The worse part is the multi-billion dollar corporations have been paid billions by the government to roll out universal broadband to everyone and have never delivered. That's worth whining about.
So the major telcos were given over 200 billion to give broadband to the nation and not delivering, in exchange for special FCC privileges to deny competition from really getting a foothold. There's been numerous articles about the money spent for services never delivered, that was just the first to show up in google.
The '96 telco act was passed to help get competition. CLECs were able to be formed, basically a second fiddle telco setup. Then Bush selected Powel's kid as chairman of the FCC and they went - not surprisingly - for big business monopolistic decisions. They dropped the telco act, they allowed companies to be pure monopolies once again. In fact Ameritech/SBC was petitioning that they wouldn't roll out any more broadband until the act was rolled back as they didn't want competition. They promised that if it was rolled back they'd get everyone on the latest broadband. And the suckers in Washington believed it!
If our telco companies existed in a free market, I'd be perfectly fine with having to move to get real service. Being in federally and state mandated monopolies is just a pain in the ass for innovation and should be complained about often.
Yes, a plumber does electrical work.* By law a master plumber can connect electric to a limited amount for things that fall in the plumbing field. For example pumps, water heaters, garbage disposals, etc.
Mainly you tie in to an existing electrical service and go to your device. You aren't technically supposed to wire a new electrical outlet, or run a new service line from the service. Of course they do, to get the job done. Who's going to pay $100 an hour for a plumber to hook up say, a garbage disposal, that needs a simple new electric line and circuit breaker installed, and also $100 an hour for an electrician to snap in a new circuit breaker? The inspectors just overlook these minor breaches.
The same in the HVAC field. If you install a new central air, the outdoor disconnect technically has to be installed by an electrician. It's done everyday by licensed mechanical contractors to get the job done.
And one of my personal favorite calls to the family's Plumbing/HVAC shop, a lady called the office to report that 'the electric is out on my toilet, could someone be sent to hook it up'.
Anyhow, back to your point. Everyday the plumbers/HVAC guys run into home done, or 'handyman' done work that's horribly shoddy. No different than the huge number of websites done by non-pros. I really love all the 'website design' firms that have contact addresses of @comcast or @verizon or whatever. Anything that doesn't require a license to do makes it easy for ANYONE to do it. Although I dislike any government involvement, having some sort of standard just to advertise internet development might not be so bad.
It's sometimes confusing to remember the rules. When talking about Playboy / Maxim / etc, you get it 'just for the articles'.
And then you go to/. and since there's no eye candy (Unless you get rickrolled or goatse'd) and you actually read the stuff, but have to hide that you do. Confusing!
Check out the latest hugo nominees - that's usually a safe bet on decent books. Pick up a 'best of 2007' type of book with the hugo novellas in them, I find those the best way to discover new authors.
With that said, I've read 3 out of the 5 book nominees and 2 of them (Rollback, Last colony) are quite good - but they're not great. It's like reading some of the later clarke books, they had the sci fi feel but it just didn't pull it all together. I still think they're worth reading but I can only guess last year was a boring year for Sci Fi if those are the best of the best.
It's like a slightly bland pizza, worth eating and you hope the next one is better. Oh wait, this is/. so I should have made a car analogy.
Have you updated to the latest spamassassin, or ran one of the all-in-one wonders like clamAV?
Having recently updated clamAV for the office server after having a year out of date install, I was nicely surprised at the near total elimination of spam.
This includes using a few accounts over a decade old , usenet, and un-obfuscated on spidered websites.
Now quite as cool as the "Warning: This shirt is an illegal circumvention device" that I picked up at the copyleft store. Too bad they're not still around.
This is a joke of a test. It has some of the basic concepts down - visualization, pattern matching, logic puzzles - but the layout and the other sort of questions is not apt. I was asked about the Chunnel - sure I knew it, but local geography should not be applicable.
If anyone wants a real IQ test, take some of the mensa fun tests. That will show what a real test is like.
