patrolling. They don't actually care whether you individually live or die, it's just not their job. My point with the quote from Lord of the Rings is that I don't have a pornographic obsession with guns and I don't think they're "cool" to have just to have. I never lose sight of the fact that taking someone's life is a terrible thing, which is why it's a last resort-- the quote just helps capture that feeling in a way others can quickly understand. My preference, of course, would be for no one to misbehave or harm others at all. Unfortunately human nature makes that impossible.
You can cite all of the Brady Campaign's statistics without changing the fact that they have carefully crafted those statistics to be easily digested in sound bite form; e.g. "you're more likely to hurt someone than successfully defend yourself." What was the error rate on that study? Was it peer-reviewed? Was it published? Did the definition of "victim" in that study include the criminal who broke into someone's house and subsequently had his day ruined by a.45 slug to the wishbone?
Admittedly the chances of a home invasion are relatively small if you live in a nice area, but in the end it's about choice; firearms ownership is not required but it is allowed, so you also have the right to decide _not_ to own any guns if you want (contrast with a place like Israel where there is a blurry line between civilian and soldier and the reserves have their issued weapons at home). There is a certain dignity in the fact that we have a society in which we have the right to keep and bear arms, and we choose to behave not because of the threat of force by the authorities, but because we consent to have the authorities in the first place and are capable of removing them at any time. I'm not misty-eyed, I'm just someone who recognizes the animal nature of human beings and am doing what I can to minimize the chance that someone could harm me or those I care about, while keeping mindful of the danger I present to others. I have my stuff locked up, which is where it should be when I'm not there.
Regardless of the risk involved with owning/using firearms it all comes down to this: "I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend." -- Lord of The Rings: The Two Towers. That is something many people forget and I always point it out when people call me a gun nut.
You're right, of course. Seeing as how "dumb" knives are freely available and virtually unregulated, I wonder how long it will be before knife weapons attract the same attention:-/. If someone calls this absurd, that's the point.
It is hard enough getting a fully mechanical gun to function reliably every time; a 10% failure rate in today's handguns would be not only unacceptable, but dangerous by providing a false sense of security. The worst handguns today probably have a 1% or 2% failure rate at most, and even that is horrible. Personally I prefer a 0% failure rate, which is what my.45 auto has provided.
The only application I see for this technology that would be accepted by the marketplace (without the NJ law...lol) is a firearm kept in a semi-public place or insecure location like in a car trunk or office, or used by a bartender or bouncer.
A 10% failure rate is unacceptable for self/home defense. Note that the police are exempt from the new New Jersey law, despite that they are perhaps the group most likely to be shot and killed with their own weapons. They don't trust this technology, so why should I?
What Apple needs to do is execute a Canary Trap. They probably have made a list of who could have leaked the mini Mac info. Then they should separate those people into groups and give each group a credible but different "rumor" of new products. When the rumor shows up in print, they know which group leaked and are much further down the path of finding out who it was. This is assuming they _want_ to stop the leaks!
I for one would like to have my ethernet hubs use the standard wiring for power rather than a brick and AC adapter that I have to find an outlet for. Since telephones already do this it's just the next step in the direction of USB everything. Which seems to be a good thing (tm). Now I know how to set up a LAN in an unwired munitions bunker...
yes, it's true, I am a "scum sucking bottom feeder." lol. I'm currently attending as a student and also working half-time in the school's IT dept. developing the school website at a below-market but not unreasonable hourly rate. It's a nice, stable monthly check that basically takes care of my expenses other than tuition. On the side, I do more profitable misc. projects for people who need websites done or other design work. When I get in a check from those projects I just treat it like bonus money and end up spending it on hardware, clothes, car stuff, even dress shoes. A law professor at school saw my biz card on my office door and hired me to do her new edition book cover. Other professors who self-publish are interested as well. There's no substitute for word of mouth, but craigslist gigs section is a good place to start. Unfortunately almost all of those are "I was hoping to get it done for free" (i.e. clueless) people posting. Many of us in this thread are probably at the point where we can turn down projects that aren't "just right" since we're not depending on that money to subsist.
