I think you are bit premature in judging that this study is valid.
As you probably already know, science works by verification and reproducibility. A single lab is making a conjecture based on "surveys". Unless the results can be replicated by an independent lab, we cannot be certain of anything.
And I wouldn't put too much on "double-blind" claims. There are many papers that claim double-blind methods but in closer inspection the claim fails (one of the most recent example is the one about how prayer actually helped healing). Again, unless it is verified and replicated, it does not mean much.
Is it Junk Science? Maybe maybe not. What is junk is for media to claim that something is true based on a single unverified, non-corraborated) study.
Re:which taxes? Income taxes? Social Security tax?
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Tech Rich Get Richer
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· Score: 1
"What I still don't get is why folks are so hot on upping tax rate on the very folks that are capable of hiring employees? Isn't the whole point in getting a sagging economy turned around to get the unemployment numbers down? Last I checked, social programs don't hire people."
It is statement like this that I worry about the decline of quality education.
READ AND STUDY YOUR HISTORY!!!
Do you know how US got out that little event called "The Great Depression"? By spending billions of dollars in SOCIAL PROGRAMS called NEW DEAL that put unemployed works to build US infrastructure and help put food on the table.
THAT is how you get out of recession. Not by giving billions to people who already have billions and another billion will not make any difference.
Re:Why do you think Bush gave them tax cuts?
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Tech Rich Get Richer
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· Score: 4, Interesting
This is just a flamebait isn't it?
According to estimates by the Tax Policy Center -- the 2001 tax cut, once fully phased in, will deliver 42 percent of its benefits to the top 1 percent of the income distribution. (Roughly speaking, that means families earning more than $330,000 per year.) The 2003 tax cut delivers a somewhat smaller share to the top 1 percent, 29.1 percent, but within that concentrates its benefits on the really, really rich. Families with incomes over $1 million a year -- a mere 0.13 percent of the population -- will receive 17.3 percent of this year's tax cut, more than the total received by the bottom 70 percent of American families. Indeed, the 2003 tax cut has already proved a major boon to some of America's wealthiest people: corporations in which executives or a single family hold a large fraction of stocks are suddenly paying much bigger dividends, which are now taxed at only 15 percent no matter how high the income of their recipient.
If you actually LOOKED at opensecrets.org, you will see that individuals contributing less than $200 only comprised 10.5% of the total funds raised. That is less than "non-disclosure" (11.8%) and FEDERAL FUND (35%)!!!
If you add the hundreds of million funneled through PACs' (independent ads) and GOP, small individuals probably contributed less than 5% for ol' Bush's last election.
No wonder Bush will do anything and everything for those donors... (note that the percentage is not that much different for Gore).
The Rs approved these appointments without filibustering. They were playing by what they understood the rules to be.
That is a complete BULL and you know it.
Republicans either killed or effectively squashed countless Clinton appointees to the "Upper" courts. The reason why Democrats are using the filibuster to defeat 3, count them 3 (!) nominees are because the Bush administration is refusing to yield to the "Blue Slip" procedure.
For those who are unware, "Blue Slip" is a process where if Senators from the nominee's home state has an opportunity to voice their opinion on the nominee. This is PRECISELY the method chosen by Clinton-era Republicans to kill one nomination after another. However, this administration has decided to ignore "Blue Slips", going against the established traditions respected by many administrations in the past. THAT IS WHY Democrats are using the filibuster.
Please it takes two to tango. If you are going to blame one side, have the decency to blame the other as well.
MS picking ATI does not surprise me at all. It is a natural progression based on the direction XBOX is taking.
Remember that MS's big goal with XBOX (at least the current vision), is to make it become the home entertainment center for home. This means future XBOX will have to have (addition to gaming), Progressive DVD (current XBOX is not very good), TV/Cable tuner, and HDTV tuner.
ATI with its "Wonder" cards, is clearly the leader in integrating video with PC graphics. ATI cards are the graphics card of choice for Home Theater PC enthusists. MS's move just makes it crystal clear that they are serious about making XBOX the home entertainment center.
Sure, ATI probably offered better financial deal on top of everything, but ATI's strength is probably what put them over NVidia.
What about the situation where you didn't whitelist them because you didn't know the sender?
