Paying taxes is the cost of doing business. The simple fact is that the bailout money is supposed to stimulate the US economy, and prevent calamity for US citizens. While you are not a citizen or LPR, you shouldn't directly be positively impacted while US citizens are suffering. Sorry, that's just how things are. It's a bit protectionist, but if there are no employed people here to pay taxes the whole house of cards falls apart. If you can't afford bread, you won't be paying taxes, or buying things from local producers.
Also to be considered, this is citizens' money being spent. We should be getting something for it other than the warm fuzzy thoughts of knowing some CEO types are comfortable in their retirement plans with their 7 houses and yacht, and some foreign workers are fortunately still able to send money to their families in a foreign country while US Citizens are suffering.
And lastly, since you are planning on coming to the USA to work, there are a few things you need to understand:
The government works for ME. They are spending MY MONEY. I have EVERY right to expect them to spend it wisely, and by extension EVERY right to be angry if they don't. By that convention, I am right to speak up and say how I want MY money spent. If you want to work here, remember that. You will be contributing money to a big pot that *I* get to say how it's spent. You won't have that right. H1B is not a citizenship, and your attitude of entitlement is unwarranted. The same holds true of all citizens of the USA.
That is exactly why I am disappointed that the stimulus packages do not come with a stipulation that all funds must be spent in the USA. They cannot fund overseas operations, outsourcing, shell companies that use outsourcing, or even H1B visa holders. All must be spent on/in the USA. While that has some possible down sides, I don't see them as outweighing the benefits.
I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one that has and appreciates quality older products. I still have a component stereo system that is 22+ years old. When I turn up the volume you can see the carpet rippling in front of the speakers, of which I have two pairs. Both speaker sets have been rebuilt several times, and either can hold their own against Bose speakers in terms of perceived quality of sound. I had to rebuild them mostly because you can melt crossovers if you try:)
I still have several B&D tools that are at least that old, inherited from my dad. All of them working perfectly. My blender of some 15 years would still look as well work perfectly new had the dog not gotten hold of a corner of the lid. Quality products are not so easy to find these days, and it's heartening to hear of others who are more likely to fix than replace an item. I had to finally get a new microwave a few years back. That was a good change as the old one did not have a rotating tray. Some change is good.
On the disposal, on mine, periodically I dump ice in and let it grind it up. Clears away food and such. A little draino type stuff in with the ice seems to keep everything clear. The wife cleans with bleach in the kitchen also, so that probably helps with the pipe cleaning. Coffee grounds are for the rose bushes.
Not such a good thing if you are British. When bobby snoops your pc and finds out you are supporting the Hammas botnet, they will finger your collar and ask you to help them with some inquiries down at the station.
Careful that no one puts the Hammas botnet software on your pc for you!
This sort of thing could get ridiculously out of hand very quickly.
I'd go for a subscription if it gave me access to online/digital content from my choice of x magazines. A common format, easy to search, with cross references between them. Of course RSS feeds too. I would especially enjoy a mix of computer/programming/electronics information like this. On paper it just isn't possible to get the features I want, but electronically? Very cool and worth subscribing to.
You know who I am? I'm the guy at the table near the end of the bar, having a beer and reading PDFs of print magazines till my battery dies and then I go home. Happy hour is called happy for a reason. I like to see some example code in a magazine and try it out, right there if it interests me. I like ads that have URLs in them. I like things that I can search and cross reference. If reading an article has a hint in it and I suddenly want to see the functional diagram and pinout of a power management chip for battery backed CMOS RAM to see if it would wedge into a circuit backwards for battery backup functions elsewhere, well... damnit, it's nice to have links and just clickity click. I like near-instant information from greatly disparate sources, collated, indexed, and ready for consumption. I also like to use the save button, the cut-n-paste functions, and the 'lets email this to fred' button.
Print magazines never gave me that... I'm not sad to see them go, and will pay for good online/downloadable content.
