I would disagree with use use of 'threat from a community like China' in your statement: China is booming because of free trade, they have a declining population (young people, infact the population is projected to increase for a while as life expectancy from the incumbant increases), and virtually everything to lose from any kind of hostile activity - its not as if a communist ideal exists in China today to peddle to the rest of the world.
If you believe that, then I know a general who would like your address to send you a shipping container of "rice". Especially if you're close to Washington DC. (If you don't know, rice is a sufficient shield with a natural tendency to accumulate mildly radioactive minerals while growing- thus being a shield against our current radiation detector technology. You could smuggle a nuke in a container of rice, and nobody would know until glow-in-the-dark rice crispies started falling from the sky).
Now to some extent I agree with you- but I think that capitalism and free trade isn't the new China. The new China is communism using capitalism and free trade to close US factories, to put Americans out of work, and their spy-master is Wal-Mart. I agree that they don't get anything from violence- they can get much more simply by purchasing our water supplies and then poisoning them.
I do agree that the majority of the non-food items in Wal-Mart are made overseas, but certainly not all--my Winchester 1300 shotgun was made in New Haven, CT. My Remington 597 rifle was made in Mayfield, KY. Both of them were purchased at Wal-Mart in the last five years.
I'm kind of surprised that EITHER of these manufacturers survived the steel run up in recent years...and was still able to sell something at Wal-Mart prices. I'll have to look into that....not that I'd buy a gun at Wal-Mart anyway, the shape their stores have been in since the raid on illegal aliens in the janitorial department, such a gun would probably blow up in my face the first time I fired it (due to the dust accumulation in the barrel).
Actually, the chance is that if they match on eye scan, fingerprint, and voice, they'll match on DNA as well- then all they have to do is happen to know your name and birthplace and want to impersonate you and they can.
Perhaps the combination would result in a lower chance of collision- but as we push to 7 billion people on this planet and beyond, the number of individual items needed to avoid collision *also* goes up. Eventually it will be a race between criminals hacking the database to find alternate potential identities to claim to be, and the good guys increasing the number of data fields to defeat the criminals.
It's dumb people like you that cause these things to be put in place. You may be 'smart', but you can't think. Yes, collions do increase, but please please just use you brain and think. How is a collision going to HAPPEN when I'm putting in a request for that ONE RECORD of DATA. The problem with collisions comes in when you're looking at a LARGE data set, such as the police do. Which brings us back to the start, what the F ck is the point of these cards.
You apparently don't know the first thing about how modern databases work. A SQL Select statement isn't going to look at every piece of information in the record- only what's in the where clause. And remember- the people who match your DNA are going to look like your picture as well. The people at the airport don't know you from Adam, so they pick whatever biometric equipment happens to be lying around and whatever they measure forms the where clause. The more people you get, the more chance of a collision. Now say I'm a terrorist- I hack into the ID system to look for alternate identities. I do a search for pictures that look like me, and every piece of biometric information I know about. I happen to pull up you. I then go down to my biometric-only air terminal; I give your name and birthplace at the door, use the same information to charge tickets to Barbados on your name, sneak a bomb aboard and blow up the plane, at which point your parents have to answer some rather pointed questions...at least until they find out you're still alive. It becomes the same old race.
Perhaps the combination would, yes- but as we push to 7 billion people on this planet and beyond, the number of individual items needed to avoid collision *also* goes up. Eventually it will be a race between criminals hacking the database to find alternate potential identities to claim to be, and the good guys increasing the number of data fields to defeat the criminals.
Sam Walton died in 1992- and since then "Always Low Prices- ALWAYS!" has been their slogan. That company lost every last shred of ethics when old Sam died. I hope a similar thing doesn't happen to Les Schwab Tires- old Les is similar to Sam in original ideas (well, he's a bit nicer to his store managers, though, and supports unionization for his workers), but he's in his late 80s.....
Y'know what's really bizarre about that? My dad told me that several years ago, Walmart was touting 'made in America' in many of their advertisements. I really can't say first hand, as I might've started college before I'd been in a Walmart. Now it's full of alot of very poor quality Chinese merchandise. I remember especially when they leaned on Hasbro, resulting in the GIJoe line being replaced with their 50 cent generics. They're great for dangerous fireworks stunts, but they might as well be made of playdough. So it goes with alot of what they carry.
