#telnet mailserver 110
Trying 127.0.0.1... Connected to localhost.
Escape character is '^]'.
+OK QPOP (version 2.x) at vr1-workhorse1 starting.
user james
+OK Password required for james.
pass *******
+OK james has 7 messages (396563 octets).
list
+OK 7 messages (396563 octets)
1 3042
2 3712
3 2371
4 2708
5 3443
6 26040000
7 2619
.
dele 6
+OK Message 6 has been deleted.
quit
+OK Pop server at vr1-workhorse1 signing off.
Connection closed by foreign host.
#
Opera supports ECMAScript, which is the standardized Javascript. NS and MSIE being the businesses they are, got into a pissing contest over scripting and worked hard to break it for each other. ECMAScript is an attempt to create a reconciliation.
Anyway, my suggestion for you is to submit bug reports to Opera. Describe the incorrect behaviour, describe the correct behaviour, attach sample code and try to determine exactly which statement(s) are causing the issues.
Opera is an unusually responsive company. They're appreciative of feedback and work hard to fix bugs.
If you're in America, you'll want to use Opera anyway, just to test your CSS 1/2 and HTML coding, both of which can go a long way toward making your pages accessible to the disabled, as required by law (for businesses, not personal pages).
Er, disable automatic window creation, and you've disabled the vast majority of pop-up ads. Like they were ever a feature to begin with!
You pay money, because it saves you money. At least, that's how it works for me: Opera's keyboard controls and support for helping me maximize my efficiency on the web, means that I can spend more of my time doing the work that earns me money.
It only needs to save me twenty minutes to recoup the costs...
Password management sounds to me like nice words for "completely loss of security." The only places I've encountered that require password entry repeatedly are exactly those places you don't want to be automatically logged in: banks and e-stores. Everyone else tosses cookies at me, auto-logging me into Slashdot, NYT, etc.
Opera isn't strictly for old metal. I run a K62-400 with 96Mb and an ADSL connect. Opera is my exclusive browser.
Why? Because it's fast. It has superb keyboard controls, which makes me faster.
It has excellent cookie management, which makes me feel better.
It lets me toggle in User CSS overrides, which makes it a *lot* easier to read poorly-designed webpages.
When I do webpage creation, Opera's the ideal test browser: it renders *to spec* much more thoroughly than any other browser. The developers are extremely intent on creating compliancy with HTML 4, CSS 1 and 2, WAP and supporting XML with CSS. Opera is the standard by which all other render engines can be compared.
I like its print preview, and ability to shrink the render so that I can save a page when the last page has widows on it.
It's got great bookmarking.
And I really like the MDI interface. Other than my daily cruise through the newsites, my main use of the web is as a research tool. I'll have my wordprocessing or pagelayout tools up and running... and Opera, doing searches for terms, ideas, clarification, etc. Instead of having to deal with dozens of application windows, I have only one or two. Opera's internal window tabs make it brainless to jump between web windows.
Best of all, though, is the responsiveness of the Opera programmers. They really care about their product, and they really do respond to suggestions and questions. They're worth paying, because they really do have my best interests at heart: they want my feedback so they can make the software work better for me.
That's way better than the response I've had from any other software company, and quite a few freeware authors...
[FOOTNOTE: Biggest challenge to using Opera is getting over one's paradigms. When you're so used to the way Browser X works, it's very difficult to accept any other UI. As a fellow who's used MSIE, NS and Opera all, I say Opera's GUI is rough around the edges, but its keyboard controls are the best, bar none... and the keyboard is now where I spend my browsing time. It's worth getting over the hurdle...]
Anyone got any good stories about Internet Banking?
I'm in love with my bank, [Citizen's Bank of Canada]. As long as I keep more than $1K in the account, it's free. *FREE*. No service charges on the account. No transaction fees. *No VISA fees*. *No ATM or DirectPay fees*. And they pay higher interest rates than the big banks.
And every time I use my VISA, ten cents goes to charity. And we bank members get to vote on the charities every year.
Works for me!
My sister-in-law banks with "President's Choice," a big-box grocery/superstore chain in Canada. It pays higher interest, but doesn't do the charity thing. She gets discounts on her groceries... and suffers with a smile the taunts and teases about her grovery bank.
Anyone have experiences to share? Is there anything like this in the USA? Someone from Finland was talking about their country being over 50% e-banking...
People want *professional* level tools, even when they're not professionals.
JASC Paintshop Pro is overkill for most people's graphics needs. It sells for what, a hundred bucks? Yet Photoshop is pirated like mad -- *not* because it's better, but because it's considered professional-grade. Joe Blow will never use 1/3rd its features... but it's what he wants.
The same applies for wordprocessors.
Unfortunately, what most people don't seem to realize is that there's a whole level of professionalism that's quite apart from the level of marketing.
