Y'know, I do wonder whether they did. The 'Secret Organisation of Al Qaeda in Europe'? That doesn't ring true.
I don't know if an Al Qaedaish group did this or not but they are in Europe. Check PBS' Frontline episode "Al Qaeda's New Front". They're streaming the entire episode.
I was thinking the same thing. Here in New England there are tons of tiny libraries. Most of them were started in the 1800's and are run by private people that have little or no outside funding. This package could be a big boast to them and might help save a local landmark.
As for a gift for a school, most definitely ask first. Local politics run deep in local schools.
About school politics, I once worked for a group that provided Internet access to all k-12 schools in the state (a small western state). Our head engineer (a really smart guy) had a daughter going to a high school with lots of equipment that hadn't been setup. We're talking over 100 PCs, networking gear, Cisco routers and a T1 that was being paid for but not used (termed at the NIU) for over two years. Our group would normally charge $85 per man hour to set everything up but we (about 12 people) volunteered to go in on a Saturday and do it for free. The school district computer administrator said no and that he would do it himself. Two years later nothing had been done. Over 100 brand new, unused four year old PCs still sat in their boxes.
Very valid point except will everyone effected have enough sense to get legal help? I think some will and some will not. If it happens enough I guess it could become a localized case action suit. I don't see it happening but so many cities and states are very hungry for tax revenue one never knows.
BTW, could you please comment on my comment about Raich and the Feds right regulate any commodity with possible fungibility? Just curious what you think since IANAL and you are.
Increasing the tax base is now a reason to seize someone's property. Nice.
Not that I see this happening but...
1. Seize Joe SixPack's house
2. Base compensation on value in tax records (which is normally lower than market value)
3. Auction to highest bidder or offer back to Joe with an easy payment plan.
4. The tax base has now been increased.
Between this case, Kelo v. New London, and Gonzalez v. Raich, the people of the US have lost a big chunk of our rights.
FYI: With the decision in Gonzalez v. Raich (Raich lost) the Feds can now regulate any commodity with possible fungibility. From the tomato plants in your backyard, the local church's quilting circle or printing more than one of the same picture on your inkjet printer: it can be regulated and outlawed by the Feds.
Add in the proposed "flag burning amendment" and I'd say we're on our way to becoming quite a fascist state. All that will be left is work, shopping, prison and church (and if you're in Florida the last two have already been combined).
Maybe. I just find it hard to imagine that the citd chatroom "Girls 13 And Under For Older Guys" actually has any real women, let alone girls, in it, aside from perhaps (older) hookers and female FBI agents.
Internet chat rooms: Where the men are men, the women are men and the 14 year girls are FBI agents.
Problems with Durability, obsolesce and TCO
on
Chalkboards With Brains
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Three problems:
Durability: All it takes is one pissed off kid stabbing it with a pencil to kill it. What about scratches? Assuming (hopefully) there is a clear screen protector most schools will wait until one can barely see through it before replacing. The screen protector would most likely cost a few hundred dollars and would need to be replaced once a year. Also repairing a big screen monitor like this is difficult and would require two people to pull it off the wall, deliver it to wherever it will be repaired and reinstall. Atleast three hours per person.
Obsolesce: Every few years these things get better and cheaper. $20k today is $10 in three years with a better picture and more features. In five to eight years these monitors will either sit in a pile like PII computers today or hang on the wall dead.
TCO: Between the initial cost, screen protectors and a short lifespan compared to a standard whiteboard these things IMO are way too pricey for the average secondary school.
Why not go with a LCD/DLP projector and a Mitsubishi DiamondTouch input device? A DiamondTouch "tablet" handles multiple, simultaneous input (two people can write on it at the same time), is incredibly durable and requires much less maintenance than a backlit screen. One could last for 10+ years handling input while the projector is updated every few years. IMO the TCO would be much lower than a huge touchscreen. As for durability it can be easily washed and very cheaply recovered. Since the sensors are on the sides and not behind the writing area it's rather immune from the "pencil penetration" scenario. Also Mitsubishi has been really good about driver support for GNU/Linux (along with MS Windows and Mac of course).