I don't think of those days gone by as particularly good. I'm just saying that things were made differently than they are today. Designed obsolescence is just how things are now. Apple is a hardware maker. An upgradable iWhatever is not in the company's best interest. Part of the problem is a quicker innovation cycle than previously. Part is manufacturing things so they are not upgradeable, never mind repairable. Have you seen any printer repair shops lately? You can still find cobblers, but used PC hardware is a near worthless commodity in the current consumer market. There are many things that are simply not repairable, nor worth paying to get repaired when the cost of a newer model with more features is often less than the repair bill. When repairs are more costly, infrastructure/support for repairs disappears. Think about it, umbrellas are repairable. I've been to umbrella repair shops in Europe. Does anyone in North America even know they can be fixed?
I don't have a zenith, but I can say I wish things were manufactured for repair, and maintenance. My friend has a large flat screen. The PSU broke. It is now a 75 lb paperweight. In a close to ideal world, that would be a couple of screws to slide the PSU out of the chassis, maybe $200 for the replacement PSU, all fixed. He is being told $1800 and that it might not even fix the problem. Yes, $1800 repair on a $2500 tv. That's just awesome. I think that things should be designed better than that... at least if you want quality to be associated with your name. Of course, since no one actually repairs things anymore, I guess it no longer matters.
Wow, Wish I still had mine. Moving overseas necessitated selling it. Your thoughts on knowing how to repair your tools should go for cars, appliances, homes, etc. I was shopping for a couple of hand tools lately, and was surprised at the number of people who work in tool stores that were confused. I was looking for an 'awl', a leatherworking knife, and and ice pick. Don't ask why, ask why they didn't know what I meant. Things are changing. I'm thinking my wire-twist pliers should be framed? I bought mine for $65 some years ago, and now you can get them for $25. Does anyone know where they might be used in today's world?
There was a time, before surface mount components, when US manufacturers made products to last. Products that were repairable. Products of quality. About the time that surface mount components came along, everything turned to 'throw away' production values. If the electronics is not repairable, no need to make the rest of it last 27 years. This was before trade with China. Zenith televisions? Remember them? Motorola started making throw away radios about 1988. Before that you could use the mic cord to repel from a burning building. Walmart made stuff cheaper, and to keep up, manufacturers started making things of lower quality to be cheaper. Later on, there was a kind of backlash on the cheaper craze, and we have Lexus et al to show for it.
Chances are that your phone was designed to be replaced before or at the end of life of the battery in it. It's not designed to be upgraded or refurbished per se'... just replaced. Your microwave oven is the same, and on and on. Many things manufactured in the last 15 years can't be maintained. Look inside a blender or other such appliance. If a piece of the plastic breaks, it's fucked. Nothing short of a super glue miracle will fix it. Does your car come with a gizmo for reading information from the computer? The typical handyman toolkit from Sears doesn't have a spark plug wrench any more.
It will take quite a bit to turn the throw away consumer into a maintenance consumer. There are some brand names that still represent value and quality. Hopefully they will see a benefit from all this and other will have learned their lesson about quality.
Interestingly, computers have not quite run the same gauntlet. Hardware quality has remained about the same. Custom hardware like Compaq still sucks for upgrading etc. but all in, pretty much the same or better quality for systems as in the last 15 years. Software has only improved, no matter how bad it seems some days:)
Furniture restoration should revive. Home DIY will/is. Computers remain throw away in as much as they always were. New OS available, buy new hardware. This is why I like Linux. It breaks that cycle.
No, not even close. I see a future where the end user has to know little if anything about computers to run one, and they are fun, not just fancy typewriters that double as video displays.
I see your point but I'd rather think of it as something like KDE 14.7.3, or as they like to say in Marketing "VR Desktop" or some such nonsense.
The idea that you use a 3D world/space to access applications brings the user into a realm where their natural given manipulations and perceptions make sense rather than having to 'learn about computers' to get anything done.
There is a corollary to what you are saying. Demand drives innovation in the consumer market, this much is certain. Can you say betamax vs. VHS? That was not a positive innovative step that was driven by demand, so it works both ways.
What twitter and facebook are... well, technically speaking, they are tweaks to current hardware and understanding of the Internet as a system. One of the key driving factors is that they are reasonably simple to use and users are allowed to 'pimp out' their little space fairly easily. This is something that I've noticed in consumer driven changes. If you can't pimp it out, then people want to have the item that is envied as is. Can you say 'Apple halo effect'?
Computers and software often offer neither of these, or they are not accomplished easily. I've been trying to understand how to apply this to Linux. Any good small business has to have a plan. That plan should include something that sets it apart from every kid in his mom's basement.
