There's no link anywhere to provide your input. Nothing on CNet's site in the story (well, duh, they don't want the restrictions), but I couldn't find it on the DoC's National Telecommunications and Information Administration's website either.
I used to work at a semiconductor development company automating various processes associated with developing and testing microprocessors, and I was very good at it, having gotten into that work when people kept dumping their drudge-work on me. I loved the ability of freeing myself from mundane tasks, or freeing myself or others from having to do additional manual steps in our processes.
To say that I was fully in on automation would be an understatement. I've always had a yearning for new knowledge and challenges, and automation freed me up to do that.
After a long shift doing volunteer work at a church cannery in Sacramento many years ago, and having watched the social interaction of the volunteers there, all serving freely with hot, sweaty and noisy work to help produce tomato-based products for distribution world-wide to needy recipients, I turned to one of the few employees who actually worked there and maintained the machinery and said, "So much of this could be automated. How come it's not?"
He said something that has stuck with me over the decades...
"You're right, it could be automated, but there is value in serving others through your work, and provides satisfaction inside you for having given it your all for the sake of others."
This principle doesn't apply just to volunteer service opportunities, but if any of you can think of times when you were unemployed for any length of time, I'm willing to bet that thoughts of self-worth or worth seen in the eyes of others crept in to your head. I'm also willing to bet that many of you would have loved just getting a chance to do SOMETHING, that would allow you those opportunities to show that you CAN do the work. And perhaps those who you serve would not just be other members of the public, but your own families for whom you do so much to support, and ultimately strengthen bonds by the demonstration of your sacrifice and your efforts on their behalf.
I still believe in automation, however, we're entering an era where automation is getting powerful enough to take away the ability for some to make a livelihood, or for us to enjoy serving ourselves or others, and it's being done to save money (albeit for those want to demonstrate the accumulation of wealth for themselves or stockholders), and large numbers of people are being left without an opportunity to demonstrate their talents and worth to others.
Think of the individual and societal costs that will come with it. Look at the ways we as a society look at large numbers of homeless people and describe it as a "problem". We talk about it, more out of fear that we will be a part of that "problem". When it comes into focus as we pass by others who are homeless because they can't provide for themselves or their families, we often turn away.
We seem to value money as a "measurement" of our worth, and with it being so elusive or being sought by others in whatever ways possible, we lose the satisfaction that comes with the worth we provide to others in our labors and time. We also lose the satisfaction of challenging ourselves to push harder and learn more and expand our horizons as an individual, a society and as the human race.
A 21 year old kid once told me, "We (as a society) only move forward at the speed of our slowest members." I recall (in my automation days) disputing that, thinking that automation would solve so many problems and make us a happier people.
I now think that kid was much smarter than I could have imagined.
epilogue:
The cannery was shut down due to the regulations associated with the replacement of a boiler and because of overwhelming requirements associated with food production making it worthwhile only for automated methods of production to be viable. Thousands no longer have an opportunity to serve others in helping others to eat through their efforts.
I work in an environment where technology has multiplied the ability of others to do much more... but I see the loss of initiative in so many who do the least am
She stood by while her husband took FBI tapes and files of members of congress and other prominent members of society (mostly Republican) so they could literally hold everyone by their nuts when the going got tough. And my guess is that the going is going to get tough... oh wait, many of those same members of congress are still in, aren't they? (Well, outside of the revolt by voters that cleaned a few out this last election.)
She helped squash travelgate investigations, and Vince Foster's body turns up with inconclusive evidence regarding whether it was a suicide when the gentleman didn't have a suicide weapon on him... oops wait, that showed up later. But his notes were missing from his office. And then they showed up on her desk? Murdered? You decide.
Then there's the medical records of americans she tried to force open.
And wasn't the Clipper chip pushed during her husband's administration? You know, the one with the key escrow system that allowed the government to use a back-door key (but only under proper subpoena and cooperative efforts with law enforcement efforts...uh, right).
I believe the only privacy she's be interested in preserving is her own.
