Email is the modern postcard, not modern mail. Mail is sealed in an envelope PGP is the envelope of email.... use it.
No. You are completely wrong. You're trying to make a case for the elimination of security based upon ease of observation. That's not how, or why, security manifests itself -- it is a right that applies to persons, houses, papers, and effects.
Encryption is not the boundary. Encryption is a hardening of the boundary. The boundary is that you have the right to be secure in your papers and effects. Likewise, an envelope is a (trivial) hardening of the boundary.
If I leave my door unlocked, that doesn't give you permission to come in. If I lock the door, I'm hardening the boundary. If I bar the door, I'm hardening it further. If I drop a portcullis over it, I'm hardening it even further. But the basic right never changes - I have a constitutional right to security [persons, houses, papers, and effects], and that right is in no way pendant upon how much, or if, any boundaries are hardened.
Let us say that a lady elects to wear a skirt. Does this give us the right to look up her skirt? After all, if she didn't want us looking, she could have hardened the boundary, that is, worn pants, is this not true? But any reasonable person understands the security of her person is not to be violated -- she is not extending anyone permission to look up her skirt just because she is wearing one.
But what if she is a shoplifter and is hiding merchandise up her skirt? Would this not give us the right to look up her skirt? The answer is, it would if one had knowledge that this was the case.
The constitution calls this "probable cause." The idea that a lady could hide merchandise under her skirt clearly does not translate into the right to look up all ladies' skirts -- the very idea is ludicrous, is it not?
Yet the US government is telling us that the reason they are justified in looking at everyone's email and other Internet activity is because these activities "could" allow illicit activity, and it's "easy" to look at email.
This is precisely the same kind of reasoning we just disposed of with skirts; the only time the government should be looking at any communication is when (a) they have probable cause to think that those communications are of a criminal nature, (b) they have obtained a warrant that (c) specifically describes the communications to be searched. Why? Go read the fourth amendment again -- it really couldn't be any plainer.
Any US court that tries to argue that email isn't "protected" has little to no understanding of the US constitution: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
EMail is modern mail; and mail is one case of the "papers" mentioned in the 4th amendment. The US mail is a 100% analogy here. Sure, someone can easily can look in an envelope during its trip between parties, or at either end, but the 4th says you have the right to be secure in your papers and effects, so it is illegal to do so. EMail is precisely the same kind of communication. It isn't about the fact that someone can look; it is about your right to privacy, to expect that they shall not look, and if they do, they have harmed you.
This covers why email is protected as a side issue of the main discussion: On Privacy.
The reason why Facebook is so popular is because -everyone- can use it.
Didn't facebook throw registered sex offenders off? They're the henin, or untouchables, of the US class system. Even lower than felons. The new negros. It's perfectly ok to hate them and lock them out of everything. They're not a legitimate part of "everyone", right?
No need, we're already screwed when we need left+right clicks. Especially on trackpads. Luckily, plug in a reasonable mouse, everything works fine. It's only with an Apple cripple-mouse or a trackpad you get into trouble. First thing I do with a new Mac is throw the apple mouse in a drawer, second thing is ditch the chiclet keyboard for a scissor design... then they work the way they should have in the first place, great machines. Except for the laptops... can't conveniently replace those keyboards, and oh brother, do they ever suck hard. Macbook, Macbook pro, Macbook air... own 'em all, hate the keyboards on 'em all. Jobs obviously doesn't have to type for a living, nor his minions.
No, you can't. Without references, a reader has no way of knowing whether the article is accurate or not
Utter nonsense. The reader may, if they wish to verify anything, simply turn to Google and further educate themselves on the subject matter, or turn to researching it themselves. The article may, in fact, justify itself by explaining matters sufficiently. If the article is accurate and in-depth, it *is* high quality because the point is to impute correct information in its perusal, which such an article will do just as well as one with references. Better, in fact, because having references in no way means that the article is correct, as compared to an article that actually is correct.
For instance, if I tell you that the standard black level for AFSK SSTV is 1500 hz, I have just handed you a 100% true piece of information. If some other wag tells you it is 2000 hz, and gives a citation to a page that describes an SSTV system that uses 2000 Hz, they have snowed you using the citation, not further educated you. Citations are no more inherently accurate than the articles that contain them are. The issue is simply, is the article correct, or is it not? And the answer to that depends in no way upon citations. Facts are facts, they're not subject to your taste for further linkage.
Somehow Internet has made people to forget that creating quality content costs money.
It really was that word "quality" that caught my attention. You can argue that you like that stuff, and I'll nod agreeably -- after all, that's your prerogative -- but I'll just laugh at you if you claim it's quality content. The vast, vast majority of everything ad-supported on the Internet and television is unmitigated crap.
I also decline to take seriously any argument that ad support is required for quality. As soon as you attempt to address the general public, the details disappear, the verbiage dumbs down, the explanations devolve into sound/text bites, and quality-wise, all is forgone in pursuit of head-counting. Which is what the advertisers are looking for. Ars Technica being a great example of this. Totally dumbed-down environment.
