Ya know, if I had my stupid "drives itself" car already, this would NOT be a problem. Lives would probably be saved. Cmon DARPA, you've figured out more complicated things than this!!
We will be writing checks to campaigns by the end of this quarter," Mr. Gallagher said.
Until political lobbies are basically outlawed, this country will continue to suffer. It's not the rich getting richer that is the true problem. It's that as the rich reach a certain level, they then get to start buying laws that favor them getting even more... richer.
Lobbyists and campaign contributions from corporations or cartels (read: *IAA) have never been so open with their intent to buy politicians. It's always been "we know what you're doing but you still do it on the DL."
Now, here you have a new lobby being almost flippant about their right to buy politicians, as if it were protected constitutionally.
I've actually started paying attention to John Edwards this campaign, as he is the only candidate that has not accepted lobbyist contributions to date, and espouses the need to rid the White House (and I hope the other Houses) of lobbyists for good.
Although, that kind of talk will hardly get you elected. Sigh...
They are supposed to represent the interests of the people.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh man... I don't mean to troll but...
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!
I can't remember the last politician that gave a rat's ass about my interests, or the interests of those around me and in my community. I may be jaded living in Philadelphia (murder capital of the world, here we come!) and corruption in at least one of the surrounding states (I introduce to you New Jersey), where I lived for most of my life, is actually considered the most corrupt state government in the nation.
On top of that, for every issue that I have a stand on, I write my representatives, contact those who are meant to represent me. I have yet to receive any more than a formulary email, and none of my letters that did not have opinions that matched those of my representative ever had a blip of making a difference.
I have written to reduce and eliminate the "Business Luxury Tax" at the local level because it's killing new businesses from coming into the cities. I have written asking that our city wage tax dollars (highest in the country at ~4.9%) be spent on paying police to become a presence in the worst neighborhoods in our city, responsible for most of the murders. Yet we somehow (after years of no-bid, nepatism-based contracts, etc.) still hang on the edge of the worst fiscal crisis Philadelphia has ever seen.
On the national level, I have written or otherwise contacted my representatives about all things new age - computer crimes, the difference between copyright and theft, not allowing corporate conglomorates dicatate new laws, etc. That has netted the bill in question in the article.
Those in power stopped representing the "people" so long ago, I can't even remember when I last felt that a person voted in to power cared two shits about me 3 minutes after the election results were official.
I'm tired of visionaries; I want someone practical.
The "someone practicals" are not those who top leaders want in power - they aren't puppets. They aren't yes-men. So keep them off the ballot, don't lend a hand in their campaigns. Instead, spend millions and millions on ad-spots for those that know how to take direction from party leaders, and are happy to give up their morals, ethics, even self-identities for a condo in DC. And the sheep that are the voting public follow their directions as well, voting in to power who they are told to. (And heck, if that doesn't work, just rig the election.)
Everyone wants someone more idealistic in office. But no one - including the voting public - will let it happen.
Well that's just great. According to South Park, not only do "curse words" or "words that are cursed" bring about horrors such as puking up your own innards, but Canada is evil and an ensuing war with Canada brings forth the apocalypse.
So now, as a double whammy, we've got the evil Canadians throwing around "fuck" like it's candy.
Guess I should start making peace with God soon...
Really? Doesn't seem like the RIAA has had much trouble convincing government officials of just about anything they've set out to do. It's only the courts that seems to have any degree of understanding. They're the ones that are actually pushing back on the RIAA, awarding attorney fees to victims of lawsuits, etc. They're the ones that already said "no" to the iPod levy in Canada.
But lawmakers? They have no idea what anyone is talking about, and the organization with the biggest campaign contributions win. There has yet to be a law enacted (that I've seen) that has been enforced that benefits the consumer. Fair use? We're holding on to it for dear, dear life.
Or, they could get off their duffs and figure out this whole "gravity" problem once and for all. Oh, "it's a bend in space-time"... Well unbend it already!
Not to mention that you're talking about legitimate functions of a computer - things that people get with other operating systems too (like my beloved OSX - Time Machine and Spotlight in Leopard, for instance, each have indexes, even if my backup drive is not attached).
It burns me a little that "Vista" and "Microsoft" are in this posting/article because it's the technologies that make people's lives easier that also make them more open to computer forensics finding deleted data, etc.
