Now, I know that not everything is as ideal a the FCC Part 15 rules are supposed to ensure, but really, do laptops really put out that much interference in the form of radio waves? How about mp3 players, or calculators, or e-book readers? I guess that what I'm wondering is how these devices are considered Part 15 if they wreak havoc upon aircraft electronics. Yes, I can see how an actual emitter, like a wireless ethernet device, a bluetooth device, or that sort could potentially manifest, but those devices, or their functionality within a larger unit could be fairly easily detected, requiring the passenger to disable the feature, or failing that, not use the equipment in flight.
Beyond that, if a Part 15 device is that big of a problem, perhaps the FCC should start testing things.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-Benjamin Franklin
If the federal government persists in the behaviours that it has been engaging in lately, all that they'll do is force people who care to either leave the U.S., or to engage in rebellion.
I hope that the courts start thinking with some sanity, and dismiss entirely charges against people, despite their illegal acts, because of the treatment that they're receiving at the hands of law enforcement officials in charges and the like. If someone is doing something illegal, like manufacturing an illicit substance whose creation process is relatively dangerous, they deserve the trouble that they'd get, but they do no deserve to be branded "Terrorist". The DA or police who came up with the charge deserve to be sued for libel.
I mean, when they created silly putty 'back in the day' they couldn't find a use for it, so it became a way to annoy one's parents. Do they think that we'll find a way now, so they felt it prudent to release this upon us?
Look at communities that are small and fairly laid-back, and you won't find the need for phones. Look at countries that are considered third-world, and most of the infrastructure needed to have cellular phones won't be in place. Granted, finding people who are otherwise similar in lifestyle or health might be more difficult, but that's always been a difficulty in trying to work with control groups, since frequently people who engage in one behaviour also engage in several others, which makes it hard to isolate these behaviours separately to determine which actually is the problem or issue under study.
Getting the rocket up wouldn't have been a problem. I once launched a rocket with an Aerotech Cobra series G engine. That sucker could be heard all of the way up until it fired its ejection charge. My problem, probably a lot like yours, was the reliability of the landing and recovery. Several pieces of rockets are sitting my rocket box, where one half wasn't found, and some rockets that became about four inches shorter are in there too...
Upskirting? I would have driven it into the girl's locker room. Even losing the equipment would have seemed worthwhile at the time.
It's interesting looking back on how things seemed when one was fourteen. Nowadays it wouldn't be worthwhile unless it was women's physical education at a local community college... |8^P
... with my cheap X-10 camera, but batteries, rather than the camera, seemed to be the problem. It wouldn't have been terribly hard to launch them, it just would have been difficult to recover the rocket intact with all of that weight.
A radio controlled car ended up being a much better, and more fun choice. It's probably good that this technology didn't exist at a feasible price point for me when I was in junior high school, for I'd likely have gotten into a lot of trouble...
yep. I have a safe that we can lock the computer in, and then take it out when we want to use it. Though, we run the risk of being hacked during those times...
I have never seen a decently secure Windows machine that still had an ability to talk to the outside world. I've seen chroot jails, inbound and outbound port blocking, removal of compilation tools to prevent source-root-kits, forwarding of ports to alternate computers to mudddy the waters a bit, and the like for Linux.
I guess that I wonder what the ultimate point of the H1B visa actually is. Do we use the visa to encourage people to come try us out, and then give them the hard sell to come to the U.S. as permanent residents? Do we just use them because we need people now, and we can't find any locally? Do we use it because we want to pay people less?
If we don't have enough jobs to go around, I could understand paring down the H1B program if it's being used by companies to employ labor that is cheaper than that which people already present provide. This doesn't mean that I advocate revoking existing visas, or automatically not consider renewing visas coming up at their expiration, and the like. I think that we need to work to sell our H1B people on becoming permanent residents here, or else restructure the program, but not cancel it outright or try to call someone unamerican for supporting it.
In my opinion, the government's role in economics should be fairly small and indirect. Playing hardball doesn't ever seem to do much good, since it causes direct impact without considering existing conditions, which screws with things. If policy is going to be adjusted, changed, tweaked, whatnot, do it slowly. Don't go "*grunt*H1B BAD. Hurt workers!".
For longevity, I'll put my money on the PS/2. I have a Model 50 at the office that has been running for several years straight. As cool as the Playstations are, they don't do well with excessive amounts of on-time or funky environmental concerns. So, if we lose the ability to produce new electronics, IBM all the way...