One thing that frustrates me is that so many products are de-facto standard not because they are superior, but because they were well-marketed.
Corel has a suite of applications that is superior to the competition in almost every way:
* by most accounts, CorelDraw is better than Illustrator, Freehand and PageMaker.
* by many accounts, WordPerfect is superior to MS-Word.
* by all accounts, Ventura Publisher is superior to Quark and FrameMaker.
PhotoPaint versus Photoshop seems to be the only upset to Corel's domination on the basis of functionality and ease-of-use.
Yet Corel is sinking like a stone, while these other inferior products continue to maintain de-facto status.
It bothers me, 'cause I *hate* using inferior tools just because they're popular!
Er, anyway, rant off. My point is: people don't want simple or minimalist. They want *professional* tools. Even if they are overkill.
But for texture, I refer you to Toy Story 2 and Dinosaur. TS2 had well-done grunge on occasion, and D had great fur, great rocks and great vegetation (shame it had nothing else going for it...).
Things are getting better in CGI-land.
But realistic CGI is no match for reality. Reality is fractal and random, both to a degree that can never be matched by simulation. Yes, "never" is strong language. Yes, I do think it's correct to say "never."
For interesting thoughts on realism vs. cartoonism, you'll want to grab a copy of Scott McCloud's "Understanding Comics."
In it, he purports that the more "cartoony" the character art, the more closely the viewer can identify with it; the more realistic the character art, the more the viewer dissociates from it.
But, then, that was the *old struggle* between ragtag rebels.
In the prequel, everything is shiny-new because it *is* shiny-new. In the IV to VI series, what *was* shiny-new has, through the course of long and losing battles against the Empire, become ragtag.
That said, I agree: the grittiness of the originals was charming. The craft, the bots: they were high-tech to us, and old-tech to the human characters in the story.
Ah, isn't capitalism already doing those things? My impression is that the insurance companies and HMOs are making it damnably difficult for many people to get adequate and appropriate health care. "Pre-existing conditions" springs to mind...
The US would do well to worry about that same country, rather than setting up preferential trade deals with them.
When -- not if -- China's government decides that it needs the resources of America, it will take them. The country has not been shy to invade Tibet, threaten Taiwan, kill its own people and tell the US and UN to shove their human rights concerns up their ass.
This is not a slag on the Chinese citizenry. I am talking about their government.
Chris: Good evening. Tonight: "patents". I have here, sitting in the studio next to me, an elk. Ahhhh!!! Oh, I'm sorry! Anne Elk - Mrs Anne Elk
Anne:Miss!
C: Miss Anne Elk, who is an expert on pa...
A: N' n' n' n' no! Anne Elk!
C: What?
A: Anne Elk, not Anne Expert!
C: No! No, I was saying that you, Miss Anne Elk, were an , A-N not A-N-N-E, expert...
A: Oh!
C:...on elks - I'm sorry, on patents. I'm...
A: Yes, I certainly am, Chris. How very true. My word yes.
C: Now, Miss Elk - Anne - you have a new idea for a Patent.
A: Can I just say here, Chris for one moment, that I have a new idea for a Patent?
C: Uh... Exactly... What is it?
A: Where?
C: No! No, what is your Patent?
A: What is my Patent?
C: Yes!
A: What is my Patent that it is? Yes. Well, you may well ask what is my Patent.
C: I am asking.
A: And well you may. Yes, my word, you may well ask what it is, this Patent of mine. Well, this Patent, that I have, that is to say, which is mine,... is mine.
C: I know it's yours! What is it?
A:... Where?... Oh! Oh! What is my Patent?
C: Yes!
A: Ahh! My Patent, that I have, follows the lines that I am about to relate. [starts prolonged throat clearing]
C: [under breath] Oh, God!
[Anne still clearing throat]
A: The Patent, by A. Elk (that's "A" for Anne", it's not by a elk.)
C: Right...
A: [clears throat] This Patent, which belongs to me, is as follows...
[more throat clearing]
This is how it goes...
[clears throat]
The next thing that I am about to say is my Patent.
[clears throat]
Ready?
C: [wimpers]
A: The Patent, by A. Elk [Miss]. My Patent is along the following lines...
C: [under breath]God!
A:...All Patents are original at one end; much, much non-obvious in the
middle and then original again at the far end. That is the Patent that I
have and which is mine and what it is, too.
C: That's it, is it?
A: Right, Chris!
C: Well, Anne, this Patent of yours seems to have hit the nail right on the head.
A:... and it's mine.
C: Thank you for coming along to the studio...
A: My pleasure, Chris.
(with apo's to Monty Python)
Ah, if only one could patent Patenting. Maybe then there'd come some sense into it all...
Ah, kids, back in my day, when I was in University, it sure was a different world. Would you believe we actually used flat, dead trees for our printed communication?