However, while I'm sure the community here could come up with a million things that they wouldn't want law enforcement to get their hands on, and let's leave your 600GB music/movie collection out of this, so what that it's easier to discover that someone had child porno on their computers? This "ease of discovery" only comes after both suspicion of a crime are filed along with a judge-ordered subpoena. If you find yourself in this situation, well, I hate to my bones to say it, but if you didn't do anything wrong, what do you have to be worried about???
(Note: I hate that "if you've done nothing wrong" argument, but in this case it applies since you're already suspected of a crime and some sort of search/seizure documents have been filed for your computer equipment.)
Actually, who else thinks this was a ploy to find out who's leaking internal information? Narrow it down to a suspect, add in some known faithful employees, and send the "fake" press release.
No. Prior art stays the same. If anyone has published a the same idea before it is not patentable... The new system is much less corrupt and more open.
Define "publish" - because in theory anything I put on paper is copyrighted, but trying to get a plagiarism suit proven based on my napkin scribblings of a kid wizard at a school named Frogwarts is gonna be tough.
I suppose prior art is a type of "publishing" but this makes it even harder for a patent to get overturned. Most of the headaches of the current system are exactly what this system is proposing - the first to the gate in filing a patent wins it. That's exactly the nightmare we're dealing with now - Garage Inventor has idea A but Big Company files a patent for it. When Garage Inventor starts to get big, Big Company says "whoa, we have a patent on A" even though Garage Inventor has years of prior art.
31 machines out of 340 districts? How many were in each district?
I've really got to ask - how hard is it to write a machine that tallies clicks? Seriously?
I've been writing code in several languages for going on 9 years, and I've got to tell you, counting votes sounds like something we did in CS 102.
Of COURSE it should be open source. Of COURSE any shmoe should be able to audit the code. Because - and I've gotta tell ya, I'm not the greatest dev that ever lived - there are about a million people in CA that could actually properly vet the code.
Security is the only place where it becomes an issue - but seriously, it shouldn't be that hard. Google built an empire on white-box commodity-hardware. We can't build a machine that properly counts clicks?
If they are from somewhere else, they are an alien.
If they are enterring illegally, they are an illegal alien.
And it's natural to shorten a long phrase like "illegal alien" to simply "illegal" when the context is clear.
And for God's sake, calling someone an illegal alien, when they in fact are, does not make someone racist.
Talk about misuse of a word to further a political agenda.
"We need to control the flow of illegal aliens into..."
... is still a system of any kind of any surveillance. Problem is, eventually there won't be anywhere to move to to get away from this kind of surveillance. Move to Canada? What, you think a satellite can't find you there?
I can see this leading to an entire movement to the Afgan caves. I mean, at least there you can't be watched by the eye-in-the-sky every waking moment of your life... And who knows, you might run into Osama at the same time.
Brilliant thought. This is incredibly analogous to the cold war. The super-powers are locked in a non-waring loop, despite their mutual hatred for each other. Smaller countries continue to wage war, sometimes even poking the major players into said war, but the big companies will never initiate an attack that can be mind-numbingly devastating both in initial attack as well as in received retaliation.
I doubt that we'll be seeing any patent non-sue-liferation treaties any time soon, though. And no, cross-licensing isn't a treaty - it's just an acknowledgment between the players that yes, each has a pretty powerful arsenal.
When alcohol was prohibited in the U.S., the mob was created.
Um... the "mob" was hardly a US-created institution, nor was it the prohibition of alcohol that gave rise to organized crime in the US. It existed long before prohibition, all over the world.
If you're referring to "La Cosa Nostra", or the Italian-framed stereotypical mafia family, that most likely originated in Palermo, Sicily, and was originally offered as protection of the elite from the displaced and disenfranchised people of Sicily, which had fallen into total disorder. However, some scholars will even argue that the origins of La Cosa Nostra actually go back to medieval times.
Some organized crime in other parts of the world are based on the Sicilian family model, but organized crime has existed as long as man has. And the Italians are hardly the only ones with renowned mafia syndicates - the Irish and Russian mafias to name two are also pretty well known and fabled.
Man, you guys are idiots. Straight idiots. You know how much the presidential race is gonna cost this year? So I toss a couple of favors to Big Business... they've been like family these past few years. They rub my back, I rub theirs.