Isn't that a description of spam:)?
Seriously, at least with every e-biz vendors, I have never had a situation where the company's name was not in the address or the header (usually both). I had situations where a friend changed his email address, but their name is there.
Also, most junk mails are quickly recognizable. Either they have a name that you do not recongnize (i.e Betty Bush), or email adress that you know is fake (#$@$#@ejkthw2000@yahoo.com), or the header gives it away (Lengthen your Penis!!!). You eyes and brain can very quickly move past these. You attention caught only when you recognize something. You should really try before dismissing it. Who knows? you may like it.
The thing is, with the whitelist vast majority of your legitimate emails come through without any effort (in my case, it has been 99%). Only email that I have to check is from a new e-biz vendor.
The way our brain works, it is MUCH easier to find the message header (or address) that you recognize from random text than the otherway around. So even if a legit email is the junk folder, you can find it very quickly. And since vast majority of your email comes through without any problems, you don't have to check the junk folder very often (only when you are expecting something). Try it, you'll see the difference.
I do that everyday and it is surprisingly easy.
Here is my personal experience. The first month was bit confusing since my Address list didn't cover EVERYONE who regularly sends me email. So, going through the SPAM folder was a pain, but after that, 99% of my legitimate email comes through without any problems. Only new email I get is from new vendors. But when I order something on-line, I know to expect an e-mail from them so I just look for their email in the SPAM folder.
Trust me, human pattern recognition capability is VERY VERY good. I can pick out the single email that I want from 100 email headers within 5 to 10 seconds. You do that three or four times a week and that is enough to make sure that you receive every email you want. The key is that you just move on if you do not recognize either the address or the header and most spams have very similar headers.
Try it for a month. See how it is. I personally love it.
Isn't that same as creating a whitelist but using two separate email address to do it?
I used to do the same, but I just got tired of switching back and forth since I made many purchases on-line. Now, I just give out my email address without thiking about it twice and I still spend very little time dealing with junkmail.
May be you guys should look at a simpler solution. Most whitelist email provides a "junk mail" folder where you can view all the emails that you do have not whitelisted. If an email comes from a new source, you can always catch it. And it is a LOT easier to catch 1 recognizable email address (or title) from 100 junk then to have your inbox full of junk and good all mixed together.
I don't understand why everyone is so worked up about SPAM filters. There is a simple way to handle SPAM - use whitelist.
I have been using a whitelist email for over a year and I can honestly say SPAM's don't bother me at all. It takes literally 4 to 5 seconds to look over 40 to 50 unapproved senders' message headers (enough for once a day). It is a LOT easier to sort out names you recognize from a sea of junk then the other way around. And when you get an email in the Inbox, you know it is somebody from you know and relevant to you.
"Do you have a contract with Apple? I strongly suspect that CDBaby does, considering the past announcement wrt independents comming in to the iTMS was from their website."
Where on CDBaby site say they have ANY relationship with ANYBODY??? Sure, I can tell you I have a contract with Apple - I would be as valid as CDBaby. What makes you "strongly" suspect anything? The independents that Itunes talked about are respected independent publisher who have strong track record of publishing niche items with small but loyal followings. Most ANYONE involved in music know several high-quality independents, NOBODY knows who CDBaby is, nor do they have ANY track record.
Storage is not cheap, everyone is talking about the initial cost, but initial cost is not what kills you, maintenance is the beast. Even if it costs $1.00 per album per month to keep the album available (electricity, server room, etc.) that means that you need to sell at least 2 or 3 songs a month to make it worthwhile. Now multiplied that by thousands, and you will see the reason why it does not pay to carry these titles.
We had a deal with three major labels where we carried about 3000 titles/label. Out of those only about 10% were regularly accessed. over 50% were almost NEVER accessed. But carrying the entire catalog made sense since overall, the hot-sellers made up for the slow-movers.
Somebody like CDBaby with NO TRACK RECORD will have NOTHING but slow-movers. Why bother?
I'll tell you what. You give me $20 (1/2 of CDBaby) and your digital distribution rights and I will guarantee your album will do just as well as it would have with CDBaby.
