Rather than loot the vehicle, why not put the bombs on it instead of on the roadside? That way there will definately be troops around at some point and even if they defuse the bomb before it goes off, it lessens the usefulness of the automated supply convoy - instead of having bombs on the roadside, now they're brought into the base by friendly vehicles.
You're assuming an autmoated convoy would not be gaurded by real people. I could see a use for this in freeing up guys that drive the straight supply trucks, but keeping guards around the perimiter. If nothing else, just have a few helicopters guarding a large convoy instead. The nice thing about this is it frees up drivers who are otherwise useless other than for "driving away" when you need to keep the trucks moving (ie can't).
Strictly speaking that's true, although the way you've worded that, you might lead people to believe that there is some doubt that FDR had polio. Who doubts this? Why?
Since I wasn't positive at the time if FDR had polio, I did a quick google search and came across a page that said it may have been something else that most doctors didn't know about at time. Something called Guillain-Barré Syndrome. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2003-10-30-fdr -usat_x.htm
I don't know if he had polio or something else. All I know for sure is that he was pretty much confined to a wheel chair.
The mortality rate was estimated at 2.5% to 5% of the population,
My bad, I was using the same wiki page but missunderstood that statemeant. Thought it meant of people infected, not of the entire population. That's where my numbers went wrong. Thanks for the correction. I'm morbid enough to wonder what other kinds of viruses they have at the CDC (besides smallpox), and curious if they have an "Andromeda Strain" solution of a nuclear warhead to wipeout anything before it gets loose. 1 million degrees should kill anything.
My great-grandparents sent my grandmother to live with her cousins on a farm for 18 months so that she would be safe, in the end she avoided the flu, but one of the cousins died of it. What would happen today? Would people take such extreme steps?
This goes back a bit on a different disease. Polio, one of the ones that the US has greatly worked on eradicating (along with smallpox and some others). Polio is the disease that you get a check for in gym class in elementary to this day. Back when it was more common, people that could afford to would send their children out of the cities to the country side to get them away from the cities. Most of the people that caught polio were in the cities. My grandfather was one of them, President FDR is believed to have been another. That was a "mere" 60 years ago. Ask your parents/grandparents about polio for more details.
For today? I don't know if people could get there kids far enough away. Not many people live or have relatives who live on farms. One of the advantages of mechanization has been that we can have (at this point) under 2 % of the population feed the other 99% as opposed to the way it used to be of 95% needed to feed the other 5%. So I think it might be quite hard to do that.
The same strain of flu can't travel as easily due to two major advancements in medical knowlege. The first being anti-biotics. Most people don't die of the flu (or pneumonia or a few others). They die of secondary infections that can surface when you have a weakend immune system. The second is this. We know about how to defend against airborne viruses (such as the flu). Back in 1918 people would cover their mouthes, but not their noses. I remember one program on the 1918 flu where they showed an old recording of a nurse "Correcting" another nurses mouth covering so that it did not cover her nose. The 1918 flu sitll had the problem of lungs filling up with water. Not sure if that was due to the flu itself or one of the secondary infections. Hopefully we can deal with that with todays technolgy. Either way, it won't spread as quickly once people start taking precautions. However, before we take precatuions it will probably spread faster due to air travle and the higher amount of travel in general today compared to 1918.
As for what might happen if we had an epidemic of those proportions or larger that we can't contain? Check with the CDC (Center for Disease Control) to make sure, but the following is my theory. First thing would be that Hawaii and Alaska would try to isolate themselves as much as possible from the rest of the country. The borders would probably close with no one allowed in or out. (And if we were serious we'd station a batalion on each of the borders to enforce this.) Regional areas would probably try to quarantine themselves with restrictions on travel and movement put in place to try to keep the disease from spreading. Interesting enough, Stargate SG-1 on the season ender just had one where we had a plague get loose in the general populace. "Long" incubation period of a few days where people were carriers/spreaders prior to symptons showing and death not long after. I think they had large cities in the US infected in under 4 days after symptoms started showing. There has been a lot of studying on how quickly a viruse can spread depending on mortality rate, incubation time and a few other things. So far, most of it aint pretty.