When Sam was alive, he was a patriot. EVERYTHING Wal-Mart sold was "Made in America" and a good amount of it was "Made by Union", despite the fact he resisted unions in his own stores, he saw the value of high quality workmanship in union suppliers. But then he died- and since he died, Wal-Mart has been for PROFIT not QUALITY.
Oh come on. It was a business decision, and the guy from Snapper didn't see the $$$. If he saw the $$$, he would have stayed with WalMart. Had you read the FastCompany article you would have gotten that; the shill that wrote the summary is just that.
Nobody who is concerned with the quality of the product or where it is made would see the $$$ in Wal-Mart's business plan- because the majority of the $$$ you get selling through Wal-Mart end up in the pockets of people in Arkansas or China, NOT in the pocket of the supplier. The whole point is to lie to the consumer and buy brands to put on inferior Chinese products.
Walmart plays by the rules.
Yep, the rules allow quite a bit of leeway when it comes to retailer fraud.
Don't like the rules?
More- I think people who like the rules are traitors to the United States of America and should be treated as such. They are *NOT* keeping the best interests of the American Citizenry in mind with these free-traitor deals.
Do something about them. Imports are taxed.
No, in fact, from China they're not. China has Most Favored Nation trading status thanks to Clinton and the World Trade Organization- both of which I consider guilty of treason.
They hire more-than-average number of women and minorities.
Only because they can pay them less.
We can argue about insurance until you are blue in the face
I said nothing about insurance, though that's a point too, but not much of one in comparison to using American brands on inferior Chinese Crap.
but they follow the rules and practices the government has laid out.
Of course they do- they bribed the politicians that created those rules and practices, in an effort to reduce their own competition. They've been very successfull at using the government to get their way- which is why they are traitors to the concept of the United States of America, which is supposed to be a democratic republic.
And where do you think the revenue is all going?
90 cents on every dollar is going to Akansas or China. A very small royalty is paid to the trademark holder, and about 8 cents is spent on store costs local to the store outlet.
Who do you honestly think makes more money, the producers or the wholesaler?
Both the producers and the wholesaler in this case is the Government of China. The trademark holder just supplies labels for the crap coming out of China. The retailer is Wal-Mart. Dealing with Wal-Mart is the biggest mistake any company can make.
This guy is nothing new. I read the article in Fast Company a few months ago. He wasn't willing to bend and neither was Walmart, so the deal was cut off. Deals are called off all the time...
I stopped shopping at Wal-Mart when I realized this guy was rare- that EVERY freakin' thing in Wal-Mart that wasn't produce was made someplace other than America. The way I look at it, just like in warfare, in capitalism there are Patriots, and there are Traitors- and Wal-Mart is effectively the economic version of the Chinese Secret Police.
I'm not as familiar with Nokia as I am with Motorola- but I know that my T-mobile Motorola phone includes an event handler in the firmware that gives you a way to program for events in Java; and one of those events is indeed "incomming call". Your video games handle that by calling their pause routines, but you can hook anything into that you want as a developer.
That's a nice leap of faith. Contributions, after all, do not necessarily involve a quid pro quo -- and that's what bribery is about.
And American Capitalism is about profit- nobody would give contributions if there wasn't some form of quid pro quo going on, because it wouldn't be PROFITABLE to do so.
What it IS about is helping to fund a campaign, because you agree with that campaign sufficiently (or dislike all others that much). You're not going to want to contribute to a campaign which DISAGREES with what's most important to you, are you -- unless you've got either priorities than policies, like insisting on a candidate with two X chromosomes or whatever. Unless you actually make a request, however, that's linked to the money -- there's no bribery.
And with the lobby system in place- Corporate America makes, and gets, plenty of requests passed. Just look at Corporate Income Tax Code- seems that every billionaire and his brother has a special exemption someplace. Money buys access- access that the people can't afford.
I contribute to public radio stations. That doesn't mean that I'm writing them and trying to sway their programming -- even though they do run programs that I find not worth listening to (a slight excess of quiz shows, rambling from Garrison Keillor, shows broadcast thrice a week and artist interviews, say). All they get from me is a little bit o' funding, no strings attached, primarily because of the breadth and depth of their news programming with relatively little advertising -- and the endorsements that they do run, at least usually do not treat the listeners as utter morons. If there were candidates whom I actually agreed with and respected, and whom had a reasonable chance, I might back them. *shrug*
Right now, the way the system is set up, you wouldn't be able to afford to.