if you have a stable 9-5 and some knowledge of web dev, try hiring a couple of college students part time to do larger side projects that you find. After saving some moderate amount of money you can get into property management (borrow to buy an apartment building, then pay the loan with the rent money from tenants), or even open your own dive bar in a college town (my dream). All the skills you get in the side businesses help in your regular job too-- managing people or money, getting things done, handling problems, and so on. The great thing about running small businesses is that everything you make is yours, and you can make a lot of extra cash in the right business. The great thing about law school is it's fairly empowering. You know how to solve big problems.
I think the absolute worst tech support aside from AOL or Dell has got to be college/graduate school computer help. Often the law students are from fairly privileged families where the standard op. procedure was to call a contractor to fix every little problem at home rather than trying to get things done themselves. So you have a lot of people coming in FRANTIC and DEMANDING that you fix their computer problems right that second. I would say "sorry, drop-in tech support hours are wednesdays 3:30-5" and the typical response is "but it's an EMERGENCY!!!!" yeah. I've never heard that one before. asshole. I have nothing but contempt for the vast majority of my classmates. Yes, these people will soon be the ones you despise oh-so-justifiably. It's nice to have that quiet confidence of being able to fix things yourself, which is one attribute of a successful lawyer. So I got that going for me, which is nice.
Some people at school made the jump from IT to law school thinking they'd be "marketable" to the intellectual property law firms that run rackets in IP litigation. They're probably right, but I'm not sure if they'll be able to look in the mirror at the end of the day. Those places often require a CS/E degree. Many private law schools have a night program, so maybe you can do your IT day job and attend law school at night, though it does take 4 years....
They look in the mirror and say "you're a handsome devil, what's _your_ name?" As they adjust a Barcelino tie, put on the Rolex, and head out to the 7-series Beemer. Never underestimate greed.
try not to blame _just_ the lawyers. There are even (gasp) lawyers who don't believe in the way the current system is. In any event, the law could be changed if enough people cared. Sadly, they don't:-/
> they were creepy, in a sense... all those sales going on at once, converging on a spot not a few feet from me.
That's when you pulled out your suitcase nuke/thermal detonator/dynamite/M-80, right? I mean, who would pass up a chance to take out one of the most obscene edifices of capitalism, right? It sounds strangely like the system was afraid of _you_, sort of like in soviet russia...
Not only that, they now publish an amazing and award-winning application called Unison that is a graphical newsreader and works especially well for finding binaries. It's a pretty amazing application and something I doubt they regret developing. It must be great to not only get personal praise from Steve Jobs about their previous software, but to have him personally offer you a job, then decline and go on to write an even better app that gets two Apple Design Awards. They said no one should feel sorry for them, and they're right.
I agree-- but most importantly, the article indicates the guys had some kind of ethical problem with meeting with Apple without AOL present-- the words were something like "AOL came to us first, it's only fair." They should have realized that when you're a small developer dealing with two mega corporations about your future, there is no such thing as "fair" or "not fair." You pull out all the stops and milk the deal for all its worth by making the two mega corps. compete and making each of them want you more. It's not unlike dating two women of relatively equal quality at the same time;-)
Yes, actually:-(. It's been 4 years and nothing has changed. The only hope was to have the Act sunset in 2005 but the election would seem to have sealed its renewal...
I for one won't be satisfied until they have sharks with frickin' lasers on their heads, at which time I'll welcome our new weaponized underwater...underlords. meh.
I agree with pretty much everything you wrote. I was very disappointed when I went there. Thinking they can all be actresses or models, the hot ones move to more exciting places:-/
If you still want to blend in, don't wear shorts, plaid, flannel, sneakers, or baseball caps.