There is an inherent disconnect between quality content and advertising mechanisms precisely because any venue that attempts to cater to a swath of people that extends beyond those with expertise in the covered area, will inherently trade quality for headcount. Without high headcounts, advertising doesn't work (because advertising only results in a tiny percentage of hits, the advertisers need big traffic numbers for that tiny percentage of gullible clicks to turn in sustainable results.)
Television has been the technology with the most initial potential, and the very least fulfillment of that potential, that the world had ever seen. When television was taken by force from the people's hands and delivered wrapped up real pretty to the corporations for exploit, that was the killing blow.
The Internet is doing considerably better, with actual quality able to be found with a little inventive search engine prodding. I guarantee you that when you find it, the odds of it being advertiser supported are very low. The reason is because you can still get on the Internet and set up a website for almost nothing, and no regulating authority (yet) says this requires license and arbitrary fees. So you can find pages and data about many things that offer great depth, magnificent creativity and literacy, original art in numerous domains, work and data all across the technical and scientific spectrum. Very little of it with any ad support at all. Because quality isn't what the people, as a mass, are seeking. And the ads go where the people go.
Finally, just as an aside, "Shiny" and/or "Polished" does not equal "Quality." Unless you're a mental magpie.
You can easily have an extremely high quality, 100% accurate and in-depth Wikipedia article without a single external reference. Therefore, the entire analysis is bullshit.
Which is about what I've come to expect from anything that tries to meta Wikipedia.
It's a mish-mosh. As long as article creation and revision is open, it will remain one. Legitimate attempts to characterize any article's quality can only be done by a true expert in the subject matter at hand, if one can even be found. Which is why Wikipedia's resident pedants utterly foul up so many excellent contributions.
I'll tell you what is degrading... participating in directly fostering the mindset that does not allow someone to choose what they want to do with their own body.
Good looks are a natural gift, as much valid proceeds of the genetic lottery as athleticism, intelligence, sharp vision, fast reflexes, strength, longevity and so forth.
The despicable double standard that says a person should be ashamed of, or forbidden to, take advantage of good looks, yet may be valued for intelligence or athleticism, etc., is just another way to try to repress people and enforce stone-age outlooks upon what should be a more compassionate and flexible society.
What Apple is doing here deserves no respect whatsoever. It is pitifully shallow. And yes, I'm an Apple customer. I find this, and many other aspects of Apple's "control freakiness", to be highly offensive.
Ok, let us carry your argument to its logical conclusion: your original dollar passes through your hands, your plumber's hands, the local hardware store's hands, etc, getting taxed at 25% at each point. Eventually, all the money goes back to the government in taxes. Wow, we have a 100% tax rate!
No, it'll never be 100%, because (for one thing) you actually get the work and service you requested as part of the transaction. For another, every time that dollar changes hands, it provides more goods and services, although less and less as it works its way downstream.
You didn't understand what I wrote. I suggest you go back and read it again, as many times as necessary, until you do. You are correct in that taxation further downstream detrimentally affects how much you pay for things; you are very much incorrect to assume it reaches 100%. As it goes downstream, the effect diminishes considerably. First order effects are the main load. The fact is, your real tax rate specifically determines what goods and services you get for your dollar. That means taxes applied to your purchases - no matter what they are called - reduce the ability of your dollar to function on your behalf.
And somehow, the government wound up with $1 to spend on fixing the roads, hiring a policeman, or whatever.
No. I earned $133; I was enabled to apply $75 to engage services or purchase goods; the government got $58 with which it then generally spends servicing a huge debt it should never, ever have gotten into, with the remainder mostly paying for services I do not consider useful, much less necessary, notable exceptions being roads, education, and the like.
My hope for you is that someday you actually understand what is being done to you.
In the 1770's people usually hired the carpenter or tailor to make them a chair or coat. People paid taxed directly on owner-run businesses.
No. In the 1770's, the government taxed imports for its operating funds. It did not tax income. It was not authorized to tax income, and if you had suggested that they should do so at the time, likely you would have been shot, hung, or worse. Here's how it actually went:
The federal income tax was first enacted in 1862 to pay for civil war expenses on the part of the Union. They subsequently eliminated it in 1872; turned around again and revived it in 1894; and then finally it was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1895. Then in 1913, the 16th Amendment put income tax into the "authorized powers" category, and that's where we are today.
As the son of the IRS employee who was killed in this incident said, "if he [Stack] has a house and a plane he can pay his taxes." (Austin American-Statesman, 2/21/2010).
More accurately, it is likely he had a house and a plane because he did not pay his taxes.
After paying for his legally required share of the two utterly ridiculous wars we are prosecuting, US bases all over the world, the cost of keeping an unprecedented number our citizens in jail, subsidies for businesses that otherwise would naturally fail... he might very well have been unable to purchase a house, much less an aircraft. 20% to 40% of one's income in your hands over the years (more, if you actually do the math*) makes for quite a difference in how you can approach purchasing big ticket items like homes and boats and so forth; and if in doing so, whether you ride the wheel of debt that has been arranged for us, or if you are able to actually make such purchases without incurring additional costs in interest.