Yes, it means a lot for my vote, but not from HER mouth!
I just put in one of these ServiceDesk Plus installations. If you pay up front for an indefinite license, you get each additional license for $300, and with the first year, you pay a mandatory support fee for $60. Additional years are $60 ea.
It's not a bad product, but tries to do too much well. It does do asset tracking, but cannot tie any new items of inventory you get as part of the PO process into your existing asset tracking database. It also requires you to drop any firewalls you may have up on internal machines, and for that I find unacceptable. They have an agent software piece that comes with another product, so SOMEONE knows how to do it, but despite my many complaints to them about this, they seem unwilling to integrate an agent onto each desktop.
The ticketing system is not too bad. It needs to be firmed up a bit, but is workable. There are occasional problems with images attached to submitted tickets. And I wouldn't suggest using the onboard spam filtering option. It's rudimentary at best.
For a low cost helpdesk, I think it's pretty good. But don't expect the power and flexibility of Remedy. For a small shop, Remedy is an overkill. ServiceDesk Plus is a good product, but needs (and is undergoing) additional enhancement.
Well, one of them was asking what the engine hoist did. I didn't have an engine to hoist right then, so I had him step up to it. I quickly hooked it up and hoisted away...
BVD's.... A-OkaaaaaAAAAAAYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAA!!!
But all was not lost...
It was an empirical study to prove once and for all that you could NOT stretch underwear far enough to go from your rear end over your head...
What if you're trying to correct the corrupt practices of a prior group of politicians who have no desire to step down? Sure, you might be honest, upstanding, etc. but you're a person who is doing nothing wrong. Are you still so sure there's not a concern about your eligibility for the free and wholesale monitoring of your communications?
Keep in mind that East Germany had an estimated 30% of the country that had ties to the Stasi secret police - informants and the like. It didn't happen overnight, but possibly with incremental (or silent) intrusions into the citizens lives - for the safety of the country.
It's probably the new gel they inject into the tube leading from the sperm sac. It's non dissolveable by normal body fluids, but then when/if you want to attempt to have kids, you inject a dissolving agent, and it flows out.
But really, I wonder if this won't be a problem with skanky, rotten, dead sperm cells collecting... shudder.... just thinking of it gives me the willies... and my willie the willies...:-)
We need a real life game like this!
on
Playing The Escape
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I recall seeing a cool experiment involving a person who is supposedly hypnotized (or put asleep) while playing a first person shooter involving zombies. He gets put under, transferred to a building with a layout EXACTLY like the game, and he is woken up. He sees the zombie chick he just killed, and before long is trapped with zombies pouring in from all around him. He freaks out near the end, where he is "put under" again, put back in front of the video game and he wakes up thinking he's just had one hell of a game.
This page shows what appears to be a man in prison jumpsuit colors firmly perched on a 1 wheel motorized device (complete with a parts list and source code!).
Three cheers for prison reform! 'Cause...dang....our state just has stone breaking, weight lifting, bike repair and woodshop!
Well, then there's that new sport those two cowboy fellers are doing to each other while goat herding in that there new movie. Bare back? Broke back? Cum back for more? Anyway, one of those things.
"Eventually, scramjets may revolutionise air travel, allowing passenger aircraft to fly to London from Sydney in just two hours, making in-flight movies obsolete."
With an 18" diameter pipe for such air to go through, and the student intern needed to enter it to clean/polish it, what first came to mind was someone turning it on to pull a more circumferentially challenged intern out.
And then I remembered the same scene in Charlie and the Chocolate factory (with Gene Wilder) and knew that it wasn't such a bad way to go.:-)
I just finished watching Serenity for about the 4th time, and then watched it again with Josh's comments.
Yeah, I think something is being missed here. Makes me wish I had "found Serenity" when it first aired to have been able to have enjoyed the cons and energy of the "revival" to the theater houses.
I'm a politician in a parks & rec district that recently underwent national media attention on asbestos, and have had some opportunity to do some research on this - as well as get squeezed in a battle between the EPA and our county govt. on this asbestos issue - primarily over the perceived threat to property values (and taxes collected from it).