Hey, no laughing, or I'll quit reminiscing!
Yup, everything was printed on paper. That was back in the days when there were these huge multinational companies that were allowed to cut down entire forests. Would you believe that Brazil used to be a jungle? Amazing.
Whazzat? How did they protect their books? They didn't! This'll blow your mind: we had these big buildings called "libraries," where all these books were kept, and you could go in and read them *for free*!
Yah, you could even share your books with friends. Heh, once I even made a complete copy of one of my textbooks using this thing called a photocopy machine. You'd open up the book, put a page on the glass, press a button, and a perfect copy of the page came out of the machine.
No, there wasn't any encryption, Timmy. It was plaintext. I know! I know! It's amazing, I told you! Everyone could share books, you didn't even need to pay for them if you went to a library, you could even make copies of them without being caught.
Well, yah, that all came to an end at the turn of the century. That Digital Millenium Copyright Act sure put a halt to sharing books.
Seriously, would I lie to you? This is all true!
Yah, those were the days. You could get your information for free, and it was yours forever. Didn't have to pay Random House a yearly fee to keep them from erasing your mind, even. Once you knew stuff, it was yours forever...
Ever try to get people to think? It's damn near impossible these days. There are terrible things being done by the American legal system and government. Absurd laws are being passed -- laws that give businesses more power than people; laws that give police more powers and reduce people's rights; laws that punish people who don't cause physical harm to property or people.
Why are these laws being made? Why isn't the general public up in arms and demanding that the government F.O.A.D.? Why is most everyone so sheeplike that they're going to let their every freedom and right be infringed on, to the point where they'll no longer have freedoms or rights?
The only way to kickstart some people's brains is through sophistry. And even then, it doesn't seem to always work -- *you* certainly don't seem to be giving your head a shake and thinking about the implications of what I've said, even if you were to slash the figures I posted to one-tenth their size.
The American Way is on the fast-track to becoming the same way as the dictatorships that have been mentioned.
Wake up, people. You gotta start figuring out that the government is becoming a police dictatorship. By the time it becomes as full-fledged as those in China, Burma and Africa, it'll be too damned late to change it.
I remember being able to read all of alt.sex, every day... and it was an intelligent, useful, wide-ranging discussion. Graphics? Only ASCII art!:-) There were few stories; most of the content were Q&A and discussion. Elf was top dog!
I remember when the entire collection of newsgroup names would fit on a single sheet of paper. alt.pathetic-egos-creating-useless-groups hadn't happened.
I remember when everyone used their real EMail address in the FROM: line -- because there weren't any scum-sucking address-harvesting bastards who'd spam your mailbox to death.
And I remember my only access was a teletype terminal...
There are still useful Usenet groups, and they're not even heavily spammed. It's worth snagging a copy of Free Agent and accessing the Usenet from a proper application, instead of those godawfulw web-enabled things like Deja.
The stat is from the New York Times, quoting the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
I believe the idea is that you take the incarceration rate of 647/100000, which would be an annual average, and multiply it out by a lifespan -- say fifty years (we'll give the kids a break). Of course this ignores recidivism and such...
...but the point is made: the incarceration rate is atrociously high. It *USED* to be around 313/100000 in 1985, and about 215/100000 in the seventies. Averaged through the first seventy-five years of the past century, it was around 110/100000.
Do take notice that the numbers are heading geometric, not linear.
Now ask yourself *WHY* so many people are being tossed into prison. Is the murder rate heading skyward? Is theft growing?
What sort of personal and/or property damages are being done that justify so many arrests? Or are the crimes victimless: the perps being self-abusive drug users?
And follow the money. Who benefits by a large prison population? Who's getting paid? Who makes a profit? Who gains an advantage by removing people's voting privileges?
There are connections and ideas that have to come to mind. If you're reasonably intelligent, I believe you'll start to suspect that the system is loaded, that someone's making big money, and that the whole prison situation would be a farcical obscenity if it weren't so destructive to fellow citizens.
Do you really think there's a more repressive regime than the US?
Did you know that Americans stand a 1/5 chance of going to jail at some point in their lives? If your so unfortunate as to be a black American, you're closer to a 1/3 chance of incarceration.
America has an incarceration rate of over 645/100000 annually. That's atrociously high.
Of course, the reason so many Americans are in jail is because the US government is running an ever-losing "war on drugs," mainly because it's highly profitable to a few people in power.
Alcohol kills six times more people than illegal drugs do, and smoking kills 30 times as many. But both remain legal. Speaking of pot, didja know that if you're a whiteboy caught with an ounce, you'll probably get nailed for possession; whereas if you're black, you're inevitably going to get charged with dealing. Blacks are fucked whenever they encounter the law.
But, let's not talk drugs: it's too controversial. Let's talk politics -- or, rather, not being allowed to be political.