It is well to keep in mind that like any enterprise that involves the legal system, trying to stand up for a position that the government finds itself in disagreement with - legitimately or otherwise - is also a hugely expensive undertaking, easily capable of bankrupting any person of average income. The presumption that you can fight city hall is false for most people. It's just another way to shipwreck your life.
Perhaps taxes are too high, and government too large, after all. I seem to recall that there are Americans who are looked upon as heroes because they fought against unreasonable tax policies. Is it fair to assume that each and every one of those we hold in such high regard perfectly managed their lives? This guy clearly could have made different decisions (no doubt most of them to his detriment), but would they have been "right", or merely compliant?
I could point out many historical examples of "law abiding citizens" that most certainly were not doing "right." To call this fellow an "idiot", as you do, is to attempt to wrap the whole event in a nutshell of disrespect that does not serve the interests of the dead IRS employees, the family Stack left behind, or, frankly, the rest of the nation.
It does, however, serve the needs of the government. An entity that is more in need of careful pruning than encouragement, in my opinion. I can't support Stack's action, because in the end, these people were neither his enemy nor the source of his problems. However, from where we stand today, it is history, and all I can do is hope that more people think about the problem, instead of assuming it is inevitable that we pay such huge amounts for "services" that primarily benefit other than the general population. Perhaps while they're at it, they'll think about how the government has stepped outside the boundaries defined for it by its formal authorizing mechanism.
After all, a government that is doing what it was actually authorized by its citizens to do is a lot less likely to incur the wrath of its citizens, thinking rationally and "acting rightly", or not.
---
*note: The amount of your money that goes to taxes is the amount you actually pay directly, plus the amount paid by any first-party you do business with. For instance, if you pay a plumber $100 to fix your pipes, and the plumber is paying a 25% tax rate, then $25 of the $100 you gave the plumber goes directly to the same tax well that your direct taxes do. Here's the math. Let's say you and the plumber are both paying 25%. Then, you initially earned $133; the government taxed you 25%, which is $33.33, and now you have $100 left. Now you give that $100 to the plumber, who in turn has to give $25 of that income (25%) to the government. $75 of your $133 has arrived in the plumber's hands, actually paying for the plumbing work. Your actual tax rate here is 75/133 which is about 56% - not the 25% that it initially appears to be.
First we have the NWS, a service that predicts ten days ahead, but often (usually, where I live) can't get the prediction correct within a reasonable margin eight hours into the future, because what they do is astonishingly difficult; many things are not yet understood, and some things that are understood are so complex, so under-sampled, so skeletally simulated, that it's often not much more than hand-waving.
To this, we (apparently) want to add a service that deals with climate predictions... a domain where the global warming alarmists have amply demonstrated that forming even one hypothesis that gives rise to working laws (meaning, predictions that don't turn out to be falsifiable) is so difficult as to be beyond our present abilities.
Well, on the plus side, because the problem (predicting climate) appears to be impenetrably difficult, the agency should be able to continually increase its budget for computers and programmers. Maybe it'll grow so large we can no longer afford to mire our military in a war in the Middle East and bankrupt ourselves for the next half-century to secure access to the last big reservoir of the polluting, nonrenewable energy source of the 20th century. (that last bit was quoted almost verbatim from Tim Kreider, a very funny and cynical fellow.) Consequently we will have to actually focus on other sources of energy.
Oh, wait. We couldn't afford to engage in those wars anyway -- we borrowed that money from China. Your kids will be paying it back. Or perhaps learning to speak Chinese.
Yeah, hey. A climate agency. After all, what could it hurt? It's not like decisions taken on wrong, incomplete, or outright fabricated information might cause problems, is it?
These are naturally existing chunks of objective reality, and a description of them is simply a collection of facts. All human speech and thought is metaphor anyway, so I think someone has made a distinction without a difference.
...in a story and threads about Microsoft doing things that will send (more) customers running for greener pastures. But that's ok. It's not like moderation means anything here.:)
***Warning: Mac Advocate*** ***Warning: Mac Advocate***
Then there's the Mac/OS X option. No driver installation at all. The machine and all its wifi, network, USB, bluetooth, etc. will be working 100% when you take it out of the box -- and it'll keep working. No viruses. No "phone home to keep running/legal." Full bore *nix capability, just like Linux, except with a much, much better, smoother and more consistent GUI. Nothing will insist on KDE or Gnome or whatever. Fabulous apps. And the ability to run both Linux and Windows (even several versions of Linux and windows) in virtual machines at the same time it's running OS X. Even lots of Linuxy-apps, like the Gimp, work just fine - there are even multiple flavors of them. Some run under xwindows, some under OS X. Both at the same time, if you like.
I left Windows years ago and good grief am I glad I did. Every time I see a task bar stuffed with pointless icons; every time I hear about someone "defragging"; every time I hear about viruses and worms and malware in general; every time Microsoft pulls another DRM antic; every time I see a windows multicore machine not use the cores for this app or that app; every time I read about "server licensing"; every time someone asks me "if I fix computers"... because we all know what that usually means. "No, I sure don't" is what I tell 'em.