Will a backlit screen is nicer, a top lit projector and the above tablet IMO is a more realistic solution.
Isn't true that game consoles in England are taxed at a higher rate than computers, hence part of the reason Sony still offers the PS2-GNU/Linux kit there? They long ago stopped selling the same kit that worked on US PS2s. Could this be part of the reason for GNU/Linux kit for the PS3? If so, will they even sell the PS3-GNU/Linux kit in the US?
The newer unit would probably be the: Zire 21 Which is worse in serval ways than my m105, for instance it has no expansion slots while my m105 has an SD/MMC slot.
And no backlighting. IMO giving a Zire 21 in exchange for any of the effected Palms will piss people off. The Zire 21 just plain sucks if you've ever owned a Palm before.
I wish someone could confirm for me what type of replacement they would give me.
It's Palm, what do you think they'll offer? With their track record I suspect some nasty, scratched up M1xx or used Zire 21. I would be very, very surprised if anything else was offered. Forget new since this is a great way to clean out their refurb supply.
It would've been nice if they had offerred a choice of a replacement or $100 (the cost of the Zire 21) off of any new Palm. I've had four different Palms (thankfully no defects) but my Tungsten E is my last. I'm moving over to the Nokia 770 (which runs Debian) when it comes out this fall. Palm has had way too many defects in which they have been way too slow to resolve them. There are also many complaints about their horrible tech support. And I see no change in that in the future.
The company Jeff Hawkins and Donna Dubinsky started in 1992 and the Palm of today have nothing in common. The early days of Palm were exciting. The Palm of today is a rotting corpse.
Well and WTF do you expect to get for a faulty battery? $5000?
How about being able to send your iPod back for a new battery? Neither the $50 Apple store credit or $25 check will fix one's dead iPod.
I don't know how much the lawyer would get in this case,
$2,768,000.00USD. IMO that's what the grandparent's post is complaining about.
... but if it weren't for him, thousands of suckers like you wouldn't get a cent from apple.
The legal firm gets $2.7M and those with defective iPods still don't get them fixed or the money to get them fixed.
It's clear that a percentage of the settlement (one third?) went to legal fees. If the settlement covered replacing the dead batteries (IMO the right thing to do) the lawyers would be taking home alot less. Considering the lawyers get paid to also dish out the checks and keep the unclaimed funds they made out like thiefs in the night.
IMO it's a lousy stettlement because in the end no one got their iPods fixed by Apple et al.
Remote desktop connection for both XP Pro (single user) and Windows Server 200x Terminal Server. I can run a half a dozen sessions over a 128k line with very good speed. RDP was built for use over a modem and works great over a DSL line. Much more bandwidth efficient than VNC.
Otherwise IMO Mac all the way (although I only use my eMac for video work these days, everything else on my Ubuntu box).
Clamping down on the border is getting off easy. Be glad their not (yet) applying the same tactics as they are in South America - mass spraying poisons on villagers.
"Plan Canada"? The US Govt's view of Canada: "Too close to ignore, too white to invade."
Akira Kurosawa's "Madadayo" (1993). Think a Japanese "Goodbye, Mr. Chips". The artistic backround of Kurosawa shows. It was his last film. Not his best but still great.
"Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" (1998). Gilliam brought a great book to life in a great film. "Buy the ticket, take the ride".
"Life Is Beautiful" (1998). It speaks for itself. Sad, sickening, painful without a happy ending.
"Glory" (1989). IMO the last movie made that had an incredible collection of leading African American actors giving a great dramatic performance. Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman and Andre Braugher all some of the greatest actors of our time in one film. A film made possible by the courage of the all black 54th Regiment of the Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. Great story, great writing and great acting: all the makings of a great movie. It's a shame this movie wasn't on the list.
