I'm constantly amazed about how people will post private information in a public place (thus making it public information), and then complain about how they are being robbed of their privacy.
The scientists conducted several surveys of college students, asking them to provide an e-mail address and then indicate whether they had ever engaged in a list of wayward, or in some cases illegal, activities.
In one experiment, one group of students was given a strong assurance that none of the information they divulged on the survey would be revealed. That should make them more forthcoming, right? Actually, the opposite was true. When the issue of confidentiality was raised, participants clammed up. For example, 25 percent of the students who were given a strong assurance of confidentiality admitted to having copied someone else's homework. Among those given no assurance of confidentiality, more than half admitted to it.
This is slightly off-topic, but Genarlow Wilson was a 17-year old high school football player who received consensual oral sex from a 15-year old girl and was sentenced to prison for 10 years for aggravated child molestation. He received several scholarship offers and was an excellent student. (Source)
There are also many stories of 16/17 year olds exchanging nude photos of each other and being charged with child pornography. (Source)
I think kiddie porn (pics of young children) is absolutely disgusting and people seeking it need serious psychiatric help, but our laws need to distinguish between those looking to exploit children and kids that are just sending pictures of themselves over the internet without realizing the consequences.
Several schools run surplus sites that list all of their inventory they want to get rid of. I've bought a few (older) computers for really cheap this way.
I just wanted to say I'm a new user working on moving to Linux as well. My laptop came with Vista installed (I actually paid $100 to upgrade to Business Edition), but I am very disappointed with it. Even when I'm not doing anything it takes up 500-800mb of RAM, copying files takes way longer than it should, and you just get the sense of a very bloated operating system using it. I thought about buying XP Pro but I already threw $100 towards an upgrade and so I feel like MS should allow me to downgrade for free (of course they wont).
I've always wanted to give Ubuntu a shot because I've heard so many great things about it, but Vista really put me over the edge to finally make it a reality. My only concern is making sure it my system dual-boots, at least for the short-term because I still need to run some Windows apps (I'll also check out WINE). After I get confident with it I'm sure I'll dump Windows altogether as I've read others inevitably have.
Just wanted to comment on this because I feel like a lot of people are in the same boat as me. I think MS shot themselves in the foot with Vista.
How do you set this up under Windows XP? I tried scheduling a task to shutdown the machine every night, but it doesn't seem to be working. Hibernating would actually be a better solution anyways.
Get the google quint-band phone with GSM (700Mhz, 850 MHz, 900Mhz, 1.8Ghz, 1.9Ghz), bluetooth, cameraphone with automatic youtube and picasa updates. Total market ownage.
I'm going to be upfront about this - I never listen to online radio. I sometimes listen to streaming talk radio, so I'm familiar with the medium, but I've really just never paid attention to it. I do vote though and I do believe its important to keep people involved in politics. I checked out the savenetradio.org just now and to be honest, I was a little disappointed. While their arguments are valid, they are not expressing them in a way that is going to make people care about the issue. For example, on their Myths and Facts page, the first paragraph explains how the decision by the CRB "will affect millions of Americans who enjoy the unparalleled radio diversity that is only available on the Internet; and hundreds of thousands of artists who depend on Net radio to reach new fans, and thousands of webcasters whose livelihood depends on their ability to play music for their listeners."
I'm not in any 3 of those categories, so why should I care?
The next argument is that the smallest medium - Internet radio - pays the most royalties; and under the new CRB royalty scheme the smallest webcasters will pay the highest relative royalties in amounts shockingly disproportionate to their revenue. While I can certainly see where their coming from (to be honest, it looks the whole point of the ruling is to kill internet radio), it reads as "WHY NOT ME" talk. Why shouldn't ALL mediums have to pay?
About half-way through the page, they make a good argument that somebody on either side of the debate can agree with:
Bankrupting the Internet radio industry will not benefit artists or record companies, as total industry royalties will diminish. Moreover, the demise of Internet radio will be particularly harmful to independent artists and record labels whose music is rarely played on broadcast radio. The American Association of Independent Music reports that less than 10% of terrestrial radio performances are independent music but more than 37% of non-terrestrial radio is independent music. This benefits artists, labels and music fans.