I got my entire family to switch, and everyone is happy as a clam. No more panicked phone calls; everyone is fully backed up, all the time, no effort required on their part. Yep. OS X is simply a treat.
Perfect? Nah. Nothing is. But it's orders of magnitude better than anything Microsoft ever squeezed out their back door, and it offers darned near everything Linux does, plus a bunch Linux doesn't. Although it definitely costs more.
Decent Macs start at $599, for which you get:
2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (which the OS actually uses, along with the GPU) [$options up to 2.53 GHz]
Five USB 2.0 ports (up to 480 Mbps)
1066MHz frontside bus
2 GB of RAM [$options up to 4 GB]
160 GB HD [$options to 500 GB]
1x to 24x double layer DVD/CD R/W drive
Built-in 10/100/1000BASE-T Gigabit Ethernet
3MB on-chip shared L2 cache running 1:1 with processor speed
a tinny-ass little speaker
analog digital audio input
optical digital audio input
analog digital audio output
optical digital audio output
Drives two monitors out of the box
Built-in Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
One FireWire 800 port (up to 800 Mbps)
Mac OS X Snow Leopard (Look! Comes with the OS!)
consumes max 110 watts. That's right. 110. Energy star, FWTW.
dead quiet
size of three slices of bread, stacked: 2"x6.5"x6.5"
weighs three pounds
uses any PC keyboard, monitor, mouse you have lying around, or high end DVI monitor, your call
a year's hardware warranty [$option to extend to 3 years]
and guess what? Doesn't come pre-loaded with AOL, etc., either.
Again, perfect? No. The graphics are shared RAM, so they're not lightning fast for 3D; but they rip for desktop use, photo editing, etc. This particular machine is only as expanded/expandable as you order it. And yes, it's more expensive than a bare bones PC. But then again, it isn't bare bones. Apple doesn't sell anything like that.
Or... you can shoot for the moon. Apple's really happy to take your money, and they've got hardware to empty most bank accounts right smartly. I went for an 8-core, 3 GHz machine for nearly $3k, and then stuffed it full of aftermarket RAM. This year it looks like a 12-core machine is in the works... and I'm seriously considering it. My camera pukes up 45 megabyte images, and I'm going to upgrade to a Canon 5DmkII, which will generate 63 megabyte images... right now, I'm thoroughly spoiled by my machine's ability to generate a JPEG from a RAW file faster than I can get my hands off the keyboard. I'd like to keep that feeling after I get the 5DmkII.
...it wouldn't hold up in court anyway. try again.
From jail, with lots of money, paying a team of very good (and very expensive) lawyers, over years, while the matter proceeds through court after court? With no certainty that the SCOTUS, which has approved many an unconstitutional matter, will see things the constitutional way?
Tell you what. You try again. I'll just quietly think my thoughts without involving the whole broken system.
And as far as I know, Intel has USB on every chipset they make.
This is a custom CPU, built by a company Apple owns. Not an Intel CPU. Consequently, the support hardware isn't necessarily Intel, either. Have to wait for a teardown to see.
It is a computer that has been locked down, as the parent said, so that it has the functionality of an appliance.
Nope. Let me fix that for you:
It is a computer that has been locked down, as the parent said, so that it has the functionality of many thousands of different computer applications, of which quite a few are very powerful indeed.
You're still reading the specs. Try actually reading a book on the iPod. A whole book. Very quickly, you'll realize the same thing I realized trying to read books off my ancient Visor Edge: page size matters.
I read books on my iPod Touch all the time -- about one a day. I use the free Kindle reader app, and it is awesome. It supports five different font sizes, the three smallest being what I prefer, depending on where I am when I'm reading. in bed, iPod near my face, I use the smallest size. At "desktop distance", I use the next to smallest size. If my eyes are tired, I use the middle size. In terms of page size, the iPod is fully capable of getting you right into the recommended zone of characters per line for both maximum comprehension and maximum reading speed -- for the same reason magazines use columns instead of going full page. At 163 DPI, it is almost perfect for the task.
Advantages over larger devices (iPad, actual Kindle, etc.) vary. The Kindle doesn't work in the dark. The iPod Touch screen is small enough that you don't have to move your eyes to read, and that means you're a lot less likely to lose your place and that reading speeds are higher. The iPod is much faster than the Kindle as well, though I'm sure not faster than the iPad. The iPod will be a *lot* more convenient in bed than the iPad, simply because of its size. The iPod can rest on the pillow next to you, while the iPad is wider than most people's heads... it'll be offset if you're lying down and hold it close... plus, it can't be that close anyway, because it's quite large, you have to get some distance to see the whole thing. If it's at a distance, though, it's likely to be a lot more difficult to support with your arm extended.
Characterizing the iPad as impractical as an e-reader is straight-up wrong. It's a great reader.
The iPad (and mind you, I intend to get one) has a number of design fails that really disappoint me:
No camera(s) (I mean seriously, this is a complete and total screwup)
720p video? No. 720p is 1280x720; iPad is 1024x768. It'll be scaled down to 1024x576, a 36% rez loss
No IR emitter - so much for using it as a great remote. Would have added about a nickle to the cost.