Did you know that a third of the US population can't name a single first-amendment right? That'd include some biggies, like "freedom of speech" and
"freedom to peaceably assemble."
Certainly the LA and Philadelphia police don't know about those rights. There are people still in jail, nearly a month after the the GOP convention in Philly (http://www.phillyimc.org/) and the LA police beat the living shit out of folk who were protesting at the Democrat's convention.
Oh, this is just too depressing. I've got to stop writing about it... other than China, it could be difficult to find a more repressive regime than America.
I firmly believe that drugs that alter brain chemistry are a tool, and should not carry any stigma for their use. There's never an issue with a diabetic injecting insulin; there should never be an issue with an ADD/hyperactive/depressed/name-your-condition-here person using a drug to create balance in their life.
So I won't say anything bad about Ritalin, Prozac or other drugs: properly prescribed, they are a godsend for their users. They take a chemically unbalanced brain and bring it back to balance.
But our medical system -- oy! It's all-too-willing to pop a pill. Your kid is active? Why he must be hyperactive! You're feeling blue? Why you must be clinically depressed! You have trouble sleeping? You must need tamazapan!
GPs are under-educated for the work that they are allowed to do. Brain chemistry is still a huge unknown, and it's becoming apparent that nutrition, lifestyle and emotional attitudes have immense influence on our brains.
But being poorly informed and needing to find a quick fix, doctors prescribe their pill-of-the-week to all and sundry.
Consumers, being even more ignorant and less willing to look for deeper answers, go along with it.
Drugs are a tool, for sure.
But it's a damn shame that we're using hammers to drive screws into place.
There are many children who will see the world in brighter colours and with greater happiness because they're correctly prescribed a drug that alters their brain chemistry. It's great when their problems are nailed by Ritalin.:-)
There are many, many more children who's "hyperactive" behaviour is caused by environmental factors that their parents or doctors are too lazy or stupid to investigate. They're the ones who are condemned to a life of grey because their guardians didn't do their job. It's a shameful loss when they're screwed because they got hammered with Ritalin.:-(
And perhaps not coincidently, Ritalin is a CNS (central nervous system) stimulent. For the layman, you might consider it an extremely potent form of coffee: it jives you up. For the junkies, you might compare it to amphetamines.
Ironically, it seems to have a calming effect on some people. The mechanism is unknown, mainly because no one really knows what causes ADHD.
It is entirely possible that the guy you knew had been mis-prescribed.
America already lives in the Brave New World, and it's growing with a frightening rapidity.
In the USA, fully one-third of the population can't name a single first-amendment right, and over forty percent are in support of limiting freedom of speech.
In the USA, alcohol kills six times more people than illegal drugs do, and smoking kills 30 times as many. Yet the USA is increasing the amount it spends on its anti-drug war, increasing invasive police search-and-seizure practices, and is doling out ever-harsher penalties for possession.
The USA had an imprisonment rate of 110/100000 during the 1900-1975. In 1997, the imprisonment rate was 645/100000. A nearly six-fold increase.
At the present incarceration rates, one in twenty Americans can expect to go to jail during their lifetime. If you're black, close to one in three of you will end up in jail at some point in your lives.
In the USA, prison labour is serious competition to the unimprisoned workforce. Your employer could lose contracts to prison labour, with the result that you'll be out on the street.
The USA is the only "democracy" that does not allow ex-felons to vote. As a result, well over four million citizens are unable to vote.
The states increased prison spending by 30% between 1987-1995. In the same period, they decreased education expenditures by 18%.
Sixty-four percent of the US population did not vote in 1998. More than half the children in the USA live in a household that does not vote.
"The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed."
-- South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko
The American public believes that it is not oppressed.
As long as it continues to believe it, the problems listed above will only continue to grow.
The USA is no longer the land of the free. It is the land of the misinformed, passive public.
The recent altercations in Philidelphia and Los Angeles; the news of FBI wire-tapping, data snooping; the reality of corporations invading their employees privacy; and the support of a significant portion of the population in allowing these things to happen: evidence that the USA is becoming a police state.
In fact, the USA is currently very much the Brave New World. Where it's headed is 1984.
Unless those people who recognize that the trend towards police-state politics is undesirable start to stand up and demand change, they might as well bend over and take it right up the ass.
It's time for the informed people to become active people. Sure as no one in the general public is going to save the country.
Slashdot Mirror
...typing on a laptop that's become a singularity. The keys are *so* close together!
--
#telnet mailserver 110
Trying 127.0.0.1... Connected to localhost.
Escape character is '^]'.
+OK QPOP (version 2.x) at vr1-workhorse1 starting.
user james
+OK Password required for james.
pass *******
+OK james has 7 messages (396563 octets).
list
+OK 7 messages (396563 octets)
1 3042
2 3712
3 2371
4 2708
5 3443
6 26040000
7 2619
.
dele 6
+OK Message 6 has been deleted.
quit
+OK Pop server at vr1-workhorse1 signing off.
