Democracy has to be earned over and over again. But maybe the way isn't election but instead citizen has to be randomly drafted for a political period. Same as for a court jury in the US. And you can't skip your period unless you are terminally ill or in prison for a crime. In this way it's possible to have decisions made more from the peoples point of view than from the professional politicians point of view.
A dictatorial government may work occasionally, but very few have the dynamics to really cope with reality after a while. And the average Joe in a non-democratic state has to watch his back on a daily basis to avoid being caught and "questioned" by the local police.
Just consider Spain under Franco, Germany under Hitler, current Burma/Myanmar or Zimbabwe for governments that you want to avoid for various reasons. If you can find non-democratic states that actually works for the average Joe without the risk of being shot or imprisoned you can tell us...
But of course there are states that are considered as democracies, but sometimes it's a good question if they really are. The Patriot act makes one wonder... As does the DMCA... Maybe that country is actually governed by the oil, weapons and entertainment industry more than the true representatives of the people.
Or is he in the same category as "Who the heck is General Failure and why is he reading my drive C?"
Anyway - the level has always been low whenever it comes to dirty tricks in politics. Watergate as an example... Or the OOXML voting.
What many politicians forget are that they are in place to serve the people - not the other way around! Maybe the voting should be held after a period instead and depending on approval rate the person in government may have a span from a voluntary lifetime vacation in Florida to a mandatory lifetime vacation in northern Alaska.
Tickets shall be valid ONLY together with credit card number or other proof of purchase for tickets sold outside the venue.
As a buyer NEVER ever buy for a price higher than the official sales price.
Find scalpers and send them to northern Alaska in the winter.
If you find a scalper outside a venue selling for a higher than official price pay in coins. The smaller the better. Even better if you aren't that interested in the venue - just tie up the scalper by haggling for a while and then when he finally agrees say - forget it...
If you are calling a scalper claim that you are from the copyright board of the venue holder and be very inquisitive for a while.
Request that patent claims has to be specific enough. A too general patent shouldn't be granted, and licensing for a patent has to be related to the amount of effort put into it. So if I design a new antenna in 5 minutes and patent it I may only license the design for a certain amount of money, say $0.5 per piece.
Of course - it's sometimes hard to decide the amount of effort put into a design, but in general - the scale of invention is ranging from obvious to ground-breaking. In the area of antennas it's not really ground-breaking, and often but not always close to obvious. It's more a question of evolution of a previous design.
It is obvious that allow a phone to be bricked by the update is intentional - this doesn't mean that it was designed to be intentional.
A good design would be to let the software do some "self-healing" if a checksum didn't match so that the phone wasn't bricked. By not allowing for that it is effectively the same thing as saying that "We do brick your phone on purpose if you don't use it as we want.". The problem here is that they don't own the device - the consumer does - and by not allowing the consumer to use the device as they want (as long as the consumer doesn't use it as a weapon or so...) they are certainly out on loose ground, at least morally.
So a class action suit is not a bad idea - Just make sure that there are suitable references to other similar cases before bringing it into court. Personally I would prefer a court with a jury appointed (if it's possible).
Because the FCC was unable to grant the same frequencies for GSM in the US as in the rest of the world effectively creating more expensive mobile phones for the consumers and also limiting the international relations.
Instead of using the GSM 900/1800 the US has gone for 850/1900. This has no technical merit since 900/1800 is more effective because they are allowing for a simpler antenna design than 850/1900.
I don't know if there is a yearly fee to pay for an assigned frequency or not, but if someone pays for a frequency and don't use it that's just stupid from an economic point of view. If no yearly fee is required that is effectively creating a waste of resources situation.
is only one component that can be used. A perfectly regular timing is never good when doing security checks. But then - it may be even better if the security checks appears to be regular done by uniformed personnel and then random by plain clothed personnel.
However - security checks are still only one component. For example today's airport buildings are largely a huge open place which means that maximum effect may be obtained outside any security checkpoints today. By reducing the queues to check-ins and building compartments the effective radius of an attack will be contained to a much smaller area.