When Congress provided webcasters a guaranteed "statutory license" to perform sound recordings, Congress intended that Internet radio would flourish as a competitive medium offering diverse programming and paying a royalty. Tripling webcasters royalties undermines all these goals.
If this was the true intent, I think this is important because it guarantees there will be competition. People realized how crappy FM radio got when Clear Channel bought all the stations. It wasn't that long ago that stations started going independent again - so remind people of that! Competition means better selection!
Furthermore, I have no idea where technology will take us. Its evolving so quickly now that everything could very well be wireless and connected in 10 years. I'm going to be angry that if in 10 years, the selection of internet radio stations is terrible and the cost to enter the market is insane because of a bad decision that was made in 2007.
Finally, we need to recognize that the Copyright Royalty Board is going to get away with murder. I didn't realize this until I did some further research on this, but do you know how many people the CRB is composed of? Three. Three judges are going to decide the future of internet radio that will affect millions of people. What an awful system! I saw we put pressure on the CRB (James Scott Sledge (Chief Copyright Royalty Judge), Stanley Wisniewski, and William J. Roberts.) and congress to make this a more fair system. Three people having that much power is not a fair game.
Apple's successes lately aren't the result of superior technology, its because of superior fashion and design. Technically speaking, the iPod was just another mp3 player, but people wanted it because it looked sexy. The same thing goes for the iPhone. And the iMac.
You can complain about bloating all you want, but so many of the features I've used in Firefox 2 have been incredibly useful. I've tried to welcome change and learn to do new things, because once you get into the habit it really makes your life so much easier. Online bookmarking, live rss feeds, the built-in spell-checking... these have all helped my productivity. Finding stuff is easier, reading stuff is easier, my internet experience is more pleasant. The little stuff really helps a lot. I wouldn't consider it bloating, because Mozilla is adding features that are helpful. Bloating is more reserved for stuff that makes your system run slower yet it doesn't really do anything (IE the window search dog or clippy).
Aside from the fact that what you described is anti-competitive behavior (which is illegal in some instances), you are failing to account for the exponentially lower costs of technology over time making it more affordable to enter a competitive market. At the same time the choices of infrastructures available to create a network are expanding. A decade ago broadband became big because it ran over your existing cable and phone lines. It wasn't prohibitively expensive to develop the network, because the wires were already there. Wireless and satellite were slow to make an impact in this country because they had to compete with an infrastructure that was already there. In developing nations however, it would have cost more to build a wired network and therefore wireless is the standard.
Today, governments are offering wireless broadband access, wireless companies are providing high-speed WiFi, power companies are exploring Ethernet over power lines, and so forth. Investors are looking at these alternative mediums as an inexpensive way to break into the market on an infrastructure that already exists (power lines, wireless, mobile networks, etc...). Cable and DSL companies are scared of all this competition (rightfully so), and their thought is "hey, let's lock our customers into paying extra for premium content." Network neutrality prohibits that, and so they need to find another business model.
I really don't care that the cable companies are complaining... the internet is a public institution subsidized by taxpayers and if more money is needed the public should pay to expand it.
I could be wrong on this, but don't non-profit organizations have to remain party-neutral?
This means that the EFF can never run for congress, nor can the ever endorse a candidate.
Unfortunately, I don't think class-action lawsuits ever solve anything, they only make lawyers richer.
BTW, is this the Netflix deal you are talking about? If by "sweet deal" you mean they only had to give customers a $6 coupon then you are forgetting about the $2.5 Million in attorney fees. Neither side won in that case... it was a lose-lose outcome.
Re:Sensationalist Journalism?
on
A Flu Pandemic?
·
· Score: 1
I'm not concerned because H5N1 missed the boat. It will have to wait another 86 years until it wins the world ser\^H^H^H kills millions of people.