I think that you've read "Camp of the Saints" by Jean Raspail too recently, but I understand where you're coming from. I have some specific points to disagree with, though.
The United States is a nation of immigrants.
The number of 'native' people here is confined to mostly people who have property right to an 'indian' reservation. The rest of us are either from somewhere else or of people decended from somewhere else within the last 200 years. There are very few people who can claim their only lineage from the original east coast Pre-US colonies. Immigrants have brought business ideas, culture, and intelligence. A vast array of our scientists that have developed military materiel are immigrants. We tolerate them, right?
Immigrants won't 'take' jobs from existing population for very long.
Even in our economic downturn, we still have a rather small unemployment rate. Our economy has always been cyclical, and now is no different than any other time, other than the industries most strongly affected. On an upswing companies hire as many people as they can, if they have a need for them, and they trim back when they have spent in excess of what their workforce can deliver, based on economic times. This is normal. It sucks, but as long as we allow the severe swings that we see, it'll remain this way.
Immigrants generally contribute to the U.S. Economy over that of their homeland.
When someone lives here, (s)he buys goods and services locally. This is money that isn't leaked out to foreign companies. Even the immigrant that sends money home for family ends up spending a lot here, since the cost of living is so high. I'd want to see raw figures collected by someone without a bias one way or the other before I would revise that thought.
Immigrants frequently assimilate into the U.S.
Not all immigrants remain, but many do. Many find a much better life here than they have in other parts of the world. They see the salaries of their peers, and ultimately want that salary, or more of that lifestyle. They get addicted to pay-per-view and pizza delivery and cheap transportation. They become part of 'us'. I won't say that they all do, for many who come from countries as economically comparable per capita as the U.S. don't assimilate, but they have no reason to, either. Those from poorer countries become Americans. Their original culture doesn't disappear, but it all gets thrown in.
It's not nearly as clear of an issue as people make it out to be.
Do most users exchange executable files? How about just blocking them if they're executable... How about getting an email client that isn't known for it's ability to spread received infected email without the user having to even open the email?
"In WTO-world, corporations can move their jobs across borders but workers cannot follow. This one-sidedness pushes salaries down everywhere, as companies seek the cheapest available labor."
What'll be the end of this, though? Eventually there'll be enough stabilization over the globe that it won't matter as much. I don't think that it'll happen in my lifetime, so it won't help me any, but as the world grows closer, I could envision this happening. Some countries with less free market play than here will have an advantage, for a while, but ultimately I think that it'll even out.
The other trouble is that we're seeing paradigm shifts that people aren't ready for. Remember what happened to the Swiss watch and clock makers once Japanese engineers perfected the use of quartz for accurate timekeeping? Their entire industry disappeared in a matter of months. In this case, if programmers as a whole are overpaid or are charging too much for their work as others perceive it, then the others are going to find a solution that doesn't involve the programmers. It's happened in other industries before, it'll happen again, I'm sure.
As whacked as some of the real zealots can be, we need someone to stand farther to the left than we do, so that we look more normal. I for one don't want to be the extreme.
If that's the case, a simple solution would be to fine anyone who does this heavily. It won't actually stop the abuse though, it'll just destroy the lives of the few who get caught.
A much smarter method, in my opinion, would be to check vehicle mileage of registered vehicles, and tax based on that. Most new cars use a digital odometer that isn't able to be rolled back by a mechanic with a screwdriver, so it would be much more secure to tax on that, and I haven't met too many people willing to tamper with their car's computer. Of course, simply removing the speedometer gear from the transmission and plugging the empty socket would take care of that on a mechanical level, but then the factory speedometer doesn't work either, so that isn't necessarily the greatest solution.
Any tracking technology that requires devices to be on the user's side can be disabled or circumvented. it's just a matter of making it hard enough and punitive enough to not comply, and easy enough to comply, that people generally comply.
Some positive things about SCO...
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· Score: 1
They're small, so they'll not last long after this debacle ends...
Their company name is short, so it's easy to type repeatedly in flames against them...
They're geographically somewhat isolated compared to the locations of most tech companies, so one doesn'te have to worry about being charged with Battery while out having a drink with friends, only to have a SCO employee walk in...
"SCOX" just looks dirty. I'm still not entirely sure why yet...
Re:Maybe it time to start working on HURD
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· Score: 1
"It's stupid to switch your OS just based on the potential threat of one stupid company."
Are you saying that my leaving Windows for Linux makes me stupid?