A theoretical method would be to do image analysis and pattern analysis of behavior, but since the behavior pattern varies much from person to person it will create a large number of false alarms.
even more. All those naming schemes are there for one reason only: To confuse the customers. The amount of time it takes to differentiate between all models just makes things horrible. The older schemes with numbers or names with generation numbers was easier...
But on the other hand - if you sell the same chip with different brandings it's easier to make much more money since it is easier to motivate the higher prices. So probably the processor industry has gone the same way as the car industry and created a multitude of models from the same base with very small differences.
I have heard about a more mundane explanation there and that was that the sea in question actually had ice on it - probably in patches.
Or as the joke goes : Fisherman and Priest is out with a boat and suddenly the fisherman jumps overboard and it looks to the priest as if he is walking on water so the priest does the same thing and got himself submerged. The fisherman returns him to the boat and the priest asks "Are your belief so strong that you can walk on water but mine is too weak?" The fisherman replies: "No but I know where the submerged poles are that I was standing on."
Since the water molecule is asymmetrical, and can sometimes be pictured as the head of mickey mouse with the head as oxygen and the ears as hydrogen atoms it sure is intriguing already there.
And to make things worse:-) it can be formed in a large number of types of ice, not only one type. Which type depends on the pressure involved. (I don't have the exact figure about how many types of ice that exists, but I think it's at least eight.) Some types of ice has a higher density than the liquid form of water while other as we are familiar with has a lower which results in the fact that ice floats. If ice hadn't been able to float life as we know it wouldn't have formed, or at least the oceans would be a lot different since the bottom would be covered in ice.
Depending on the temperature and pressure water can change state from solid to gas or vice versa without going to the liquid phase. There is also at least one point at which the properties that separates the gas form and the liquid form ceases to have a meaning and a fourth state is entered. If I remember it correctly it appears at a temperature of about 340 degrees C. (I may be wrong)
And even if we don't think about it as such water is actually one of the best solvents around. More often we think about some petrol or alcohol when we are saying solvent, but water is also our friend here. The reason why water and oil doesn't mix is because water is a polar molecule with a positive and a negative side while the molecules oil is built on are electrically neutral. An intermediate here are alcohols (a few of them drinkable, but most of them not - or only once) where one end of the molecule is electrically neutral and friend with oil while the other is polarized and water-friendly. This means that alcohols can be used when you want to mix water and oil. In some cases it is possible to create an emulsion of water and oil too, and one of the most common is mayonnaise (which most people has been in contact with).
Sometimes the term heavy water is making it's way through the news. It is actually ordinary water - chemically speaking - which means that there is no problem if you should drink it - except that it's rather expensive. The difference is that one or both of the hydrogen atoms in the molecule has an extra neutron or two. These forms are called deuterium or tritium. The extra neutron involved means that the atoms can be fused with each other to create helium. It is possible to fuse plain hydrogen atoms too, but the amount of energy needed is much larger and not precisely what can be done in a normal lab.
At least two cases has been in movies or TV series that I know of that refers to heavy water and special properties (neither of them plausible) and the first was a humor series involving English POW:s in a German camp where they were trying to seed the idea of the wonder properties of heavy water when it comes to hair growth to a bald German. The second was that it could be used to cure cancer. (don't believe either)
The problem you get with cryogenics is that the ice crystals are breaking the cell walls regardless of the amount of water in the cell, and once the cell is thawed it leaks. The cell breakage is due to the fact that cells are freezing slowly (relatively) which allows for growth of larger crystals. If a way can be found to stop the creation of large ice crystals that breaks through the cells cryogenics will be possible.
And if he has medical records provided to him through the patients? Then the hospital has nothing to come with?
Some court cases should be allowed to proceed without the prosecuted persons identity revealed until after conviction to avoid unpleasant side-effects. And even if medical records were given out - but without the patient's identity revealed - are they still a problem since a specific person can't be directly identified through them. The only thing that may be possible to reveal that way is if the hospital is doing a good job or if they are incompetent.