The 1918 flu didn't kill very many people directly. What killed was secondary infections such as pneumonia. Modern medicine may not be much better than 1918 medicine at dealing with viruses, but treatment of bacterial infections has come a long way since then. Besides, we don't have an entire generation of young men who were exposed to poison gas this time around.
I don't think that the 1918 flu would be the major killer now that it was originally.
Additionaly, medical science now recognizes hte need to cover the nose. The 1918 flu was airborne and I remember seeing a video of an old film recording from the 1918 flu where a leading nurse "corrected" a lower nurses mask so that it did not cover her nose and only covered her mouth. (Back then they used scarf like cloths for masks). So even if it did get out, we have a couple more ways to help keep from getting infected.
I am sure someone who actually knows about biology will correct me if I'm wrong... but surely the reason we are alive today is because we are descended from the people who were immune to the original strain of the virus?
More likely because our parents/grandparents/great-grandparents were either not infected or lived after becoming infected. Doing a quick search find that the mortality rate was 2.5%. That means that 2.5% of all those who became infected died. Given that 50 million people died, that's 2 billion people that were infected. Chances are you foreparents had it.
So are we immune? No. Did we descend from the lucky ones? Yes.
Then again, this article is hugely outdated, as a simple wikipedia article tells us they recreated the virus in 2002 already. That leads to an even more doubtful stance on the exact reasons for creating this particular strain today...
You misread it: In an experiment, published in October 2002, they were successful in creating a virus with two 1918 genes.
It does not say they recreated the original virus. The 1918 virus occured before flu vaccines had come about. As such, we currently have no vaccine against that particular strain. The researchers think that by studying the 1918 virus they can learn some information that may help with the current avian flu 5HN1.
Does the 1918 virus scare the shit out of me? Yes, just as much as the idea of 5HN1 infecting humans. But if studying the 1918 flu help combat 5HN1, I'm all for it.
While I may not like racist speach, it is still a restriction on what you can say. Last time I checked I could call another person in the US anything I liked without getting arrested.
More like you can't trust the EU.
The EU was sold to us as an economic union. Then we were told we needed a constitution. That the EU would guard our basic rights.
Well, thanks a lot you bastards. Thanks a lot for the corruption and injustice you've brought with you. Seems like old Finnish legislation was doing a better job until your directives forced it to change. I weep for the future.
The EU as an economic powerhouse could be a great thing. The EU as a source of bad legislation is a recipe for disaster.
And Europeans wonder why a lot of people in the US don't trust the idea of a world court or various other powers above the country level. Whatever happened to national sovereignty? Pretty much what every member of the EU has done has ceded a chunk of sovereignty to a government that they at best have inderect control over. If the EU is going to start demanding legislation, sounds like you should start having elections for the representatives.
Considering the patent is about to expire on retinal scanning, they ought to wait a few more months and utilize that type of biometric. It is much harder to forge, more accurate, and does not require physical contact (which spreads germs).
There is one basic problem with biometrics. If it is transmited, it can be intercepted. All I need to be able to do is copy the digital transmision of the retinal patern as it leaves the scanner (as in the physical scanner, not the "ATM" device) and play it back whenever I want to act as someone. Once one machine is compromised, it can be used however I like.
Current ATMs already suffer from this problem, but at least I can get a new credit card issued. How am I supposed to reasonably get new retinal patterns or fingerprints issued?
I read an article in Time about one of the top people in Google (was there back in '99) and it said that whenever she came across an issue similar to this she usually just referenced the CIA world fact book and went with whatever they had to avoid these kind of issues.
I'm also not sure about you status as a law abider, should you be on the smart side I'd suggest something in forty cal.
22s may not have the stopping power of a 45. However, it's easier for people to shoot, with less recoil than a 45 most people, even small women, can shoot it repeatedly without resting. Also the gun itself is lighter. You can still get them in semi-auto with >=10 round clips. And from the point of the attacker, the are just as deadly; assuming they aren't wearing armor (in which case you are generally screwed either way unless you can do a headshot in which it really makes no difference).