My seat of the pants analysis of this is based somewhat on a 2003 conference held in San Francisco with attendance by a worldwide collection of asbestos related experts.
Bottom line - not much has improved in studies for asbestos related health risks. How much is safe? What is the correlation between exposure, longevity, lifestyle, etc? It seems that Chrysotile forms of asbestos are "more safe" due to their curly shape, and apparent expectorability from the lungs via natural processes (breathing, coughing, philial movement, encapsulation in other materials produced by your body, etc.)
However, Amphibole types seem to be much more dangerous - needle-like, long fibers. Easily "stuck" into tiny spaces in the lungs and not expectorated. Macrophages in the lungs apparently envelope these fibers and work to eventually break them down, but for some reason, they don't encapsulate the entire length of the fibers (if you can imagine a pig-in-a-blanket dough/hotdog analogy). Not much is understood of this area, and due to the location, is not an area for easy testing. Combine that with the longevity for detection, it's difficult to do tests on any factors leading to, or progression of any asbestos related illnesses.
What the EPA is certain in saying is that there appears to be a 5X incidence of mesothelioma among smokers (in an occupational setting - somewhat difficult to compare to a park setting with occasional possible exposure). However, ATSDR says there isn't a way to distinguish smokers related illnesses against mesothelioma, which leads me to believe as another poster suggested that asbestos interferes with some portion of the lungs or biological process/byproduct with close proximity to the lungs that allows greater incidence of mesothelioma amongst smokers.
Testing has been somewhat difficult under existing standards. Spiked samples of asbestos have come back with 0 fibers/cm^3 readings from labs, clean samples have come back with readings. Then there are some tests conducted by labs that violate friability standards - by crushing the rock and then looking for asbestos. This is not a realistic exposure model.
As a result of the screwball results, the EPA was unwilling to admit that the soil samples were bad, preferring to use only air samples that were collected via activity based testing and comparing the results ot nearby stationary air samplers. Apparently there is some consistency seen using such methods.
HOWEVER, the EPA left town, wanting to wash their hands of some of this debacle. We still have a fence up near a field, and have conducted further tests by a certified hazardous materials expert. The results are coming back 0 (preliminary tests). That's a cause of consternation on the part of the EPA as well as by our parks & rec dept. How do we reconcile the differences and does the EPA end up having a tarnished image from even the new testing methodology? How do we instill confidence in parents whose kids play on the field, or in a nearby tot-lot where the EPA said there were elevated levels of asbestos? (Our community has asbestos running through it, but this field has a totally different type of asbestos apparently (from EPA, not our own subsequent testing) which was brought in as a replaced field mix.
This is an area where there is not much glory for this type of research, and is fraught with VERY long periods of time before any possible correlated illness is even detected (usually by death - but was it by THIS exposure?)
I suppose that in the area of nano-technology, it will be a good thing to at least be open to this area of study, but may also prove to show causation.
Make movies so bad nobody WANTS to pirate it. Once the pirates grow old and die, or otherwise move on to other industries, then return to releasing good movies.
Slashdot Mirror
There's no link anywhere to provide your input. Nothing on CNet's site in the story (well, duh, they don't want the restrictions), but I couldn't find it on the DoC's National Telecommunications and Information Administration's website either.
Is this a farce?
I used to work at a semiconductor development company automating various processes associated with developing and testing microprocessors, and I was very good at it, having gotten into that work when people kept dumping their drudge-work on me. I loved the ability of freeing myself from mundane tasks, or freeing myself or others from having to do additional manual steps in our processes.
To say that I was fully in on automation would be an understatement. I've always had a yearning for new knowledge and challenges, and automation freed me up to do that.
After a long shift doing volunteer work at a church cannery in Sacramento many years ago, and having watched the social interaction of the volunteers there, all serving freely with hot, sweaty and noisy work to help produce tomato-based products for distribution world-wide to needy recipients, I turned to one of the few employees who actually worked there and maintained the machinery and said, "So much of this could be automated. How come it's not?"