Dropping weapons into Burma is rather futile - the level of organization is centered around the monks and they have behaved peacefully and aren't likely to pick up weapons - at least not for the reasons of opposing the government. They have other means and use of weapons will probably only end up in more deaths.
For the moment a total blockade against Burma, appropriation of all assets belonging to the Burmese leaders combined with a boycott of the coming Olympic games in China to prove a point is probably the best thing to do.
Too many people thinks that the use of weapons are the best way to resolve a conflict - it may work, but the counterpart may end up dead and his followers may see him as a martyr and be more resilient in their cause. We don't need another Iraq/Vietnam/Afghanistan(soviet).
The use of a veto in the UN seems to be misplaced in this case and there is no reason to keep the ability to place a veto anymore.
The dripping water will eventually hollow the stone.
Probably on Fox - they seems to be completely lost and disconnected from reality...
They are claiming that Jimmy Carter is making things worse in the middle east by at least trying to find a peaceful solution. Most may agree that the true failure here is created by the Bush family.
is a really risky operation. Especially if you can't really prove that the new OS is far better than the old. And with better it has to be better performance, better security, better stability and easier to use.
The problem is that much energy has been wasted on flashy UI and trying to improve security by barking and forcing users to verify everything. This will only result in the "cry wolf" effect and nothing will be gained in security. The best security measures are those that never are visible to the end user but are doing their job silently.
The problem Microsoft now has is that there are user bases on three different basic OS variants, the classic W95/98/ME, the NT4/2k/XP and the Vista. (even though the first one is declining there are a few around that sticks to it for various reasons.) And the licensing rules are getting more and more cumbersome for each release... Lately the hidden updates has proven to cause some less than optimal results too, which only proves that M$ are losing control over their code due to complexity issues.
Not that Linux is free of complexity problems either but it has fewer problems and scales better from very small to very large without unnecessary overhead.
I would prefer to blame the device manufacturers that allows the use of easy passwords in the wild. It is so outdated by now and any sensitive devices should have a protection that is better than only using a password to protect them. Using a certificate solution (smartcard or similar) together with SSH will make things a lot harder for any intruders.
You will first have to define probable cause. It shall also be noted that this is an US specific regulation, in other countries the police may not need it. (not that the patriot act applies there)
An example, it's illegal to drive drunk (surprise!:-) ) in many countries, but in the US the police can't stop to check unless you do anything else illegal. Where I live, in Sweden the police has the right to stop you to check if you are driving drunk regardless. And the legal limit is 0.02% - which explains why there exists light beer in Sweden. (It's light in alcohol - not calories).
to avoid the iPhone. If bricking is a possibility it means that it's either intentional or that the testing of the new firmware has failed. What if unmodified phones goes into brick mode?
It seems to me that it's better to go for a Qtopia based device instead.
Maybe there are services that aren't marketed in your area, but they may still exist. Wimax for example.
Look around and check with your local telecom operators and explain your problem. In some areas power companies also provide broadband access. I ran into this site on the net: Wireless Internet Service which seems to be offering a set of alternatives.
That's theoretical minimum value, reality may be different since not everybody are running full throttle all the time. And if worst scenario comes up it may be practical to install a caching server for web pages which may be able to decrease the traffic over the T1 line to sites like slashdot and CNN...
Slashdot Mirror
A dictatorial government may work occasionally, but very few have the dynamics to really cope with reality after a while. And the average Joe in a non-democratic state has to watch his back on a daily basis to avoid being caught and "questioned" by the local police.
Just consider Spain under Franco, Germany under Hitler, current Burma/Myanmar or Zimbabwe for governments that you want to avoid for various reasons. If you can find non-democratic states that actually works for the average Joe without the risk of being shot or imprisoned you can tell us...
But of course there are states that are considered as democracies, but sometimes it's a good question if they really are. The Patriot act makes one wonder... As does the DMCA... Maybe that country is actually governed by the oil, weapons and entertainment industry more than the true representatives of the people.
Anyway - the level has always been low whenever it comes to dirty tricks in politics. Watergate as an example... Or the OOXML voting.