I mean, come on. You know how many canucks are gonna have to pony up $1100 to raise what one donation from Exxon nets? Thousands and thousands. And then you've gotta answer to like thousands of people! One donation from Exxon, and I just answer to Exxon. It's good common sense!
You guys are like straight idiots. You'll never catch us enacting such ridiculous laws.
Ya know what they say on Jackass - "If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough."
By more dumb, yet hardened people breeding than us 98 lb weakling nerds, we're assuring the survival of the species past the next major disaster, be it meteor or nuclear.
Yes, it's cool that some companies sell computers sans-OS... but seriously, the subject line is ridiculous. These are not "Open Source Computers" for crying out loud.
This is just as viable an option as if I had an old computer that lost a mobo to a power surge, and instead of fixing it, I decided to get a new computer. I'm allowed to move my XP license to the new computer, so why pay for a new one through Dell.
"Open Source Computer" would better imply that the computer came with a mobo that supported and had installed OpenBIOS, came pre-installed with Linux and OO.org, had a video card from the Open-Graphics project, etc.
This is not an "Open Source Computer". This is a standard PC with an "unformatted hard drive."
I've never understood how a protected right - my right to record music off of a device streaming it to me - be it radio or satellite radio or internet radio - does not in turn make it legal for companies to offer devices that allow me to exercise those rights.
It's like "it's legal for minors to possess, but not purchase, cigarettes."
If I have a right to record music, denying me any device that allows me to exercise that right denies me that right - and so having an act that protects that right is useless to begin with.
Most people I know who use microsoft office and other microsoft products use them exclusively.
Absolutely. Which is why you will eventually upgrade - in a corporate environment anyway. Office is what is used to get documents done in the corporate world (US at least), and it's not really a debatable thing.
Sure it's slightly deplorable that they've created a new "standard" yet AGAIN, and play nicely with ODF ONLY to get govn't contracts, etc. But MS Office is where it's at, and in order to play with the big boys, it's a very very small concession to make indeed.
This wasn't a place I was happy be to be at, hence why I am no longer there.
I think this is kinda flame-bait, arguing in one sentence that an unhappy work environment and an insistence on using MS Office are somehow related. MS Office do not assholes make, nor do I consider the people I work with assholes, despite Office being installed on every machine here.
Slashdot Mirror
Ya know, if I had my stupid "drives itself" car already, this would NOT be a problem. Lives would probably be saved. Cmon DARPA, you've figured out more complicated things than this!!
Linus' horse is getting pretty high these days. It's tiresome. It's like he's trying to rule a class that's no longer looking for a leader.
Until political lobbies are basically outlawed, this country will continue to suffer. It's not the rich getting richer that is the true problem. It's that as the rich reach a certain level, they then get to start buying laws that favor them getting even more... richer.
Lobbyists and campaign contributions from corporations or cartels (read: *IAA) have never been so open with their intent to buy politicians. It's always been "we know what you're doing but you still do it on the DL."
Now, here you have a new lobby being almost flippant about their right to buy politicians, as if it were protected constitutionally.
I've actually started paying attention to John Edwards this campaign, as he is the only candidate that has not accepted lobbyist contributions to date, and espouses the need to rid the White House (and I hope the other Houses) of lobbyists for good.
Although, that kind of talk will hardly get you elected. Sigh...
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh man... I don't mean to troll but...
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!
I can't remember the last politician that gave a rat's ass about my interests, or the interests of those around me and in my community. I may be jaded living in Philadelphia (murder capital of the world, here we come!) and corruption in at least one of the surrounding states (I introduce to you New Jersey), where I lived for most of my life, is actually considered the most corrupt state government in the nation.
On top of that, for every issue that I have a stand on, I write my representatives, contact those who are meant to represent me. I have yet to receive any more than a formulary email, and none of my letters that did not have opinions that matched those of my representative ever had a blip of making a difference.
I have written to reduce and eliminate the "Business Luxury Tax" at the local level because it's killing new businesses from coming into the cities. I have written asking that our city wage tax dollars (highest in the country at ~4.9%) be spent on paying police to become a presence in the worst neighborhoods in our city, responsible for most of the murders. Yet we somehow (after years of no-bid, nepatism-based contracts, etc.) still hang on the edge of the worst fiscal crisis Philadelphia has ever seen.