I hate these lists because they're so subjective. At least the postings here will give many other films the exposure they deserve.
He is upset over the flaws in an Operating System so he switches architectures? He wasn't a PC bigot, he was a Windows bigot.
I can give you a ton of reasons to switch from MS Windows to Macintosh besides very good security but you're right. Years ago, starting with RedHat 7 I think, RH had a panel widget that would alert the user to a new security patch. Two clicks and the system was patched. Very sweet. Ubuntu started the same thing with Hedgehog. And of course the great security of BSD. It's MS Windows that can suck for security (part of the blame does fall on the user), not the whole x86 world.
IMO it seems short sited to switch to a Mac just for security reasons. Switch for iMovie (I love that app so much), GarageBand and iPhoto. If you're into high end video switch for Final Cut Pro and Soundtrack Pro. There are a ton of reasons to switch.
Let it be said that switching to Macs isn't perfect. You're basically a sharecropper living in a company town owned by Apple. If Jobs wants a feature or program dead (like accessing your iTunes library over the Internet, the Newton, OpenDoc or Hypercard) it dies. There is no appeal, it dies and stays dead. Hence the reason most of my work is on an Ubuntu box now with a Mac (for video) and XP Pro (for contract work) boxes on a kvm.
Switching to a Mac isn't good or bad. IMO it's much better than MS Windows but know the pitfalls.
Sharp use to make the OZ-770PC which looks a lot like the pocketmail device sans the modem. Five years ago the retail was $100USD at walmart. They now sell on Ebay for twice that price.
I had one and loved it. A great device. Gave it to the mother-in-law and she still uses it today. Why Sharp stopped making it is beyond me.
So, if you lose some weight, you could slip it off, pass it to your buddy who gets it in contact with his skin within 15 seconds, go do your crime, and get away with it.
A few years ago there was a story about a guy on home arrest with a tracking bracelet (part traditional home arrest system, part Lojack). The bracelet would detect the lack of movement over a certain amount of time along with leaving the house. So this guy gets the bracelet off and hooks it to his dog's collar. What seemed like a good idea in hindsight had a problem: while Mr. Home Arrest was out at the local bar his dog boogied out of the house. The local cops and his parole officer chased the bracelet all over the neighborhood, thinking they were looking for a guy, not a dog.
Moral of the story: while this hack failed I'm sure someone has gotten it to work. Someone will break LA County's system and the whole thing will be useless unless they embed the RFID chip in the inmate (and even then someone will figure out a workaround).
It will take a few centuries before the religious conservatives warm up to this idea.
Religious and/or "moral" conservatives are already quietly pushing their anti-drug agenda through genetic engineering. See Cocaine vaccine 'stops addiction'. There is also talk about adding this to the MMR (Measles, Mumps, and Rubella) vaccine given to children. First cocaine, marijuana next and then who knows what after that. While on the surface a cocaine "vaccine" seems like a good idea we don't know what the long term effects on pain management will be. Genetic engineering IMO is a good thing but when I see it used this way I find it quite disturbing.
"every convenience store learns to grab that data and sell it to Big Data for a nickel" Right. Because every time I got to the convenience store I have to present my license. Oh, wait, no I don't. FUD.
Here in MA everyone gets carded (normally with one's driver's license) to buy a pack a smokes. A friend of my has had many stores scan in the PDF417 bar code on the back of his license. When he questioned why some said it was the law, others said it was to guard against fake IDs. The fact is decoding this bar code is a trivial matter and it contains your name, address, date of birth, license number and license type/restrictions. All this information is now property of the store. BTW, he ended up duct taping the bar code and no one has refused to sell him anything.
So, for example, do you thing insurance companies would pay for a list of smokers?
A few years ago there was a guy who slipped and injuried himself at a Ralph's market. When he sued they used the data from his shopping card (as in the beer and wine he bought) against him.