Connection closed by foreign host.
#
--
Opera supports ECMAScript, which is the standardized Javascript. NS and MSIE being the businesses they are, got into a pissing contest over scripting and worked hard to break it for each other. ECMAScript is an attempt to create a reconciliation.
Anyway, my suggestion for you is to submit bug reports to Opera. Describe the incorrect behaviour, describe the correct behaviour, attach sample code and try to determine exactly which statement(s) are causing the issues.
Opera is an unusually responsive company. They're appreciative of feedback and work hard to fix bugs.
If you're in America, you'll want to use Opera anyway, just to test your CSS 1/2 and HTML coding, both of which can go a long way toward making your pages accessible to the disabled, as required by law (for businesses, not personal pages).
--
Er, disable automatic window creation, and you've disabled the vast majority of pop-up ads. Like they were ever a feature to begin with!
You pay money, because it saves you money. At least, that's how it works for me: Opera's keyboard controls and support for helping me maximize my efficiency on the web, means that I can spend more of my time doing the work that earns me money.
It only needs to save me twenty minutes to recoup the costs...
--
Password management sounds to me like nice words for "completely loss of security." The only places I've encountered that require password entry repeatedly are exactly those places you don't want to be automatically logged in: banks and e-stores. Everyone else tosses cookies at me, auto-logging me into Slashdot, NYT, etc.
Opera isn't strictly for old metal. I run a K62-400 with 96Mb and an ADSL connect. Opera is my exclusive browser.
Why? Because it's fast. It has superb keyboard controls, which makes me faster.
It has excellent cookie management, which makes me feel better.
It lets me toggle in User CSS overrides, which makes it a *lot* easier to read poorly-designed webpages.
When I do webpage creation, Opera's the ideal test browser: it renders *to spec* much more thoroughly than any other browser. The developers are extremely intent on creating compliancy with HTML 4, CSS 1 and 2, WAP and supporting XML with CSS. Opera is the standard by which all other render engines can be compared.
I like its print preview, and ability to shrink the render so that I can save a page when the last page has widows on it.
It's got great bookmarking.
And I really like the MDI interface. Other than my daily cruise through the newsites, my main use of the web is as a research tool. I'll have my wordprocessing or pagelayout tools up and running... and Opera, doing searches for terms, ideas, clarification, etc. Instead of having to deal with dozens of application windows, I have only one or two. Opera's internal window tabs make it brainless to jump between web windows.
Best of all, though, is the responsiveness of the Opera programmers. They really care about their product, and they really do respond to suggestions and questions. They're worth paying, because they really do have my best interests at heart: they want my feedback so they can make the software work better for me.
That's way better than the response I've had from any other software company, and quite a few freeware authors...
[FOOTNOTE: Biggest challenge to using Opera is getting over one's paradigms. When you're so used to the way Browser X works, it's very difficult to accept any other UI. As a fellow who's used MSIE, NS and Opera all, I say Opera's GUI is rough around the edges, but its keyboard controls are the best, bar none... and the keyboard is now where I spend my browsing time. It's worth getting over the hurdle...]
--
(Remotely associated with net micropayments)
Anyone got any good stories about Internet Banking?
I'm in love with my bank, [Citizen's Bank of Canada]. As long as I keep more than $1K in the account, it's free. *FREE*. No service charges on the account. No transaction fees. *No VISA fees*. *No ATM or DirectPay fees*. And they pay higher interest rates than the big banks.
And every time I use my VISA, ten cents goes to charity. And we bank members get to vote on the charities every year.
Works for me!
My sister-in-law banks with "President's Choice," a big-box grocery/superstore chain in Canada. It pays higher interest, but doesn't do the charity thing. She gets discounts on her groceries... and suffers with a smile the taunts and teases about her grovery bank.
Anyone have experiences to share? Is there anything like this in the USA? Someone from Finland was talking about their country being over 50% e-banking...
--
People want *professional* level tools, even when they're not professionals.
JASC Paintshop Pro is overkill for most people's graphics needs. It sells for what, a hundred bucks? Yet Photoshop is pirated like mad -- *not* because it's better, but because it's considered professional-grade. Joe Blow will never use 1/3rd its features... but it's what he wants.
The same applies for wordprocessors.
Unfortunately, what most people don't seem to realize is that there's a whole level of professionalism that's quite apart from the level of marketing.
One thing that frustrates me is that so many products are de-facto standard not because they are superior, but because they were well-marketed.
Corel has a suite of applications that is superior to the competition in almost every way:
* by most accounts, CorelDraw is better than Illustrator, Freehand and PageMaker.
* by many accounts, WordPerfect is superior to MS-Word.
* by all accounts, Ventura Publisher is superior to Quark and FrameMaker.