I used to work at a failed digital music distribution company and what CDBaby is claiming is absolutely a JOKE! Storage and maintenance is not cheap for sites like ITune. Unless there is a reasonable expectation for demand, this is not a business proposition that ANYONE like ITunes would go along with. Only reason places like ITunes carrry less than popular titles is because they come from a distributor as part of their entire catalog package (take are slow sellers with our best sellers). Why would Buy.com or ITunes take no name junk from somebody like CDBaby when they don't have other "Hot" titles to even things out???
Don't be fooled! This site at best is some naive attempt at trying to make some money off honest artists, or this is out-and-out con.
RIAA does not share their stage with others very nicely. It is highly UNLIKELY that ITunes will be allowed to carry titles that are not members of RIAA.
There is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING on CDBaby's site that guarantee you that you WILL be on ITune for $40. This means that they are basically charging you $40 for NOTHING!!! Unless they have a strong track record, which they don't, or have a public support from places like ITune, which they don't, this is nothing more than some piped dream by some enterprising guy.
I cannot believe Slashdot would fall for a scam like this...
This seems to me is a whole lotta work for nothing.
Just to cover San Francisco and its immediate suburbs (about 75 miles by 45 miles = 3375 square miles), you need over 800 nodes installed every 4 square miles (range of 1 miles each way). To me this is a lot of work just to keep track of your pets (unlikely) or kids (more interesting, but still not a killer app).
I wonder if Woz has some other application for this network than just tracking someone that he rather not share...
If it is your assertion is true that Democratic congress ignored Reagan
raised spending and which caused debt to grow, then shouldn't Reagan have
either done more to curb the Congress, or better yet increase the tax to match
the increase in spending? And no, an argument that that would have limited
economic growth woould not pass as Clinton's tax increase (which Republicans
labeled biggest EVER) shows that tax increase can spurt economic growth (or at
the very least do not hurt it).
Even though the Congress is increasing the debt, Reagan's propose budget
the year after does NOTHING to counteract it. If irresponsible Congress raised
spending by 10 billion, shouldn't responsible Reagan propose a budget that
is $10 billion next the year after? From the figure above, it is obvious that
Reagan did not care.
Your claim that locked in spending would have cured debt is bogus and
YOU KNOW IT!!! Even with Reagan's budget, you still have $1.76 TRILLION debt compared to Congress based debt of $2.1 TRILLION during 1981 through 89. To claim that if we followed Reagan's budget plan the debt would be gone is a Big Fat LIE!!!
Based on what I've heard so far, they were reasonably secured. Is it the gun owner's job to carry the key with him every minute?
YES!!! IF THAT IS WHAT IS REQUIRED TO KEEP THE WEAPONS SAFE, THEN THAT IS WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO! If you are not up for that then you SHOULD NOT own a gun!!!
Besides, how do you KNOW that he kept is locked up? Sure, that is what the father is saying right now, but you have to agree he is in a very defensive mode right now. I have not ready ANYTHING anywhere where a law officer corroborated his claims. For all we know the weapons could have been stored in a closet with key hanging on the door.
Also, if he hasn't fired the weapons in 20 or 30 years, WHY KEEP SO MANY FREAKIN BULLETS!!! It's not like he used them for target practice all the time, just keep a few for reference sakes and get rid of the rest you do not need. Again, this would be something that ANYONE who is interested in SAFETY, obviously this guy did not care. That seems to me is a clear indication of negligence.
Owning a firearm is not like owning a porn tape. Sure, you don't want your child to access either, but at least your kid is not going to go on a rampage with the porn tape!!! If you make a consciencious decision to have a deadly weapon in your house, you need to step up and make sure that it is stored properly so that your dead beat 18 year old son CANNOT get to it. If you are not willing to do that, you should not own a gun.
There is a very simple way to do this TODAY!
Create a Website where anyone (registered voters) who is interested in this issue can pledge their votes to any candidate who public declares support for it.
Once we create a simple, direct position statement (i.e. Business Method Patents should be abolished), we can start collecting signatures. If we can gain enough signatures (~100k), we can go to presidential candidates and ask for their positions on this issue. Any candidate whose position is closest to the position statement would get the votes of the group.
Collecting ~100k signature would not be that hard if someone like/. would get behind it!!!
You are confusing "belivabability" and "reproducibility". That is a BIG DIFFERENCE!