Dockers and a polo shirt or buttondown worn with a blue blazer and some reasonably nice shoes will go a long way. People in shorts and "I survived Las Vegas" t-shirts tend to stick out a lot. So do older women in pink warmup suits (yes, I saw them there).
With outfits like the above I was asked for directions in several countries the last time I went to Europe. Especially in Ireland. By tourists from England.
Contrast this with my American trip companions who would not shut the hell up when a local in France would say he/she didn't speak english. My female friends' response was to just speak louder. For me all it took was saying "acceptez vous les credit cards?" but the friends were not conscientious enough to try to learn that phrase. I believe in making a minimal profile, which goes well with a quiet and reserved nature. To be honest I fit in better in Europe than at home...:-/
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I'm a believer in the firmly rooted idea that when you're in a public place, you're willingly presenting yourself to the view of others and there is no reasonable expectation of privacy. This was a problem for me when I took a photo of a stranger's car because I believed she was abusing the disabled placard system. It was on private property-- a mini-mall-- but still in a public place. Neither of us could understand the other's point of view. While I can understand her not wanting me to take a picture of _her_, it was difficult for me to accept her angry and indignant view that I needed her permission to photograph her car. She retaliated by taking a photo of _me_ (ha!). Needless to say a device in her pocket that could have disabled my digital camera would have bothered me greatly. Which is why if something like this ever comes to market, I'm going to stick with the 1965 Pentax SLR, which is entirely mechanical, instead of the more modern Kodak digital. Seems like DRM is just making us go back to older but DRM-free tech :/
sure, it's not a great comment, but hardly a troll!
> In other words, this could just be a gambit to drum up support and funding from congress.
Welcome to the world of strategic thinking, more specifically, game theory.
More importantly, I can finally see Mickey Mouse enter the public domain-- unless they keep extending his copyright, that is :/
AMD64 3500+ 2.2 GHz
Abit AV8 mb (Via-based), gigabit, sound, S/PDIF, 1394, USB2, etc.
nVidia 6800GT AGP
512 MB RAM, Fry's house brand
Seagate serial ATA 80 GB HD
Pioneer DVR-107 DVD-R
Aspire X-Dreamer case
Fedora Core 3 and Win98
$950. I think I'll pass on the Mac Mini for now.
It looks like the super head crabs from Half Life 2!
I know several police officers and to be honest, I have a lot less faith in them than you do. They don't run around high strung just waiting to jump on someone, they drive around in their patrol cars and do a lot of traffic stops for minor violations. Some of them, in fact, are people you would probably not want to be armed.
.45 slug to the wishbone?
In any case it's just plain dumb to rely on public service to "protect" you in your home. First of all they don't do that. The job of the police is to catch criminals and investigate crime after the fact, and to a lesser extent deter crime by patrolling. They don't actually care whether you individually live or die, it's just not their job. My point with the quote from Lord of the Rings is that I don't have a pornographic obsession with guns and I don't think they're "cool" to have just to have. I never lose sight of the fact that taking someone's life is a terrible thing, which is why it's a last resort-- the quote just helps capture that feeling in a way others can quickly understand. My preference, of course, would be for no one to misbehave or harm others at all. Unfortunately human nature makes that impossible.
You can cite all of the Brady Campaign's statistics without changing the fact that they have carefully crafted those statistics to be easily digested in sound bite form; e.g. "you're more likely to hurt someone than successfully defend yourself." What was the error rate on that study? Was it peer-reviewed? Was it published? Did the definition of "victim" in that study include the criminal who broke into someone's house and subsequently had his day ruined by a
Admittedly the chances of a home invasion are relatively small if you live in a nice area, but in the end it's about choice; firearms ownership is not required but it is allowed, so you also have the right to decide _not_ to own any guns if you want (contrast with a place like Israel where there is a blurry line between civilian and soldier and the reserves have their issued weapons at home). There is a certain dignity in the fact that we have a society in which we have the right to keep and bear arms, and we choose to behave not because of the threat of force by the authorities, but because we consent to have the authorities in the first place and are capable of removing them at any time. I'm not misty-eyed, I'm just someone who recognizes the animal nature of human beings and am doing what I can to minimize the chance that someone could harm me or those I care about, while keeping mindful of the danger I present to others. I have my stuff locked up, which is where it should be when I'm not there.
