A regulated economy that balances the benefits of the free market (innovation, economic growth, job creation, etc) with the legitimate concerns of the population about abuses of that market (monopolies, shareholder protection, environmental protection etc).
I look at the corporate world as it exists now and I'm utterly disgusted. The message of the last 10-15 years seems to be "consume, consume, consume". No consideration is given towards stupid questions like "Can we afford it?" or "Is this sustainable". It's all about consumption and short-term profits. And they aren't even limiting themselves to just screwing over customers and the public anymore -- they are screwing over their own shareholders with some of these policies. Meanwhile the CEOs get golden parachutes worth tens of millions, regardless of the shape of the company after they leave it.
Hell, look at the recent stuff going on with the economy. Everything I've heard and read says that the economy is going south, unless people spend and consume. No consideration is given towards "Can people afford it?" If our economy is completely dependent upon deficit spending (both at the individual level AND the Governmental level) then it probably deserves to be cut down to size. Credit cards and Governmental Debt are not investments for the future.
This make me feel nervous, because if they start monitoring the internet all the stuff we like on it will be gone.
It will also be gone if we let the telcos and cable cos have free rein to do whatever the hell they want. When content providers get charged twice (once for their net connection, once for communicating with me) for delivering that content and the service providers are allowed to do whatever they want with my traffic (including man-in-the-middle attacks when they don't like what I'm doing) then the internet as we know it is truly dead.
At least we theoretically have control over the FCC through our elected representatives. You have no control over AT&T or Verizon unless you are a mutual fund manager or own a SHITLOAD of shares.
Half the article was talking about the cable and telephone companies being pissed at the FCC for bitchslapping them (from cable ownership rules and 700MHz auction rules)
Hey, I'm all for consumer protection laws and regulation, but with regards to the cable ownership rules I fail to see how they help me.
My understanding (correct me if I'm wrong) of the issue at hand is that the FCC wants to limit cable ownership to a percentage of the population, i.e: nobody can own more then 40% of the cable subscribers in the United States.
That's all well and good in theory, but how the hell does it help me? That regulation isn't going to magically encourage another cable company to set up shop in my Time Warner dominated area. As long as the cable companies have local monopolies I'm sure they will see no reason not to continue to raise prices and screw their customers.
More meaningful reform would be to separate the physical layer from the service. One neutral not-for-profit entity owns the fiber/copper/coax and leases it to whomever is interested in providing service. It will never happen but I'm at a loss for how else you'd encourage local competition for the last mile, at least with regards to non-wireless technology.
Oh! You must have got the Windows 95 special edition without netbios running wide open to the world by default, the ICMP kernel-mode vulnerabilites, the out of band data exploit, and others.
I was going to say, anybody that claims 9x had no remote exploits has selective memory at best. I can't help but remember the teardrop attack. Hell, back in my script kiddie mudding days, we used to bluescreen Windows 95 users all the time. Usually right in the middle of a PvP battle. Boy did they get pissed off;) By the time they rebooted the battle was over and their corpse had been stripped of anything valuable. Yeah, those were the days;)
Hell, for the longest time, I used an old program called Trumpet Winsock instead of the stock Winsock that shipped with 95. Trumpet was an old 16 bit program but it was mostly compatible with programs running on 95 and it was largely immune to all of the exploits of the day directed at Windows. Plus it had a packet sniffing feature at a time when utilities like Wireshark didn't exist. I learned a lot about various internet protocols thanks to this.
Of course, at least all of the exploits aimed at 95 were just DoS attacks. BSOD and reboot. Contrast it to XP, which allows script kiddies to root the box and make it part of a botnet. I'm not aware of any remotely exploitable services in 9x that allowed that and even if they had the network stack was so unstable that the box would have crashed before too long;)
If you're backing up a disk (especially a bigger hard disk or something), use the bs argument. bs=1M can really speed up hard drive imaging.
I thought it was faster to have the block size set to the HD sector size or some multiple thereof? I've always done bs=4096 for stuff like this.
I just did two tests on my system. One with bs=4096 and the other bs=1048576. Copied 1 GiB of/dev/zero to a file. Block size 4096 finished in 21.6055 seconds, with a transfer rate of 49.7 MB/s. The larger block size finished in 23.9442 seconds, with a transfer rate of 44.8 MB/s. Admittedly, this probably isn't a scientific test -- could anybody shed some light on which way is generally more efficient?
From this it doesn't follow that the law on speeding should change
Sure it does, if said speed limits are artificially low. There's a stretch of highway in my town where the posted limit is 55 and the average speed is 70. There isn't an abundance of accidents due to this higher speed and even the cops won't bother pulling you over until you exceed 70. So why is it posted 55?
Many speed limits are set artificially low. They should be raised.
Why not? It's an awesome solution. I can whitelist websites that I visit often and temporally whitelist sites I visit rarely that don't display properly without it. NoScript lets you do all of this with a few mouseclicks.