To go from carding for smokes and beer to everything is a very small technological step. All the tools are in place. Thing about stores like Home Depot that sell some dangerous stuff when used incorrectly. I could see RealID being slowly extended over time, item by item, to cover any and all purchases all in the name of protection from "terrorists".
The fake image of the "Real ID" card indicates that the card will contain information such as Religion and Occupation. It will not. Read the bill. FUD.
I could see religion being added in the future. The "Radical Right" aka "Christian Right" would say it's a good thing so, in case of an accident, the proper religious person could be summoned. Of course the inverse would be it ending up like a system in Nazi Germany with Star of David or upside-down pink triangle. Maybe add a crescent for current times. Before anyone says this could never happen, that's what most people thought of the Holocaust.
Oppression does not happen in one big swoop, but in very small steps. IMO RealID is one of those steps.
Slashdot Mirror
One of four of the original primary software architects of Mac OS
Created the MagicCap OS (it had a really cool/funky GUI and AFAIK is sadly complete dead)
Founded Eazel in 1999, which gave us the Nautilus file manager for the GNOME.
'Nuff said.
And that puts an end to software piracy. I mean look at the War on Drugs, we won that years ago.
I don't know if an Al Qaedaish group did this or not but they are in Europe. Check PBS' Frontline episode "Al Qaeda's New Front". They're streaming the entire episode.
As for a gift for a school, most definitely ask first. Local politics run deep in local schools.
About school politics, I once worked for a group that provided Internet access to all k-12 schools in the state (a small western state). Our head engineer (a really smart guy) had a daughter going to a high school with lots of equipment that hadn't been setup. We're talking over 100 PCs, networking gear, Cisco routers and a T1 that was being paid for but not used (termed at the NIU) for over two years. Our group would normally charge $85 per man hour to set everything up but we (about 12 people) volunteered to go in on a Saturday and do it for free. The school district computer administrator said no and that he would do it himself. Two years later nothing had been done. Over 100 brand new, unused four year old PCs still sat in their boxes.
BTW, could you please comment on my comment about Raich and the Feds right regulate any commodity with possible fungibility? Just curious what you think since IANAL and you are.
Thanks for your reply.
Not that I see this happening but ...
1. Seize Joe SixPack's house
2. Base compensation on value in tax records (which is normally lower than market value)
3. Auction to highest bidder or offer back to Joe with an easy payment plan.
4. The tax base has now been increased.
Between this case, Kelo v. New London, and Gonzalez v. Raich, the people of the US have lost a big chunk of our rights.
FYI: With the decision in Gonzalez v. Raich (Raich lost) the Feds can now regulate any commodity with possible fungibility. From the tomato plants in your backyard, the local church's quilting circle or printing more than one of the same picture on your inkjet printer: it can be regulated and outlawed by the Feds.
Add in the proposed "flag burning amendment" and I'd say we're on our way to becoming quite a fascist state. All that will be left is work, shopping, prison and church (and if you're in Florida the last two have already been combined).
Sigh ...
Here's a sneak preview of an image of the Golden Gate Bridge. LA and Vegas are next.
Internet chat rooms: Where the men are men, the women are men and the 14 year girls are FBI agents.
Durability: All it takes is one pissed off kid stabbing it with a pencil to kill it. What about scratches? Assuming (hopefully) there is a clear screen protector most schools will wait until one can barely see through it before replacing. The screen protector would most likely cost a few hundred dollars and would need to be replaced once a year. Also repairing a big screen monitor like this is difficult and would require two people to pull it off the wall, deliver it to wherever it will be repaired and reinstall. Atleast three hours per person.
Obsolesce: Every few years these things get better and cheaper. $20k today is $10 in three years with a better picture and more features. In five to eight years these monitors will either sit in a pile like PII computers today or hang on the wall dead.
