But seriously, I wonder at the loud scoffing denials heard from most people at the mention of an "american empire"--and then I remember that very few know that the USA occupies portions (large and small) of over 100 different nations. By invitation, of course!
Umm.. Yes. By invitation. With the possible exception of the two bases in Okinawa, Japan and Ramstein, Germany. These two bases were granted to us as part of the surrender treaties from both countries at the end of WW2. However, I can assure you that if either Germany or Japan were to ask us to leave, we would. Leaving behind the multi-million dollar military bases that we set up there, taking only the movable equipment.
How do I know this would happen? Because it's happened MULTIPLE TIMES in the past. Indeed, just in the past year in Iraq alone the US military has turned over no less than 13 military bases to the fledgling Iraqi army. Here is an incomplete list of JUST Air Force bases closed worldwide. Discounting the ones in the United States (Which, admittedly, make up the majority of the list), there are at least 25 bases that have been closed worldwide, with most of them turned over in whole to the host country.
Of course, Those that say we are "Imperialists" also discount the BILLIONS annually that the United States government pumps into the economies of foreign countries through aid, grants, and (of course) RENT AND TAXES for the land the military bases are on. Yep, that's right. We PAY RENT AND TAXES to the host countries for that land. Not exactly the behavior of an Imperialist country, wouldn't you say? Indeed , an "Empire" is defined as a nation state that has political control over other nation states, and uses that political control to extract the wealth and resources from the subjugated country. How the hell does paying THEM money and giving THEM resources make the U.S. an "Empire"?
It doesn't. Indeed, the whole Imperialism argument is nothing more than intellectual dishonesty and mental masturbation by those that have their hate on for America. Get the facts straight bub. No Imperialism here.
It never fails to amaze me that, when faced with the monumental failure of our bureaucracies to prevent 9/11, we respond by creating yet another bureaucracy. And, to top it off, we allow the dang thing to be unionized, thus ensuring it's utter failure and moribundity for all time.
Sometimes I wonder if we deserve what our forefathers left to us.
I have personally been "pirating" software, television shows and movies for YEARS and have NEVER gotten a virus, trojan or spyware. So "pirating" has been very good to me indeed. Not to say that I do not occasionally pay for all of the above items, but if it is infected with DRM, I prefer to download the cleaner pirate version than to buy the pre-infected version from the store. It's really as simple as that.
Nothing to say that these "moonlets" weren't made of the same stuff of the KT boundary. I forget the name of the particular rare mineral/ore/whatever that defines the KT boundary, but is there a large amount of it on the moon? If there is, wouldn't it then stand to reason that these moonlets would have been made of similar materials? And if they were made of similar materials, would it not then be possible for one of them to have caused the impact event that created the KT boundary?
Of course, IANAA (I am not an Astronomer) so I really have no clue. But it is a compelling idea, don't you think?
In year 2006, inspired by WFT, Ricci Ieong started the development of Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor (COFEE) (Ieong 2006) COFEE uses batch script to manage a list of existing incident response tools and IT security tools volatile data forensics acquisition system similar to WFT, IRCR and FRED. But all the scripts, programs were stored on USB storage device before data acquisition.
Instead of requesting users to key in the output directory, COFEE automatically redirect the output to the inserted USB storage device. With the automatic OS version detection and storage assignment scheme, Operating System dependent program will be automatically selected after the version detection. Investigator only needs to insert the USB storage devices to the target machine and click one to two buttons in order to start the data acquisition process.
Another difference between COFEE with other live forensics toolkits is separation of the data acquisition procedures with the data examination procedures. In WFT, the report generation processes are executed immediately after the data acquisition process on the target machine. However, performing report generation on target machine may also alter the memory content in the target machine. As report generation does not necessarily be executed on target machine, therefore, only data acquisition programs, in COFEE, would be executed on target machines. All program selection, data examination and analysis processes would be performed on investigator machine.
Besides, more forensics programs are supported by COFEE such as screen capture and password capture tools.
Interestingly, this article if from 2006. So COFEE has been around for 2 years already. Fascinating that we are just hearing about it now.
Actually, most small (sub compact) size electric cars have similar ranges to gas powered cars
True. The problem is that most subcompact cars aren't practical either. Maybe for single people or childless couples, but for people with families these vehicles are entirely impractical. Thus the popularity of SUVs.