When a scientists presents a paper, it is peer reviewed. During that process, various independent scientist test the hypothesis (not a theory - again a big difference on what theory is in legal world (hypothesis) and what theory is in scientific world (proven fact)) to see if it can be reproduced. IT DOES NOT MATTER IF THE HYPOTHESIS IS BELIEVABLE! Nobody believed Einstein's relavity when he first proposed it - precisely because it was not BELIEVABLE, it was against the normal intuition. But subsequent experiments proved that it is indeed a valid theory.
That is the MAIN difference between scientist and everyone else. Scientist won't take someone's word for it, even if it is their own, not even if it is the most logical, believable story in the world. It has to be PROVEN.
If you read the report, it IS SAYING that the number of tort suits are going down (at least more are thrown out before it gets to trial). If it didn't than the whole report makes no sense.
"What it does do instead is take a lot of credible science out of the courtroom and force jurors to decide on feeling rather than scientific findings."
That assumptions is BS. Most research on human decision making process demonstrate that we make up our minds FIRST, THEN find supporting evidence to reinforce that decision. Jurors make up their minds early then give weight to any "expert" witnesses who will corroborate their decision, which is precisely why "junk science" have been so popular in court rooms - they WORK!
This is why it is SO important that jurors are only exposed to CONCLUSIVE (at least nearly so) scientific evidence, and not just let them decide whether or not it IS valid (because whoever agrees with me (the juror) is always valid).
The basic complaints in the article linked is that...
1. Judge are being asked to determine whether or not a scientific evidence is "valid-enough" for juries to consider.
2. Judges are too harsh in the judgement.
So what? Who would you rather have make the decision on the validity of the scientific evidence; a judge who at least has one or more post-graduat degree (even if that is not science related), or some Joe Schmuck who can barely add?
When it comes to a tort lawsuits, emotions rule the day FAR more than scientific evidence. If the jury sees some 12 year old kid with no hair with leukemia, all jury want is SOMEONE to tell them that somebody caused it, no matter how truthful it is.
Just look at Corning! The company is now BANKRUPT all based on what is now fully dis-credited "junk science" that somehow linked immunodeficiency illnesses to silicone breast implants. It doesn't matter than study after study since the lawsuits began have proven the link to be ineffectual at best, the company is still bankrupt.
The article is basically arguing that the Federal judges are setting bars that are too high, that juries should be the ones who decides whether or not the scientific claims are valid. PHOOEY!!! All there are arguing for is a shift in responsibility, and I for one would rather have the responsibliity on shoulders of a person who is TRAINED to judge and decide.
WOW THAT IS AWSOME!!! I only have to use 4 DIFFERENT apps that do a particular feature better than MS Office. How convenient is that??? I am so excited - NOT!!!
Give a credit where credit is due. MS Office, top to bottom, is the best office productivity tool available. Is it bloated? Sure. Does it have its share of idiosyncracies and bugs? Who doesn't?
Give me a break about marketing!!! How much marketing about MS Office have you actually seen? People may buy into something that does not refrain them from buying something better (especially when they are FREE!!!). Can you tell me another fast changing product (new version every couple of year) that has kept the market lead for over 25 years? I can't.
It is very mis-leading to just site the Federal Income tax to make the argument that rich are paying to much taxes. Of course, rich pays more taxes (in amount) - THEY MAKE MORE MONEY. Top 10 percent own 90% of the wealth, asking them to pay their share is not so draconian.
And YES POOR PEOPLE PAY TAXES TOO!!! Unlike the Federal Income Tax, state and local taxes are regressive taxes that takes greater bite from poor people.
Go and check this out http://www.bls.gov/cex/home.htm#overview. It tallys up ALL taxes paid at the federal, state, and local levels. You will find that when you factor ALL taxes, every major tax categories (from top fifth to bottom fifth) all pay about same percentage of income in taxes. It is simply a misleading to say that 36% of household pay no income tax - they still pay a whole lotta of other taxes.
Obviously, I have under-estimated the black, bottomless pit that is your brain...
Increasing the bit size is not like increasing memory you idiot. When you increase the memory from 640K (then) to 4GB (today), you have a linear increase in capacity of 6250X. When you increase 64bits to 128bits, you don't just get 2X capability you get "4 Billion times 4 Billion times 4 Billion" increase in its capacity!!!