On the national level, I have written or otherwise contacted my representatives about all things new age - computer crimes, the difference between copyright and theft, not allowing corporate conglomorates dicatate new laws, etc. That has netted the bill in question in the article.
Those in power stopped representing the "people" so long ago, I can't even remember when I last felt that a person voted in to power cared two shits about me 3 minutes after the election results were official.
Except maybe Michael Nutter? I guess we'll see...
The "someone practicals" are not those who top leaders want in power - they aren't puppets. They aren't yes-men. So keep them off the ballot, don't lend a hand in their campaigns. Instead, spend millions and millions on ad-spots for those that know how to take direction from party leaders, and are happy to give up their morals, ethics, even self-identities for a condo in DC. And the sheep that are the voting public follow their directions as well, voting in to power who they are told to. (And heck, if that doesn't work, just rig the election.)
Everyone wants someone more idealistic in office. But no one - including the voting public - will let it happen.
Well that's just great. According to South Park, not only do "curse words" or "words that are cursed" bring about horrors such as puking up your own innards, but Canada is evil and an ensuing war with Canada brings forth the apocalypse.
So now, as a double whammy, we've got the evil Canadians throwing around "fuck" like it's candy.
Guess I should start making peace with God soon...
Really? Doesn't seem like the RIAA has had much trouble convincing government officials of just about anything they've set out to do. It's only the courts that seems to have any degree of understanding. They're the ones that are actually pushing back on the RIAA, awarding attorney fees to victims of lawsuits, etc. They're the ones that already said "no" to the iPod levy in Canada.
But lawmakers? They have no idea what anyone is talking about, and the organization with the biggest campaign contributions win. There has yet to be a law enacted (that I've seen) that has been enforced that benefits the consumer. Fair use? We're holding on to it for dear, dear life.
Or, they could get off their duffs and figure out this whole "gravity" problem once and for all. Oh, "it's a bend in space-time"... Well unbend it already!
Not to mention that you're talking about legitimate functions of a computer - things that people get with other operating systems too (like my beloved OSX - Time Machine and Spotlight in Leopard, for instance, each have indexes, even if my backup drive is not attached).
It burns me a little that "Vista" and "Microsoft" are in this posting/article because it's the technologies that make people's lives easier that also make them more open to computer forensics finding deleted data, etc.
However, while I'm sure the community here could come up with a million things that they wouldn't want law enforcement to get their hands on, and let's leave your 600GB music/movie collection out of this, so what that it's easier to discover that someone had child porno on their computers? This "ease of discovery" only comes after both suspicion of a crime are filed along with a judge-ordered subpoena. If you find yourself in this situation, well, I hate to my bones to say it, but if you didn't do anything wrong, what do you have to be worried about???
(Note: I hate that "if you've done nothing wrong" argument, but in this case it applies since you're already suspected of a crime and some sort of search/seizure documents have been filed for your computer equipment.)
Actually, who else thinks this was a ploy to find out who's leaking internal information? Narrow it down to a suspect, add in some known faithful employees, and send the "fake" press release.
Engadget gets it... internal leak... plugged?
Define "publish" - because in theory anything I put on paper is copyrighted, but trying to get a plagiarism suit proven based on my napkin scribblings of a kid wizard at a school named Frogwarts is gonna be tough.
I suppose prior art is a type of "publishing" but this makes it even harder for a patent to get overturned. Most of the headaches of the current system are exactly what this system is proposing - the first to the gate in filing a patent wins it. That's exactly the nightmare we're dealing with now - Garage Inventor has idea A but Big Company files a patent for it. When Garage Inventor starts to get big, Big Company says "whoa, we have a patent on A" even though Garage Inventor has years of prior art.
In my mind, this solves nothing.
I've really got to ask - how hard is it to write a machine that tallies clicks? Seriously?
I've been writing code in several languages for going on 9 years, and I've got to tell you, counting votes sounds like something we did in CS 102.
Of COURSE it should be open source. Of COURSE any shmoe should be able to audit the code. Because - and I've gotta tell ya, I'm not the greatest dev that ever lived - there are about a million people in CA that could actually properly vet the code.
Security is the only place where it becomes an issue - but seriously, it shouldn't be that hard. Google built an empire on white-box commodity-hardware. We can't build a machine that properly counts clicks?
I've shopped at TJ Max!
My VISA company sucks...