I only have any second hand knowledge of one auto/oil industry conspiracy theory. I know someone who saw La Force's workshop back in the 70s, there along with engineers from the auto industry. The stock leaded gas engines ran clean enough to run in a closed workshop without exhaust vents, improved mileage and power made a stock v4 feel like a v8 while driving, and ran cool to the touch. After long discussions and viewing, the tech was not invested into as the Big 3 had just thrown their weight - and production lines - behind catalytic converters.
I don't think it was a case of hiding technology, more of bad timing and personality issues. La Force was a chain smoker and had a full time employee who's only job was to light a cigarette when his last was done with. That sort of personality would be hard to work with at the best of times!
La Force also stated that his patents had left off crucial bits, enough to be patented but not enough to be duplicated which is a shame - if he had really created technology that good it'd be out of patent by now. (I can't find the patent numbers offhand by a search)
So while I wouldn't doubt that the Oil industry would work to either buy up, or work to suppress technology that hurts their industry - that's what any business does - I also don't doubt that miraculous inventions are rare. Further inventors who lock themselves in a workshop may indeed be geniuses but have no business acumens to actually figure out how to sell or market their product.
Actually we have had plenty of terrorism. The anthrax attacks of late '01, the Virginia Snipers of '02, let alone a variety of school shootings. Nothing huge and massive since the Patriot Act, and the most recent events have been Domestic Terrorism. But don't forget that it was Americans who did Oklahoma City - we have our own brand of homegrown loonies. But Terrorism has been continuing.
My company's first DMCA notice was for a pre-release Britney spears that a client was sharing on IRC. A subsequent scan of the machine showed it had a trojan and IRC client software on it. That's been the only DMCA for music that we've gotten. It does appear pre-release is watched closer than normal release.
Orion was canned because of treaties against upper atmosphere testing. I first saw the idea in the novel Football. It sounds like it could actually work, but doesn't sound environmentally, or human, friendly.
I just don't see a flat tax, IRS abolishment, etc ever happening. I would not want to imagine the lobbying effort to quash all talk about it. Think of all the accountants, bookkeepers, H+R Blocks, IRS agents, Tax lawyers of the country that will fight tooth and nail to destroy any common sense approach.
Paul and Hucklebee both discussed the ideas during the Republican primaries. Sadly those stories didn't get much traction to really get covered. It was a perfect opportunity to have a serious discussion about it but of course the media typically ignores any real issues.
This last political cycle showed there are some strong divisions within the republican party.
McCain - fight the terrorists Rs
Paul - a classic 'R', small gov, strong constituionalist
Romney + Guiliani - Big Business friendly Rs
Hucklebee - Bible belt Rs
Thompson was also more of a classical R. Smaller government, strong defense, state rights.
Even after McCain had claimed the nomination he still only got 75% of the R vote in PA - the Republicans are not united at all. I'm hoping for some very entertaining mud flinging this year at the Republican one.
You're right about many Republicans using churches. Gay Marriage seemed to be a very popular topic to tie the Rs to the church goer - and of course the topic disappeared once those who used the tactic got elected. If people wise up to the endless shameless pandering, both parties would be in a world of hurt, particularly the Republicans
This was a minor point made in the John Scalzi's "Old Man's War" trilogy. One of the books in it was a recent hugo award nominee. If you could bio-engineer people, why not go for some enhancements. Especially for an alien killing soldier.
2 outdoor meraki units would be a cheap, reliable solution. The outdoor units come weatherproofed, POE, with 25 feet outdoor cat5 pre-attached.
If it's clear line of site you'll get the range easy. Meraki has two basic equipment types - standard and pro. There's a $100 price difference. Basically standard lets you whitelist 5 mac addresses, pro lets you have as many as you want, along with other features.
I have a half dozen meraki to do the 'last mile' to my house and for connecting some business clients. It's reliable and the range is impressive. I get about a half mile with my laptop to the nearest meraki - far longer ranges between meraki units. They're simple to setup, plug and play and a nice web admin.
With the average cost of a AAA brand title being 10-20+ million, I don't see anyone doing this sort of gamble. It's a novel idea, but I don't see it working in the real world.
You'd have lots of secretaries and CPA's that pop in the CD/DVD, install linux and the game, then wonder why they can't play WOW.
I wonder if this includes using a program that makes a photorealistic images from scratch. So no actual person was involved in the picture, it's entirely CG that looks real.