I don't think that Idiocracy is where it's at, but rather where the next personal tech that can be pimped out or personalized. I predict (not necessarily in 2009) that computing will make the grade again when a user interface can be pimped out with voice and 3D animations so that the actual experience is nothing like we get with/. or current technology. Some of this can be seen already, but requires a bit more than average hardware to get oohs and aahhhs. When average hardware catches up and the end user experience starts closing in on that experience we viewed on Star Trek (RIP Magel) it will see a resurgence in popularity and development.
I can envision a 3D world not unlike SecondLife that is the end user interface. Documents are in a virtual file cabinet, the little tv is where you launch videos, Perhaps your avatar has a tricorder for surfing the web etc. Who knows exactly, but this virtual world end user experience will make a large difference. Instant messaging will be more like going to visit a friend's house, or meet them in virtual Paris. MySpace will be a small chunck of the 3D world, pimped out for visitors. When surfing the web becomes as interesting as the end user wants to make it, we'll see changes. You and I might prefer some stark spartan setup with FF for browsing with tabs and multiple windows etc. A 16 year old girl might like it to be an Internet full of ponies and glass slippers. Guys might like to decorate the trashcan of their OS with the logo from a football team they despise. There are myriad and as yet unfathomable ways to pimp out the end user experience yet keep them inside a sandbox and away from the important stuff that the neither want to fuck with nor know about. One youngster here in this house would be fine with a user interface or desktop that looks like a hockey rink, and move about in the rink to access 3D objects that opened what you and I call normal applications. He'd pay the NHL $50 bucks for the 'skins' to pimp it 0ut too. Nothing like hearing your team's anthem instead of a drumroll when you log in. Yeah, sure, that can be done now, but it's much more consumer oriented to sell a CD with the install icon and have it all set up for you except for a few tweeks of picking the tune etc.
Well, enough of that. Computers are not made for the throw-away generations. Not yet. When they are, we'll see much more innovation and hi-tech application to low tech processes. Imagine that little girl who loves the computer to be ponies. Her alarm clock is a soft toy pony. She can talk to the pony alarm clock and because it is connected to her computer, the pony can tell her she has a message from Grandma. Read it to me says the girl. The pony does. Tell grandma I love her says the girl. The pony replies to the email. At some point in the future, the near future, none of us will think this is awesome or odd or amazing. It will just be how things are.... or can be.
Well, no readership otherwise. For all my SO knows, I could be hacking the great Chinese firewall. She would not know otherwise and would not care. Trying to get Adobe flashplayer 10 64bit alphaOMGpre-release to work on Ubuntu looks exactly the same as hacking the Chinese Embassy's coke machine server to her if there is no narrative to let her know what is exactly happening.
Well, in some circumstances people want to know what you think on a given topic. The lecture circuit is full of people that are thought of that way... or think they are. You know, Bill, Woz, Steve, Bruce, ex-presidents, former criminals, and a host of others. At any rate, they get paid well enough to keep telling people about it. Basically a personal presentation of a blog, or is a blog a free but impersonal presentation of a lecture? The responses in blogs are often more entertaining since they have some original material to work with whereas the blogger has to make it all up from scratch. Judging from the Internet, originality has been over-rated for a very long time. With a shout to grammar Nazis of the world, apparently written English has been over-rated for quite some time as well.
That doesn't even begin to cover logging onto SecondLife and attending a lecture by someone at Cisco. I have no clue if that is a lecture or a blog reading? Animated blog? Cartoon lecture? My head is aspolodin!
An end to the war on drugs... most likely. If you have any sway with big pharma, perhaps some aspirin-X-treme for headaches and cramps and sports injuries.
Seriously, if we could just get little electric generators in their keyboards while they tweet, perhaps we could help solve the almost was global warming problem? All for the minor cost of having people be quietly annoying on the train ride to work.
Re:Was the cover designed by someone at Fark?
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Ubuntu Kung Fu
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· Score: 4, Funny
The logo is actually a ninja!! Can't you see it? The kiteh is only there for size approximations.