Regardless of the risk involved with owning/using firearms it all comes down to this: "I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend." -- Lord of The Rings: The Two Towers. That is something many people forget and I always point it out when people call me a gun nut.
California. You know the rest :-/. I got a good deal on it, that's why I got the Compact. It's pretty handy, and the fit and finish are great.
You're right, of course. Seeing as how "dumb" knives are freely available and virtually unregulated, I wonder how long it will be before knife weapons attract the same attention :-/. If someone calls this absurd, that's the point.
.45 auto has provided.
It is hard enough getting a fully mechanical gun to function reliably every time; a 10% failure rate in today's handguns would be not only unacceptable, but dangerous by providing a false sense of security. The worst handguns today probably have a 1% or 2% failure rate at most, and even that is horrible. Personally I prefer a 0% failure rate, which is what my
The only application I see for this technology that would be accepted by the marketplace (without the NJ law...lol) is a firearm kept in a semi-public place or insecure location like in a car trunk or office, or used by a bartender or bouncer.
A 10% failure rate is unacceptable for self/home defense. Note that the police are exempt from the new New Jersey law, despite that they are perhaps the group most likely to be shot and killed with their own weapons. They don't trust this technology, so why should I?
What Apple needs to do is execute a Canary Trap. They probably have made a list of who could have leaked the mini Mac info. Then they should separate those people into groups and give each group a credible but different "rumor" of new products. When the rumor shows up in print, they know which group leaked and are much further down the path of finding out who it was. This is assuming they _want_ to stop the leaks!
> any guy that thinks OSX is just "pretty widgets" is a dimwit.
As is anyone who thinks OS X is the solution to all of *nix's problems.
I for one would like to have my ethernet hubs use the standard wiring for power rather than a brick and AC adapter that I have to find an outlet for. Since telephones already do this it's just the next step in the direction of USB everything. Which seems to be a good thing (tm). Now I know how to set up a LAN in an unwired munitions bunker...
> Blanket generalizations like this are pretty ignorant.
Like the one you just made? yeah.
FYI, law school is three years full time and usually four years in a night program. In the bay area there's
Boalt (UC Berkeley
Stanford
UC Hastings College of the Law (my school)
Golden Gate Univ.
Santa Clara Univ.
Univ. of San Francisco
San Francisco Law School
And maybe a couple more. the linked ones definitely have night programs. Not sure about the others.
yes, it's true, I am a "scum sucking bottom feeder." lol. I'm currently attending as a student and also working half-time in the school's IT dept. developing the school website at a below-market but not unreasonable hourly rate. It's a nice, stable monthly check that basically takes care of my expenses other than tuition. On the side, I do more profitable misc. projects for people who need websites done or other design work. When I get in a check from those projects I just treat it like bonus money and end up spending it on hardware, clothes, car stuff, even dress shoes. A law professor at school saw my biz card on my office door and hired me to do her new edition book cover. Other professors who self-publish are interested as well. There's no substitute for word of mouth, but craigslist gigs section is a good place to start. Unfortunately almost all of those are "I was hoping to get it done for free" (i.e. clueless) people posting. Many of us in this thread are probably at the point where we can turn down projects that aren't "just right" since we're not depending on that money to subsist.
if you have a stable 9-5 and some knowledge of web dev, try hiring a couple of college students part time to do larger side projects that you find. After saving some moderate amount of money you can get into property management (borrow to buy an apartment building, then pay the loan with the rent money from tenants), or even open your own dive bar in a college town (my dream). All the skills you get in the side businesses help in your regular job too-- managing people or money, getting things done, handling problems, and so on. The great thing about running small businesses is that everything you make is yours, and you can make a lot of extra cash in the right business. The great thing about law school is it's fairly empowering. You know how to solve big problems.