PhotoPaint versus Photoshop seems to be the only upset to Corel's domination on the basis of functionality and ease-of-use.
Yet Corel is sinking like a stone, while these other inferior products continue to maintain de-facto status.
It bothers me, 'cause I *hate* using inferior tools just because they're popular!
Er, anyway, rant off. My point is: people don't want simple or minimalist. They want *professional* tools. Even if they are overkill.
--
I'll agree with point one.
But for texture, I refer you to Toy Story 2 and Dinosaur. TS2 had well-done grunge on occasion, and D had great fur, great rocks and great vegetation (shame it had nothing else going for it...).
Things are getting better in CGI-land.
But realistic CGI is no match for reality. Reality is fractal and random, both to a degree that can never be matched by simulation. Yes, "never" is strong language. Yes, I do think it's correct to say "never."
--
For interesting thoughts on realism vs. cartoonism, you'll want to grab a copy of Scott McCloud's "Understanding Comics."
In it, he purports that the more "cartoony" the character art, the more closely the viewer can identify with it; the more realistic the character art, the more the viewer dissociates from it.
As evidence, look to Dilbert versus Mary Worth.
--
But, then, that was the *old struggle* between ragtag rebels.
In the prequel, everything is shiny-new because it *is* shiny-new. In the IV to VI series, what *was* shiny-new has, through the course of long and losing battles against the Empire, become ragtag.
That said, I agree: the grittiness of the originals was charming. The craft, the bots: they were high-tech to us, and old-tech to the human characters in the story.
--
Ah, isn't capitalism already doing those things? My impression is that the insurance companies and HMOs are making it damnably difficult for many people to get adequate and appropriate health care. "Pre-existing conditions" springs to mind...
--
The US would do well to worry about that same country, rather than setting up preferential trade deals with them.
When -- not if -- China's government decides that it needs the resources of America, it will take them. The country has not been shy to invade Tibet, threaten Taiwan, kill its own people and tell the US and UN to shove their human rights concerns up their ass.
This is not a slag on the Chinese citizenry. I am talking about their government.
--
Chris: Good evening. Tonight: "patents". I have here, sitting in the studio next to me, an elk. Ahhhh!!! Oh, I'm sorry! Anne Elk - Mrs Anne Elk
Anne:Miss!
C: Miss Anne Elk, who is an expert on pa...
A: N' n' n' n' no! Anne Elk!
C: What?
A: Anne Elk, not Anne Expert!
C: No! No, I was saying that you, Miss Anne Elk, were an , A-N not A-N-N-E, expert...
A: Oh!
C: ...on elks - I'm sorry, on patents. I'm ...
A: Yes, I certainly am, Chris. How very true. My word yes.
C: Now, Miss Elk - Anne - you have a new idea for a Patent.
A: Can I just say here, Chris for one moment, that I have a new idea for a Patent?
C: Uh... Exactly... What is it?
A: Where?
C: No! No, what is your Patent?
A: What is my Patent?
C: Yes!
A: What is my Patent that it is? Yes. Well, you may well ask what is my Patent.
C: I am asking.
A: And well you may. Yes, my word, you may well ask what it is, this Patent of mine. Well, this Patent, that I have, that is to say, which is mine,... is mine.
C: I know it's yours! What is it?
A: ... Where? ... Oh! Oh! What is my Patent?
C: Yes!
A: Ahh! My Patent, that I have, follows the lines that I am about to relate. [starts prolonged throat clearing]
C: [under breath] Oh, God!
[Anne still clearing throat] A: The Patent, by A. Elk (that's "A" for Anne", it's not by a elk.)
C: Right...
A: [clears throat] This Patent, which belongs to me, is as follows... [more throat clearing] This is how it goes... [clears throat] The next thing that I am about to say is my Patent. [clears throat] Ready?
C: [wimpers]
A: The Patent, by A. Elk [Miss]. My Patent is along the following lines...
C: [under breath]God!
A: ...All Patents are original at one end; much, much non-obvious in the
middle and then original again at the far end. That is the Patent that I
have and which is mine and what it is, too.
C: That's it, is it?
A: Right, Chris!
C: Well, Anne, this Patent of yours seems to have hit the nail right on the head.
A: ... and it's mine.
C: Thank you for coming along to the studio...
A: My pleasure, Chris.
(with apo's to Monty Python)
Ah, if only one could patent Patenting. Maybe then there'd come some sense into it all...
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http://www.freedomforum.org/news/2000/08/2000-08-2 4-05.htm
A small taste of being black in America.
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Ah, kids, back in my day, when I was in University, it sure was a different world. Would you believe we actually used flat, dead trees for our printed communication?
Hey, no laughing, or I'll quit reminiscing!