TCO: Between the initial cost, screen protectors and a short lifespan compared to a standard whiteboard these things IMO are way too pricey for the average secondary school.
Why not go with a LCD/DLP projector and a Mitsubishi DiamondTouch input device? A DiamondTouch "tablet" handles multiple, simultaneous input (two people can write on it at the same time), is incredibly durable and requires much less maintenance than a backlit screen. One could last for 10+ years handling input while the projector is updated every few years. IMO the TCO would be much lower than a huge touchscreen. As for durability it can be easily washed and very cheaply recovered. Since the sensors are on the sides and not behind the writing area it's rather immune from the "pencil penetration" scenario. Also Mitsubishi has been really good about driver support for GNU/Linux (along with MS Windows and Mac of course).
Will a backlit screen is nicer, a top lit projector and the above tablet IMO is a more realistic solution.
DiamondTouch Hardware
DiamondTouch Applications
Isn't true that game consoles in England are taxed at a higher rate than computers, hence part of the reason Sony still offers the PS2-GNU/Linux kit there? They long ago stopped selling the same kit that worked on US PS2s. Could this be part of the reason for GNU/Linux kit for the PS3? If so, will they even sell the PS3-GNU/Linux kit in the US?
Here's a sneak preview of an image of the Golden Gate Bridge. LA and Vegas are next.
And no backlighting. IMO giving a Zire 21 in exchange for any of the effected Palms will piss people off. The Zire 21 just plain sucks if you've ever owned a Palm before.
I wish someone could confirm for me what type of replacement they would give me.
It's Palm, what do you think they'll offer? With their track record I suspect some nasty, scratched up M1xx or used Zire 21. I would be very, very surprised if anything else was offered. Forget new since this is a great way to clean out their refurb supply.
It would've been nice if they had offerred a choice of a replacement or $100 (the cost of the Zire 21) off of any new Palm. I've had four different Palms (thankfully no defects) but my Tungsten E is my last. I'm moving over to the Nokia 770 (which runs Debian) when it comes out this fall. Palm has had way too many defects in which they have been way too slow to resolve them. There are also many complaints about their horrible tech support. And I see no change in that in the future.
The company Jeff Hawkins and Donna Dubinsky started in 1992 and the Palm of today have nothing in common. The early days of Palm were exciting. The Palm of today is a rotting corpse.
How about being able to send your iPod back for a new battery? Neither the $50 Apple store credit or $25 check will fix one's dead iPod.
I don't know how much the lawyer would get in this case,
$2,768,000.00USD. IMO that's what the grandparent's post is complaining about.
The legal firm gets $2.7M and those with defective iPods still don't get them fixed or the money to get them fixed.
It's clear that a percentage of the settlement (one third?) went to legal fees. If the settlement covered replacing the dead batteries (IMO the right thing to do) the lawyers would be taking home alot less. Considering the lawyers get paid to also dish out the checks and keep the unclaimed funds they made out like thiefs in the night.
IMO it's a lousy stettlement because in the end no one got their iPods fixed by Apple et al.
Otherwise IMO Mac all the way (although I only use my eMac for video work these days, everything else on my Ubuntu box).
"Plan Canada"? The US Govt's view of Canada: "Too close to ignore, too white to invade."
Which one:
41 - George Herbert Walker Bush
43 - George Walker Bush
44 - John Ellis "Jeb" Bush
(Oops, sorry, that one is suppose to be a surprise).
Akira Kurosawa's "Madadayo" (1993). Think a Japanese "Goodbye, Mr. Chips". The artistic backround of Kurosawa shows. It was his last film. Not his best but still great.
"Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" (1998). Gilliam brought a great book to life in a great film. "Buy the ticket, take the ride".
"Life Is Beautiful" (1998). It speaks for itself. Sad, sickening, painful without a happy ending.