If that's the article that I read, it seemed to connect McBride as a wacko religious zealot than anything else. Catholics have zealots, Jews have zealots, Muslims, Hindi, Buddists, etc, all have zealots. Well, maybe not hardcore Buddists, but anyway, I don't think that his religion is telling him to behave the way he does, I think that he is doing as he does, and he also happens to do what he does religiously.
I just think that religion is silly.
Re:Torvalds to McBride: Please grow up.
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· Score: 1
Well, if that is indeed what Linus wrote, I'll have to buy the man a beer if I'm ever in SF again. He's treating McBride as he should, as a petchulant child. Congrats...
I've never seen proof that Linux isn't a geeks' OS, considering the difficulty in getting mainstream people to accept that yes, something useful can still be done at the command line...
From a users' perspective, there should be almost no functional difference between using a BSD machine, a Linux machine, and a commercial UNIX (Sun, HP-UX, etc) machine. All of the differences that I have seen have been in adminstration. So, even if BSD is dying, Admins will be the only ones to really notice.
The scene in "Wayne's World 2" where Wayne Campbell rushes up the stairs of the church to bang on the windows, to shout, "Cassandra!", only to find the wrong couple, to which he realises that there's a church across the street that is identical, do you know what that was parodying? It wasn't original to "Wayne's World 2"...
I don't think that you'll find "Scarecrow and Mrs. King" on nick at nite. It's too new.
The trouble that I've noticed with copyright is that it doesn't deal well when something becomes part of mass-culture. Someone or some group creates something that becomes intrinsic in society, yet even after the novelty has worn off, they continue to maintain an iron grip on it. They won't release it to the benefit of society. Disney, the RIAA, the MPAA, and the like are all involved in this. Hell, half of the old TV shows made after '68 are unknown to younger generations. How many kids under the age of fifteen have seen "Scarecrow and Mrs. King", or "Laverne and Shirley", or "Taxi"? Some of the programs that were popular even as little as 20 years ago, ones that made a large impact on popular culture, are not really found anymore, while TV shows before that (which were subject to differing copyright and public domain rules), like "Star Trek", "Lost in Space", "The Andy Griffith Show", and such are still entertaining people today.
New culture can be cool. I've found groups like Space Hog, Chris Isaac, and Love and Rockets to be very entertaining and very talented, but I've also found a wealth of very good music and media from the past, and it doesn't see the light of day anymore unless it was top-40 back in it's heyday. That's just sad.
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Now, I know that not everything is as ideal a the FCC Part 15 rules are supposed to ensure, but really, do laptops really put out that much interference in the form of radio waves? How about mp3 players, or calculators, or e-book readers? I guess that what I'm wondering is how these devices are considered Part 15 if they wreak havoc upon aircraft electronics. Yes, I can see how an actual emitter, like a wireless ethernet device, a bluetooth device, or that sort could potentially manifest, but those devices, or their functionality within a larger unit could be fairly easily detected, requiring the passenger to disable the feature, or failing that, not use the equipment in flight.
Beyond that, if a Part 15 device is that big of a problem, perhaps the FCC should start testing things.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-Benjamin Franklin
If the federal government persists in the behaviours that it has been engaging in lately, all that they'll do is force people who care to either leave the U.S., or to engage in rebellion.
I hope that the courts start thinking with some sanity, and dismiss entirely charges against people, despite their illegal acts, because of the treatment that they're receiving at the hands of law enforcement officials in charges and the like. If someone is doing something illegal, like manufacturing an illicit substance whose creation process is relatively dangerous, they deserve the trouble that they'd get, but they do no deserve to be branded "Terrorist". The DA or police who came up with the charge deserve to be sued for libel.
I mean, when they created silly putty 'back in the day' they couldn't find a use for it, so it became a way to annoy one's parents. Do they think that we'll find a way now, so they felt it prudent to release this upon us?
Look at communities that are small and fairly laid-back, and you won't find the need for phones. Look at countries that are considered third-world, and most of the infrastructure needed to have cellular phones won't be in place. Granted, finding people who are otherwise similar in lifestyle or health might be more difficult, but that's always been a difficulty in trying to work with control groups, since frequently people who engage in one behaviour also engage in several others, which makes it hard to isolate these behaviours separately to determine which actually is the problem or issue under study.
Getting the rocket up wouldn't have been a problem. I once launched a rocket with an Aerotech Cobra series G engine. That sucker could be heard all of the way up until it fired its ejection charge. My problem, probably a lot like yours, was the reliability of the landing and recovery. Several pieces of rockets are sitting my rocket box, where one half wasn't found, and some rockets that became about four inches shorter are in there too...