I'm kind of with you on this one. I remember back in the day, if you spent more than an hour on the phone people thought there was something wrong with you. Back then I thought they were right. If some galactic disaster wiped out electronics on Earth, there would be a lot of people who suddenly lose it because they have nobody to blab to. Twitter gives them this outlet even when they are surrounded by people that really don't want to hear their crap. It's really no different than thinking outloud or talking to walls; an umbilical cord to keep them from having to be alone. They talk about how great it is because they are addicted and cannot function without someone listening to them blabber on about nothing all day. As long as they are talking, they feel somehow important. - Yes, I get the irony
Actually, they did complete in 90 days, but since the hardware didn't die, they kept going with the project. Today is a day that the design team can sit back, kick their feet up and know they did a damned good job. This is an awesome achievement. Anyone who has built a robot will tell you that keeping those rovers alive for such a long time in a harsh environment is a huge achievement. The team that worked this project, dealing with the rovers 24/7 should be proud. Imagine, 5 years of knowing that if you make a mistake the entire world will know. For 5 years, in the face of all adversity, they did not fail. That's awesome.
How many times have terrorists used planes as weapons before or since 9/11? Anywhere in the world? That's not even addressing the concerns of those that think it was an inside job which would make airport security the biggest joke. ever. period.
How many houses are broken into daily across the country? Way more than the number of airplanes being hijacked by terrorists!
Why would an airplane be a much bigger target than a train loaded with chlorine gas or other toxic chemicals while it's moving through Chicago or some other metropolitan area? I don't want to scare anyone, but there are a shit-load of ways to do more damage than flying an airplane into a building.
18 organized terrorists with good timing and good planning could bring any US metropolitan area to it's knees in about 45 minutes, at which point they would have their choice of targets, both human and infrastructure. It would not take hi-tech gadgets per se' and would be unstoppable once initiated. All that could be done is triage in the wake of the 'disaster' initiated by the terrorists. I do mean ANY US metropolitan area, including Washington D.C.
The math on your 'waste of resources for a door lock' statement is farcically fallacious. A one time $40 expenditure. This is not the case for TSA/DHS efforts in airports. We spend more money NOT catching terrorists every month than is believable. Upgrading equipment, installing new screening equipment, new checkpoint equipment, check point employees etc. The weakest point in the whole system is TSA itself. More specifically, the more people they need to hire, the more chance there is of an airport or TSA/DHS employee being a terrorist plant, and who could easily bring a bomb into the airport and put it on a plane. There have been incidents of TSA failures that are unbelievable, and make mockery of your opinion of the current airport security systems. I seriously doubt that we are any safer as a country now, than we were before 9/11, and in some ways we are less safe because of misappropriated resources for security.
This kind of system exacerbates the problems that currently exist. Currently 100% of all searches are performed on non-terrorists and almost 100% are performed on innocent people. Wrap your head around that for a bit. The quality of the searching is based on facts from incidents where terrorists were not caught, not based on terrorists who were. That is to say, oh, if people *can* put explosives in their shoes, we'll search all peoples shoes. All a terrorist has to do is try something that has not been tried before and they will be successful - more or less. I can't wait till someone sneaks a liquid explosive on board a plane inside a bladder that encases their crotch. Yes, the TSA's reaction to that will be awesome!
This machine will search 100% of all travellers (for a given set of travellers) and any who are pulled aside for further searching is supposedly equal to a smaller number than are searched now. They will still be innocent, but this justifies the inconvenience to them because a machine detected something. What is the accuracy of lie detectors BTW?
Since there appear to be no stories of Gitmo prisoners being loaned out to security equipment manufacturers the probability that any 'real terrorists' were used to test the machine is zero. Does anyone have the statistics handy? How many terrorists that have been caught since 9/11 have been caught anywhere near an airport, never mind trying to board the plane?
This seems to amount to a lie detector test that you are forced to take because you choose the criminal activity of traveling from one place to another by air. Apparently, if you wanted to bomb a bus there is no one to stop you. If you want to poison a water supply there is no one to stop you. If you wanted to sabotage an underwater cable there is no one to stop you. If you wanted to car bomb a public building there is no one to stop you. Think about that for a second or two. Airport security as it is currently implemented is 99% waste of time and resources. It inconveniences all, catches no guilty persons, and robs resources away from efforts to protect other infrastructure etcetera.