Cable charging - should have charged on a pad. Cables are so 1900's. +static risk
Cable syncing - should have synced via wifi. Cables are so 1900's. (And it HAS wifi!) SW fail. +static risk
The Touch is 163 DPI. The iPad is 132 DPI. iPad suffers 19% loss in 1D sharpness, 34% loss in 2D sharpness.
If the iPad had been 163 DPI, it would have been able to display actual 720p movies.
No multitasking (again, this isn't the 1900's... OS9/6809 did this in 1980, Amiga in 1985)
Just as the iPod Touch is far more than a "device to service iTunes" as the hysterical media and gullible segment of the public would have it, the iPad is also far more. The extra screen real estate will be useful, and will make certain types of apps a lot easier to use. The addition of GPS and the compass will enable new types of apps entirely (though these could already exist on the far more expensive iPhone.) More screen real estate means more data on screen, even if it isn't as sharp; that'll be particularly nice for graphics apps (though again, the lack of a camera... awesomely shortsighted. Blind, even.)
As an e-reader, though... I think the iPod wins over the iPad. Hugely more convenient, hugely easier to carry, better at night / in bed, easier on the eyes, less expensive, adequate battery life (especially with wifi off.)
Slashdot Mirror
No. You are completely wrong. You're trying to make a case for the elimination of security based upon ease of observation. That's not how, or why, security manifests itself -- it is a right that applies to persons, houses, papers, and effects.
Encryption is not the boundary. Encryption is a hardening of the boundary. The boundary is that you have the right to be secure in your papers and effects. Likewise, an envelope is a (trivial) hardening of the boundary.
If I leave my door unlocked, that doesn't give you permission to come in. If I lock the door, I'm hardening the boundary. If I bar the door, I'm hardening it further. If I drop a portcullis over it, I'm hardening it even further. But the basic right never changes - I have a constitutional right to security [persons, houses, papers, and effects], and that right is in no way pendant upon how much, or if, any boundaries are hardened.
Some content from my "On Privacy" article:
Let us say that a lady elects to wear a skirt. Does this give us the right to look up her skirt? After all, if she didn't want us looking, she could have hardened the boundary, that is, worn pants, is this not true? But any reasonable person understands the security of her person is not to be violated -- she is not extending anyone permission to look up her skirt just because she is wearing one.
But what if she is a shoplifter and is hiding merchandise up her skirt? Would this not give us the right to look up her skirt? The answer is, it would if one had knowledge that this was the case.
The constitution calls this "probable cause." The idea that a lady could hide merchandise under her skirt clearly does not translate into the right to look up all ladies' skirts -- the very idea is ludicrous, is it not?
Yet the US government is telling us that the reason they are justified in looking at everyone's email and other Internet activity is because these activities "could" allow illicit activity, and it's "easy" to look at email.
This is precisely the same kind of reasoning we just disposed of with skirts; the only time the government should be looking at any communication is when (a) they have probable cause to think that those communications are of a criminal nature, (b) they have obtained a warrant that (c) specifically describes the communications to be searched. Why? Go read the fourth amendment again -- it really couldn't be any plainer.
Thank you for the complement.
Any US court that tries to argue that email isn't "protected" has little to no understanding of the US constitution: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
EMail is modern mail; and mail is one case of the "papers" mentioned in the 4th amendment. The US mail is a 100% analogy here. Sure, someone can easily can look in an envelope during its trip between parties, or at either end, but the 4th says you have the right to be secure in your papers and effects, so it is illegal to do so. EMail is precisely the same kind of communication. It isn't about the fact that someone can look; it is about your right to privacy, to expect that they shall not look, and if they do, they have harmed you.
This covers why email is protected as a side issue of the main discussion: On Privacy.
Myself, I prefer stockings and garters, maybe a nice corset. Costumization can add a lot to your evening!
Didn't facebook throw registered sex offenders off? They're the henin, or untouchables, of the US class system. Even lower than felons. The new negros. It's perfectly ok to hate them and lock them out of everything. They're not a legitimate part of "everyone", right?
No need, we're already screwed when we need left+right clicks. Especially on trackpads. Luckily, plug in a reasonable mouse, everything works fine. It's only with an Apple cripple-mouse or a trackpad you get into trouble. First thing I do with a new Mac is throw the apple mouse in a drawer, second thing is ditch the chiclet keyboard for a scissor design... then they work the way they should have in the first place, great machines. Except for the laptops... can't conveniently replace those keyboards, and oh brother, do they ever suck hard. Macbook, Macbook pro, Macbook air... own 'em all, hate the keyboards on 'em all. Jobs obviously doesn't have to type for a living, nor his minions.
I already have an 8-core machine, a Macpro, built from two, 4-core MPUs. And I do a lot with it.