Maybe that'll be the next type of race introduced. They had race cars and now race rockets, maybe I'm just hoping for a real space race. I suppose the costs would be unrealistic at this time to launch a bunch of competing ships into space.
A modern day version of the sailing cups? Say, first one around the moon and back is the winner? No limits on anything else, other than that the pilot(s) must get back alive? Oh yeah, and the entire spacecraft must one stage, I supose. Given that it last took us 6 days to do an orbit of the moon in a maned vehicle without stopping (Apollo 13 being the only case I know of) we should be able to do it quicker today.
Once we get an economical way to orbit set up, this will hopefully not take too long to set up. Heck, with a moon base we could require a stopover there. Should be an interesting way to test out some enterprising people that will try to refule and resupply there.
That's why there are also things like armored jackets, armored pants, armored gloves, motorcycle boots...
How exactly does that help when your bike gets "nicked" by a car and you are going 60 down the interstate? You're going to be rolling down the blacktop in all likelyhood.
It's funny how much you can get done once you blow bureaucracy out of the way. Exhuming corpses for study probably broke a billion laws back then as well, but so much has come from his approach.
Then again, I might be confusing the Da Vinci Code with reality. Damned fiction based on facts. It's probably safest to just say that I HEARD that he exhumed corpses. I didn't know him personally.
It's not that he exhumed corpses, it's that he studied them. (Which is partly how he became so good at realistic stone carving.) Ya see, if you studied the corpse, you could eventually figure out how they died. And well, so many members of royalty and people involved with powerful people died under "mysterious circumstances" that the survivors (who in many cases were the next in line for the position) didn't want to be implicated/accused/beheaded, so that anything that could lead to autopsies were pretty much outlawed.
If you get ~35mpg with a non-hybrid Accord, then you would probably get better than the rated 37mpg in a hybrid Accord. Gas mileage varies a lot depending on driving habits and environment. You can't really compare your own observed gas mileage with the rated gas mileage of a different car model.
EPA estimates for the non-hybrid are about 35 and I get 35 so I'm guessting the 37 would probably match closely.
Anyway, the Honda Accord Hybrid isn't really focused on fuel economy. On the other hand, the Accord Hybrid has more horsepower than any other Honda.
I've heard that horsepower is due to 4 electric motors, one for each wheel. But yeah, the Hybrid is more of a luxury sedan than anything else. Too bad it costs ~10k more than the LX. If they cut it down to only a few grand more and gave it comprable features (Rather than making it a competitor for the EX and v6 editions) more people would be able to afford it and buy it. Though considering it's hard to keep them on the lot as is, I don't see that as much of a bonus for them right now.
Honda Accord Hybrid: 29mpg city, 37mpg highway
Interesting. My Accord non-Highbrid gets ~35 mpg on the highway. No real reason to get it except for the better city driving (I get ~25 mpg on commuting).
1) relatively unsafe. No matter how carefully you drive, you could be that much safer driving equally carefully in a car.
To elaborate: Helmets have the nickname "Brain Buckets" for a reason. In an accident, that's all they really are. A bucket to keep your brain in. The rest of your body ain't gonna be in good condition.
but doesn't the state where the retailer is located loose out on those revenue streams?
CDW (and amazon and a few other companies) have multiple wharehouses located in multiple states. Which state is teh retailer located in? To make it more confusing, lets say the retailer HQ isn't in the same state as any of the wharehouses (and is possibly not even in the US).
To simplify matters some, if I buy something in Maryland and it costs enough to put sales tax over a certain ammount and I live in another state, I can file for a refund from Maryland. However, when I get back to my home state, I am supposed to (on my taxes) file out how much I have bought over the internet under the "use tax". This "use tax" in Virginia is the same as the state sales tax. Hence, the state looses nothing to the internet sales so long as people follow the law, unless you consider that I can get some stuff cheaper over the net than in some retail stores. Last year I paid a few hundred to Virginia in "use tax" due to the ammount of stuff I had bought online. Even with that, it was still cheaper than buying from a local store.