Yup, everything was printed on paper. That was back in the days when there were these huge multinational companies that were allowed to cut down entire forests. Would you believe that Brazil used to be a jungle? Amazing.
Whazzat? How did they protect their books? They didn't! This'll blow your mind: we had these big buildings called "libraries," where all these books were kept, and you could go in and read them *for free*!
Yah, you could even share your books with friends. Heh, once I even made a complete copy of one of my textbooks using this thing called a photocopy machine. You'd open up the book, put a page on the glass, press a button, and a perfect copy of the page came out of the machine.
No, there wasn't any encryption, Timmy. It was plaintext. I know! I know! It's amazing, I told you! Everyone could share books, you didn't even need to pay for them if you went to a library, you could even make copies of them without being caught.
Well, yah, that all came to an end at the turn of the century. That Digital Millenium Copyright Act sure put a halt to sharing books.
Seriously, would I lie to you? This is all true!
Yah, those were the days. You could get your information for free, and it was yours forever. Didn't have to pay Random House a yearly fee to keep them from erasing your mind, even. Once you knew stuff, it was yours forever...
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*Of* *course* the whole thing was sophistry!
Ever try to get people to think? It's damn near impossible these days. There are terrible things being done by the American legal system and government. Absurd laws are being passed -- laws that give businesses more power than people; laws that give police more powers and reduce people's rights; laws that punish people who don't cause physical harm to property or people.
Why are these laws being made? Why isn't the general public up in arms and demanding that the government F.O.A.D.? Why is most everyone so sheeplike that they're going to let their every freedom and right be infringed on, to the point where they'll no longer have freedoms or rights?
The only way to kickstart some people's brains is through sophistry. And even then, it doesn't seem to always work -- *you* certainly don't seem to be giving your head a shake and thinking about the implications of what I've said, even if you were to slash the figures I posted to one-tenth their size.
The American Way is on the fast-track to becoming the same way as the dictatorships that have been mentioned.
Wake up, people. You gotta start figuring out that the government is becoming a police dictatorship. By the time it becomes as full-fledged as those in China, Burma and Africa, it'll be too damned late to change it.
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By the way, Free Agent is available from http://www.forteinc.com/getfa/download.htm
It really is a nice bit of kit.
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I remember being able to read all of alt.sex, every day... and it was an intelligent, useful, wide-ranging discussion. Graphics? Only ASCII art! :-) There were few stories; most of the content were Q&A and discussion. Elf was top dog!
I remember when the entire collection of newsgroup names would fit on a single sheet of paper. alt.pathetic-egos-creating-useless-groups hadn't happened.
I remember when everyone used their real EMail address in the FROM: line -- because there weren't any scum-sucking address-harvesting bastards who'd spam your mailbox to death.
And I remember my only access was a teletype terminal...
There are still useful Usenet groups, and they're not even heavily spammed. It's worth snagging a copy of Free Agent and accessing the Usenet from a proper application, instead of those godawfulw web-enabled things like Deja.
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The stat is from the New York Times, quoting the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
I believe the idea is that you take the incarceration rate of 647/100000, which would be an annual average, and multiply it out by a lifespan -- say fifty years (we'll give the kids a break). Of course this ignores recidivism and such...
...but the point is made: the incarceration rate is atrociously high. It *USED* to be around 313/100000 in 1985, and about 215/100000 in the seventies. Averaged through the first seventy-five years of the past century, it was around 110/100000.
Do take notice that the numbers are heading geometric, not linear.
Now ask yourself *WHY* so many people are being tossed into prison. Is the murder rate heading skyward? Is theft growing?
What sort of personal and/or property damages are being done that justify so many arrests? Or are the crimes victimless: the perps being self-abusive drug users?
And follow the money. Who benefits by a large prison population? Who's getting paid? Who makes a profit? Who gains an advantage by removing people's voting privileges?
There are connections and ideas that have to come to mind. If you're reasonably intelligent, I believe you'll start to suspect that the system is loaded, that someone's making big money, and that the whole prison situation would be a farcical obscenity if it weren't so destructive to fellow citizens.
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Do you really think there's a more repressive regime than the US?
Did you know that Americans stand a 1/5 chance of going to jail at some point in their lives? If your so unfortunate as to be a black American, you're closer to a 1/3 chance of incarceration.
America has an incarceration rate of over 645/100000 annually. That's atrociously high.
Of course, the reason so many Americans are in jail is because the US government is running an ever-losing "war on drugs," mainly because it's highly profitable to a few people in power.
Alcohol kills six times more people than illegal drugs do, and smoking kills 30 times as many. But both remain legal. Speaking of pot, didja know that if you're a whiteboy caught with an ounce, you'll probably get nailed for possession; whereas if you're black, you're inevitably going to get charged with dealing. Blacks are fucked whenever they encounter the law.
But, let's not talk drugs: it's too controversial. Let's talk politics -- or, rather, not being allowed to be political.