As for replacing the batteries, even with older systems like lead-acid, it has ALWAYS been cheaper to maintain electrics than gas powered vehicles. Things we take for granted like regular oil changes, tune ups, timing belts etc aren't on electrics at all. On top of that, newer battery systems are projected to last the life of the vehicle. Think about the only maint. you need to do is to change your tires.
This one is COMPLETELY wrong, and shows a real lack of understanding of basic mechanics. Most of the "Electric" cars out there are actually HYBRID cars. Why? Because of the inherent problem of the lack of range of full electrics Since they are hybrids, they have small gasoline engines in them. These engines need all the maintenance of any other engine. So take the normal maintenance costs of a standard automobile, THEN add the costs of replacing the battery pack (roughly 3-5 grand US each 3-5 years) ON TOP of that. NOT cheaper.
Even for full electrics, the maintenance costs are still comparable, because even though there is no Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) in the vehicle, it still has plenty of moving parts that need regular lubrication and get worn out and need replacing over the life of the car. The average full electric vehicle needs about 50% to 75% of the year-to-year maintenance that a hybrid or a standard ICE vehicle needs. But you still need to calculate in the cost of replacing the battery pack every 3-5 years, which pushes the maintenance costs of an Electric to WAY over the cost of an ICE vehicle. if I may demonstrate with a simple chart:
ICE vehicle expected maintenance costs on a yearly basis over 5 years: $1000.00 US Total average maint. costs: $5000.00 US
Hybrid vehicle expected maintenance costs on a yearly basis over 5 years: $1000.00 US Hybrid replacement battery pack costs within a 5 year period: $3000.00 - $5000.00 US Total average maint. costs: $7000.00 - $10,000.00 US
Full Electric Expected Maintenance costs on a yearly basis over 5 years: $500.00 - $750.00 US Electric replacement battery pack costs within a 5 year period: $3000.00 - $5000.00 US Total average maint. costs: $5500.00 - $8750.00
These are rough figures, but I'm sure you can spend some time on edmunds.com or Google and find similar numbers.
One additional point, you aren't taking in the disposal costs of the HIGHLY TOXIC batteries. Yes, some can be recycled, but many cannot. What do we do about those? ICE vehicles are 99% recyclable. Hybrids and Electrics are not, due to the batteries.
california would end up with GOBS more power if they simply redirected the gas for cars into powerplants
Power plants DO NOT run on gasoline. MOST are coal-NG plants, some are Nuclear, some are Hydro power, and a very small number of low-capacity plants run Diesel. So you CANNOT re-direct the gasoline to power plants, they can't use it!
Also, California's power grid problem is twofold: 1) Over-regulation by the California government has economically strangled the power plants, making it a loss-proposition to run a power plant in California.
2) The Eco-Freaks and NIMBYs have wrangled a practical ban on building any NEW power plants in CA, such that demand has now FAR outstripped supply. Thus the rolling blackouts and brownouts. There simply isn't enough power to go around, and no way to get more power plants built.
You will notice that NEITHER of these problems are IN ANY WAY related to Gasoline or automobiles.
Comcast is beginning to feel the pressure, they are stalling for time now with faux "rights bills". Now is the time to push EVEN HARDER for full Net Neutrality legislation. We have them on the ropes, don't let up now!
Your posting style is highly similar to the released chat transcript that accompanies the source code. Can you confirm that you are the same person that released the code?
Probably. Make the holes visible enough for anyone to use and they'll either have to fix the hole, allow people to exploit it or lose customers (either through banning or being unwilling to play with increasing numbers of cheaters).
BINGO.
This is pretty much the standard approach when dealing with software companies that have a history of ignoring well known security flaws in their products (Microsoft, for example). Basically, since they haven't proven themselves honest in dealing with known issues, and real money is on the line via software purchases or subscriptions, the line of reasoning is that they are willingly defrauding people with an inferior product. Since current law is inadequate in regards to software quality, the authorities will not prosecute them for it. Thus it is up to vigilantes to uphold "justice" by punishing the company with lost sales and lost prestige via publishing the exploits and/or source code.
Now, I don't necessarily agree with this line of thought, and I think that the BETTER approach would have been to approach CCP, let them know you obtained the source code and how you did it. Let them know you want to help improve the game by pointing out flaws and that you want nothing for your help. Give them all the info UP FRONT about the flaws and allow them time to fix them (3 to 6 months, depending on the nature of the flaws is considered standard.) While they are working on it, HOLD the source code. If, after the 3 to 6 months, the problems aren't addressed and the company in question seems unwilling to pursue the issues then release the source code to a reputable security group to address.