It has been a while since I have done this stuff, but I believe SOx and NOx are the big pollutants that come out of tail-pipes (other than CO2 and CO). SOx and NOx love water so they bond to it. It seems like this guy's invention just pumps water into the engine so the SOx and NOx bond to the water molecules and won't be released into the air. That's neat and all, but isn't this just going to pollute ground-water? However, if it increases fuel efficiency ssignificantly, it might be worth the trade off.
Can somebody with a scientific background please comment?
I never could figure out why AOL became such a large company. They charged more than anyone else. They were not the best or the fastest. All they did was package in an IM. But anyone can download Yahoo IM or something else. Did AOL become so huge because they were the only company that handed out free CD's at every computer store?
I think its because AOL became the brand name equivalent for "the Internet", much like band-aides, Kleenex, or ipods. I remember when I used to ask people if they had the Internet, and they would say "no I have AOL." And not everyone can download Yahoo messenger, it takes some skill, albeit basic, to find it.
Slashdot Mirror
Can you cite some sources for this claim (welfare overhead 50%), as well as some other government programs you think have very high overhead?
Carnegie Mellon behavioral economist George Loewenstein is releasing an interesting study on privacy behavior...
From The Linked Article:
This is slightly off-topic, but Genarlow Wilson was a 17-year old high school football player who received consensual oral sex from a 15-year old girl and was sentenced to prison for 10 years for aggravated child molestation. He received several scholarship offers and was an excellent student. (Source)
There are also many stories of 16/17 year olds exchanging nude photos of each other and being charged with child pornography. (Source)
I think kiddie porn (pics of young children) is absolutely disgusting and people seeking it need serious psychiatric help, but our laws need to distinguish between those looking to exploit children and kids that are just sending pictures of themselves over the internet without realizing the consequences.
Actually most Dell laptops have a setting in the BIOS that enables a tracking feature. Once it is activated there is no way to disable it (according to my BIOS setup screen). http://www.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/services/prosupport/computrace?c=us&cs=555&l=en&s=biz
Several schools run surplus sites that list all of their inventory they want to get rid of. I've bought a few (older) computers for really cheap this way.
A better way to do it would be to have the state make you pay taxes when you re/register your vehicle based on how many miles you've driven.
I just wanted to say I'm a new user working on moving to Linux as well. My laptop came with Vista installed (I actually paid $100 to upgrade to Business Edition), but I am very disappointed with it. Even when I'm not doing anything it takes up 500-800mb of RAM, copying files takes way longer than it should, and you just get the sense of a very bloated operating system using it. I thought about buying XP Pro but I already threw $100 towards an upgrade and so I feel like MS should allow me to downgrade for free (of course they wont).
I've always wanted to give Ubuntu a shot because I've heard so many great things about it, but Vista really put me over the edge to finally make it a reality. My only concern is making sure it my system dual-boots, at least for the short-term because I still need to run some Windows apps (I'll also check out WINE). After I get confident with it I'm sure I'll dump Windows altogether as I've read others inevitably have.
Just wanted to comment on this because I feel like a lot of people are in the same boat as me. I think MS shot themselves in the foot with Vista.
This is a really good article on the amount of planning and design work put into the software that runs the space shuttle: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/06/writestuff.html
How do you set this up under Windows XP? I tried scheduling a task to shutdown the machine every night, but it doesn't seem to be working. Hibernating would actually be a better solution anyways.
Video tour: http://maplight.org/video/2/FedTourMay1662007.html
I'm not in any 3 of those categories, so why should I care?
The next argument is that the smallest medium - Internet radio - pays the most royalties; and under the new CRB royalty scheme the smallest webcasters will pay the highest relative royalties in amounts shockingly disproportionate to their revenue. While I can certainly see where their coming from (to be honest, it looks the whole point of the ruling is to kill internet radio), it reads as "WHY NOT ME" talk. Why shouldn't ALL mediums have to pay?