Do you have any sense of how big that number is???
For an argument sakes, in 1000 years, we are STILL using IPV6 (C'MON, give me a break!!!) and we have now conquered every solar system within 1000 light years (unless you believe we can fly faster than light - or are you too dumb to know that you cannot travel faster than light?). Based on the number of stars in the Milky Way, that is about 1 billion star systems.
Even if we colonized EVERY FREAKIN solar system within in 1000 light years, you can still assign 4 BILLION TIMES 4 BILLION TIMES 4 IP ADDRESS per solar system!!!
Can you start to appreciate how dumb your comments have been so far, or is your stupidity beyond the reach of normal reason???
Slashdot Mirror
I think you are bit premature in judging that this study is valid.
As you probably already know, science works by verification and reproducibility. A single lab is making a conjecture based on "surveys". Unless the results can be replicated by an independent lab, we cannot be certain of anything.
And I wouldn't put too much on "double-blind" claims. There are many papers that claim double-blind methods but in closer inspection the claim fails (one of the most recent example is the one about how prayer actually helped healing). Again, unless it is verified and replicated, it does not mean much.
Is it Junk Science? Maybe maybe not. What is junk is for media to claim that something is true based on a single unverified, non-corraborated) study.
"What I still don't get is why folks are so hot on upping tax rate on the very folks that are capable of hiring employees? Isn't the whole point in getting a sagging economy turned around to get the unemployment numbers down? Last I checked, social programs don't hire people." It is statement like this that I worry about the decline of quality education. READ AND STUDY YOUR HISTORY!!! Do you know how US got out that little event called "The Great Depression"? By spending billions of dollars in SOCIAL PROGRAMS called NEW DEAL that put unemployed works to build US infrastructure and help put food on the table. THAT is how you get out of recession. Not by giving billions to people who already have billions and another billion will not make any difference.
This is just a flamebait isn't it?
According to estimates by the Tax Policy Center -- the 2001 tax cut, once fully phased in, will deliver 42 percent of its benefits to the top 1 percent of the income distribution. (Roughly speaking, that means families earning more than $330,000 per year.) The 2003 tax cut delivers a somewhat smaller share to the top 1 percent, 29.1 percent, but within that concentrates its benefits on the really, really rich. Families with incomes over $1 million a year -- a mere 0.13 percent of the population -- will receive 17.3 percent of this year's tax cut, more than the total received by the bottom 70 percent of American families. Indeed, the 2003 tax cut has already proved a major boon to some of America's wealthiest people: corporations in which executives or a single family hold a large fraction of stocks are suddenly paying much bigger dividends, which are now taxed at only 15 percent no matter how high the income of their recipient.
Sounds like TAX CUTS FOR THE RICH to me!!!
If you actually LOOKED at opensecrets.org, you will see that individuals contributing less than $200 only comprised 10.5% of the total funds raised. That is less than "non-disclosure" (11.8%) and FEDERAL FUND (35%)!!!
If you add the hundreds of million funneled through PACs' (independent ads) and GOP, small individuals probably contributed less than 5% for ol' Bush's last election.
No wonder Bush will do anything and everything for those donors... (note that the percentage is not that much different for Gore).
The Rs approved these appointments without filibustering. They were playing by what they understood the rules to be.
That is a complete BULL and you know it.
Republicans either killed or effectively squashed countless Clinton appointees to the "Upper" courts. The reason why Democrats are using the filibuster to defeat 3, count them 3 (!) nominees are because the Bush administration is refusing to yield to the "Blue Slip" procedure.
For those who are unware, "Blue Slip" is a process where if Senators from the nominee's home state has an opportunity to voice their opinion on the nominee. This is PRECISELY the method chosen by Clinton-era Republicans to kill one nomination after another. However, this administration has decided to ignore "Blue Slips", going against the established traditions respected by many administrations in the past. THAT IS WHY Democrats are using the filibuster.
Please it takes two to tango. If you are going to blame one side, have the decency to blame the other as well.
MS picking ATI does not surprise me at all. It is a natural progression based on the direction XBOX is taking.