"You purchased an X-10? So you're that guy!! I was wondering who their customer was."
And I was less than impressed with the women that came with the camera, too...
Upskirting? I would have driven it into the girl's locker room. Even losing the equipment would have seemed worthwhile at the time.
It's interesting looking back on how things seemed when one was fourteen. Nowadays it wouldn't be worthwhile unless it was women's physical education at a local community college... |8^P
... with my cheap X-10 camera, but batteries, rather than the camera, seemed to be the problem. It wouldn't have been terribly hard to launch them, it just would have been difficult to recover the rocket intact with all of that weight.
A radio controlled car ended up being a much better, and more fun choice. It's probably good that this technology didn't exist at a feasible price point for me when I was in junior high school, for I'd likely have gotten into a lot of trouble...
... to anyone who has ever seen people drive while talking on the phone...
"ITs possible to make a secure windows system."
yep. I have a safe that we can lock the computer in, and then take it out when we want to use it. Though, we run the risk of being hacked during those times...
I have never seen a decently secure Windows machine that still had an ability to talk to the outside world. I've seen chroot jails, inbound and outbound port blocking, removal of compilation tools to prevent source-root-kits, forwarding of ports to alternate computers to mudddy the waters a bit, and the like for Linux.
I guess that I wonder what the ultimate point of the H1B visa actually is. Do we use the visa to encourage people to come try us out, and then give them the hard sell to come to the U.S. as permanent residents? Do we just use them because we need people now, and we can't find any locally? Do we use it because we want to pay people less?
If we don't have enough jobs to go around, I could understand paring down the H1B program if it's being used by companies to employ labor that is cheaper than that which people already present provide. This doesn't mean that I advocate revoking existing visas, or automatically not consider renewing visas coming up at their expiration, and the like. I think that we need to work to sell our H1B people on becoming permanent residents here, or else restructure the program, but not cancel it outright or try to call someone unamerican for supporting it.
In my opinion, the government's role in economics should be fairly small and indirect. Playing hardball doesn't ever seem to do much good, since it causes direct impact without considering existing conditions, which screws with things. If policy is going to be adjusted, changed, tweaked, whatnot, do it slowly. Don't go "*grunt*H1B BAD. Hurt workers!".
For longevity, I'll put my money on the PS/2. I have a Model 50 at the office that has been running for several years straight. As cool as the Playstations are, they don't do well with excessive amounts of on-time or funky environmental concerns. So, if we lose the ability to produce new electronics, IBM all the way...
The number of 'native' people here is confined to mostly people who have property right to an 'indian' reservation. The rest of us are either from somewhere else or of people decended from somewhere else within the last 200 years. There are very few people who can claim their only lineage from the original east coast Pre-US colonies. Immigrants have brought business ideas, culture, and intelligence. A vast array of our scientists that have developed military materiel are immigrants. We tolerate them, right?
Even in our economic downturn, we still have a rather small unemployment rate. Our economy has always been cyclical, and now is no different than any other time, other than the industries most strongly affected. On an upswing companies hire as many people as they can, if they have a need for them, and they trim back when they have spent in excess of what their workforce can deliver, based on economic times. This is normal. It sucks, but as long as we allow the severe swings that we see, it'll remain this way.
When someone lives here, (s)he buys goods and services locally. This is money that isn't leaked out to foreign companies. Even the immigrant that sends money home for family ends up spending a lot here, since the cost of living is so high. I'd want to see raw figures collected by someone without a bias one way or the other before I would revise that thought.
Not all immigrants remain, but many do. Many find a much better life here than they have in other parts of the world. They see the salaries of their peers, and ultimately want that salary, or more of that lifestyle. They get addicted to pay-per-view and pizza delivery and cheap transportation. They become part of 'us'. I won't say that they all do, for many who come from countries as economically comparable per capita as the U.S. don't assimilate, but they have no reason to, either. Those from poorer countries become Americans. Their original culture doesn't disappear, but it all gets thrown in.
It's not nearly as clear of an issue as people make it out to be.
Do most users exchange executable files? How about just blocking them if they're executable... How about getting an email client that isn't known for it's ability to spread received infected email without the user having to even open the email?
/been using pine since 1996...
"In WTO-world, corporations can move their jobs across borders but workers cannot follow. This one-sidedness pushes salaries down everywhere, as companies seek the cheapest available labor."