What would I suggest we do for security? The same thing we do for security for any other public transportation. The goal of terrorism is to make you waste resources, to make a violent statement that circumvents any implemented security. It's a whack-a-mole game. Catching terrorists should be done long before they strap on the explosives. That's the only effective way to catch them. I don't have links, but I can't remember any story about a terrorist being caught by airport security measures. The only ones that were caught were caught with normal pre-9/11 police measures. Right now, the terrorists are winning.
The distributor of the cult film Night of the Living Dead, after changing the film's title at the last moment before release in 1968, failed to include a proper copyright notice in the new titles, thereby immediately putting the film into the public domain after its release.[23] This provision of US copyright law was revised with the United States Copyright Act of 1976, which allowed such negligence to be remedied within five years of publication.[24]
I was not aware that you are allowed to fix your screw ups like this.
Despite that, there is something inherently wrong with EMI et al releasing works free to the public in an immensely easy-to-copy form, with no license or copyright notification and then expecting the law to support them in trying to control further distribution. IANAL but I bet there are cases to support such an act (stupidity) being rewarded with exactly what it deserves: no support from the law. Any judge and of course any consumer has a right to expect that if it was free to download and was downloaded without warranty or copyright or license, it is free to distribute further. That is to say that in view of the RIAAs litigation war on consumers, if a music work is released this way, it is fair to assume it to be free of copyright issues. Further, it is fair to say that a consumer would have a right to expect that such a work is free of copyright infringement issues and they can redistribute as they please.
The RIAA and others have discovered that once a work is in digital form, controlling further distribution is much like nailing gelatin to a wall. When a record company releases a work in digital format sans license or copyright notice, they have no right to expect that further distribution will not occur. Any thinking otherwise is foolish.
Yes, your honor, I left my two new $100 bills on that park bench in the NE corner of city park, and when I came back they were gone. Then two hours later in a restaurant, the defendant was overheard telling how he found $200. He stole my money!!!! The sound of a gavel banging is heard as the judge has the man thrown out of the courtroom.
Or perhaps a closer thought is: While I was walking downtown I was approached by a man wearing a sandwich board. The sign was in support of re-election of Judge Whopner. I initially went to ignore him, but the man asked if I knew where to get free coffee. I like coffee, so I stopped and replied that I did not. He then pointed out that TrekDollars coffee shop was giving away free coffee today, all the while displaying his sign so that I might read it. I thanked him and walked around the corner to get a free cup of joe. Apparently it's their 10th anniversary of business today or something like that. They didn't ask where I heard about the free coffee, nor did they enquire as to how I would use it. After all, it's free coffee.
IANAL, but IMO if the law generally holds these examples as true and useful, then copyright is being used wrongly in many cases. I believe this is one of them.
The Sidekick allows you to use both hands to hold the device, two thumbs typing, and also has two buttons for fingers much the same way that nintendo game controllers do. It is possible to use more than thumbs with the two hands holding the device posture.
This is exactly right..... if it is published, it is "in" the public domain. At this point, the auther or copyright holder no longer has right over distribution. period.
EMI has no right over this, they have claimed something that is false, and published the works for free, as in anyone can have a copy without license and without agreement. It's free for the taking. There can be NO ad hoc after the fact licensing. It was put in the public domain without licensing, and is therefor public domain. The argument is moot..... EMI fucked up.
I'm curious. How do you explain the root kit on Sony CDs with ignorance or stupidity? Anyone that stupid should not be in business. period. The Sony legal team has enough experience to protect trademarks, read the news, and study the laws. Any software release that was not run through the legal team opens the company to unknown litigation costs. When you have that much to lose, being stupid is not an option.
Enron, as I mentioned them, is but one example of a big business going out of their way to screw over customers and employees alike. I don't think it's so hard to imagine that executives at Sony and other record companies are just as immoral and unscrupulous. In fact, it's rather easy. Yes, you can go ahead and keep giving them the benefit of the doubt, but I won't and there are a lot of people feeling the same way. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me... or if you like, once bitten, twice shy. Oh, then there is an old fav: A leopard does not change his spots. If you are familiar with them, Metallica has a song about a scorpion which seems rather appropriate.