I was skeptical when I first saw it in action because it annoyed me that a few websites didn't display properly. But I became convinced of the merits of using it after realizing it effectively blocks the few pop-ups that Firefox doesn't catch as well as making the whole browsing experience safer.
I use it exclusively for my Zune *ducks*, which I fill with subscription DRM tracks from the Zunepass service *ducks again*.
I'm not sure if you are joking or not, but in all seriousness, I'd rather have the stereo that plays mp3s from data CDs then an external unit like a Zune or Ipod.
In fact the various iPod docking stations out there would drive me absolutely nuts if I had one in my car. Who the hell was the moron that came up with the idea of putting a bright blue led on a device used in automobiles that are presumably driven at night? Besides white, is there a worse possible color choice for this application? Couldn't they have used red leds?
Hell, it's not just the iPod docking station either. Why the hell do most bluetooth headsets flash blue leds when turned on? Red is a hellva lot less distracting in a dark environment. The worst part is that most of the headsets on the market already have red leds -- they've just chosen to assign them to something else and flash the blue one for 'power on'. At least a handful of them let you disable this "feature", of course then you have no idea if the thing is turned on or not....
That is never going to happen though - nothing pushes corporate developers to work with the standards.
Large numbers of their customers using FF would force them to consider working with the standards. Don't know how much help that would be with in-house apps (though is there a rule that says it's automatically more expensive and time consuming to design an in-house site for more then just IE?) but it'd be a huge boon to those of us that can't even use our fucking online banking sites in FF.
What difference does it make? Forget about party affiliation. If your Congresscritter knows that he has a surefire shot at re-election then what incentive does he have to listen to you?
Gerrymandering doesn't piss me off because it ensures that a Republican or Democrat will win. It pisses me off because it ensures that whoever is currently in office will remain so (until re-districting). How sad is it when out of 435 Congressional Districts only 30 or so are actually competitive?
No, really, these kind of people spend millions of dollars in anti-virus, anti-spyware and other kind of crap that doesn't work when they could use FF and solve 90% of their problems.
Actually, it's not quite as easy as just installing FF and making it the default browser. Firefox on it's own in the default configuration will protect your users from a lot of stuff (ActiveX installers come to mind), but I've found that some stuff will still get through.
FF with NoScript installed is a much better option if you don't mind spending a few minutes with your end-users and explaining what Javascript is, why it's abused and only to enable it for trusted websites. Amazingly enough I've found that even most of my computer-illiterate users are able to grasp this concept and I haven't had a single machine using the FF/NoScript combo infected with anything nasty.
But more importantly, who cares? It's not like Firefox's stockholders are going to revolt.
Who cares? Those of us that hope that Firefox gains enough market share that people will stop being morons and developing websites that only work in IE. Then maybe we'll get back to standards instead of browser specific webpages and extensions.
maybe my next car will have an MP3 player, but I dont want to bother spending any money upgrading my current one
One of the selling points for my car was that lousy factory stereo would play mp3s. It's not digital storage -- you just burn data CDs filled with mp3s sorted by directory -- but 700 megs is a lot of music with mp3s. More then enough for most of my car rides, plus you can always burn more CDs if you need to:)
I'm surprised this isn't standard equipment nowadays. My Car is anything but high-end and it came with it.....
18 USC 2518(4) Any provider of wire or electronic communication service, landlord, custodian or other person furnishing such facilities or technical assistance shall be compensated therefor by the applicant for reasonable expenses incurred in providing such facilities or assistance.
You should get a +5 informative for digging that citation up. Good find.
If the government feels the expense is not reasonable they should ask the court for relief.
The Government considers a lot of expenses "reasonable". I guess I'm wondering (as a taxpayer) if AT&T charging an FBI office over sixty thousand dollars for wiretaps is "reasonable".
why whould it pay for any goods or services they provide?
Paying for goods and services is one thing. Being gouged for them after providing an industry with numerous Government hand-outs is another.
TFA said that one office had over $66,000 owed to a single telco. Either they had a shitload of wiretaps or the phone company is gouging them. I can't find the old/. story, but recall the story where the Comcast guide for law enforcement (including fees for retrieval of records and wiretaps) was posted? Some of the fees they were charging seemed grossly out of line with the actual cost of providing said services.
Given that all modern telephone systems have built-in facilities for "lawful interception" (mandated by law) and that all modern telephone switches are completely digital, I'd stand by my assumption that it probably only takes keystrokes to enable a wiretap.
How long does it take you to mirror an ethernet port on that managed switch at your office? If the Government showed you a warrant for one of your users and requested said monitoring, could you really justify charging them thousands (or even hundreds) of dollars for the ten minutes it would take to set that up?
So I guess this proves we should not give them a pass on the illegal ones since they will stop tapping for money,
Actually, regardless of what you think about all the warrentless wiretapping stuff, why the hell are the telcos even allowed to charge for this service to begin with?