Well, there's always the other opinion that any donation of money at all is bribery- pure and simple. I think that's what would result from your idea- a large amount of blatent bribery.
What kicks it up so much? When I moved in, I had BDTS- the phone bill hadn't been paid in three years, and the phone had simply gone down to that level of service with nobody paying the bill. It was able to dial two numbers- 911 and 0. Of course, if you dialed 0, you got an operator trying to sell you local phone service.
Actually I'm willing to bet massive amounts of salt would work as well. It's a fine enough powder to soak up the grease, it's a mineral so it won't burn, and table salt is a fine enough grain to pack down and cut off the oxygen to the fire (which is basically what the baking soda does as well).
Regardless of this guy's competence, no 911 call should EVER be put on hold. At least not until you are talking to an actual 911 dispatcher. This is a legit issue for all VOIP providers, since they are supposedly competing for our phone service.
Actually, it's not a problem with VOIP providers at all- it's a problem with overworked and understaffed 911 call centers around the country. I've been put on hold without talking to a dispatcher even in Beaverton, OR on a land line.
Now, it is not smart to only have a VOIP phone. It is relatively cheap to have even an old cell phone as backup, since even a cell phone with no calling plan can reach 911.
My point was that a true five-alarmer would generate so much excess heat that NOBODY would have been able to enter the house. Let alone TWICE (first to get his computer, second to lead the police on a stupid chase). There's something that stinks about this story- and being put on hold by "Vonage" is the least of it.
Slashdot Mirror
I would disagree with use use of 'threat from a community like China' in your statement: China is booming because of free trade, they have a declining population (young people, infact the population is projected to increase for a while as life expectancy from the incumbant increases), and virtually everything to lose from any kind of hostile activity - its not as if a communist ideal exists in China today to peddle to the rest of the world.
If you believe that, then I know a general who would like your address to send you a shipping container of "rice". Especially if you're close to Washington DC. (If you don't know, rice is a sufficient shield with a natural tendency to accumulate mildly radioactive minerals while growing- thus being a shield against our current radiation detector technology. You could smuggle a nuke in a container of rice, and nobody would know until glow-in-the-dark rice crispies started falling from the sky).
Now to some extent I agree with you- but I think that capitalism and free trade isn't the new China. The new China is communism using capitalism and free trade to close US factories, to put Americans out of work, and their spy-master is Wal-Mart. I agree that they don't get anything from violence- they can get much more simply by purchasing our water supplies and then poisoning them.
I took on the role of Architect- and doled out other assignments according to the skills of the team. Mine was a three person team though....
I do agree that the majority of the non-food items in Wal-Mart are made overseas, but certainly not all--my Winchester 1300 shotgun was made in New Haven, CT. My Remington 597 rifle was made in Mayfield, KY. Both of them were purchased at Wal-Mart in the last five years.
I'm kind of surprised that EITHER of these manufacturers survived the steel run up in recent years...and was still able to sell something at Wal-Mart prices. I'll have to look into that....not that I'd buy a gun at Wal-Mart anyway, the shape their stores have been in since the raid on illegal aliens in the janitorial department, such a gun would probably blow up in my face the first time I fired it (due to the dust accumulation in the barrel).
So my neighbor who went to work as an engineer outside the US for a few years is some sort of gurellia operative or terrorist?
To the native-born engineer from wherever he went, YES. For the same reason H-1bs are hated here.
Actually, the chance is that if they match on eye scan, fingerprint, and voice, they'll match on DNA as well- then all they have to do is happen to know your name and birthplace and want to impersonate you and they can.
Perhaps the combination would result in a lower chance of collision- but as we push to 7 billion people on this planet and beyond, the number of individual items needed to avoid collision *also* goes up. Eventually it will be a race between criminals hacking the database to find alternate potential identities to claim to be, and the good guys increasing the number of data fields to defeat the criminals.
It's dumb people like you that cause these things to be put in place. You may be 'smart', but you can't think. Yes, collions do increase, but please please just use you brain and think. How is a collision going to HAPPEN when I'm putting in a request for that ONE RECORD of DATA. The problem with collisions comes in when you're looking at a LARGE data set, such as the police do. Which brings us back to the start, what the F ck is the point of these cards.