"Glory" (1989). IMO the last movie made that had an incredible collection of leading African American actors giving a great dramatic performance. Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman and Andre Braugher all some of the greatest actors of our time in one film. A film made possible by the courage of the all black 54th Regiment of the Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. Great story, great writing and great acting: all the makings of a great movie. It's a shame this movie wasn't on the list.
I hate these lists because they're so subjective. At least the postings here will give many other films the exposure they deserve.
I can give you a ton of reasons to switch from MS Windows to Macintosh besides very good security but you're right. Years ago, starting with RedHat 7 I think, RH had a panel widget that would alert the user to a new security patch. Two clicks and the system was patched. Very sweet. Ubuntu started the same thing with Hedgehog. And of course the great security of BSD. It's MS Windows that can suck for security (part of the blame does fall on the user), not the whole x86 world.
IMO it seems short sited to switch to a Mac just for security reasons. Switch for iMovie (I love that app so much), GarageBand and iPhoto. If you're into high end video switch for Final Cut Pro and Soundtrack Pro. There are a ton of reasons to switch.
Let it be said that switching to Macs isn't perfect. You're basically a sharecropper living in a company town owned by Apple. If Jobs wants a feature or program dead (like accessing your iTunes library over the Internet, the Newton, OpenDoc or Hypercard) it dies. There is no appeal, it dies and stays dead. Hence the reason most of my work is on an Ubuntu box now with a Mac (for video) and XP Pro (for contract work) boxes on a kvm.
Switching to a Mac isn't good or bad. IMO it's much better than MS Windows but know the pitfalls.
I had one and loved it. A great device. Gave it to the mother-in-law and she still uses it today. Why Sharp stopped making it is beyond me.
What a stupid ruling.
A few years ago there was a story about a guy on home arrest with a tracking bracelet (part traditional home arrest system, part Lojack). The bracelet would detect the lack of movement over a certain amount of time along with leaving the house. So this guy gets the bracelet off and hooks it to his dog's collar. What seemed like a good idea in hindsight had a problem: while Mr. Home Arrest was out at the local bar his dog boogied out of the house. The local cops and his parole officer chased the bracelet all over the neighborhood, thinking they were looking for a guy, not a dog.
Moral of the story: while this hack failed I'm sure someone has gotten it to work. Someone will break LA County's system and the whole thing will be useless unless they embed the RFID chip in the inmate (and even then someone will figure out a workaround).
Next year when MS starts screwing Sun, Sun will complain and be told: "I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further."
Maybe we need a vaccine against religion.
Here in MA everyone gets carded (normally with one's driver's license) to buy a pack a smokes. A friend of my has had many stores scan in the PDF417 bar code on the back of his license. When he questioned why some said it was the law, others said it was to guard against fake IDs. The fact is decoding this bar code is a trivial matter and it contains your name, address, date of birth, license number and license type/restrictions. All this information is now property of the store. BTW, he ended up duct taping the bar code and no one has refused to sell him anything.
So, for example, do you thing insurance companies would pay for a list of smokers?
A few years ago there was a guy who slipped and injuried himself at a Ralph's market. When he sued they used the data from his shopping card (as in the beer and wine he bought) against him.
To go from carding for smokes and beer to everything is a very small technological step. All the tools are in place. Thing about stores like Home Depot that sell some dangerous stuff when used incorrectly. I could see RealID being slowly extended over time, item by item, to cover any and all purchases all in the name of protection from "terrorists".
The fake image of the "Real ID" card indicates that the card will contain information such as Religion and Occupation. It will not. Read the bill. FUD.
I could see religion being added in the future. The "Radical Right" aka "Christian Right" would say it's a good thing so, in case of an accident, the proper religious person could be summoned. Of course the inverse would be it ending up like a system in Nazi Germany with Star of David or upside-down pink triangle. Maybe add a crescent for current times. Before anyone says this could never happen, that's what most people thought of the Holocaust.
Oppression does not happen in one big swoop, but in very small steps. IMO RealID is one of those steps.