If you believe that wiretaps (approved with due process of law) serve a purpose in criminal and/or national security investigations then how the hell can you condone the telcos charging for them? After they have received billions of dollars in tax breaks, Government assistance, laws mandating that they have the right of way to build their networks, Government granted monopolies, blah, blah, blah. After all that, they get to charge the Government money for this service? How much does it actually cost to setup a wiretap on a modern system? I'll go out on a limb and say it's probably all done from a keyboard.
Then I could call, pretending I was him (because otherwise, they wouldn't even talk to me at cust. service)
The nerve of those bastard CSRs at T-Mobile, not being willing to perform actions on your bosses account when you called. I mean it's almost as if they want to talk to the account holder or something.....
I was informed I'd have to wait 24 hours for the code to be emailed to me
I had to wait 48 hours for mine. What of it? The CSRs don't have access to them. In many cases I'm told that T-Mobile itself doesn't even have access to them and they have to request it from Motorola or Nokia and wait for them to respond.
On top of all that, I was informed that they'd only provide these unlock codes to people who called within the first 90 days of cancellation
Just how long after you leave SHOULD they invest resources into you? Three months seems fair. If you don't get your phone unlocked within three months then it obviously isn't a priority for you. If I buy a carrier dependent phone I'm going to get it unlocked ASAP, I'm not even going to wait to leave them.
There's a lot that's wrong with the wireless industry in the United States but I don't think the unlocking policies of either T-Mobile or AT&T are part of that. Contrast it to the CDMA side of the pond, where you can't even use your phone on another carrier at the present time (though that could be changing).
Just to respond to this -- a president cannot sit quietly with the resources of the entire federal government at his disposal while Americans suffer and die. All the Bush aplogists can explain the "sitting" part all they want, but they can't explain the "quietly" part. It's the responsibility of the President to lead, and that means (for instance) addressing the nation immediately when there is a crisis on that scale and the local government is screwing up. That's what the bully pulpit is for, and Bush failed to use it.
You'd get mod points if I had them. An absolutely brilliant observation about the whole situation with Katrina.
Isn't it depressing how in 60 years we've gone from "The Buck Stops Here" to "Well, it's really the fault of the State and Local Government", or "It's really the fault of the intelligence community" and my personal favorite of "I don't recall".
Your the fucking President of the United States of America! You aren't supposed to make excuses for failures that occur on your watch. Your supposed to lead. For all his flaws, President Clinton understood this. He wouldn't have ignored a memo saying "OBL determined to attack the US". He wouldn't have sat on his ass while Katrina happened waiting for a phone call from the Governor or Mayor. He wouldn't have disregarded the opinions of the most experienced man in his cabinet (Colin Powell) during the build-up for war.
Fuck! We need leadership. Not excuses. I don't care if it comes from the left or right. Take some fucking responsibility for what happens on your watch. If whomever wins in 2008 does that (even if it's a Republican that I can't stand) I'll feel a lot better about our future.
Umm, I live in Binghamton. I was born upstate. Other then college I've lived upstate my entire life.
The narrow Republican majority in the Senate is the only thing keeping our issues from complete obscurity
I'm sorry, but I disagree. If you look at the basic problems of New York State Government (state and local tax burden, unfunded mandates, dysfunctional state government that isn't responsive to the citizens) the Republicans in the Senate share just as much of the blame as everybody else and I'm not going to return them to office on the theory that they are the only thing standing between us and the city.
I know it's not popular to say this but we need New York City just as much as they need us and they have legitimate complaints about state government too. And even if I bought into your argument that the Senate is the only thing standing between us and domination by them, how the hell does Bruno get credit for that? His strongman tactics and abuse of the minority party serve what purpose again? How does forcing everybody in the chamber to be your bitch help retain a Republican majority?
At the end of the day, thanks to him and Sliver, if you are a Republican in the Assembly or Democrat in the Senate then you might as well not even bother to show up, because the leadership isn't going to allow anything you purpose to come to fruition. Once upon a time it was actually so bad that the members of the minority party in either chamber couldn't even get a budget for office supplies.
It's just that we don't tend to run around kicking up a ruckus
Maybe you should. It would be interesting to find out if there is really a "silent majority" in this country opposed to all of the extremist points of view (on both sides of the aisle) and your stated opinions would seem to place you into a category of the silent majority.
"Religious Right" is a pretty broad brush
I define it as religion being used to obtain a political end or political support.
and I promise you that I disagree with many (most?) religious conservatives on a lot of issues
It seems to me (as a secular outsider to the Republican Party) that the Republicans are using all of you. While I'm sure that abortion and gay marriage are quite effective at "turning out the base", I've read the Bible and I don't recall Jesus making either of those items a priority. I do recall him advocating for helping the poor and downtrodden. Of course I haven't heard a whole lot of Republicans using that to appeal to religious voters.....
Not by a longshot. I've looked at him before, and I have a lot of respect for him, but he's too much of a liberal, even for me.
And if he is saying that he isn't voting for Kucinich because he doesn't have a chance, that is actually NOT FINE
That has no bearing on my decision whatsoever. In the 2004 Democratic Primaries I voted for Edwards, even though it was all over but the crying by the time it rolled around to my state and the two of them (Kerry and Edwards) were the only ones left in the race.