You apparently don't know the first thing about how modern databases work. A SQL Select statement isn't going to look at every piece of information in the record- only what's in the where clause. And remember- the people who match your DNA are going to look like your picture as well. The people at the airport don't know you from Adam, so they pick whatever biometric equipment happens to be lying around and whatever they measure forms the where clause. The more people you get, the more chance of a collision. Now say I'm a terrorist- I hack into the ID system to look for alternate identities. I do a search for pictures that look like me, and every piece of biometric information I know about. I happen to pull up you. I then go down to my biometric-only air terminal; I give your name and birthplace at the door, use the same information to charge tickets to Barbados on your name, sneak a bomb aboard and blow up the plane, at which point your parents have to answer some rather pointed questions...at least until they find out you're still alive. It becomes the same old race.
Perhaps the combination would, yes- but as we push to 7 billion people on this planet and beyond, the number of individual items needed to avoid collision *also* goes up. Eventually it will be a race between criminals hacking the database to find alternate potential identities to claim to be, and the good guys increasing the number of data fields to defeat the criminals.
As world population increases, the chance of biometric collision increases as well, for any given biometric you choose to pick.
Then maybe a few more people would be able to tell the difference between the Four types of Americans.
Sam Walton died in 1992- and since then "Always Low Prices- ALWAYS!" has been their slogan. That company lost every last shred of ethics when old Sam died. I hope a similar thing doesn't happen to Les Schwab Tires- old Les is similar to Sam in original ideas (well, he's a bit nicer to his store managers, though, and supports unionization for his workers), but he's in his late 80s.....
I hope so- it would give me some faith that maybe a few of our elected leaders aren't as corrupt as Ebeneezer Scrooge.
Y'know what's really bizarre about that? My dad told me that several years ago, Walmart was touting 'made in America' in many of their advertisements. I really can't say first hand, as I might've started college before I'd been in a Walmart. Now it's full of alot of very poor quality Chinese merchandise. I remember especially when they leaned on Hasbro, resulting in the GIJoe line being replaced with their 50 cent generics. They're great for dangerous fireworks stunts, but they might as well be made of playdough. So it goes with alot of what they carry.
When Sam was alive, he was a patriot. EVERYTHING Wal-Mart sold was "Made in America" and a good amount of it was "Made by Union", despite the fact he resisted unions in his own stores, he saw the value of high quality workmanship in union suppliers. But then he died- and since he died, Wal-Mart has been for PROFIT not QUALITY.
Oh come on. It was a business decision, and the guy from Snapper didn't see the $$$. If he saw the $$$, he would have stayed with WalMart. Had you read the FastCompany article you would have gotten that; the shill that wrote the summary is just that.
Nobody who is concerned with the quality of the product or where it is made would see the $$$ in Wal-Mart's business plan- because the majority of the $$$ you get selling through Wal-Mart end up in the pockets of people in Arkansas or China, NOT in the pocket of the supplier. The whole point is to lie to the consumer and buy brands to put on inferior Chinese products.
Walmart plays by the rules.
Yep, the rules allow quite a bit of leeway when it comes to retailer fraud.
Don't like the rules?
More- I think people who like the rules are traitors to the United States of America and should be treated as such. They are *NOT* keeping the best interests of the American Citizenry in mind with these free-traitor deals.
Do something about them. Imports are taxed.
No, in fact, from China they're not. China has Most Favored Nation trading status thanks to Clinton and the World Trade Organization- both of which I consider guilty of treason.
They hire more-than-average number of women and minorities.
Only because they can pay them less.
We can argue about insurance until you are blue in the face
I said nothing about insurance, though that's a point too, but not much of one in comparison to using American brands on inferior Chinese Crap.
but they follow the rules and practices the government has laid out.
Of course they do- they bribed the politicians that created those rules and practices, in an effort to reduce their own competition. They've been very successfull at using the government to get their way- which is why they are traitors to the concept of the United States of America, which is supposed to be a democratic republic.
And where do you think the revenue is all going?
90 cents on every dollar is going to Akansas or China. A very small royalty is paid to the trademark holder, and about 8 cents is spent on store costs local to the store outlet.
Who do you honestly think makes more money, the producers or the wholesaler?