Did you know that a third of the US population can't name a single first-amendment right? That'd include some biggies, like "freedom of speech" and
"freedom to peaceably assemble."
Certainly the LA and Philadelphia police don't know about those rights. There are people still in jail, nearly a month after the the GOP convention in Philly (http://www.phillyimc.org/) and the LA police beat the living shit out of folk who were protesting at the Democrat's convention.
Oh, this is just too depressing. I've got to stop writing about it... other than China, it could be difficult to find a more repressive regime than America.
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Only in America. Ritalin is over-prescribed, IMO, in Canada, too.
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Damn straight!
e person using a drug to create balance in their life.
:-)
:-(
I firmly believe that drugs that alter brain chemistry are a tool, and should not carry any stigma for their use. There's never an issue with a diabetic injecting insulin; there should never be an issue with an ADD/hyperactive/depressed/name-your-condition-her
So I won't say anything bad about Ritalin, Prozac or other drugs: properly prescribed, they are a godsend for their users. They take a chemically unbalanced brain and bring it back to balance.
But our medical system -- oy! It's all-too-willing to pop a pill. Your kid is active? Why he must be hyperactive! You're feeling blue? Why you must be clinically depressed! You have trouble sleeping? You must need tamazapan!
GPs are under-educated for the work that they are allowed to do. Brain chemistry is still a huge unknown, and it's becoming apparent that nutrition, lifestyle and emotional attitudes have immense influence on our brains.
But being poorly informed and needing to find a quick fix, doctors prescribe their pill-of-the-week to all and sundry.
Consumers, being even more ignorant and less willing to look for deeper answers, go along with it.
Drugs are a tool, for sure.
But it's a damn shame that we're using hammers to drive screws into place.
There are many children who will see the world in brighter colours and with greater happiness because they're correctly prescribed a drug that alters their brain chemistry. It's great when their problems are nailed by Ritalin.
There are many, many more children who's "hyperactive" behaviour is caused by environmental factors that their parents or doctors are too lazy or stupid to investigate. They're the ones who are condemned to a life of grey because their guardians didn't do their job. It's a shameful loss when they're screwed because they got hammered with Ritalin.
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And perhaps not coincidently, Ritalin is a CNS (central nervous system) stimulent. For the layman, you might consider it an extremely potent form of coffee: it jives you up. For the junkies, you might compare it to amphetamines.
Ironically, it seems to have a calming effect on some people. The mechanism is unknown, mainly because no one really knows what causes ADHD.
It is entirely possible that the guy you knew had been mis-prescribed.
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Or, at least, I have: the new Ikea advertisements that claim "If we can update this old classic..."
I've seen two: one that have "Eight is Enough"(?) and one that has "Gilligan's Island."
I won't go out on the limb and say it was done in real-time, but I'll betcha it was done using the PVI technology.
It's bloody impressive. *Really* really impressive.
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America already lives in the Brave New World, and it's growing with a frightening rapidity.
In the USA, fully one-third of the population can't name a single first-amendment right, and over forty percent are in support of limiting freedom of speech.
In the USA, alcohol kills six times more people than illegal drugs do, and smoking kills 30 times as many. Yet the USA is increasing the amount it spends on its anti-drug war, increasing invasive police search-and-seizure practices, and is doling out ever-harsher penalties for possession.
The USA had an imprisonment rate of 110/100000 during the 1900-1975. In 1997, the imprisonment rate was 645/100000. A nearly six-fold increase.
At the present incarceration rates, one in twenty Americans can expect to go to jail during their lifetime. If you're black, close to one in three of you will end up in jail at some point in your lives.
In the USA, prison labour is serious competition to the unimprisoned workforce. Your employer could lose contracts to prison labour, with the result that you'll be out on the street.
The USA is the only "democracy" that does not allow ex-felons to vote. As a result, well over four million citizens are unable to vote.
The states increased prison spending by 30% between 1987-1995. In the same period, they decreased education expenditures by 18%.
Sixty-four percent of the US population did not vote in 1998. More than half the children in the USA live in a household that does not vote.
"The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed."
-- South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko
The American public believes that it is not oppressed.
As long as it continues to believe it, the problems listed above will only continue to grow.
The USA is no longer the land of the free. It is the land of the misinformed, passive public.
The recent altercations in Philidelphia and Los Angeles; the news of FBI wire-tapping, data snooping; the reality of corporations invading their employees privacy; and the support of a significant portion of the population in allowing these things to happen: evidence that the USA is becoming a police state.
In fact, the USA is currently very much the Brave New World. Where it's headed is 1984.
Unless those people who recognize that the trend towards police-state politics is undesirable start to stand up and demand change, they might as well bend over and take it right up the ass.
It's time for the informed people to become active people. Sure as no one in the general public is going to save the country.
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