He said something that has stuck with me over the decades...
"You're right, it could be automated, but there is value in serving others through your work, and provides satisfaction inside you for having given it your all for the sake of others."
This principle doesn't apply just to volunteer service opportunities, but if any of you can think of times when you were unemployed for any length of time, I'm willing to bet that thoughts of self-worth or worth seen in the eyes of others crept in to your head. I'm also willing to bet that many of you would have loved just getting a chance to do SOMETHING, that would allow you those opportunities to show that you CAN do the work. And perhaps those who you serve would not just be other members of the public, but your own families for whom you do so much to support, and ultimately strengthen bonds by the demonstration of your sacrifice and your efforts on their behalf.
I still believe in automation, however, we're entering an era where automation is getting powerful enough to take away the ability for some to make a livelihood, or for us to enjoy serving ourselves or others, and it's being done to save money (albeit for those want to demonstrate the accumulation of wealth for themselves or stockholders), and large numbers of people are being left without an opportunity to demonstrate their talents and worth to others.
Think of the individual and societal costs that will come with it. Look at the ways we as a society look at large numbers of homeless people and describe it as a "problem". We talk about it, more out of fear that we will be a part of that "problem". When it comes into focus as we pass by others who are homeless because they can't provide for themselves or their families, we often turn away.
We seem to value money as a "measurement" of our worth, and with it being so elusive or being sought by others in whatever ways possible, we lose the satisfaction that comes with the worth we provide to others in our labors and time. We also lose the satisfaction of challenging ourselves to push harder and learn more and expand our horizons as an individual, a society and as the human race.
A 21 year old kid once told me, "We (as a society) only move forward at the speed of our slowest members." I recall (in my automation days) disputing that, thinking that automation would solve so many problems and make us a happier people.
I now think that kid was much smarter than I could have imagined.
epilogue:
The cannery was shut down due to the regulations associated with the replacement of a boiler and because of overwhelming requirements associated with food production making it worthwhile only for automated methods of production to be viable. Thousands no longer have an opportunity to serve others in helping others to eat through their efforts.
I work in an environment where technology has multiplied the ability of others to do much more... but I see the loss of initiative in so many who do the least am
Microsoft has moved to the open source license model!
Lessee...
She stood by while her husband took FBI tapes and files of members of congress and other prominent members of society (mostly Republican) so they could literally hold everyone by their nuts when the going got tough. And my guess is that the going is going to get tough... oh wait, many of those same members of congress are still in, aren't they? (Well, outside of the revolt by voters that cleaned a few out this last election.)
She helped squash travelgate investigations, and Vince Foster's body turns up with inconclusive evidence regarding whether it was a suicide when the gentleman didn't have a suicide weapon on him... oops wait, that showed up later. But his notes were missing from his office. And then they showed up on her desk? Murdered? You decide.
Then there's the medical records of americans she tried to force open.
And wasn't the Clipper chip pushed during her husband's administration? You know, the one with the key escrow system that allowed the government to use a back-door key (but only under proper subpoena and cooperative efforts with law enforcement efforts...uh, right).
I believe the only privacy she's be interested in preserving is her own.
Yes, it means a lot for my vote, but not from HER mouth!
Get a ham radio license and a couple of cheap radios. Put it in your car (to call when you're on your way home).
Don't you know??? It's to keep you from installing DD-WRT!!!
That's right... no ssh, no vpn, no...nothing...
no.. wait! There's a prompt!
It accepts numbers only... No strong passwords there... although, there's pi.... nobody would guess that.
I just put in one of these ServiceDesk Plus installations. If you pay up front for an indefinite license, you get each additional license for $300, and with the first year, you pay a mandatory support fee for $60. Additional years are $60 ea.