Hopefully what this means is Apple will be releasing a 16-core Macpro. Yum! Some saving will be called for, though. [cough]
Utter nonsense. The reader may, if they wish to verify anything, simply turn to Google and further educate themselves on the subject matter, or turn to researching it themselves. The article may, in fact, justify itself by explaining matters sufficiently. If the article is accurate and in-depth, it *is* high quality because the point is to impute correct information in its perusal, which such an article will do just as well as one with references. Better, in fact, because having references in no way means that the article is correct, as compared to an article that actually is correct.
For instance, if I tell you that the standard black level for AFSK SSTV is 1500 hz, I have just handed you a 100% true piece of information. If some other wag tells you it is 2000 hz, and gives a citation to a page that describes an SSTV system that uses 2000 Hz, they have snowed you using the citation, not further educated you. Citations are no more inherently accurate than the articles that contain them are. The issue is simply, is the article correct, or is it not? And the answer to that depends in no way upon citations. Facts are facts, they're not subject to your taste for further linkage.
It really was that word "quality" that caught my attention. You can argue that you like that stuff, and I'll nod agreeably -- after all, that's your prerogative -- but I'll just laugh at you if you claim it's quality content. The vast, vast majority of everything ad-supported on the Internet and television is unmitigated crap.
I also decline to take seriously any argument that ad support is required for quality. As soon as you attempt to address the general public, the details disappear, the verbiage dumbs down, the explanations devolve into sound/text bites, and quality-wise, all is forgone in pursuit of head-counting. Which is what the advertisers are looking for. Ars Technica being a great example of this. Totally dumbed-down environment.
There is an inherent disconnect between quality content and advertising mechanisms precisely because any venue that attempts to cater to a swath of people that extends beyond those with expertise in the covered area, will inherently trade quality for headcount. Without high headcounts, advertising doesn't work (because advertising only results in a tiny percentage of hits, the advertisers need big traffic numbers for that tiny percentage of gullible clicks to turn in sustainable results.)
Television has been the technology with the most initial potential, and the very least fulfillment of that potential, that the world had ever seen. When television was taken by force from the people's hands and delivered wrapped up real pretty to the corporations for exploit, that was the killing blow.
The Internet is doing considerably better, with actual quality able to be found with a little inventive search engine prodding. I guarantee you that when you find it, the odds of it being advertiser supported are very low. The reason is because you can still get on the Internet and set up a website for almost nothing, and no regulating authority (yet) says this requires license and arbitrary fees. So you can find pages and data about many things that offer great depth, magnificent creativity and literacy, original art in numerous domains, work and data all across the technical and scientific spectrum. Very little of it with any ad support at all. Because quality isn't what the people, as a mass, are seeking. And the ads go where the people go.
Finally, just as an aside, "Shiny" and/or "Polished" does not equal "Quality." Unless you're a mental magpie.
You can easily have an extremely high quality, 100% accurate and in-depth Wikipedia article without a single external reference. Therefore, the entire analysis is bullshit.
Which is about what I've come to expect from anything that tries to meta Wikipedia.
It's a mish-mosh. As long as article creation and revision is open, it will remain one. Legitimate attempts to characterize any article's quality can only be done by a true expert in the subject matter at hand, if one can even be found. Which is why Wikipedia's resident pedants utterly foul up so many excellent contributions.
A-, B- and C-class articles, my ass.
Oh, I agree. I would only point out that you, sir or madam, are an animal. :)
I'll tell you what is degrading... participating in directly fostering the mindset that does not allow someone to choose what they want to do with their own body.
Good looks are a natural gift, as much valid proceeds of the genetic lottery as athleticism, intelligence, sharp vision, fast reflexes, strength, longevity and so forth.
The despicable double standard that says a person should be ashamed of, or forbidden to, take advantage of good looks, yet may be valued for intelligence or athleticism, etc., is just another way to try to repress people and enforce stone-age outlooks upon what should be a more compassionate and flexible society.
What Apple is doing here deserves no respect whatsoever. It is pitifully shallow. And yes, I'm an Apple customer. I find this, and many other aspects of Apple's "control freakiness", to be highly offensive.
No, it'll never be 100%, because (for one thing) you actually get the work and service you requested as part of the transaction. For another, every time that dollar changes hands, it provides more goods and services, although less and less as it works its way downstream.
You didn't understand what I wrote. I suggest you go back and read it again, as many times as necessary, until you do. You are correct in that taxation further downstream detrimentally affects how much you pay for things; you are very much incorrect to assume it reaches 100%. As it goes downstream, the effect diminishes considerably. First order effects are the main load. The fact is, your real tax rate specifically determines what goods and services you get for your dollar. That means taxes applied to your purchases - no matter what they are called - reduce the ability of your dollar to function on your behalf.
No. I earned $133; I was enabled to apply $75 to engage services or purchase goods; the government got $58 with which it then generally spends servicing a huge debt it should never, ever have gotten into, with the remainder mostly paying for services I do not consider useful, much less necessary, notable exceptions being roads, education, and the like.
My hope for you is that someday you actually understand what is being done to you.