If this lets the lawmakers decide that there should be no anonymity on the Internet, that could be scary. I've seen various bills try this before and hope this isn't the banner that gets such a beast passed.
That said, the woman should just do everyone a favor and hang herself.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned helping out the/. community. Find a half dozen good ideas from the Securing Your Notebook Against US Customs thread and try them on each laptop. When you cross customs with a backpack full of laptops I'm sure you'll get a chance to see which encryption scheme works!
I look forward to hearing the results in a few months, IF you are ever let out of holding...
I second the Morgan. The Kovacs series is great. Market forces is amusing enough but isn't 'great'. Although I saw that movie rights have been bought and that could be neat to see on the big screen.
The more recent series I can think of offhand that I enjoyed include
I've been a member on and off over the years. They do publish some member specific titles - usually collections of short stories, novelles, or '2 in ones' that are cheaper than buying things separately.
Also they do a decent job of selecting 'good' books instead of just popular books. It's a simple enough thing to approve / no approve the 2 auto-ship books. It's a handy way to learn of new titles, authors, etc. But they are a book club - that means if you forget to cancel, you may get book 3 of trilogy you never heard of, so you buy book 1 + 2 to read first to find that wow - that trilogy really sucks. It's not too often that happened, but it did on occassion.
Thinking over my buying decisions, I probably purchased more of the member special books than anything - all 3 books in a trilogy, 2 in ones, collections and whatnot. That's probably the value for joining them. Easy to fill the membership requirements with just that section of the site.
With Habeas Corpus suspended, they can keep you for as long as they want. True I doubt a random flyer with an encrypted computer would get tagged an enemy combatant, but if you are even suspected of being one, regardless of which country you're from, or even a US citizen, you can be held indefinitely.
There's no time limit on how long you can be a 'suspected enemy combatant' before the US has to determine if you really are or not. The best part : "Prisoners are legally prohibited from petitioning any court for any reason before a hearing takes place."
Attorney General Gonzales asserted in Senate testimony that while habeas corpus is "one of our most cherished rights," the United States Constitution does not expressly guarantee habeas rights to United States residents or citizens.
Slashdot Mirror
The worse part is the multi-billion dollar corporations have been paid billions by the government to roll out universal broadband to everyone and have never delivered. That's worth whining about.
So the major telcos were given over 200 billion to give broadband to the nation and not delivering, in exchange for special FCC privileges to deny competition from really getting a foothold. There's been numerous articles about the money spent for services never delivered, that was just the first to show up in google.
The '96 telco act was passed to help get competition. CLECs were able to be formed, basically a second fiddle telco setup. Then Bush selected Powel's kid as chairman of the FCC and they went - not surprisingly - for big business monopolistic decisions. They dropped the telco act, they allowed companies to be pure monopolies once again. In fact Ameritech/SBC was petitioning that they wouldn't roll out any more broadband until the act was rolled back as they didn't want competition. They promised that if it was rolled back they'd get everyone on the latest broadband. And the suckers in Washington believed it!
If our telco companies existed in a free market, I'd be perfectly fine with having to move to get real service. Being in federally and state mandated monopolies is just a pain in the ass for innovation and should be complained about often.
Yes, a plumber does electrical work.* By law a master plumber can connect electric to a limited amount for things that fall in the plumbing field. For example pumps, water heaters, garbage disposals, etc.
Mainly you tie in to an existing electrical service and go to your device. You aren't technically supposed to wire a new electrical outlet, or run a new service line from the service. Of course they do, to get the job done. Who's going to pay $100 an hour for a plumber to hook up say, a garbage disposal, that needs a simple new electric line and circuit breaker installed, and also $100 an hour for an electrician to snap in a new circuit breaker? The inspectors just overlook these minor breaches.
The same in the HVAC field. If you install a new central air, the outdoor disconnect technically has to be installed by an electrician. It's done everyday by licensed mechanical contractors to get the job done.
And one of my personal favorite calls to the family's Plumbing/HVAC shop, a lady called the office to report that 'the electric is out on my toilet, could someone be sent to hook it up'.