Unfortunately, this particular hacker doesn't appear to have done the sane thing. (although since there isn't a date listed on the conversation notes, so we have no real way of knowing how long he waited to release.) Instead he appears to be simply threatening them with the issues, and then just releasing the code. Again, we have only limited information to work on, and we don't know the time lines involved, and what the full conversation between CCP and the code holder is/was. But based on the info we do have I'd say he/she approached it in a very juvenile manner almost guaranteed to turn people against him/her and to make bots/hacks/exploits WORSE rather than better.
It's too bad. he/she could have done much good for all EVE players with that info.
Ayup. I'll be doing the same thing when I get home tonight.
1) Fire up the spare laptop and link into neighbor's unsecured wireless router. 2) Fire up Azureus. 3) Download torrent. 4) While waiting for torrent, use home wired network to play EVE. 5) ???? 6) PROFIT!
Heck, you can run Vista usably on hardware up to about 8 years old, with minor upgrades.
No.
Not without using a tool such as vLite to essentially strip Vista down to bare bones. And even then it runs like a dog. 8 year old hardware would be hardware from 2000. We are talking MAYBE a 1Ghz processor, (more likely 800Mgz) and probably either 128 or 256 Mb of RAM. That setup runs XP slowly. Vista, with all the extra overhead the larger kernel is running BARELY FUNCTIONS on a machine such as that.
How do I know? I'VE TRIED IT. Used an old 1Ghz Pentium laptop with 256 MB of RAM, and a vLite'd version of Vista Business with basically NOTHING left in it. Stripped down to basic functionality. It booted, but only JUST. It took no less than 15 minutes to get to the logon screen, and another 5 minutes after that to get to the desktop. Using it was like running an RDP session over a phone line with a large download going at the same time. Slloooooooooooow.
Now, with some extra RAM, that might have been sped up a bit. But in no way would it ever be able to run Vista in a manner that anyone would consider usable. Vista is too big, too bloated, and too damn slow for older hardware. Thankfully, it is on older hardware that Linux really shines. And with fantastic distros like Ubuntu and it's derivatives, there isn't any more reason to fight with Windows if you don't have the cash to upgrade your hardware.
This is what happens when you allow liberals in general and Democrats in specific to have their way with your government. Out of control taxation and spending, and one socialistic program after another. Wake up Cali! The sixties are over, and the hippie ideology was a failure! Time to stop experimenting and vote the commie liberals out!
They've been making fantastic audiophile-grade cards for Win machines for years.
Word of warning though, their older stuff (Santa Cruz in particular) does NOT play nice with Linux, despite being generally fantastic on Windows machines.
Best audio setup I ever had was back when on my old AMD XP1900+ box running Windows XP with my Santa Cruz card hooked to my Monsoon 5.1 flat panel surround sound speakers. Not uber powerful, but INCREDIBLE sound imagery if you were in the "sweet spot". I remember sitting and listening to CDs on my PC because the sound was just so damn much better than even on my stereo.
Unfortunately, that entire setup is long gone. The motherboard burst it's caps, which sent a surge to the audio card, killing it and down to the Monsoon subwoofer (which held all the critical electronics) killing it too. I held onto the Monsoon speakers, but the company went under shortly afterward, and I haven't been able to get replacement parts for it.
Now I just make do with crappy 2.1 onboard audio and elcheapo logitec speakers. The sound is passable for low level listening to background music, but little else. Ahh for the days of yore...
Just take your BDS and shove it. If you even bothered to RTFA, (or even think outside your BDS box for a SECOND) you would see that the Census is being run by The Census Bureau. NOT THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION! The waste was due to:
"significant miscommunication concerning technical requirements between the Census Bureau and Harris"
Why between them? Because:
In 2006, the Census Bureau awarded a $595 million contract to Harris Corp. to develop more than 525,000 handheld computers that enumerators would use to collect data from Americans who did not send in their census forms.
Now, both the current and previous Census Bureau Directors were appointed by George W. Bush, and approved UNANIMOUSLY by The Senate. (Previous being Louis Kincannon, and current being Steve H. Murdock) So, in that sense, they are connected to the Administration, and like all Government agencies, they are answerable to the President.