Building root servers won't force ISPs in other nations to use them.
No one is forcing the ISPs in other nations (or those other nations) to use the current 13 DNS rootservers either. They usually run their own local caches to cut down on bandwidth requirements. Why don't the other countries just build and run their own DNS servers? Why does the whole world have to use the same ones?
I'd much rather let the UN manage the net than even begin to contemplate the above. I'm not saying the UN has properly managed everything they've touched, but there is no other international body capable of managing the internet. And it needs to not be exclusively under Amerikan control.
And I'm and Amerikan.
Then how about those other contries that want some control go build their own root DNS servers, since that seems to be what this is all about. And by the way, what country are you from exactly? Not the USA as for as I can tell since you say "Amerikan" and not "American".
Ok, for those who use windows, what of the following aps do you already use or tried out:
7-Zip
Abiword
Cdex
Cygwin
Dao-Setup
Ditto
Filezilla
Firefox
Gimp
Graphcalc
GTK+
Keynote
Litestep Installer
Open Office
Task Switch XP Pro
Thunderbird
Tinn
Virtuawin
VLC Media Player
Win Dir Stat
For me:
7-Zip: Used it a little, not that impressed.
Abiword: Been trying to remember to try it out one of these days.
Cdex: Only program I use for CD/MP3 conversion
Filezilla: Used it, works great
Firefox: Secondary browser on my machine (primary is mozilla)
Gimp: Using it right now
GTK+: See gimp
Open Office: Wasn't impressed with the last version, haven't tried out the latest version yet.
Thunderbird: My main email client
VLC Media Player: Watching a video on this right now
On a different note:
Dear god, I'm actually writing a survey for slashdot, how low have I sunk?
Slashdot Mirror
Rather than loot the vehicle, why not put the bombs on it instead of on the roadside? That way there will definately be troops around at some point and even if they defuse the bomb before it goes off, it lessens the usefulness of the automated supply convoy - instead of having bombs on the roadside, now they're brought into the base by friendly vehicles.
You're assuming an autmoated convoy would not be gaurded by real people. I could see a use for this in freeing up guys that drive the straight supply trucks, but keeping guards around the perimiter. If nothing else, just have a few helicopters guarding a large convoy instead. The nice thing about this is it frees up drivers who are otherwise useless other than for "driving away" when you need to keep the trucks moving (ie can't).
Strictly speaking that's true, although the way you've worded that, you might lead people to believe that there is some doubt that FDR had polio. Who doubts this? Why?
r -usat_x.htm
Since I wasn't positive at the time if FDR had polio, I did a quick google search and came across a page that said it may have been something else that most doctors didn't know about at time. Something called Guillain-Barré Syndrome.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2003-10-30-fd
I don't know if he had polio or something else. All I know for sure is that he was pretty much confined to a wheel chair.
The mortality rate was estimated at 2.5% to 5% of the population,
My bad, I was using the same wiki page but missunderstood that statemeant. Thought it meant of people infected, not of the entire population. That's where my numbers went wrong. Thanks for the correction. I'm morbid enough to wonder what other kinds of viruses they have at the CDC (besides smallpox), and curious if they have an "Andromeda Strain" solution of a nuclear warhead to wipeout anything before it gets loose. 1 million degrees should kill anything.
My great-grandparents sent my grandmother to live with her cousins on a farm for 18 months so that she would be safe, in the end she avoided the flu, but one of the cousins died of it. What would happen today? Would people take such extreme steps?
This goes back a bit on a different disease. Polio, one of the ones that the US has greatly worked on eradicating (along with smallpox and some others). Polio is the disease that you get a check for in gym class in elementary to this day. Back when it was more common, people that could afford to would send their children out of the cities to the country side to get them away from the cities. Most of the people that caught polio were in the cities. My grandfather was one of them, President FDR is believed to have been another. That was a "mere" 60 years ago. Ask your parents/grandparents about polio for more details.