Remember that MS's big goal with XBOX (at least the current vision), is to make it become the home entertainment center for home. This means future XBOX will have to have (addition to gaming), Progressive DVD (current XBOX is not very good), TV/Cable tuner, and HDTV tuner.
ATI with its "Wonder" cards, is clearly the leader in integrating video with PC graphics. ATI cards are the graphics card of choice for Home Theater PC enthusists. MS's move just makes it crystal clear that they are serious about making XBOX the home entertainment center.
Sure, ATI probably offered better financial deal on top of everything, but ATI's strength is probably what put them over NVidia.
What about the situation where you didn't whitelist them because you didn't know the sender?
Isn't that a description of spam:)?
Seriously, at least with every e-biz vendors, I have never had a situation where the company's name was not in the address or the header (usually both). I had situations where a friend changed his email address, but their name is there.
Also, most junk mails are quickly recognizable. Either they have a name that you do not recongnize (i.e Betty Bush), or email adress that you know is fake (#$@$#@ejkthw2000@yahoo.com), or the header gives it away (Lengthen your Penis!!!). You eyes and brain can very quickly move past these. You attention caught only when you recognize something. You should really try before dismissing it. Who knows? you may like it.
The thing is, with the whitelist vast majority of your legitimate emails come through without any effort (in my case, it has been 99%). Only email that I have to check is from a new e-biz vendor. The way our brain works, it is MUCH easier to find the message header (or address) that you recognize from random text than the otherway around. So even if a legit email is the junk folder, you can find it very quickly. And since vast majority of your email comes through without any problems, you don't have to check the junk folder very often (only when you are expecting something). Try it, you'll see the difference.
I do that everyday and it is surprisingly easy. Here is my personal experience. The first month was bit confusing since my Address list didn't cover EVERYONE who regularly sends me email. So, going through the SPAM folder was a pain, but after that, 99% of my legitimate email comes through without any problems. Only new email I get is from new vendors. But when I order something on-line, I know to expect an e-mail from them so I just look for their email in the SPAM folder. Trust me, human pattern recognition capability is VERY VERY good. I can pick out the single email that I want from 100 email headers within 5 to 10 seconds. You do that three or four times a week and that is enough to make sure that you receive every email you want. The key is that you just move on if you do not recognize either the address or the header and most spams have very similar headers. Try it for a month. See how it is. I personally love it.
Isn't that same as creating a whitelist but using two separate email address to do it? I used to do the same, but I just got tired of switching back and forth since I made many purchases on-line. Now, I just give out my email address without thiking about it twice and I still spend very little time dealing with junkmail.
May be you guys should look at a simpler solution. Most whitelist email provides a "junk mail" folder where you can view all the emails that you do have not whitelisted. If an email comes from a new source, you can always catch it. And it is a LOT easier to catch 1 recognizable email address (or title) from 100 junk then to have your inbox full of junk and good all mixed together.
I don't understand why everyone is so worked up about SPAM filters. There is a simple way to handle SPAM - use whitelist.
I have been using a whitelist email for over a year and I can honestly say SPAM's don't bother me at all. It takes literally 4 to 5 seconds to look over 40 to 50 unapproved senders' message headers (enough for once a day). It is a LOT easier to sort out names you recognize from a sea of junk then the other way around. And when you get an email in the Inbox, you know it is somebody from you know and relevant to you.
Who needs a filter?
"Do you have a contract with Apple? I strongly suspect that CDBaby does, considering the past announcement wrt independents comming in to the iTMS was from their website." Where on CDBaby site say they have ANY relationship with ANYBODY??? Sure, I can tell you I have a contract with Apple - I would be as valid as CDBaby. What makes you "strongly" suspect anything? The independents that Itunes talked about are respected independent publisher who have strong track record of publishing niche items with small but loyal followings. Most ANYONE involved in music know several high-quality independents, NOBODY knows who CDBaby is, nor do they have ANY track record. Storage is not cheap, everyone is talking about the initial cost, but initial cost is not what kills you, maintenance is the beast. Even if it costs $1.00 per album per month to keep the album available (electricity, server room, etc.) that means that you need to sell at least 2 or 3 songs a month to make it worthwhile. Now multiplied that by thousands, and you will see the reason why it does not pay to carry these titles. We had a deal with three major labels where we carried about 3000 titles/label. Out of those only about 10% were regularly accessed. over 50% were almost NEVER accessed. But carrying the entire catalog made sense since overall, the hot-sellers made up for the slow-movers. Somebody like CDBaby with NO TRACK RECORD will have NOTHING but slow-movers. Why bother?