However, this does NOT mean that GBW had ANY direct impact on this project. In fact, this was a contract negotiated solely between the Census Bureau and Harris Corp. Congress only stepped in when delays and cost overruns had become out of control, and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez (also a Bush appointee) brought the matter before the House Appropriations Committee. They assigned an independent panel (Headed up by REPUBLICAN Dennis Hastert) to look into the matter. The Independent panel decided that it would be better to just go back to doing things the old way rather than CONTINUE TO WASTE TAXPAYER'S MONEY messing around with the hand-helds.
So really, this was just the system working the way it should, and excising waste. The supposed "3 billion lost" is nothing more than a phantom figure that takes the supposed savings by using an electronic method, and counting them as a loss against using the old method. Nowhere is it calculated how much money it would cost to deal with the delays and problems with a faulty and buggy system that had never been deployed on such a wide scale before. I'd imagine that it would cost MUCH more.
Oh, and about that "3 billion"? Check the quote at the end:
Gutierrez plans to tell the subcommittee that the bureau could transfer funds "from existing departmental resources that will fully cover the resources required for the 2010 census.
So in the end, this will cost the taxpayer exactly 0 extra dollars. So much for the Eeevil Bush Administration stealing taxpayer money.
Actually, it is highly likely that it is a bit of both. From the article:
At a March 5 hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Gutierrez said, "significant miscommunication concerning technical requirements between the Census Bureau and Harris" were a main reason for the failings.
I think it was a situation of the "Left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing". Not an uncommon problem in both corporate AND governmental circles. Having previously worked for a company that dealt with government contracts, I can say without a doubt that it is pretty much par for the course when doing that type of work.
I'm just glad to see that the Independant panel had the good smarts to decide to just scrap it and go back to the old way. I can't imagine how much money would have been wasted trying to implement things as they were. Good-on them.
(BTW, does everyone now have hideous Reply to This buttons on their comment display or do I need to refresh something?)
I've got them too. Big honking balloon-ish grey buttons. I don't mind buttons, but it would be nice if they used the same buttons as the "Post Comment" form "Preview" and "Submit" buttons. Those are much nicer.
I don't think they ever bought them. The cost difference is related to the extra time and manpower that a paper census will take vs the costs for an electronic one.
Personally I think this is a good thing. Better to spend money to do things the tried and true way than to experiment with a "hi-tech" solution that may or may not have exploitable weaknesses in it. We've all seen how faulty the electronic voting machines have been, I think it's wise that the census folks don't want to go down that road.
Kudos to the Census people, and to House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Neb) for supporting and encouraging their wise decision.
Slashdot Mirror
Umm.. Yes. By invitation. With the possible exception of the two bases in Okinawa, Japan and Ramstein, Germany. These two bases were granted to us as part of the surrender treaties from both countries at the end of WW2. However, I can assure you that if either Germany or Japan were to ask us to leave, we would. Leaving behind the multi-million dollar military bases that we set up there, taking only the movable equipment.
How do I know this would happen? Because it's happened MULTIPLE TIMES in the past. Indeed, just in the past year in Iraq alone the US military has turned over no less than 13 military bases to the fledgling Iraqi army. Here is an incomplete list of JUST Air Force bases closed worldwide. Discounting the ones in the United States (Which, admittedly, make up the majority of the list), there are at least 25 bases that have been closed worldwide, with most of them turned over in whole to the host country.
Of course, Those that say we are "Imperialists" also discount the BILLIONS annually that the United States government pumps into the economies of foreign countries through aid, grants, and (of course) RENT AND TAXES for the land the military bases are on. Yep, that's right. We PAY RENT AND TAXES to the host countries for that land. Not exactly the behavior of an Imperialist country, wouldn't you say? Indeed , an "Empire" is defined as a nation state that has political control over other nation states, and uses that political control to extract the wealth and resources from the subjugated country . How the hell does paying THEM money and giving THEM resources make the U.S. an "Empire"?
It doesn't. Indeed, the whole Imperialism argument is nothing more than intellectual dishonesty and mental masturbation by those that have their hate on for America. Get the facts straight bub. No Imperialism here.
Or how many TSA Employees can READ at all.