For today? I don't know if people could get there kids far enough away. Not many people live or have relatives who live on farms. One of the advantages of mechanization has been that we can have (at this point) under 2 % of the population feed the other 99% as opposed to the way it used to be of 95% needed to feed the other 5%. So I think it might be quite hard to do that.
The same strain of flu can't travel as easily due to two major advancements in medical knowlege. The first being anti-biotics. Most people don't die of the flu (or pneumonia or a few others). They die of secondary infections that can surface when you have a weakend immune system. The second is this. We know about how to defend against airborne viruses (such as the flu). Back in 1918 people would cover their mouthes, but not their noses. I remember one program on the 1918 flu where they showed an old recording of a nurse "Correcting" another nurses mouth covering so that it did not cover her nose. The 1918 flu sitll had the problem of lungs filling up with water. Not sure if that was due to the flu itself or one of the secondary infections. Hopefully we can deal with that with todays technolgy. Either way, it won't spread as quickly once people start taking precautions. However, before we take precatuions it will probably spread faster due to air travle and the higher amount of travel in general today compared to 1918.
As for what might happen if we had an epidemic of those proportions or larger that we can't contain? Check with the CDC (Center for Disease Control) to make sure, but the following is my theory. First thing would be that Hawaii and Alaska would try to isolate themselves as much as possible from the rest of the country. The borders would probably close with no one allowed in or out. (And if we were serious we'd station a batalion on each of the borders to enforce this.) Regional areas would probably try to quarantine themselves with restrictions on travel and movement put in place to try to keep the disease from spreading. Interesting enough, Stargate SG-1 on the season ender just had one where we had a plague get loose in the general populace. "Long" incubation period of a few days where people were carriers/spreaders prior to symptons showing and death not long after. I think they had large cities in the US infected in under 4 days after symptoms started showing. There has been a lot of studying on how quickly a viruse can spread depending on mortality rate, incubation time and a few other things. So far, most of it aint pretty.
The 1918 flu didn't kill very many people directly. What killed was secondary infections such as pneumonia. Modern medicine may not be much better than 1918 medicine at dealing with viruses, but treatment of bacterial infections has come a long way since then. Besides, we don't have an entire generation of young men who were exposed to poison gas this time around. I don't think that the 1918 flu would be the major killer now that it was originally.
Additionaly, medical science now recognizes hte need to cover the nose. The 1918 flu was airborne and I remember seeing a video of an old film recording from the 1918 flu where a leading nurse "corrected" a lower nurses mask so that it did not cover her nose and only covered her mouth. (Back then they used scarf like cloths for masks). So even if it did get out, we have a couple more ways to help keep from getting infected.
I am sure someone who actually knows about biology will correct me if I'm wrong... but surely the reason we are alive today is because we are descended from the people who were immune to the original strain of the virus?
More likely because our parents/grandparents/great-grandparents were either not infected or lived after becoming infected. Doing a quick search find that the mortality rate was 2.5%. That means that 2.5% of all those who became infected died. Given that 50 million people died, that's 2 billion people that were infected. Chances are you foreparents had it.
So are we immune? No. Did we descend from the lucky ones? Yes.
Then again, this article is hugely outdated, as a simple wikipedia article tells us they recreated the virus in 2002 already. That leads to an even more doubtful stance on the exact reasons for creating this particular strain today...
You misread it: In an experiment, published in October 2002, they were successful in creating a virus with two 1918 genes.
It does not say they recreated the original virus. The 1918 virus occured before flu vaccines had come about. As such, we currently have no vaccine against that particular strain. The researchers think that by studying the 1918 virus they can learn some information that may help with the current avian flu 5HN1.
Does the 1918 virus scare the shit out of me? Yes, just as much as the idea of 5HN1 infecting humans. But if studying the 1918 flu help combat 5HN1, I'm all for it.
Link
While I may not like racist speach, it is still a restriction on what you can say. Last time I checked I could call another person in the US anything I liked without getting arrested.
More like you can't trust the EU. The EU was sold to us as an economic union. Then we were told we needed a constitution. That the EU would guard our basic rights. Well, thanks a lot you bastards. Thanks a lot for the corruption and injustice you've brought with you. Seems like old Finnish legislation was doing a better job until your directives forced it to change. I weep for the future. The EU as an economic powerhouse could be a great thing. The EU as a source of bad legislation is a recipe for disaster.