Both the producers and the wholesaler in this case is the Government of China. The trademark holder just supplies labels for the crap coming out of China. The retailer is Wal-Mart. Dealing with Wal-Mart is the biggest mistake any company can make.
This guy is nothing new. I read the article in Fast Company a few months ago. He wasn't willing to bend and neither was Walmart, so the deal was cut off. Deals are called off all the time...
I stopped shopping at Wal-Mart when I realized this guy was rare- that EVERY freakin' thing in Wal-Mart that wasn't produce was made someplace other than America. The way I look at it, just like in warfare, in capitalism there are Patriots, and there are Traitors- and Wal-Mart is effectively the economic version of the Chinese Secret Police.
I'm not as familiar with Nokia as I am with Motorola- but I know that my T-mobile Motorola phone includes an event handler in the firmware that gives you a way to program for events in Java; and one of those events is indeed "incomming call". Your video games handle that by calling their pause routines, but you can hook anything into that you want as a developer.
That's a nice leap of faith. Contributions, after all, do not necessarily involve a quid pro quo -- and that's what bribery is about.
And American Capitalism is about profit- nobody would give contributions if there wasn't some form of quid pro quo going on, because it wouldn't be PROFITABLE to do so.
What it IS about is helping to fund a campaign, because you agree with that campaign sufficiently (or dislike all others that much). You're not going to want to contribute to a campaign which DISAGREES with what's most important to you, are you -- unless you've got either priorities than policies, like insisting on a candidate with two X chromosomes or whatever. Unless you actually make a request, however, that's linked to the money -- there's no bribery.
And with the lobby system in place- Corporate America makes, and gets, plenty of requests passed. Just look at Corporate Income Tax Code- seems that every billionaire and his brother has a special exemption someplace. Money buys access- access that the people can't afford.
I contribute to public radio stations. That doesn't mean that I'm writing them and trying to sway their programming -- even though they do run programs that I find not worth listening to (a slight excess of quiz shows, rambling from Garrison Keillor, shows broadcast thrice a week and artist interviews, say). All they get from me is a little bit o' funding, no strings attached, primarily because of the breadth and depth of their news programming with relatively little advertising -- and the endorsements that they do run, at least usually do not treat the listeners as utter morons. If there were candidates whom I actually agreed with and respected, and whom had a reasonable chance, I might back them. *shrug*
Right now, the way the system is set up, you wouldn't be able to afford to.
Many modern phones have Python, Java, or .NET APIs available. What's your manufacturer?
I'd say let's take it to the obvious conclusion- all money spent on political campagins is not speech, and is instead bribery.
Well, there's always the other opinion that any donation of money at all is bribery- pure and simple. I think that's what would result from your idea- a large amount of blatent bribery.
Either way leads to mass suicide- so let's go out spectacularly and nuke the mideast!
Still, would be an interesting backyard experiment- light some grease on fire and dump salt on it.
What kicks it up so much? When I moved in, I had BDTS- the phone bill hadn't been paid in three years, and the phone had simply gone down to that level of service with nobody paying the bill. It was able to dial two numbers- 911 and 0. Of course, if you dialed 0, you got an operator trying to sell you local phone service.
Actually I'm willing to bet massive amounts of salt would work as well. It's a fine enough powder to soak up the grease, it's a mineral so it won't burn, and table salt is a fine enough grain to pack down and cut off the oxygen to the fire (which is basically what the baking soda does as well).
Hey, charcoal is a neeccessary ingredient in Bachelor Cooking!
Regardless of this guy's competence, no 911 call should EVER be put on hold. At least not until you are talking to an actual 911 dispatcher. This is a legit issue for all VOIP providers, since they are supposedly competing for our phone service.
Actually, it's not a problem with VOIP providers at all- it's a problem with overworked and understaffed 911 call centers around the country. I've been put on hold without talking to a dispatcher even in Beaverton, OR on a land line.
Now, it is not smart to only have a VOIP phone. It is relatively cheap to have even an old cell phone as backup, since even a cell phone with no calling plan can reach 911.
True enough.
My point was that a true five-alarmer would generate so much excess heat that NOBODY would have been able to enter the house. Let alone TWICE (first to get his computer, second to lead the police on a stupid chase). There's something that stinks about this story- and being put on hold by "Vonage" is the least of it.