It never fails to amaze me that, when faced with the monumental failure of our bureaucracies to prevent 9/11, we respond by creating yet another bureaucracy. And, to top it off, we allow the dang thing to be unionized, thus ensuring it's utter failure and moribundity for all time.
Sometimes I wonder if we deserve what our forefathers left to us.
Highly unlikely.
I have personally been "pirating" software, television shows and movies for YEARS and have NEVER gotten a virus, trojan or spyware. So "pirating" has been very good to me indeed. Not to say that I do not occasionally pay for all of the above items, but if it is infected with DRM, I prefer to download the cleaner pirate version than to buy the pre-infected version from the store. It's really as simple as that.
Aaand MBGMorden appears to have answered my question for me. Never mind then. :)
Why do you say that?
Nothing to say that these "moonlets" weren't made of the same stuff of the KT boundary. I forget the name of the particular rare mineral/ore/whatever that defines the KT boundary, but is there a large amount of it on the moon? If there is, wouldn't it then stand to reason that these moonlets would have been made of similar materials? And if they were made of similar materials, would it not then be possible for one of them to have caused the impact event that created the KT boundary?
Of course, IANAA (I am not an Astronomer) so I really have no clue. But it is a compelling idea, don't you think?
Mr. Gabriel was reportedly quite Steamed about the theft.
Not difficult to solve at all. No taxation on goods sold over the internet. Done. See? Wasn't that easy?
And why is it that I have a strong suspicion that this mythical woman's "gray matter" is not REALLY what you are interested in fondling?
Please excuse my typo. The article *IS* from 2006, not "if". I gotta proofread more carefully. (When are we gonna get an edit feature Slashdot?)
Here is the original link if anyone wants it: http://scissec.scis.ecu.edu.au/wordpress/conference_proceedings/2006/forensics/Proceedings_Forensics2006.doc
If you scan down about 15% of the way down, there is a blurb about COFEE mixed in with the rest:
Interestingly, this article if from 2006. So COFEE has been around for 2 years already. Fascinating that we are just hearing about it now.
True. The problem is that most subcompact cars aren't practical either. Maybe for single people or childless couples, but for people with families these vehicles are entirely impractical. Thus the popularity of SUVs.
This one is COMPLETELY wrong, and shows a real lack of understanding of basic mechanics. Most of the "Electric" cars out there are actually HYBRID cars. Why? Because of the inherent problem of the lack of range of full electrics Since they are hybrids, they have small gasoline engines in them. These engines need all the maintenance of any other engine. So take the normal maintenance costs of a standard automobile, THEN add the costs of replacing the battery pack (roughly 3-5 grand US each 3-5 years) ON TOP of that. NOT cheaper.
Even for full electrics, the maintenance costs are still comparable, because even though there is no Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) in the vehicle, it still has plenty of moving parts that need regular lubrication and get worn out and need replacing over the life of the car. The average full electric vehicle needs about 50% to 75% of the year-to-year maintenance that a hybrid or a standard ICE vehicle needs. But you still need to calculate in the cost of replacing the battery pack every 3-5 years, which pushes the maintenance costs of an Electric to WAY over the cost of an ICE vehicle. if I may demonstrate with a simple chart:
ICE vehicle expected maintenance costs on a yearly basis over 5 years: $1000.00 US
Total average maint. costs: $5000.00 US
Hybrid vehicle expected maintenance costs on a yearly basis over 5 years: $1000.00 US
Hybrid replacement battery pack costs within a 5 year period: $3000.00 - $5000.00 US
Total average maint. costs: $7000.00 - $10,000.00 US
Full Electric Expected Maintenance costs on a yearly basis over 5 years: $500.00 - $750.00 US
Electric replacement battery pack costs within a 5 year period: $3000.00 - $5000.00 US
Total average maint. costs: $5500.00 - $8750.00
These are rough figures, but I'm sure you can spend some time on edmunds.com or Google and find similar numbers.
One additional point, you aren't taking in the disposal costs of the HIGHLY TOXIC batteries. Yes, some can be recycled, but many cannot. What do we do about those? ICE vehicles are 99% recyclable. Hybrids and Electrics are not, due to the batteries.
Power plants DO NOT run on gasoline. MOST are coal-NG plants, some are Nuclear, some are Hydro power, and a very small number of low-capacity plants run Diesel. So you CANNOT re-direct the gasoline to power plants, they can't use it!