Anyhow, back to your point. Everyday the plumbers/HVAC guys run into home done, or 'handyman' done work that's horribly shoddy. No different than the huge number of websites done by non-pros. I really love all the 'website design' firms that have contact addresses of @comcast or @verizon or whatever. Anything that doesn't require a license to do makes it easy for ANYONE to do it. Although I dislike any government involvement, having some sort of standard just to advertise internet development might not be so bad.
He's running Adbrite nowadays.
It's sometimes confusing to remember the rules. When talking about Playboy / Maxim / etc, you get it 'just for the articles'.
And then you go to /. and since there's no eye candy (Unless you get rickrolled or goatse'd) and you actually read the stuff, but have to hide that you do. Confusing!
Check out the latest hugo nominees - that's usually a safe bet on decent books. Pick up a 'best of 2007' type of book with the hugo novellas in them, I find those the best way to discover new authors.
With that said, I've read 3 out of the 5 book nominees and 2 of them (Rollback, Last colony) are quite good - but they're not great. It's like reading some of the later clarke books, they had the sci fi feel but it just didn't pull it all together. I still think they're worth reading but I can only guess last year was a boring year for Sci Fi if those are the best of the best.
It's like a slightly bland pizza, worth eating and you hope the next one is better. Oh wait, this is /. so I should have made a car analogy.
Have you updated to the latest spamassassin, or ran one of the all-in-one wonders like clamAV?
Having recently updated clamAV for the office server after having a year out of date install, I was nicely surprised at the near total elimination of spam. This includes using a few accounts over a decade old , usenet, and un-obfuscated on spidered websites.
Now quite as cool as the "Warning: This shirt is an illegal circumvention device" that I picked up at the copyleft store. Too bad they're not still around.
This is a joke of a test. It has some of the basic concepts down - visualization, pattern matching, logic puzzles - but the layout and the other sort of questions is not apt. I was asked about the Chunnel - sure I knew it, but local geography should not be applicable.
If anyone wants a real IQ test, take some of the mensa fun tests. That will show what a real test is like.
I only have any second hand knowledge of one auto/oil industry conspiracy theory. I know someone who saw La Force's workshop back in the 70s, there along with engineers from the auto industry. The stock leaded gas engines ran clean enough to run in a closed workshop without exhaust vents, improved mileage and power made a stock v4 feel like a v8 while driving, and ran cool to the touch. After long discussions and viewing, the tech was not invested into as the Big 3 had just thrown their weight - and production lines - behind catalytic converters.
I don't think it was a case of hiding technology, more of bad timing and personality issues. La Force was a chain smoker and had a full time employee who's only job was to light a cigarette when his last was done with. That sort of personality would be hard to work with at the best of times!
La Force also stated that his patents had left off crucial bits, enough to be patented but not enough to be duplicated which is a shame - if he had really created technology that good it'd be out of patent by now. (I can't find the patent numbers offhand by a search)
So while I wouldn't doubt that the Oil industry would work to either buy up, or work to suppress technology that hurts their industry - that's what any business does - I also don't doubt that miraculous inventions are rare. Further inventors who lock themselves in a workshop may indeed be geniuses but have no business acumens to actually figure out how to sell or market their product.
But only by the penitent man
Actually we have had plenty of terrorism. The anthrax attacks of late '01, the Virginia Snipers of '02, let alone a variety of school shootings. Nothing huge and massive since the Patriot Act, and the most recent events have been Domestic Terrorism. But don't forget that it was Americans who did Oklahoma City - we have our own brand of homegrown loonies. But Terrorism has been continuing.
My company's first DMCA notice was for a pre-release Britney spears that a client was sharing on IRC. A subsequent scan of the machine showed it had a trojan and IRC client software on it. That's been the only DMCA for music that we've gotten. It does appear pre-release is watched closer than normal release.
Orion was canned because of treaties against upper atmosphere testing. I first saw the idea in the novel Football. It sounds like it could actually work, but doesn't sound environmentally, or human, friendly.
I just don't see a flat tax, IRS abolishment, etc ever happening. I would not want to imagine the lobbying effort to quash all talk about it. Think of all the accountants, bookkeepers, H+R Blocks, IRS agents, Tax lawyers of the country that will fight tooth and nail to destroy any common sense approach.