There is no prize for voting for the guy or gal who eventually winds up in the Oval Office. It REALLY pisses me off when people think that way.
No, but there is such a thing as strategic voting. Even if I liked him enough to vote for him (I didn't) there is no chance in hell that I would have voted for Nader in 2000 had I lived in a battleground state. Bush stood on the other side of nearly every single issue that's important to me.
I don't buy into the argument that you "wasted" your vote if you vote for a third-party candidate, but what REALLY pisses me off is when people think that there is no difference between people like Bush and Gore and use that argument to try and convince people to vote for the third-party guy. If you don't like either of them or believed that Nader is better then both, then you should have voted for him. But don't dare presume to tell me that there is no difference between the two major candidates in that race. While both parties are way too beholden to corporate interests (Nader's chief complaint, IIRC), it's the height of stupidity to assume that the two major parties are the "same". If you have an opinion on abortion, foreign policy, or climate change (just to name a few) then you can't actually think that the Republicans and Democrats are the same.
I don't blame Ralph Nader for running and I don't blame people for voting for him, but I stopped taking him seriously when he suggested that things would be no different if Al Gore had won. I stopped taking his supporters seriously when they agreed with that statement. Say what you will about Mr. Gore, but I find it extremely unlikely that we'd be in Iraq right now if he had won in 2000.
If you are saying that you won't vote for Kucinich because you don't think he has a chance, and are therefore supporting Obama, then fine. But based on your summary of your ideals, Kucinich seems to be the guy for you if he had more of a chance.
Kucinich is not my guy for a variety of reasons. Chief among them being that I don't share his flower-child like view of foreign policy and I think quite a few of his economic views are too far to the left, even for me. I can honestly say that there are a few Republicans I'd probably vote for way before Kucinich would get my vote.
There are lots of defining moments in American history. 9/11 is most certainly one of them no matter how little you want it to be
9/11 is a defining moment in American history. It's not the defining moment however, and I stand by my comments that I'm sick and fucking tired of Republican politicians using terrorism to scare people into voting for them.
How is it any less defining than Pearl Harbor?
Funny that you should mention Pearl Harbor. If George W. Bush and his neo-con cronies had been in charge when Pearl Harbor happened he would outsourced the job of defeating the Japanese to some local tribal factions while using it as an excuse to scare people into supporting a war with Iraq. Then when Democratic politicians tried to disagree with this course of action he would have accused of them of "emboldening the Japs" and run political ads linking them to Hirohito, all the while planning to invade a country that had NOTHING TO DO WITH THE ATTACK ON OUR COUNTRY.
Beyond that, Pearl Harbor was a defining moment in American history not because of the attack itself, but because of our reaction to it. Americans put aside two decades of isolationism to join the global fight for freedom. We built alliances with nations on every single continent, founded the United Nations and provided the funds to rebuild Europe and Japan. Every single American from the solider on the front lines to the women working in factories contributed something to the war effort.
Contrast this to 9/11, where Bush used it as an excuse to invade Iraq, alienating the entire world. And sacrifice? Pa-leeze. They haven't asked us to do anything more then continue to spend and consume. God forbid we should have a draft to supply the troops we need (we'd actually have to justify the war to the masses) or raise taxes to pay for the war (watch how quickly his rich corporate backers would ditch him if they had to pay for this little adventure in the sand).
Women's rights groups for nearly a decade went on Oprah decrying the situation in Afghanistan. Americans (plus our NATO allies) went in after 9/11 and changed the course of that country forever. But, since the Bush administration was the catalyst for such happenings, it is not trumpeted as a success by these organizations and our media
Bush wasn't the catalyst for changing the course of Afghanistan. 9/11 was the catalyst. Any President would have deposed the Taliban after 9/11 and their refusal to hand over OBL. Bush doesn't get to claim FDR's mantle in a global fight for freedom when his very actions belie that claim and he has alienated the entire world. It should tell you something when a majority of Brits have an unfavorable view of the United States and think we are a threat to world peace. Our most important and longest lasting alliance, with a country that we share a common history and culture with, and the majority of it's population no longer respects us. If we can't win them over do you really think that we stand a chance in hell with the youth of the Middle East?
And woman's rights in Afghanistan? Who gives a shit! It's not our job to impose our morality on the rest of the world. If that's your justification for the war then when are we going to get around to invading Saudi Arabia? Or any one of a dozen African countries that allow female genital mutilation?
That we can defeat the ideology that seeks to imprison the globe
That ideology is only represented by a handful of extremists, whom would quickly find their source of cannon-fodder dried up if we got rid of our interventionist foreign policy and outright hypocrisy.
and isn't one to seek purely police action against entities that are propped up and hiding in failed states
Yes, much better to outsource the job to local tribes then it is to throw cruise missiles from beyond the horizon. All the criticism o
If you mean the American People, that argument lost all validity with the 2004 elections
Yes, because 100% of the American population voted for GWB in 2004. I mean it's not as if 49% of the country voted against him or anything. Hell, it's not as if the guy running against him in 2000 got more votes or anything.