What many politicians forget are that they are in place to serve the people - not the other way around! Maybe the voting should be held after a period instead and depending on approval rate the person in government may have a span from a voluntary lifetime vacation in Florida to a mandatory lifetime vacation in northern Alaska.
Anybody that has read Ursula LeGuin knows what a HILF is.
Of course - it's sometimes hard to decide the amount of effort put into a design, but in general - the scale of invention is ranging from obvious to ground-breaking. In the area of antennas it's not really ground-breaking, and often but not always close to obvious. It's more a question of evolution of a previous design.
Of course Zennström & co wanted to push up the price, but in the end the buyer is at fault by doing an insufficient market analysis.
A good design would be to let the software do some "self-healing" if a checksum didn't match so that the phone wasn't bricked. By not allowing for that it is effectively the same thing as saying that "We do brick your phone on purpose if you don't use it as we want.". The problem here is that they don't own the device - the consumer does - and by not allowing the consumer to use the device as they want (as long as the consumer doesn't use it as a weapon or so...) they are certainly out on loose ground, at least morally.
So a class action suit is not a bad idea - Just make sure that there are suitable references to other similar cases before bringing it into court. Personally I would prefer a court with a jury appointed (if it's possible).
Instead of using the GSM 900/1800 the US has gone for 850/1900. This has no technical merit since 900/1800 is more effective because they are allowing for a simpler antenna design than 850/1900.
I don't know if there is a yearly fee to pay for an assigned frequency or not, but if someone pays for a frequency and don't use it that's just stupid from an economic point of view. If no yearly fee is required that is effectively creating a waste of resources situation.
However - security checks are still only one component. For example today's airport buildings are largely a huge open place which means that maximum effect may be obtained outside any security checkpoints today. By reducing the queues to check-ins and building compartments the effective radius of an attack will be contained to a much smaller area.
A theoretical method would be to do image analysis and pattern analysis of behavior, but since the behavior pattern varies much from person to person it will create a large number of false alarms.
There may be more reasons, but those are the ones that I think are plausible.
But on the other hand - if you sell the same chip with different brandings it's easier to make much more money since it is easier to motivate the higher prices. So probably the processor industry has gone the same way as the car industry and created a multitude of models from the same base with very small differences.
Or as the joke goes : Fisherman and Priest is out with a boat and suddenly the fisherman jumps overboard and it looks to the priest as if he is walking on water so the priest does the same thing and got himself submerged. The fisherman returns him to the boat and the priest asks "Are your belief so strong that you can walk on water but mine is too weak?" The fisherman replies: "No but I know where the submerged poles are that I was standing on."
And to make things worse :-) it can be formed in a large number of types of ice, not only one type. Which type depends on the pressure involved. (I don't have the exact figure about how many types of ice that exists, but I think it's at least eight.) Some types of ice has a higher density than the liquid form of water while other as we are familiar with has a lower which results in the fact that ice floats. If ice hadn't been able to float life as we know it wouldn't have formed, or at least the oceans would be a lot different since the bottom would be covered in ice.
Depending on the temperature and pressure water can change state from solid to gas or vice versa without going to the liquid phase. There is also at least one point at which the properties that separates the gas form and the liquid form ceases to have a meaning and a fourth state is entered. If I remember it correctly it appears at a temperature of about 340 degrees C. (I may be wrong)
And even if we don't think about it as such water is actually one of the best solvents around. More often we think about some petrol or alcohol when we are saying solvent, but water is also our friend here. The reason why water and oil doesn't mix is because water is a polar molecule with a positive and a negative side while the molecules oil is built on are electrically neutral. An intermediate here are alcohols (a few of them drinkable, but most of them not - or only once) where one end of the molecule is electrically neutral and friend with oil while the other is polarized and water-friendly. This means that alcohols can be used when you want to mix water and oil. In some cases it is possible to create an emulsion of water and oil too, and one of the most common is mayonnaise (which most people has been in contact with).