I used to work at a failed digital music distribution company and what CDBaby is claiming is absolutely a JOKE! Storage and maintenance is not cheap for sites like ITune. Unless there is a reasonable expectation for demand, this is not a business proposition that ANYONE like ITunes would go along with. Only reason places like ITunes carrry less than popular titles is because they come from a distributor as part of their entire catalog package (take are slow sellers with our best sellers). Why would Buy.com or ITunes take no name junk from somebody like CDBaby when they don't have other "Hot" titles to even things out???
Don't be fooled! This site at best is some naive attempt at trying to make some money off honest artists, or this is out-and-out con. RIAA does not share their stage with others very nicely. It is highly UNLIKELY that ITunes will be allowed to carry titles that are not members of RIAA. There is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING on CDBaby's site that guarantee you that you WILL be on ITune for $40. This means that they are basically charging you $40 for NOTHING!!! Unless they have a strong track record, which they don't, or have a public support from places like ITune, which they don't, this is nothing more than some piped dream by some enterprising guy. I cannot believe Slashdot would fall for a scam like this...
This seems to me is a whole lotta work for nothing. Just to cover San Francisco and its immediate suburbs (about 75 miles by 45 miles = 3375 square miles), you need over 800 nodes installed every 4 square miles (range of 1 miles each way). To me this is a lot of work just to keep track of your pets (unlikely) or kids (more interesting, but still not a killer app). I wonder if Woz has some other application for this network than just tracking someone that he rather not share...
Hmmm... Three big errors on your arguments.
Based on what I've heard so far, they were reasonably secured. Is it the gun owner's job to carry the key with him every minute?
YES!!! IF THAT IS WHAT IS REQUIRED TO KEEP THE WEAPONS SAFE, THEN THAT IS WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO! If you are not up for that then you SHOULD NOT own a gun!!!
Besides, how do you KNOW that he kept is locked up? Sure, that is what the father is saying right now, but you have to agree he is in a very defensive mode right now. I have not ready ANYTHING anywhere where a law officer corroborated his claims. For all we know the weapons could have been stored in a closet with key hanging on the door.
Also, if he hasn't fired the weapons in 20 or 30 years, WHY KEEP SO MANY FREAKIN BULLETS!!! It's not like he used them for target practice all the time, just keep a few for reference sakes and get rid of the rest you do not need. Again, this would be something that ANYONE who is interested in SAFETY, obviously this guy did not care. That seems to me is a clear indication of negligence.
Owning a firearm is not like owning a porn tape. Sure, you don't want your child to access either, but at least your kid is not going to go on a rampage with the porn tape!!! If you make a consciencious decision to have a deadly weapon in your house, you need to step up and make sure that it is stored properly so that your dead beat 18 year old son CANNOT get to it. If you are not willing to do that, you should not own a gun.
There is a very simple way to do this TODAY! Create a Website where anyone (registered voters) who is interested in this issue can pledge their votes to any candidate who public declares support for it. Once we create a simple, direct position statement (i.e. Business Method Patents should be abolished), we can start collecting signatures. If we can gain enough signatures (~100k), we can go to presidential candidates and ask for their positions on this issue. Any candidate whose position is closest to the position statement would get the votes of the group. Collecting ~100k signature would not be that hard if someone like /. would get behind it!!!
When a scientists presents a paper, it is peer reviewed. During that process, various independent scientist test the hypothesis (not a theory - again a big difference on what theory is in legal world (hypothesis) and what theory is in scientific world (proven fact)) to see if it can be reproduced. IT DOES NOT MATTER IF THE HYPOTHESIS IS BELIEVABLE! Nobody believed Einstein's relavity when he first proposed it - precisely because it was not BELIEVABLE, it was against the normal intuition. But subsequent experiments proved that it is indeed a valid theory.
That is the MAIN difference between scientist and everyone else. Scientist won't take someone's word for it, even if it is their own, not even if it is the most logical, believable story in the world. It has to be PROVEN.