I think the absolute worst tech support aside from AOL or Dell has got to be college/graduate school computer help. Often the law students are from fairly privileged families where the standard op. procedure was to call a contractor to fix every little problem at home rather than trying to get things done themselves. So you have a lot of people coming in FRANTIC and DEMANDING that you fix their computer problems right that second. I would say "sorry, drop-in tech support hours are wednesdays 3:30-5" and the typical response is "but it's an EMERGENCY!!!!" yeah. I've never heard that one before. asshole. I have nothing but contempt for the vast majority of my classmates. Yes, these people will soon be the ones you despise oh-so-justifiably. It's nice to have that quiet confidence of being able to fix things yourself, which is one attribute of a successful lawyer. So I got that going for me, which is nice.
Some people at school made the jump from IT to law school thinking they'd be "marketable" to the intellectual property law firms that run rackets in IP litigation. They're probably right, but I'm not sure if they'll be able to look in the mirror at the end of the day. Those places often require a CS/E degree. Many private law schools have a night program, so maybe you can do your IT day job and attend law school at night, though it does take 4 years....
They look in the mirror and say "you're a handsome devil, what's _your_ name?" As they adjust a Barcelino tie, put on the Rolex, and head out to the 7-series Beemer. Never underestimate greed.
try not to blame _just_ the lawyers. There are even (gasp) lawyers who don't believe in the way the current system is. In any event, the law could be changed if enough people cared. Sadly, they don't :-/
> they were creepy, in a sense... all those sales going on at once, converging on a spot not a few feet from me.
That's when you pulled out your suitcase nuke/thermal detonator/dynamite/M-80, right? I mean, who would pass up a chance to take out one of the most obscene edifices of capitalism, right? It sounds strangely like the system was afraid of _you_, sort of like in soviet russia...
Not only that, they now publish an amazing and award-winning application called Unison that is a graphical newsreader and works especially well for finding binaries. It's a pretty amazing application and something I doubt they regret developing. It must be great to not only get personal praise from Steve Jobs about their previous software, but to have him personally offer you a job, then decline and go on to write an even better app that gets two Apple Design Awards. They said no one should feel sorry for them, and they're right.
I agree-- but most importantly, the article indicates the guys had some kind of ethical problem with meeting with Apple without AOL present-- the words were something like "AOL came to us first, it's only fair." They should have realized that when you're a small developer dealing with two mega corporations about your future, there is no such thing as "fair" or "not fair." You pull out all the stops and milk the deal for all its worth by making the two mega corps. compete and making each of them want you more. It's not unlike dating two women of relatively equal quality at the same time ;-)
> Have you given up?
:-(. It's been 4 years and nothing has changed. The only hope was to have the Act sunset in 2005 but the election would seem to have sealed its renewal...
Yes, actually
I for one won't be satisfied until they have sharks with frickin' lasers on their heads, at which time I'll welcome our new weaponized underwater...underlords. meh.
I agree with pretty much everything you wrote. I was very disappointed when I went there. Thinking they can all be actresses or models, the hot ones move to more exciting places :-/
If you still want to blend in, don't wear shorts, plaid, flannel, sneakers, or baseball caps.
:-/
Dockers and a polo shirt or buttondown worn with a blue blazer and some reasonably nice shoes will go a long way. People in shorts and "I survived Las Vegas" t-shirts tend to stick out a lot. So do older women in pink warmup suits (yes, I saw them there).
With outfits like the above I was asked for directions in several countries the last time I went to Europe. Especially in Ireland. By tourists from England.
Contrast this with my American trip companions who would not shut the hell up when a local in France would say he/she didn't speak english. My female friends' response was to just speak louder. For me all it took was saying "acceptez vous les credit cards?" but the friends were not conscientious enough to try to learn that phrase. I believe in making a minimal profile, which goes well with a quiet and reserved nature. To be honest I fit in better in Europe than at home...