Also, California's power grid problem is twofold:
1) Over-regulation by the California government has economically strangled the power plants, making it a loss-proposition to run a power plant in California.
2) The Eco-Freaks and NIMBYs have wrangled a practical ban on building any NEW power plants in CA, such that demand has now FAR outstripped supply. Thus the rolling blackouts and brownouts. There simply isn't enough power to go around, and no way to get more power plants built.
You will notice that NEITHER of these problems are IN ANY WAY related to Gasoline or automobiles.
You can talk all about supposed efficiency gai
Yeah. Stupid anons with virus links. Stay out of my threads you jerks, or I shall afflict you with Uwe Boll movies!
It can't be any worse than the WOW Pr0n I found on Pirate Bay recently.
:(
Pr0n chicks in green and blue body-paint with fake elf-ears and horns.
Not nearly as hot as you would think it is.
Comcast is beginning to feel the pressure, they are stalling for time now with faux "rights bills". Now is the time to push EVEN HARDER for full Net Neutrality legislation. We have them on the ropes, don't let up now!
In that case;
Can you explain why you took that action you did, rather than the approach I suggested in the second paragraph in this post?:http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=522294&cid=23078056
Your posting style is highly similar to the released chat transcript that accompanies the source code. Can you confirm that you are the same person that released the code?
BINGO.
This is pretty much the standard approach when dealing with software companies that have a history of ignoring well known security flaws in their products (Microsoft, for example). Basically, since they haven't proven themselves honest in dealing with known issues, and real money is on the line via software purchases or subscriptions, the line of reasoning is that they are willingly defrauding people with an inferior product. Since current law is inadequate in regards to software quality, the authorities will not prosecute them for it. Thus it is up to vigilantes to uphold "justice" by punishing the company with lost sales and lost prestige via publishing the exploits and/or source code.
Now, I don't necessarily agree with this line of thought , and I think that the BETTER approach would have been to approach CCP, let them know you obtained the source code and how you did it. Let them know you want to help improve the game by pointing out flaws and that you want nothing for your help. Give them all the info UP FRONT about the flaws and allow them time to fix them (3 to 6 months, depending on the nature of the flaws is considered standard.) While they are working on it, HOLD the source code. If, after the 3 to 6 months, the problems aren't addressed and the company in question seems unwilling to pursue the issues then release the source code to a reputable security group to address.
Unfortunately, this particular hacker doesn't appear to have done the sane thing. (although since there isn't a date listed on the conversation notes, so we have no real way of knowing how long he waited to release.) Instead he appears to be simply threatening them with the issues, and then just releasing the code. Again, we have only limited information to work on, and we don't know the time lines involved, and what the full conversation between CCP and the code holder is/was. But based on the info we do have I'd say he/she approached it in a very juvenile manner almost guaranteed to turn people against him/her and to make bots/hacks/exploits WORSE rather than better.
It's too bad. he/she could have done much good for all EVE players with that info.
Ayup. I'll be doing the same thing when I get home tonight.
1) Fire up the spare laptop and link into neighbor's unsecured wireless router.
2) Fire up Azureus.
3) Download torrent.
4) While waiting for torrent, use home wired network to play EVE.
5) ????
6) PROFIT!
No.
Not without using a tool such as vLite to essentially strip Vista down to bare bones. And even then it runs like a dog. 8 year old hardware would be hardware from 2000. We are talking MAYBE a 1Ghz processor, (more likely 800Mgz) and probably either 128 or 256 Mb of RAM. That setup runs XP slowly. Vista, with all the extra overhead the larger kernel is running BARELY FUNCTIONS on a machine such as that.
How do I know? I'VE TRIED IT. Used an old 1Ghz Pentium laptop with 256 MB of RAM, and a vLite'd version of Vista Business with basically NOTHING left in it. Stripped down to basic functionality. It booted, but only JUST. It took no less than 15 minutes to get to the logon screen, and another 5 minutes after that to get to the desktop. Using it was like running an RDP session over a phone line with a large download going at the same time. Slloooooooooooow.
Now, with some extra RAM, that might have been sped up a bit. But in no way would it ever be able to run Vista in a manner that anyone would consider usable. Vista is too big, too bloated, and too damn slow for older hardware. Thankfully, it is on older hardware that Linux really shines. And with fantastic distros like Ubuntu and it's derivatives, there isn't any more reason to fight with Windows if you don't have the cash to upgrade your hardware.