If you read the report, it IS SAYING that the number of tort suits are going down (at least more are thrown out before it gets to trial). If it didn't than the whole report makes no sense. "What it does do instead is take a lot of credible science out of the courtroom and force jurors to decide on feeling rather than scientific findings." That assumptions is BS. Most research on human decision making process demonstrate that we make up our minds FIRST, THEN find supporting evidence to reinforce that decision. Jurors make up their minds early then give weight to any "expert" witnesses who will corroborate their decision, which is precisely why "junk science" have been so popular in court rooms - they WORK! This is why it is SO important that jurors are only exposed to CONCLUSIVE (at least nearly so) scientific evidence, and not just let them decide whether or not it IS valid (because whoever agrees with me (the juror) is always valid).
1. Judge are being asked to determine whether or not a scientific evidence is "valid-enough" for juries to consider.
2. Judges are too harsh in the judgement.
So what? Who would you rather have make the decision on the validity of the scientific evidence; a judge who at least has one or more post-graduat degree (even if that is not science related), or some Joe Schmuck who can barely add?
When it comes to a tort lawsuits, emotions rule the day FAR more than scientific evidence. If the jury sees some 12 year old kid with no hair with leukemia, all jury want is SOMEONE to tell them that somebody caused it, no matter how truthful it is.
Just look at Corning! The company is now BANKRUPT all based on what is now fully dis-credited "junk science" that somehow linked immunodeficiency illnesses to silicone breast implants. It doesn't matter than study after study since the lawsuits began have proven the link to be ineffectual at best, the company is still bankrupt.
The article is basically arguing that the Federal judges are setting bars that are too high, that juries should be the ones who decides whether or not the scientific claims are valid. PHOOEY!!! All there are arguing for is a shift in responsibility, and I for one would rather have the responsibliity on shoulders of a person who is TRAINED to judge and decide.
WOW THAT IS AWSOME!!! I only have to use 4 DIFFERENT apps that do a particular feature better than MS Office. How convenient is that??? I am so excited - NOT!!!
Give a credit where credit is due. MS Office, top to bottom, is the best office productivity tool available. Is it bloated? Sure. Does it have its share of idiosyncracies and bugs? Who doesn't?
Give me a break about marketing!!! How much marketing about MS Office have you actually seen? People may buy into something that does not refrain them from buying something better (especially when they are FREE!!!). Can you tell me another fast changing product (new version every couple of year) that has kept the market lead for over 25 years? I can't.
It is very mis-leading to just site the Federal Income tax to make the argument that rich are paying to much taxes. Of course, rich pays more taxes (in amount) - THEY MAKE MORE MONEY. Top 10 percent own 90% of the wealth, asking them to pay their share is not so draconian. And YES POOR PEOPLE PAY TAXES TOO!!! Unlike the Federal Income Tax, state and local taxes are regressive taxes that takes greater bite from poor people. Go and check this out http://www.bls.gov/cex/home.htm#overview. It tallys up ALL taxes paid at the federal, state, and local levels. You will find that when you factor ALL taxes, every major tax categories (from top fifth to bottom fifth) all pay about same percentage of income in taxes. It is simply a misleading to say that 36% of household pay no income tax - they still pay a whole lotta of other taxes.
Obviously, I have under-estimated the black, bottomless pit that is your brain...
Increasing the bit size is not like increasing memory you idiot. When you increase the memory from 640K (then) to 4GB (today), you have a linear increase in capacity of 6250X. When you increase 64bits to 128bits, you don't just get 2X capability you get "4 Billion times 4 Billion times 4 Billion" increase in its capacity!!!
Do you have any sense of how big that number is???
For an argument sakes, in 1000 years, we are STILL using IPV6 (C'MON, give me a break!!!) and we have now conquered every solar system within 1000 light years (unless you believe we can fly faster than light - or are you too dumb to know that you cannot travel faster than light?). Based on the number of stars in the Milky Way, that is about 1 billion star systems.
Even if we colonized EVERY FREAKIN solar system within in 1000 light years, you can still assign 4 BILLION TIMES 4 BILLION TIMES 4 IP ADDRESS per solar system!!!
Can you start to appreciate how dumb your comments have been so far, or is your stupidity beyond the reach of normal reason???