And Europeans wonder why a lot of people in the US don't trust the idea of a world court or various other powers above the country level. Whatever happened to national sovereignty? Pretty much what every member of the EU has done has ceded a chunk of sovereignty to a government that they at best have inderect control over. If the EU is going to start demanding legislation, sounds like you should start having elections for the representatives.
Considering the patent is about to expire on retinal scanning, they ought to wait a few more months and utilize that type of biometric. It is much harder to forge, more accurate, and does not require physical contact (which spreads germs).
There is one basic problem with biometrics. If it is transmited, it can be intercepted. All I need to be able to do is copy the digital transmision of the retinal patern as it leaves the scanner (as in the physical scanner, not the "ATM" device) and play it back whenever I want to act as someone. Once one machine is compromised, it can be used however I like.
Current ATMs already suffer from this problem, but at least I can get a new credit card issued. How am I supposed to reasonably get new retinal patterns or fingerprints issued?
Because we can relive the nastalgia of the original nintendo system. Seriously, it looks like the original nintendo controller. http://www.anotherviewpoint.co.uk/images/nespad.jp g
I read an article in Time about one of the top people in Google (was there back in '99) and it said that whenever she came across an issue similar to this she usually just referenced the CIA world fact book and went with whatever they had to avoid these kind of issues.
/ tw.html
Second country from the bottom, aftwer Zimbabwe and before European Union. http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos
So yes, they are in the CIA world factbook.
I'm also not sure about you status as a law abider, should you be on the smart side I'd suggest something in forty cal.
22s may not have the stopping power of a 45. However, it's easier for people to shoot, with less recoil than a 45 most people, even small women, can shoot it repeatedly without resting. Also the gun itself is lighter. You can still get them in semi-auto with >=10 round clips. And from the point of the attacker, the are just as deadly; assuming they aren't wearing armor (in which case you are generally screwed either way unless you can do a headshot in which it really makes no difference).
Maybe that'll be the next type of race introduced. They had race cars and now race rockets, maybe I'm just hoping for a real space race. I suppose the costs would be unrealistic at this time to launch a bunch of competing ships into space.
A modern day version of the sailing cups? Say, first one around the moon and back is the winner? No limits on anything else, other than that the pilot(s) must get back alive? Oh yeah, and the entire spacecraft must one stage, I supose. Given that it last took us 6 days to do an orbit of the moon in a maned vehicle without stopping (Apollo 13 being the only case I know of) we should be able to do it quicker today.
Once we get an economical way to orbit set up, this will hopefully not take too long to set up. Heck, with a moon base we could require a stopover there. Should be an interesting way to test out some enterprising people that will try to refule and resupply there.
That's why there are also things like armored jackets, armored pants, armored gloves, motorcycle boots...
How exactly does that help when your bike gets "nicked" by a car and you are going 60 down the interstate? You're going to be rolling down the blacktop in all likelyhood.
It's funny how much you can get done once you blow bureaucracy out of the way. Exhuming corpses for study probably broke a billion laws back then as well, but so much has come from his approach. Then again, I might be confusing the Da Vinci Code with reality. Damned fiction based on facts. It's probably safest to just say that I HEARD that he exhumed corpses. I didn't know him personally.
It's not that he exhumed corpses, it's that he studied them. (Which is partly how he became so good at realistic stone carving.) Ya see, if you studied the corpse, you could eventually figure out how they died. And well, so many members of royalty and people involved with powerful people died under "mysterious circumstances" that the survivors (who in many cases were the next in line for the position) didn't want to be implicated/accused/beheaded, so that anything that could lead to autopsies were pretty much outlawed.
Kansas Driving Rules
Probably has the lowest age in the country, due to farm driving licenses. (Think tractors)
Our record in Gorilla warfare hasn't been so stellar.
Just fight them in space... their record in stellar warfare makes them look like gorillas.