No. In the 1770's, the government taxed imports for its operating funds. It did not tax income. It was not authorized to tax income, and if you had suggested that they should do so at the time, likely you would have been shot, hung, or worse. Here's how it actually went:
The federal income tax was first enacted in 1862 to pay for civil war expenses on the part of the Union. They subsequently eliminated it in 1872; turned around again and revived it in 1894; and then finally it was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1895. Then in 1913, the 16th Amendment put income tax into the "authorized powers" category, and that's where we are today.
More accurately, it is likely he had a house and a plane because he did not pay his taxes.
After paying for his legally required share of the two utterly ridiculous wars we are prosecuting, US bases all over the world, the cost of keeping an unprecedented number our citizens in jail, subsidies for businesses that otherwise would naturally fail... he might very well have been unable to purchase a house, much less an aircraft. 20% to 40% of one's income in your hands over the years (more, if you actually do the math*) makes for quite a difference in how you can approach purchasing big ticket items like homes and boats and so forth; and if in doing so, whether you ride the wheel of debt that has been arranged for us, or if you are able to actually make such purchases without incurring additional costs in interest.
It is well to keep in mind that like any enterprise that involves the legal system, trying to stand up for a position that the government finds itself in disagreement with - legitimately or otherwise - is also a hugely expensive undertaking, easily capable of bankrupting any person of average income. The presumption that you can fight city hall is false for most people. It's just another way to shipwreck your life.
Perhaps taxes are too high, and government too large, after all. I seem to recall that there are Americans who are looked upon as heroes because they fought against unreasonable tax policies. Is it fair to assume that each and every one of those we hold in such high regard perfectly managed their lives? This guy clearly could have made different decisions (no doubt most of them to his detriment), but would they have been "right", or merely compliant?
I could point out many historical examples of "law abiding citizens" that most certainly were not doing "right." To call this fellow an "idiot", as you do, is to attempt to wrap the whole event in a nutshell of disrespect that does not serve the interests of the dead IRS employees, the family Stack left behind, or, frankly, the rest of the nation.
It does, however, serve the needs of the government. An entity that is more in need of careful pruning than encouragement, in my opinion. I can't support Stack's action, because in the end, these people were neither his enemy nor the source of his problems. However, from where we stand today, it is history, and all I can do is hope that more people think about the problem, instead of assuming it is inevitable that we pay such huge amounts for "services" that primarily benefit other than the general population. Perhaps while they're at it, they'll think about how the government has stepped outside the boundaries defined for it by its formal authorizing mechanism.
After all, a government that is doing what it was actually authorized by its citizens to do is a lot less likely to incur the wrath of its citizens, thinking rationally and "acting rightly", or not.
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*note: The amount of your money that goes to taxes is the amount you actually pay directly, plus the amount paid by any first-party you do business with. For instance, if you pay a plumber $100 to fix your pipes, and the plumber is paying a 25% tax rate, then $25 of the $100 you gave the plumber goes directly to the same tax well that your direct taxes do. Here's the math. Let's say you and the plumber are both paying 25%. Then, you initially earned $133; the government taxed you 25%, which is $33.33, and now you have $100 left. Now you give that $100 to the plumber, who in turn has to give $25 of that income (25%) to the government. $75 of your $133 has arrived in the plumber's hands, actually paying for the plumbing work. Your actual tax rate here is 75/133 which is about 56% - not the 25% that it initially appears to be.
And the income of the plumber, w
First we have the NWS, a service that predicts ten days ahead, but often (usually, where I live) can't get the prediction correct within a reasonable margin eight hours into the future, because what they do is astonishingly difficult; many things are not yet understood, and some things that are understood are so complex, so under-sampled, so skeletally simulated, that it's often not much more than hand-waving.
To this, we (apparently) want to add a service that deals with climate predictions... a domain where the global warming alarmists have amply demonstrated that forming even one hypothesis that gives rise to working laws (meaning, predictions that don't turn out to be falsifiable) is so difficult as to be beyond our present abilities.
Well, on the plus side, because the problem (predicting climate) appears to be impenetrably difficult, the agency should be able to continually increase its budget for computers and programmers. Maybe it'll grow so large we can no longer afford to mire our military in a war in the Middle East and bankrupt ourselves for the next half-century to secure access to the last big reservoir of the polluting, nonrenewable energy source of the 20th century. (that last bit was quoted almost verbatim from Tim Kreider, a very funny and cynical fellow.) Consequently we will have to actually focus on other sources of energy.
Oh, wait. We couldn't afford to engage in those wars anyway -- we borrowed that money from China. Your kids will be paying it back. Or perhaps learning to speak Chinese.
Yeah, hey. A climate agency. After all, what could it hurt? It's not like decisions taken on wrong, incomplete, or outright fabricated information might cause problems, is it?
Our genes, chromosomes? Or those of a pig?
These are naturally existing chunks of objective reality, and a description of them is simply a collection of facts. All human speech and thought is metaphor anyway, so I think someone has made a distinction without a difference.