Besides all that, Bush largely won that election on fear. While I'm not advocating that as an excuse, it's hardly unknown for extreme leaders to come to power after using an external threat to scare the hell out of the populace. And it's hardly unique to the United States either.
I have a feeling that, whoever ends up in the White House, Congress is going to be far less willing to simply hand over the keys and say "You drive, we'll sit back here and enjoy the ride!"
You have a lot more faith then I do, because the history of the last 100 years is one of Congress ceding power after power to the Executive Branch. Beyond that, it seems that in this day and age that party matters more then principle. Recall some of the things that Republican Congressman said about Clinton went he went into Kosovo. Now try and reconcile that with the Republicans saying that people are "supporting the terrorists" if they dare to criticize Bush policy in Iraq or Afghanistan.
The Republican Congress bent over backwards to give Bush his "agenda" even where that agenda stood in contrast to Republican ideals. I'd like to think that a Democratic Congress would be less inclined to do that with a Democratic President, but I'm not holding my breath.
Slashdot Mirror
A regulated economy that balances the benefits of the free market (innovation, economic growth, job creation, etc) with the legitimate concerns of the population about abuses of that market (monopolies, shareholder protection, environmental protection etc).
I look at the corporate world as it exists now and I'm utterly disgusted. The message of the last 10-15 years seems to be "consume, consume, consume". No consideration is given towards stupid questions like "Can we afford it?" or "Is this sustainable". It's all about consumption and short-term profits. And they aren't even limiting themselves to just screwing over customers and the public anymore -- they are screwing over their own shareholders with some of these policies. Meanwhile the CEOs get golden parachutes worth tens of millions, regardless of the shape of the company after they leave it.
Hell, look at the recent stuff going on with the economy. Everything I've heard and read says that the economy is going south, unless people spend and consume. No consideration is given towards "Can people afford it?" If our economy is completely dependent upon deficit spending (both at the individual level AND the Governmental level) then it probably deserves to be cut down to size. Credit cards and Governmental Debt are not investments for the future.
It will also be gone if we let the telcos and cable cos have free rein to do whatever the hell they want. When content providers get charged twice (once for their net connection, once for communicating with me) for delivering that content and the service providers are allowed to do whatever they want with my traffic (including man-in-the-middle attacks when they don't like what I'm doing) then the internet as we know it is truly dead.
At least we theoretically have control over the FCC through our elected representatives. You have no control over AT&T or Verizon unless you are a mutual fund manager or own a SHITLOAD of shares.
Hey, I'm all for consumer protection laws and regulation, but with regards to the cable ownership rules I fail to see how they help me.
My understanding (correct me if I'm wrong) of the issue at hand is that the FCC wants to limit cable ownership to a percentage of the population, i.e: nobody can own more then 40% of the cable subscribers in the United States.
That's all well and good in theory, but how the hell does it help me? That regulation isn't going to magically encourage another cable company to set up shop in my Time Warner dominated area. As long as the cable companies have local monopolies I'm sure they will see no reason not to continue to raise prices and screw their customers.
More meaningful reform would be to separate the physical layer from the service. One neutral not-for-profit entity owns the fiber/copper/coax and leases it to whomever is interested in providing service. It will never happen but I'm at a loss for how else you'd encourage local competition for the last mile, at least with regards to non-wireless technology.
I was going to say, anybody that claims 9x had no remote exploits has selective memory at best. I can't help but remember the teardrop attack. Hell, back in my script kiddie mudding days, we used to bluescreen Windows 95 users all the time. Usually right in the middle of a PvP battle. Boy did they get pissed off ;) By the time they rebooted the battle was over and their corpse had been stripped of anything valuable. Yeah, those were the days ;)
Hell, for the longest time, I used an old program called Trumpet Winsock instead of the stock Winsock that shipped with 95. Trumpet was an old 16 bit program but it was mostly compatible with programs running on 95 and it was largely immune to all of the exploits of the day directed at Windows. Plus it had a packet sniffing feature at a time when utilities like Wireshark didn't exist. I learned a lot about various internet protocols thanks to this.
Of course, at least all of the exploits aimed at 95 were just DoS attacks. BSOD and reboot. Contrast it to XP, which allows script kiddies to root the box and make it part of a botnet. I'm not aware of any remotely exploitable services in 9x that allowed that and even if they had the network stack was so unstable that the box would have crashed before too long ;)
I thought it was faster to have the block size set to the HD sector size or some multiple thereof? I've always done bs=4096 for stuff like this.
I just did two tests on my system. One with bs=4096 and the other bs=1048576. Copied 1 GiB of /dev/zero to a file. Block size 4096 finished in 21.6055 seconds, with a transfer rate of 49.7 MB/s. The larger block size finished in 23.9442 seconds, with a transfer rate of 44.8 MB/s. Admittedly, this probably isn't a scientific test -- could anybody shed some light on which way is generally more efficient?