About half-way through the page, they make a good argument that somebody on either side of the debate can agree with:
If this was the true intent, I think this is important because it guarantees there will be competition. People realized how crappy FM radio got when Clear Channel bought all the stations. It wasn't that long ago that stations started going independent again - so remind people of that! Competition means better selection!Furthermore, I have no idea where technology will take us. Its evolving so quickly now that everything could very well be wireless and connected in 10 years. I'm going to be angry that if in 10 years, the selection of internet radio stations is terrible and the cost to enter the market is insane because of a bad decision that was made in 2007.
Finally, we need to recognize that the Copyright Royalty Board is going to get away with murder. I didn't realize this until I did some further research on this, but do you know how many people the CRB is composed of? Three. Three judges are going to decide the future of internet radio that will affect millions of people. What an awful system! I saw we put pressure on the CRB (James Scott Sledge (Chief Copyright Royalty Judge), Stanley Wisniewski, and William J. Roberts.) and congress to make this a more fair system. Three people having that much power is not a fair game.
Apple's successes lately aren't the result of superior technology, its because of superior fashion and design. Technically speaking, the iPod was just another mp3 player, but people wanted it because it looked sexy. The same thing goes for the iPhone. And the iMac.
marihuana?
You can complain about bloating all you want, but so many of the features I've used in Firefox 2 have been incredibly useful. I've tried to welcome change and learn to do new things, because once you get into the habit it really makes your life so much easier. Online bookmarking, live rss feeds, the built-in spell-checking... these have all helped my productivity. Finding stuff is easier, reading stuff is easier, my internet experience is more pleasant. The little stuff really helps a lot. I wouldn't consider it bloating, because Mozilla is adding features that are helpful. Bloating is more reserved for stuff that makes your system run slower yet it doesn't really do anything (IE the window search dog or clippy).
Tab To Window does what you want. https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2062/
Aside from the fact that what you described is anti-competitive behavior (which is illegal in some instances), you are failing to account for the exponentially lower costs of technology over time making it more affordable to enter a competitive market. At the same time the choices of infrastructures available to create a network are expanding. A decade ago broadband became big because it ran over your existing cable and phone lines. It wasn't prohibitively expensive to develop the network, because the wires were already there. Wireless and satellite were slow to make an impact in this country because they had to compete with an infrastructure that was already there. In developing nations however, it would have cost more to build a wired network and therefore wireless is the standard.
Today, governments are offering wireless broadband access, wireless companies are providing high-speed WiFi, power companies are exploring Ethernet over power lines, and so forth. Investors are looking at these alternative mediums as an inexpensive way to break into the market on an infrastructure that already exists (power lines, wireless, mobile networks, etc...). Cable and DSL companies are scared of all this competition (rightfully so), and their thought is "hey, let's lock our customers into paying extra for premium content." Network neutrality prohibits that, and so they need to find another business model.
I really don't care that the cable companies are complaining... the internet is a public institution subsidized by taxpayers and if more money is needed the public should pay to expand it.
There's a clip that sums up Net Neutrality pretty well here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDRGdVf6Mf8 Share it with your friends.
I could be wrong on this, but don't non-profit organizations have to remain party-neutral? This means that the EFF can never run for congress, nor can the ever endorse a candidate.
BTW, is this the Netflix deal you are talking about? If by "sweet deal" you mean they only had to give customers a $6 coupon then you are forgetting about the $2.5 Million in attorney fees. Neither side won in that case... it was a lose-lose outcome.
I'm not concerned because H5N1 missed the boat. It will have to wait another 86 years until it wins the world ser\^H^H^H kills millions of people.
Can somebody with a scientific background please comment?
I think its because AOL became the brand name equivalent for "the Internet", much like band-aides, Kleenex, or ipods. I remember when I used to ask people if they had the Internet, and they would say "no I have AOL." And not everyone can download Yahoo messenger, it takes some skill, albeit basic, to find it.
4) You piss on a Urine powered battery, supplying the GoogleGrid with power, which it resells to California.