Paul and Hucklebee both discussed the ideas during the Republican primaries. Sadly those stories didn't get much traction to really get covered. It was a perfect opportunity to have a serious discussion about it but of course the media typically ignores any real issues .
This last political cycle showed there are some strong divisions within the republican party.
Thompson was also more of a classical R. Smaller government, strong defense, state rights.
Even after McCain had claimed the nomination he still only got 75% of the R vote in PA - the Republicans are not united at all. I'm hoping for some very entertaining mud flinging this year at the Republican one.
You're right about many Republicans using churches. Gay Marriage seemed to be a very popular topic to tie the Rs to the church goer - and of course the topic disappeared once those who used the tactic got elected. If people wise up to the endless shameless pandering, both parties would be in a world of hurt, particularly the Republicans
This was a minor point made in the John Scalzi's "Old Man's War" trilogy. One of the books in it was a recent hugo award nominee. If you could bio-engineer people, why not go for some enhancements. Especially for an alien killing soldier.
2 outdoor meraki units would be a cheap, reliable solution. The outdoor units come weatherproofed, POE, with 25 feet outdoor cat5 pre-attached.
If it's clear line of site you'll get the range easy. Meraki has two basic equipment types - standard and pro. There's a $100 price difference. Basically standard lets you whitelist 5 mac addresses, pro lets you have as many as you want, along with other features.
I have a half dozen meraki to do the 'last mile' to my house and for connecting some business clients. It's reliable and the range is impressive. I get about a half mile with my laptop to the nearest meraki - far longer ranges between meraki units. They're simple to setup, plug and play and a nice web admin.
With the average cost of a AAA brand title being 10-20+ million, I don't see anyone doing this sort of gamble. It's a novel idea, but I don't see it working in the real world.
You'd have lots of secretaries and CPA's that pop in the CD/DVD, install linux and the game, then wonder why they can't play WOW.
I wonder if this includes using a program that makes a photorealistic images from scratch. So no actual person was involved in the picture, it's entirely CG that looks real.
If this lets the lawmakers decide that there should be no anonymity on the Internet, that could be scary. I've seen various bills try this before and hope this isn't the banner that gets such a beast passed.
That said, the woman should just do everyone a favor and hang herself.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned helping out the /. community. Find a half dozen good ideas from the Securing Your Notebook Against US Customs thread and try them on each laptop. When you cross customs with a backpack full of laptops I'm sure you'll get a chance to see which encryption scheme works!
I look forward to hearing the results in a few months, IF you are ever let out of holding...
I second the Morgan. The Kovacs series is great. Market forces is amusing enough but isn't 'great'. Although I saw that movie rights have been bought and that could be neat to see on the big screen.
The more recent series I can think of offhand that I enjoyed include
I've been a member on and off over the years. They do publish some member specific titles - usually collections of short stories, novelles, or '2 in ones' that are cheaper than buying things separately.
Also they do a decent job of selecting 'good' books instead of just popular books. It's a simple enough thing to approve / no approve the 2 auto-ship books. It's a handy way to learn of new titles, authors, etc. But they are a book club - that means if you forget to cancel, you may get book 3 of trilogy you never heard of, so you buy book 1 + 2 to read first to find that wow - that trilogy really sucks. It's not too often that happened, but it did on occassion.
Thinking over my buying decisions, I probably purchased more of the member special books than anything - all 3 books in a trilogy, 2 in ones, collections and whatnot. That's probably the value for joining them. Easy to fill the membership requirements with just that section of the site.
With Habeas Corpus suspended, they can keep you for as long as they want. True I doubt a random flyer with an encrypted computer would get tagged an enemy combatant, but if you are even suspected of being one, regardless of which country you're from, or even a US citizen, you can be held indefinitely.
There's no time limit on how long you can be a 'suspected enemy combatant' before the US has to determine if you really are or not. The best part : "Prisoners are legally prohibited from petitioning any court for any reason before a hearing takes place."
Attorney General Gonzales asserted in Senate testimony that while habeas corpus is "one of our most cherished rights," the United States Constitution does not expressly guarantee habeas rights to United States residents or citizens.