Sure it does, if said speed limits are artificially low. There's a stretch of highway in my town where the posted limit is 55 and the average speed is 70. There isn't an abundance of accidents due to this higher speed and even the cops won't bother pulling you over until you exceed 70. So why is it posted 55?
Many speed limits are set artificially low. They should be raised.
Why not? It's an awesome solution. I can whitelist websites that I visit often and temporally whitelist sites I visit rarely that don't display properly without it. NoScript lets you do all of this with a few mouseclicks.
I was skeptical when I first saw it in action because it annoyed me that a few websites didn't display properly. But I became convinced of the merits of using it after realizing it effectively blocks the few pop-ups that Firefox doesn't catch as well as making the whole browsing experience safer.
I'm not sure if you are joking or not, but in all seriousness, I'd rather have the stereo that plays mp3s from data CDs then an external unit like a Zune or Ipod.
In fact the various iPod docking stations out there would drive me absolutely nuts if I had one in my car. Who the hell was the moron that came up with the idea of putting a bright blue led on a device used in automobiles that are presumably driven at night? Besides white, is there a worse possible color choice for this application? Couldn't they have used red leds?
Hell, it's not just the iPod docking station either. Why the hell do most bluetooth headsets flash blue leds when turned on? Red is a hellva lot less distracting in a dark environment. The worst part is that most of the headsets on the market already have red leds -- they've just chosen to assign them to something else and flash the blue one for 'power on'. At least a handful of them let you disable this "feature", of course then you have no idea if the thing is turned on or not....
Large numbers of their customers using FF would force them to consider working with the standards. Don't know how much help that would be with in-house apps (though is there a rule that says it's automatically more expensive and time consuming to design an in-house site for more then just IE?) but it'd be a huge boon to those of us that can't even use our fucking online banking sites in FF.
What difference does it make? Forget about party affiliation. If your Congresscritter knows that he has a surefire shot at re-election then what incentive does he have to listen to you?
Gerrymandering doesn't piss me off because it ensures that a Republican or Democrat will win. It pisses me off because it ensures that whoever is currently in office will remain so (until re-districting). How sad is it when out of 435 Congressional Districts only 30 or so are actually competitive?
Actually, it's not quite as easy as just installing FF and making it the default browser. Firefox on it's own in the default configuration will protect your users from a lot of stuff (ActiveX installers come to mind), but I've found that some stuff will still get through.
FF with NoScript installed is a much better option if you don't mind spending a few minutes with your end-users and explaining what Javascript is, why it's abused and only to enable it for trusted websites. Amazingly enough I've found that even most of my computer-illiterate users are able to grasp this concept and I haven't had a single machine using the FF/NoScript combo infected with anything nasty.
Who cares? Those of us that hope that Firefox gains enough market share that people will stop being morons and developing websites that only work in IE. Then maybe we'll get back to standards instead of browser specific webpages and extensions.
One of the selling points for my car was that lousy factory stereo would play mp3s. It's not digital storage -- you just burn data CDs filled with mp3s sorted by directory -- but 700 megs is a lot of music with mp3s. More then enough for most of my car rides, plus you can always burn more CDs if you need to :)
I'm surprised this isn't standard equipment nowadays. My Car is anything but high-end and it came with it.....
You should get a +5 informative for digging that citation up. Good find.
If the government feels the expense is not reasonable they should ask the court for relief.The Government considers a lot of expenses "reasonable". I guess I'm wondering (as a taxpayer) if AT&T charging an FBI office over sixty thousand dollars for wiretaps is "reasonable".
Paying for goods and services is one thing. Being gouged for them after providing an industry with numerous Government hand-outs is another.
TFA said that one office had over $66,000 owed to a single telco. Either they had a shitload of wiretaps or the phone company is gouging them. I can't find the old /. story, but recall the story where the Comcast guide for law enforcement (including fees for retrieval of records and wiretaps) was posted? Some of the fees they were charging seemed grossly out of line with the actual cost of providing said services.
Given that all modern telephone systems have built-in facilities for "lawful interception" (mandated by law) and that all modern telephone switches are completely digital, I'd stand by my assumption that it probably only takes keystrokes to enable a wiretap.
How long does it take you to mirror an ethernet port on that managed switch at your office? If the Government showed you a warrant for one of your users and requested said monitoring, could you really justify charging them thousands (or even hundreds) of dollars for the ten minutes it would take to set that up?
Actually, regardless of what you think about all the warrentless wiretapping stuff, why the hell are the telcos even allowed to charge for this service to begin with?
If you believe that wiretaps (approved with due process of law) serve a purpose in criminal and/or national security investigations then how the hell can you condone the telcos charging for them? After they have received billions of dollars in tax breaks, Government assistance, laws mandating that they have the right of way to build their networks, Government granted monopolies, blah, blah, blah. After all that, they get to charge the Government money for this service? How much does it actually cost to setup a wiretap on a modern system? I'll go out on a limb and say it's probably all done from a keyboard.