Democraps; Never met a tax they didn't like.
This is what happens when you allow liberals in general and Democrats in specific to have their way with your government. Out of control taxation and spending, and one socialistic program after another. Wake up Cali! The sixties are over, and the hippie ideology was a failure! Time to stop experimenting and vote the commie liberals out!
Well, there's always these guys: http://www.turtlebeach.com/products/mtgoddl/home.aspx
They've been making fantastic audiophile-grade cards for Win machines for years.
Word of warning though, their older stuff (Santa Cruz in particular) does NOT play nice with Linux, despite being generally fantastic on Windows machines.
Best audio setup I ever had was back when on my old AMD XP1900+ box running Windows XP with my Santa Cruz card hooked to my Monsoon 5.1 flat panel surround sound speakers. Not uber powerful, but INCREDIBLE sound imagery if you were in the "sweet spot". I remember sitting and listening to CDs on my PC because the sound was just so damn much better than even on my stereo.
Unfortunately, that entire setup is long gone. The motherboard burst it's caps, which sent a surge to the audio card, killing it and down to the Monsoon subwoofer (which held all the critical electronics) killing it too. I held onto the Monsoon speakers, but the company went under shortly afterward, and I haven't been able to get replacement parts for it.
Now I just make do with crappy 2.1 onboard audio and elcheapo logitec speakers. The sound is passable for low level listening to background music, but little else. Ahh for the days of yore...
Just take your BDS and shove it. If you even bothered to RTFA, (or even think outside your BDS box for a SECOND) you would see that the Census is being run by The Census Bureau. NOT THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION! The waste was due to:
Why between them? Because:
The Census Bureau is a governmental agency OUTSIDE the influence of this, or any other, administration. The only influence any administration would have is in appointing the Director of the Census (U.S. Code, Title 13, Chapter 1 Subchapter 2, subsection 21).
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=browse_usc&docid=Cite:+13USC21
Now, both the current and previous Census Bureau Directors were appointed by George W. Bush, and approved UNANIMOUSLY by The Senate. (Previous being Louis Kincannon, and current being Steve H. Murdock) So, in that sense, they are connected to the Administration, and like all Government agencies, they are answerable to the President.
However, this does NOT mean that GBW had ANY direct impact on this project. In fact, this was a contract negotiated solely between the Census Bureau and Harris Corp. Congress only stepped in when delays and cost overruns had become out of control, and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez (also a Bush appointee) brought the matter before the House Appropriations Committee. They assigned an independent panel (Headed up by REPUBLICAN Dennis Hastert) to look into the matter. The Independent panel decided that it would be better to just go back to doing things the old way rather than CONTINUE TO WASTE TAXPAYER'S MONEY messing around with the hand-helds.
So really, this was just the system working the way it should, and excising waste. The supposed "3 billion lost" is nothing more than a phantom figure that takes the supposed savings by using an electronic method, and counting them as a loss against using the old method. Nowhere is it calculated how much money it would cost to deal with the delays and problems with a faulty and buggy system that had never been deployed on such a wide scale before. I'd imagine that it would cost MUCH more.
Oh, and about that "3 billion"? Check the quote at the end:
So in the end, this will cost the taxpayer exactly 0 extra dollars. So much for the Eeevil Bush Administration stealing taxpayer money.
I think it was a situation of the "Left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing". Not an uncommon problem in both corporate AND governmental circles. Having previously worked for a company that dealt with government contracts, I can say without a doubt that it is pretty much par for the course when doing that type of work.
I'm just glad to see that the Independant panel had the good smarts to decide to just scrap it and go back to the old way. I can't imagine how much money would have been wasted trying to implement things as they were. Good-on them.
I've got them too. Big honking balloon-ish grey buttons. I don't mind buttons, but it would be nice if they used the same buttons as the "Post Comment" form "Preview" and "Submit" buttons. Those are much nicer.
I don't think they ever bought them. The cost difference is related to the extra time and manpower that a paper census will take vs the costs for an electronic one.
Personally I think this is a good thing. Better to spend money to do things the tried and true way than to experiment with a "hi-tech" solution that may or may not have exploitable weaknesses in it. We've all seen how faulty the electronic voting machines have been, I think it's wise that the census folks don't want to go down that road.
Kudos to the Census people, and to House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Neb) for supporting and encouraging their wise decision.