It's not a bad product, but tries to do too much well. It does do asset tracking, but cannot tie any new items of inventory you get as part of the PO process into your existing asset tracking database. It also requires you to drop any firewalls you may have up on internal machines, and for that I find unacceptable. They have an agent software piece that comes with another product, so SOMEONE knows how to do it, but despite my many complaints to them about this, they seem unwilling to integrate an agent onto each desktop.
The ticketing system is not too bad. It needs to be firmed up a bit, but is workable. There are occasional problems with images attached to submitted tickets. And I wouldn't suggest using the onboard spam filtering option. It's rudimentary at best.
For a low cost helpdesk, I think it's pretty good. But don't expect the power and flexibility of Remedy. For a small shop, Remedy is an overkill. ServiceDesk Plus is a good product, but needs (and is undergoing) additional enhancement.
The wedgie machine!
Why?
Well, one of them was asking what the engine hoist did. I didn't have an engine to hoist right then, so I had him step up to it. I quickly hooked it up and hoisted away...
BVD's.... A-OkaaaaaAAAAAAYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAA!!!
But all was not lost...
It was an empirical study to prove once and for all that you could NOT stretch underwear far enough to go from your rear end over your head...
There's honor among thieves....
What if you're trying to correct the corrupt practices of a prior group of politicians who have no desire to step down? Sure, you might be honest, upstanding, etc. but you're a person who is doing nothing wrong. Are you still so sure there's not a concern about your eligibility for the free and wholesale monitoring of your communications? Keep in mind that East Germany had an estimated 30% of the country that had ties to the Stasi secret police - informants and the like. It didn't happen overnight, but possibly with incremental (or silent) intrusions into the citizens lives - for the safety of the country.
It's probably the new gel they inject into the tube leading from the sperm sac. It's non dissolveable by normal body fluids, but then when/if you want to attempt to have kids, you inject a dissolving agent, and it flows out.
:-)
But really, I wonder if this won't be a problem with skanky, rotten, dead sperm cells collecting... shudder.... just thinking of it gives me the willies... and my willie the willies...
I recall seeing a cool experiment involving a person who is supposedly hypnotized (or put asleep) while playing a first person shooter involving zombies. He gets put under, transferred to a building with a layout EXACTLY like the game, and he is woken up. He sees the zombie chick he just killed, and before long is trapped with zombies pouring in from all around him. He freaks out near the end, where he is "put under" again, put back in front of the video game and he wakes up thinking he's just had one hell of a game.
Here's the video.
He doesn't have to make two cups of tea each time.
This page shows what appears to be a man in prison jumpsuit colors firmly perched on a 1 wheel motorized device (complete with a parts list and source code!).
Three cheers for prison reform! 'Cause...dang....our state just has stone breaking, weight lifting, bike repair and woodshop!
Well, then there's that new sport those two cowboy fellers are doing to each other while goat herding in that there new movie. Bare back? Broke back? Cum back for more? Anyway, one of those things.
Returning your products for service has reached a new low!
From the end of the article with the picture:
"Eventually, scramjets may revolutionise air travel, allowing passenger aircraft to fly to London from Sydney in just two hours, making in-flight movies obsolete."
With an 18" diameter pipe for such air to go through, and the student intern needed to enter it to clean/polish it, what first came to mind was someone turning it on to pull a more circumferentially challenged intern out.
:-)
And then I remembered the same scene in Charlie and the Chocolate factory (with Gene Wilder) and knew that it wasn't such a bad way to go.
Well, the subject kinda says it all.
Which way is east again?
Funny, I thought it was odd that the one he kept fondling looked more like a set of boobs.
I just finished watching Serenity for about the 4th time, and then watched it again with Josh's comments.
Yeah, I think something is being missed here. Makes me wish I had "found Serenity" when it first aired to have been able to have enjoyed the cons and energy of the "revival" to the theater houses.
From Orson Scott Card's own website:
So here's what I have to say about Serenity:
This is the kind of movie that I have always intended Ender's Game to be (though the plots are not at all similar).
And this is as good a movie as I always hoped Ender's Game would be.
And I'll tell you this right now: If Ender's Game can't be this kind of movie, and this good a movie, then I want it never to be made.