The nerve of those bastard CSRs at T-Mobile, not being willing to perform actions on your bosses account when you called. I mean it's almost as if they want to talk to the account holder or something.....
I was informed I'd have to wait 24 hours for the code to be emailed to meI had to wait 48 hours for mine. What of it? The CSRs don't have access to them. In many cases I'm told that T-Mobile itself doesn't even have access to them and they have to request it from Motorola or Nokia and wait for them to respond.
On top of all that, I was informed that they'd only provide these unlock codes to people who called within the first 90 days of cancellationJust how long after you leave SHOULD they invest resources into you? Three months seems fair. If you don't get your phone unlocked within three months then it obviously isn't a priority for you. If I buy a carrier dependent phone I'm going to get it unlocked ASAP, I'm not even going to wait to leave them.
There's a lot that's wrong with the wireless industry in the United States but I don't think the unlocking policies of either T-Mobile or AT&T are part of that. Contrast it to the CDMA side of the pond, where you can't even use your phone on another carrier at the present time (though that could be changing).
You'd get mod points if I had them. An absolutely brilliant observation about the whole situation with Katrina.
Isn't it depressing how in 60 years we've gone from "The Buck Stops Here" to "Well, it's really the fault of the State and Local Government", or "It's really the fault of the intelligence community" and my personal favorite of "I don't recall".
Your the fucking President of the United States of America! You aren't supposed to make excuses for failures that occur on your watch. Your supposed to lead. For all his flaws, President Clinton understood this. He wouldn't have ignored a memo saying "OBL determined to attack the US". He wouldn't have sat on his ass while Katrina happened waiting for a phone call from the Governor or Mayor. He wouldn't have disregarded the opinions of the most experienced man in his cabinet (Colin Powell) during the build-up for war.
Fuck! We need leadership. Not excuses. I don't care if it comes from the left or right. Take some fucking responsibility for what happens on your watch. If whomever wins in 2008 does that (even if it's a Republican that I can't stand) I'll feel a lot better about our future.
Umm, I live in Binghamton. I was born upstate. Other then college I've lived upstate my entire life.
The narrow Republican majority in the Senate is the only thing keeping our issues from complete obscurityI'm sorry, but I disagree. If you look at the basic problems of New York State Government (state and local tax burden, unfunded mandates, dysfunctional state government that isn't responsive to the citizens) the Republicans in the Senate share just as much of the blame as everybody else and I'm not going to return them to office on the theory that they are the only thing standing between us and the city.
I know it's not popular to say this but we need New York City just as much as they need us and they have legitimate complaints about state government too. And even if I bought into your argument that the Senate is the only thing standing between us and domination by them, how the hell does Bruno get credit for that? His strongman tactics and abuse of the minority party serve what purpose again? How does forcing everybody in the chamber to be your bitch help retain a Republican majority?
At the end of the day, thanks to him and Sliver, if you are a Republican in the Assembly or Democrat in the Senate then you might as well not even bother to show up, because the leadership isn't going to allow anything you purpose to come to fruition. Once upon a time it was actually so bad that the members of the minority party in either chamber couldn't even get a budget for office supplies.
Maybe you should. It would be interesting to find out if there is really a "silent majority" in this country opposed to all of the extremist points of view (on both sides of the aisle) and your stated opinions would seem to place you into a category of the silent majority.
"Religious Right" is a pretty broad brushI define it as religion being used to obtain a political end or political support.
and I promise you that I disagree with many (most?) religious conservatives on a lot of issuesIt seems to me (as a secular outsider to the Republican Party) that the Republicans are using all of you. While I'm sure that abortion and gay marriage are quite effective at "turning out the base", I've read the Bible and I don't recall Jesus making either of those items a priority. I do recall him advocating for helping the poor and downtrodden. Of course I haven't heard a whole lot of Republicans using that to appeal to religious voters.....
Not by a longshot. I've looked at him before, and I have a lot of respect for him, but he's too much of a liberal, even for me.
And if he is saying that he isn't voting for Kucinich because he doesn't have a chance, that is actually NOT FINEThat has no bearing on my decision whatsoever. In the 2004 Democratic Primaries I voted for Edwards, even though it was all over but the crying by the time it rolled around to my state and the two of them (Kerry and Edwards) were the only ones left in the race.
There is no prize for voting for the guy or gal who eventually winds up in the Oval Office. It REALLY pisses me off when people think that way.No, but there is such a thing as strategic voting. Even if I liked him enough to vote for him (I didn't) there is no chance in hell that I would have voted for Nader in 2000 had I lived in a battleground state. Bush stood on the other side of nearly every single issue that's important to me.