What'll be the end of this, though? Eventually there'll be enough stabilization over the globe that it won't matter as much. I don't think that it'll happen in my lifetime, so it won't help me any, but as the world grows closer, I could envision this happening. Some countries with less free market play than here will have an advantage, for a while, but ultimately I think that it'll even out.
The other trouble is that we're seeing paradigm shifts that people aren't ready for. Remember what happened to the Swiss watch and clock makers once Japanese engineers perfected the use of quartz for accurate timekeeping? Their entire industry disappeared in a matter of months. In this case, if programmers as a whole are overpaid or are charging too much for their work as others perceive it, then the others are going to find a solution that doesn't involve the programmers. It's happened in other industries before, it'll happen again, I'm sure.
As whacked as some of the real zealots can be, we need someone to stand farther to the left than we do, so that we look more normal. I for one don't want to be the extreme.
If that's the case, a simple solution would be to fine anyone who does this heavily. It won't actually stop the abuse though, it'll just destroy the lives of the few who get caught.
A much smarter method, in my opinion, would be to check vehicle mileage of registered vehicles, and tax based on that. Most new cars use a digital odometer that isn't able to be rolled back by a mechanic with a screwdriver, so it would be much more secure to tax on that, and I haven't met too many people willing to tamper with their car's computer. Of course, simply removing the speedometer gear from the transmission and plugging the empty socket would take care of that on a mechanical level, but then the factory speedometer doesn't work either, so that isn't necessarily the greatest solution.
Any tracking technology that requires devices to be on the user's side can be disabled or circumvented. it's just a matter of making it hard enough and punitive enough to not comply, and easy enough to comply, that people generally comply.
They're small, so they'll not last long after this debacle ends...
Their company name is short, so it's easy to type repeatedly in flames against them...
They're geographically somewhat isolated compared to the locations of most tech companies, so one doesn'te have to worry about being charged with Battery while out having a drink with friends, only to have a SCO employee walk in...
"SCOX" just looks dirty. I'm still not entirely sure why yet...
"It's stupid to switch your OS just based on the potential threat of one stupid company."
Are you saying that my leaving Windows for Linux makes me stupid?
*grin*
If that's the article that I read, it seemed to connect McBride as a wacko religious zealot than anything else. Catholics have zealots, Jews have zealots, Muslims, Hindi, Buddists, etc, all have zealots. Well, maybe not hardcore Buddists, but anyway, I don't think that his religion is telling him to behave the way he does, I think that he is doing as he does, and he also happens to do what he does religiously.
I just think that religion is silly.
Well, if that is indeed what Linus wrote, I'll have to buy the man a beer if I'm ever in SF again. He's treating McBride as he should, as a petchulant child. Congrats...
I've never seen proof that Linux isn't a geeks' OS, considering the difficulty in getting mainstream people to accept that yes, something useful can still be done at the command line...
From a users' perspective, there should be almost no functional difference between using a BSD machine, a Linux machine, and a commercial UNIX (Sun, HP-UX, etc) machine. All of the differences that I have seen have been in adminstration. So, even if BSD is dying, Admins will be the only ones to really notice.
...there's been no joy at Sun anyway, I guess that it's just time to accept it and make it official
Here's one for you...
The scene in "Wayne's World 2" where Wayne Campbell rushes up the stairs of the church to bang on the windows, to shout, "Cassandra!", only to find the wrong couple, to which he realises that there's a church across the street that is identical, do you know what that was parodying? It wasn't original to "Wayne's World 2"...
I don't think that you'll find "Scarecrow and Mrs. King" on nick at nite. It's too new.
The trouble that I've noticed with copyright is that it doesn't deal well when something becomes part of mass-culture. Someone or some group creates something that becomes intrinsic in society, yet even after the novelty has worn off, they continue to maintain an iron grip on it. They won't release it to the benefit of society. Disney, the RIAA, the MPAA, and the like are all involved in this. Hell, half of the old TV shows made after '68 are unknown to younger generations. How many kids under the age of fifteen have seen "Scarecrow and Mrs. King", or "Laverne and Shirley", or "Taxi"? Some of the programs that were popular even as little as 20 years ago, ones that made a large impact on popular culture, are not really found anymore, while TV shows before that (which were subject to differing copyright and public domain rules), like "Star Trek", "Lost in Space", "The Andy Griffith Show", and such are still entertaining people today.
New culture can be cool. I've found groups like Space Hog, Chris Isaac, and Love and Rockets to be very entertaining and very talented, but I've also found a wealth of very good music and media from the past, and it doesn't see the light of day anymore unless it was top-40 back in it's heyday. That's just sad.