***Warning: Mac Advocate*** ***Warning: Mac Advocate***
Then there's the Mac/OS X option. No driver installation at all. The machine and all its wifi, network, USB, bluetooth, etc. will be working 100% when you take it out of the box -- and it'll keep working. No viruses. No "phone home to keep running/legal." Full bore *nix capability, just like Linux, except with a much, much better, smoother and more consistent GUI. Nothing will insist on KDE or Gnome or whatever. Fabulous apps. And the ability to run both Linux and Windows (even several versions of Linux and windows) in virtual machines at the same time it's running OS X. Even lots of Linuxy-apps, like the Gimp, work just fine - there are even multiple flavors of them. Some run under xwindows, some under OS X. Both at the same time, if you like.
I left Windows years ago and good grief am I glad I did. Every time I see a task bar stuffed with pointless icons; every time I hear about someone "defragging"; every time I hear about viruses and worms and malware in general; every time Microsoft pulls another DRM antic; every time I see a windows multicore machine not use the cores for this app or that app; every time I read about "server licensing"; every time someone asks me "if I fix computers"... because we all know what that usually means. "No, I sure don't" is what I tell 'em.
I got my entire family to switch, and everyone is happy as a clam. No more panicked phone calls; everyone is fully backed up, all the time, no effort required on their part. Yep. OS X is simply a treat.
Perfect? Nah. Nothing is. But it's orders of magnitude better than anything Microsoft ever squeezed out their back door, and it offers darned near everything Linux does, plus a bunch Linux doesn't. Although it definitely costs more.
Decent Macs start at $599, for which you get:
Again, perfect? No. The graphics are shared RAM, so they're not lightning fast for 3D; but they rip for desktop use, photo editing, etc. This particular machine is only as expanded/expandable as you order it. And yes, it's more expensive than a bare bones PC. But then again, it isn't bare bones. Apple doesn't sell anything like that.
Or... you can shoot for the moon. Apple's really happy to take your money, and they've got hardware to empty most bank accounts right smartly. I went for an 8-core, 3 GHz machine for nearly $3k, and then stuffed it full of aftermarket RAM. This year it looks like a 12-core machine is in the works... and I'm seriously considering it. My camera pukes up 45 megabyte images, and I'm going to upgrade to a Canon 5DmkII, which will generate 63 megabyte images... right now, I'm thoroughly spoiled by my machine's ability to generate a JPEG from a RAW file faster than I can get my hands off the keyboard. I'd like to keep that feeling after I get the 5DmkII.
Knowledge, entertainment, longevity, health, comfort, security, safety, prosperity in general.
Anything in there you're not interested in?
From jail, with lots of money, paying a team of very good (and very expensive) lawyers, over years, while the matter proceeds through court after court? With no certainty that the SCOTUS, which has approved many an unconstitutional matter, will see things the constitutional way?
Tell you what. You try again. I'll just quietly think my thoughts without involving the whole broken system.
This is a custom CPU, built by a company Apple owns. Not an Intel CPU. Consequently, the support hardware isn't necessarily Intel, either. Have to wait for a teardown to see.
Nope. Let me fix that for you:
I read books on my iPod Touch all the time -- about one a day. I use the free Kindle reader app, and it is awesome. It supports five different font sizes, the three smallest being what I prefer, depending on where I am when I'm reading. in bed, iPod near my face, I use the smallest size. At "desktop distance", I use the next to smallest size. If my eyes are tired, I use the middle size. In terms of page size, the iPod is fully capable of getting you right into the recommended zone of characters per line for both maximum comprehension and maximum reading speed -- for the same reason magazines use columns instead of going full page. At 163 DPI, it is almost perfect for the task.
Advantages over larger devices (iPad, actual Kindle, etc.) vary. The Kindle doesn't work in the dark. The iPod Touch screen is small enough that you don't have to move your eyes to read, and that means you're a lot less likely to lose your place and that reading speeds are higher. The iPod is much faster than the Kindle as well, though I'm sure not faster than the iPad. The iPod will be a *lot* more convenient in bed than the iPad, simply because of its size. The iPod can rest on the pillow next to you, while the iPad is wider than most people's heads... it'll be offset if you're lying down and hold it close... plus, it can't be that close anyway, because it's quite large, you have to get some distance to see the whole thing. If it's at a distance, though, it's likely to be a lot more difficult to support with your arm extended.
Characterizing the iPad as impractical as an e-reader is straight-up wrong. It's a great reader.
The iPad (and mind you, I intend to get one) has a number of design fails that really disappoint me:
Just as the iPod Touch is far more than a "device to service iTunes" as the hysterical media and gullible segment of the public would have it, the iPad is also far more. The extra screen real estate will be useful, and will make certain types of apps a lot easier to use. The addition of GPS and the compass will enable new types of apps entirely (though these could already exist on the far more expensive iPhone.) More screen real estate means more data on screen, even if it isn't as sharp; that'll be particularly nice for graphics apps (though again, the lack of a camera... awesomely shortsighted. Blind, even.)
As an e-reader, though... I think the iPod wins over the iPad. Hugely more convenient, hugely easier to carry, better at night / in bed, easier on the eyes, less expensive, adequate battery life (especially with wifi off.)