I'd rather just watch Serenity again.
We're located east of Sacramento, CA.
TEM testing was conducted.
Thanks for the idea on utilizing university testing.
Sorry for the long delay in response. I've been busy running for city council and it's absolutely crazy - never worked so hard in my life before.
I'm a politician in a parks & rec district that recently underwent national media attention on asbestos, and have had some opportunity to do some research on this - as well as get squeezed in a battle between the EPA and our county govt. on this asbestos issue - primarily over the perceived threat to property values (and taxes collected from it).
My seat of the pants analysis of this is based somewhat on a 2003 conference held in San Francisco with attendance by a worldwide collection of asbestos related experts.
Bottom line - not much has improved in studies for asbestos related health risks. How much is safe? What is the correlation between exposure, longevity, lifestyle, etc? It seems that Chrysotile forms of asbestos are "more safe" due to their curly shape, and apparent expectorability from the lungs via natural processes (breathing, coughing, philial movement, encapsulation in other materials produced by your body, etc.)
However, Amphibole types seem to be much more dangerous - needle-like, long fibers. Easily "stuck" into tiny spaces in the lungs and not expectorated. Macrophages in the lungs apparently envelope these fibers and work to eventually break them down, but for some reason, they don't encapsulate the entire length of the fibers (if you can imagine a pig-in-a-blanket dough/hotdog analogy). Not much is understood of this area, and due to the location, is not an area for easy testing. Combine that with the longevity for detection, it's difficult to do tests on any factors leading to, or progression of any asbestos related illnesses.
What the EPA is certain in saying is that there appears to be a 5X incidence of mesothelioma among smokers (in an occupational setting - somewhat difficult to compare to a park setting with occasional possible exposure). However, ATSDR says there isn't a way to distinguish smokers related illnesses against mesothelioma, which leads me to believe as another poster suggested that asbestos interferes with some portion of the lungs or biological process/byproduct with close proximity to the lungs that allows greater incidence of mesothelioma amongst smokers.
Testing has been somewhat difficult under existing standards. Spiked samples of asbestos have come back with 0 fibers/cm^3 readings from labs, clean samples have come back with readings. Then there are some tests conducted by labs that violate friability standards - by crushing the rock and then looking for asbestos. This is not a realistic exposure model.
As a result of the screwball results, the EPA was unwilling to admit that the soil samples were bad, preferring to use only air samples that were collected via activity based testing and comparing the results ot nearby stationary air samplers. Apparently there is some consistency seen using such methods.
HOWEVER, the EPA left town, wanting to wash their hands of some of this debacle. We still have a fence up near a field, and have conducted further tests by a certified hazardous materials expert. The results are coming back 0 (preliminary tests). That's a cause of consternation on the part of the EPA as well as by our parks & rec dept. How do we reconcile the differences and does the EPA end up having a tarnished image from even the new testing methodology? How do we instill confidence in parents whose kids play on the field, or in a nearby tot-lot where the EPA said there were elevated levels of asbestos? (Our community has asbestos running through it, but this field has a totally different type of asbestos apparently (from EPA, not our own subsequent testing) which was brought in as a replaced field mix.
This is an area where there is not much glory for this type of research, and is fraught with VERY long periods of time before any possible correlated illness is even detected (usually by death - but was it by THIS exposure?)
I suppose that in the area of nano-technology, it will be a good thing to at least be open to this area of study, but may also prove to show causation.
Me
Way too cool! A couple of phone calls later, and I'm in business!
Call now for your pre-fabbed kit! Simply send* your Nano to:
Ipod Upgrade
200 G byte way
Newport Beach, CA 93447
916-767-3395
Hurry! Operators (^ * / + - ) are standing by in order to take your order.
* A core charge is assessed for any dead or non-returned Ipod nano's.
Make movies so bad nobody WANTS to pirate it. Once the pirates grow old and die, or otherwise move on to other industries, then return to releasing good movies.
Movie Distributors Book of Tactics, pg 43