I don't know... Captain Simian and the Space Monkeys did fairly well in their battles against Nebula.
If you get ~35mpg with a non-hybrid Accord, then you would probably get better than the rated 37mpg in a hybrid Accord. Gas mileage varies a lot depending on driving habits and environment. You can't really compare your own observed gas mileage with the rated gas mileage of a different car model.
EPA estimates for the non-hybrid are about 35 and I get 35 so I'm guessting the 37 would probably match closely.
Anyway, the Honda Accord Hybrid isn't really focused on fuel economy. On the other hand, the Accord Hybrid has more horsepower than any other Honda.
I've heard that horsepower is due to 4 electric motors, one for each wheel. But yeah, the Hybrid is more of a luxury sedan than anything else. Too bad it costs ~10k more than the LX. If they cut it down to only a few grand more and gave it comprable features (Rather than making it a competitor for the EX and v6 editions) more people would be able to afford it and buy it. Though considering it's hard to keep them on the lot as is, I don't see that as much of a bonus for them right now.
Honda Accord Hybrid: 29mpg city, 37mpg highway Interesting. My Accord non-Highbrid gets ~35 mpg on the highway. No real reason to get it except for the better city driving (I get ~25 mpg on commuting).
1) relatively unsafe. No matter how carefully you drive, you could be that much safer driving equally carefully in a car.
To elaborate: Helmets have the nickname "Brain Buckets" for a reason. In an accident, that's all they really are. A bucket to keep your brain in. The rest of your body ain't gonna be in good condition.
but doesn't the state where the retailer is located loose out on those revenue streams?
CDW (and amazon and a few other companies) have multiple wharehouses located in multiple states. Which state is teh retailer located in? To make it more confusing, lets say the retailer HQ isn't in the same state as any of the wharehouses (and is possibly not even in the US).
To simplify matters some, if I buy something in Maryland and it costs enough to put sales tax over a certain ammount and I live in another state, I can file for a refund from Maryland. However, when I get back to my home state, I am supposed to (on my taxes) file out how much I have bought over the internet under the "use tax". This "use tax" in Virginia is the same as the state sales tax. Hence, the state looses nothing to the internet sales so long as people follow the law, unless you consider that I can get some stuff cheaper over the net than in some retail stores. Last year I paid a few hundred to Virginia in "use tax" due to the ammount of stuff I had bought online. Even with that, it was still cheaper than buying from a local store.
Building root servers won't force ISPs in other nations to use them.
No one is forcing the ISPs in other nations (or those other nations) to use the current 13 DNS rootservers either. They usually run their own local caches to cut down on bandwidth requirements. Why don't the other countries just build and run their own DNS servers? Why does the whole world have to use the same ones?
I'd much rather let the UN manage the net than even begin to contemplate the above. I'm not saying the UN has properly managed everything they've touched, but there is no other international body capable of managing the internet. And it needs to not be exclusively under Amerikan control. And I'm and Amerikan.
Then how about those other contries that want some control go build their own root DNS servers, since that seems to be what this is all about. And by the way, what country are you from exactly? Not the USA as for as I can tell since you say "Amerikan" and not "American".
Ok, for those who use windows, what of the following aps do you already use or tried out:
7-Zip
Abiword
Cdex
Cygwin
Dao-Setup
Ditto
Filezilla
Firefox
Gimp
Graphcalc
GTK+
Keynote
Litestep Installer
Open Office
Task Switch XP Pro
Thunderbird
Tinn
Virtuawin
VLC Media Player
Win Dir Stat
For me:
7-Zip: Used it a little, not that impressed.
Abiword: Been trying to remember to try it out one of these days.
Cdex: Only program I use for CD/MP3 conversion
Filezilla: Used it, works great
Firefox: Secondary browser on my machine (primary is mozilla)
Gimp: Using it right now
GTK+: See gimp
Open Office: Wasn't impressed with the last version, haven't tried out the latest version yet.
Thunderbird: My main email client
VLC Media Player: Watching a video on this right now
On a different note:
Dear god, I'm actually writing a survey for slashdot, how low have I sunk?