Talk about misuse of a word to further a political agenda.
"We need to control the flow of illegal aliens into..."
"RACIST!!"
WTF??I can see this leading to an entire movement to the Afgan caves. I mean, at least there you can't be watched by the eye-in-the-sky every waking moment of your life... And who knows, you might run into Osama at the same time.
Agreed about OO.org. I use the "standard" edition of Google Apps which does offer for free the use of Google Docs and Spreadsheets.
Docs is horribly uninteresting. FCKEditor has more formatting options than Google Docs. It's not an office competitor in my mind.
Spreadsheets is a bit better, but 2G is plenty of email space for my small business.
Brilliant thought. This is incredibly analogous to the cold war. The super-powers are locked in a non-waring loop, despite their mutual hatred for each other. Smaller countries continue to wage war, sometimes even poking the major players into said war, but the big companies will never initiate an attack that can be mind-numbingly devastating both in initial attack as well as in received retaliation.
I doubt that we'll be seeing any patent non-sue-liferation treaties any time soon, though. And no, cross-licensing isn't a treaty - it's just an acknowledgment between the players that yes, each has a pretty powerful arsenal.
Um... the "mob" was hardly a US-created institution, nor was it the prohibition of alcohol that gave rise to organized crime in the US. It existed long before prohibition, all over the world.
If you're referring to "La Cosa Nostra", or the Italian-framed stereotypical mafia family, that most likely originated in Palermo, Sicily, and was originally offered as protection of the elite from the displaced and disenfranchised people of Sicily, which had fallen into total disorder. However, some scholars will even argue that the origins of La Cosa Nostra actually go back to medieval times.
Some organized crime in other parts of the world are based on the Sicilian family model, but organized crime has existed as long as man has. And the Italians are hardly the only ones with renowned mafia syndicates - the Irish and Russian mafias to name two are also pretty well known and fabled.
Well then you should have gone back and taken a picture of the hospital AND the security guard. And posted it on the internet.
Man, you guys are idiots. Straight idiots. You know how much the presidential race is gonna cost this year? So I toss a couple of favors to Big Business... they've been like family these past few years. They rub my back, I rub theirs.
I mean, come on. You know how many canucks are gonna have to pony up $1100 to raise what one donation from Exxon nets? Thousands and thousands. And then you've gotta answer to like thousands of people! One donation from Exxon, and I just answer to Exxon. It's good common sense!
You guys are like straight idiots. You'll never catch us enacting such ridiculous laws.
Sincerely,
The US Government
Ya know what they say on Jackass - "If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough." By more dumb, yet hardened people breeding than us 98 lb weakling nerds, we're assuring the survival of the species past the next major disaster, be it meteor or nuclear.
Yes, it's cool that some companies sell computers sans-OS... but seriously, the subject line is ridiculous. These are not "Open Source Computers" for crying out loud.
This is just as viable an option as if I had an old computer that lost a mobo to a power surge, and instead of fixing it, I decided to get a new computer. I'm allowed to move my XP license to the new computer, so why pay for a new one through Dell.
"Open Source Computer" would better imply that the computer came with a mobo that supported and had installed OpenBIOS, came pre-installed with Linux and OO.org, had a video card from the Open-Graphics project, etc.
This is not an "Open Source Computer". This is a standard PC with an "unformatted hard drive."
I've never understood how a protected right - my right to record music off of a device streaming it to me - be it radio or satellite radio or internet radio - does not in turn make it legal for companies to offer devices that allow me to exercise those rights.
It's like "it's legal for minors to possess, but not purchase, cigarettes."
If I have a right to record music, denying me any device that allows me to exercise that right denies me that right - and so having an act that protects that right is useless to begin with.
Absolutely. Which is why you will eventually upgrade - in a corporate environment anyway. Office is what is used to get documents done in the corporate world (US at least), and it's not really a debatable thing.
Sure it's slightly deplorable that they've created a new "standard" yet AGAIN, and play nicely with ODF ONLY to get govn't contracts, etc. But MS Office is where it's at, and in order to play with the big boys, it's a very very small concession to make indeed.
I think this is kinda flame-bait, arguing in one sentence that an unhappy work environment and an insistence on using MS Office are somehow related. MS Office do not assholes make, nor do I consider the people I work with assholes, despite Office being installed on every machine here.