Sometimes the term heavy water is making it's way through the news. It is actually ordinary water - chemically speaking - which means that there is no problem if you should drink it - except that it's rather expensive. The difference is that one or both of the hydrogen atoms in the molecule has an extra neutron or two. These forms are called deuterium or tritium. The extra neutron involved means that the atoms can be fused with each other to create helium. It is possible to fuse plain hydrogen atoms too, but the amount of energy needed is much larger and not precisely what can be done in a normal lab.
At least two cases has been in movies or TV series that I know of that refers to heavy water and special properties (neither of them plausible) and the first was a humor series involving English POW:s in a German camp where they were trying to seed the idea of the wonder properties of heavy water when it comes to hair growth to a bald German. The second was that it could be used to cure cancer. (don't believe either)
The problem you get with cryogenics is that the ice crystals are breaking the cell walls regardless of the amount of water in the cell, and once the cell is thawed it leaks. The cell breakage is due to the fact that cells are freezing slowly (relatively) which allows for growth of larger crystals. If a way can be found to stop the creation of large ice crystals that breaks through the cells cryogenics will be possible.
Some court cases should be allowed to proceed without the prosecuted persons identity revealed until after conviction to avoid unpleasant side-effects. And even if medical records were given out - but without the patient's identity revealed - are they still a problem since a specific person can't be directly identified through them. The only thing that may be possible to reveal that way is if the hospital is doing a good job or if they are incompetent.
For the moment a total blockade against Burma, appropriation of all assets belonging to the Burmese leaders combined with a boycott of the coming Olympic games in China to prove a point is probably the best thing to do.
Too many people thinks that the use of weapons are the best way to resolve a conflict - it may work, but the counterpart may end up dead and his followers may see him as a martyr and be more resilient in their cause. We don't need another Iraq/Vietnam/Afghanistan(soviet).
The use of a veto in the UN seems to be misplaced in this case and there is no reason to keep the ability to place a veto anymore.
The dripping water will eventually hollow the stone.
They are claiming that Jimmy Carter is making things worse in the middle east by at least trying to find a peaceful solution. Most may agree that the true failure here is created by the Bush family.
The problem is that much energy has been wasted on flashy UI and trying to improve security by barking and forcing users to verify everything. This will only result in the "cry wolf" effect and nothing will be gained in security. The best security measures are those that never are visible to the end user but are doing their job silently.
The problem Microsoft now has is that there are user bases on three different basic OS variants, the classic W95/98/ME, the NT4/2k/XP and the Vista. (even though the first one is declining there are a few around that sticks to it for various reasons.) And the licensing rules are getting more and more cumbersome for each release... Lately the hidden updates has proven to cause some less than optimal results too, which only proves that M$ are losing control over their code due to complexity issues.
Not that Linux is free of complexity problems either but it has fewer problems and scales better from very small to very large without unnecessary overhead.
- Somebody taking a leak in an alley (sure it's nasty, and a felony, but is it worth it?)
- Two members of the same sex kissing?
- Somebody wearing a T-shirt saying that "Bush is an (insert favourite invective here)"
- A gang wearing medieval knight outfit including swords. (can be a weapons felony)
- ...
Just take your pick and figure...So much for probable cause...
I would prefer to blame the device manufacturers that allows the use of easy passwords in the wild. It is so outdated by now and any sensitive devices should have a protection that is better than only using a password to protect them. Using a certificate solution (smartcard or similar) together with SSH will make things a lot harder for any intruders.
An example, it's illegal to drive drunk (surprise! :-) ) in many countries, but in the US the police can't stop to check unless you do anything else illegal. Where I live, in Sweden the police has the right to stop you to check if you are driving drunk regardless. And the legal limit is 0.02% - which explains why there exists light beer in Sweden. (It's light in alcohol - not calories).
It seems to me that it's better to go for a Qtopia based device instead.
But that's too much to hope for...
Look around and check with your local telecom operators and explain your problem. In some areas power companies also provide broadband access. I ran into this site on the net: Wireless Internet Service which seems to be offering a set of alternatives.
That's theoretical minimum value, reality may be different since not everybody are running full throttle all the time. And if worst scenario comes up it may be practical to install a caching server for web pages which may be able to decrease the traffic over the T1 line to sites like slashdot and CNN...