I don't buy into the argument that you "wasted" your vote if you vote for a third-party candidate, but what REALLY pisses me off is when people think that there is no difference between people like Bush and Gore and use that argument to try and convince people to vote for the third-party guy. If you don't like either of them or believed that Nader is better then both, then you should have voted for him. But don't dare presume to tell me that there is no difference between the two major candidates in that race. While both parties are way too beholden to corporate interests (Nader's chief complaint, IIRC), it's the height of stupidity to assume that the two major parties are the "same". If you have an opinion on abortion, foreign policy, or climate change (just to name a few) then you can't actually think that the Republicans and Democrats are the same.
I don't blame Ralph Nader for running and I don't blame people for voting for him, but I stopped taking him seriously when he suggested that things would be no different if Al Gore had won. I stopped taking his supporters seriously when they agreed with that statement. Say what you will about Mr. Gore, but I find it extremely unlikely that we'd be in Iraq right now if he had won in 2000.
Kucinich is not my guy for a variety of reasons. Chief among them being that I don't share his flower-child like view of foreign policy and I think quite a few of his economic views are too far to the left, even for me. I can honestly say that there are a few Republicans I'd probably vote for way before Kucinich would get my vote.
There are lots of defining moments in American history. 9/11 is most certainly one of them no matter how little you want it to be
9/11 is a defining moment in American history. It's not the defining moment however, and I stand by my comments that I'm sick and fucking tired of Republican politicians using terrorism to scare people into voting for them.
How is it any less defining than Pearl Harbor?
Funny that you should mention Pearl Harbor. If George W. Bush and his neo-con cronies had been in charge when Pearl Harbor happened he would outsourced the job of defeating the Japanese to some local tribal factions while using it as an excuse to scare people into supporting a war with Iraq. Then when Democratic politicians tried to disagree with this course of action he would have accused of them of "emboldening the Japs" and run political ads linking them to Hirohito, all the while planning to invade a country that had NOTHING TO DO WITH THE ATTACK ON OUR COUNTRY.
Beyond that, Pearl Harbor was a defining moment in American history not because of the attack itself, but because of our reaction to it. Americans put aside two decades of isolationism to join the global fight for freedom. We built alliances with nations on every single continent, founded the United Nations and provided the funds to rebuild Europe and Japan. Every single American from the solider on the front lines to the women working in factories contributed something to the war effort.
Contrast this to 9/11, where Bush used it as an excuse to invade Iraq, alienating the entire world. And sacrifice? Pa-leeze. They haven't asked us to do anything more then continue to spend and consume. God forbid we should have a draft to supply the troops we need (we'd actually have to justify the war to the masses) or raise taxes to pay for the war (watch how quickly his rich corporate backers would ditch him if they had to pay for this little adventure in the sand).
Women's rights groups for nearly a decade went on Oprah decrying the situation in Afghanistan. Americans (plus our NATO allies) went in after 9/11 and changed the course of that country forever. But, since the Bush administration was the catalyst for such happenings, it is not trumpeted as a success by these organizations and our media
Bush wasn't the catalyst for changing the course of Afghanistan. 9/11 was the catalyst. Any President would have deposed the Taliban after 9/11 and their refusal to hand over OBL. Bush doesn't get to claim FDR's mantle in a global fight for freedom when his very actions belie that claim and he has alienated the entire world. It should tell you something when a majority of Brits have an unfavorable view of the United States and think we are a threat to world peace. Our most important and longest lasting alliance, with a country that we share a common history and culture with, and the majority of it's population no longer respects us. If we can't win them over do you really think that we stand a chance in hell with the youth of the Middle East?
And woman's rights in Afghanistan? Who gives a shit! It's not our job to impose our morality on the rest of the world. If that's your justification for the war then when are we going to get around to invading Saudi Arabia? Or any one of a dozen African countries that allow female genital mutilation?
That we can defeat the ideology that seeks to imprison the globe
That ideology is only represented by a handful of extremists, whom would quickly find their source of cannon-fodder dried up if we got rid of our interventionist foreign policy and outright hypocrisy.
and isn't one to seek purely police action against entities that are propped up and hiding in failed states
Yes, much better to outsource the job to local tribes then it is to throw cruise missiles from beyond the horizon. All the criticism o
Yes, because 100% of the American population voted for GWB in 2004. I mean it's not as if 49% of the country voted against him or anything. Hell, it's not as if the guy running against him in 2000 got more votes or anything.
Besides all that, Bush largely won that election on fear. While I'm not advocating that as an excuse, it's hardly unknown for extreme leaders to come to power after using an external threat to scare the hell out of the populace. And it's hardly unique to the United States either.
You have a lot more faith then I do, because the history of the last 100 years is one of Congress ceding power after power to the Executive Branch. Beyond that, it seems that in this day and age that party matters more then principle. Recall some of the things that Republican Congressman said about Clinton went he went into Kosovo. Now try and reconcile that with the Republicans saying that people are "supporting the terrorists" if they dare to criticize Bush policy in Iraq or Afghanistan.
The Republican Congress bent over backwards to give Bush his "agenda" even where that agenda stood in contrast to Republican ideals. I'd like to think that a Democratic Congress would be less inclined to do that with a Democratic President, but I'm not holding my breath.