If you believe that this is about enforcing copyrights... I'm aghast. After all that the RIAA and members have done, now saying who can have free downloads? That's not copyright, it's tantamount to saying 'here is a free MP3, but you can't use it for anything other than listening alone to it at home. A completely unrealistic expectation under current and all foreseeable copyright laws.
If Ford gave you a free car but then said you can't put any bumper stickers on it, would you tell them to fuck off? Anyone else can put bumper stickers on the free cars we gave them, but not you! This is the thing about public domain. Once a thing is released to the public domain you have lost control of how it is then distributed.
There is little if any difference between reality here and having a site that has advertisements on it that points (with deep links) to sites that have free MP3 files, although that is a bit cheap, using someone else's bandwidth for the actual downloads. Point remains. If it's free for downloading, it doesn't matter one iota how the downloader finds the link.
Regardless of how unsavory this company might actually be, this is wrong of EMI, and should they win it would set a very bad precedent for copyrights, patents, and many other things with regard to the public domain and 'things' released to the public domain with no license. You can indeed follow a URL link to the actual file and not be presented a EULA or license, so whether they intended it that way or were just stupid, they are free for downloading and free of licensing, and therefore EMI has lost distribution rights of any kind.
Para 15 says it all really:
In short, EMI has engaged in active marketing of its music directly and through hundreds if not thousands of online music partners. As a consequence, thousands of EMI songs are available on the Internet for free download with its authorization. Yet EMI is seeking to impose liability upon MP3tunes because it runs a search engine that links to many of the same files. MP3tunes respectfully requests that EMIâ(TM)s motion to dismiss be denied.
I am thinking that 2009 is going to be a very interesting year for the RIAA's legal team. Who hasn't heard/read about the latest foibles from the record companies and I'm willing to bet that this one won't be the last.
Monopolistic practices? Unfair trade practices? Come on now! The RIAA and it's members would NEVER do anything like that. How many here wonder how many tune/files were seeded to P2P networks by the RIAA members themselves never mind paid third parties so that their 'investigative' group could actually find file sharers? Can you say Enron? Yeah, I know it's not even close to the same thing, but I am betting it breaks open as big in the news and it's after affects when the real truth of what big record labels have been up to for the last 5 years.
Take what Sony did. There is an example of how unscrupulous they really are. Imagine the money that they have and they don't have employees that know it was not just morally bad, but illegal? Ignorance of the law is not acceptable in court.... unless you have several hundred million dollars to buy things for legislators holidays and such.
Like my great grandfather used to say... "The shit you see when you don't have a gun... damn"
He was of course talking about deer on the side of the road, which is close to road kill, and I hope that is what 2009 will label the RIAA, so it kind of fits.
That's awesome, but not really what I mean. I mean a place where the end user can tribute their gratitude toward those that have already created software that the end user is using, and do so in such a way as to make it painless to donate money to all the packages in a distribution, or just some select packages etc.
This seems to be a place to gather funding for specific software yet to be developed. That is also a good idea.
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Paying taxes is the cost of doing business. The simple fact is that the bailout money is supposed to stimulate the US economy, and prevent calamity for US citizens. While you are not a citizen or LPR, you shouldn't directly be positively impacted while US citizens are suffering. Sorry, that's just how things are. It's a bit protectionist, but if there are no employed people here to pay taxes the whole house of cards falls apart. If you can't afford bread, you won't be paying taxes, or buying things from local producers.
Also to be considered, this is citizens' money being spent. We should be getting something for it other than the warm fuzzy thoughts of knowing some CEO types are comfortable in their retirement plans with their 7 houses and yacht, and some foreign workers are fortunately still able to send money to their families in a foreign country while US Citizens are suffering.
And lastly, since you are planning on coming to the USA to work, there are a few things you need to understand:
The government works for ME. They are spending MY MONEY. I have EVERY right to expect them to spend it wisely, and by extension EVERY right to be angry if they don't. By that convention, I am right to speak up and say how I want MY money spent. If you want to work here, remember that. You will be contributing money to a big pot that *I* get to say how it's spent. You won't have that right. H1B is not a citizenship, and your attitude of entitlement is unwarranted. The same holds true of all citizens of the USA.
That is exactly why I am disappointed that the stimulus packages do not come with a stipulation that all funds must be spent in the USA. They cannot fund overseas operations, outsourcing, shell companies that use outsourcing, or even H1B visa holders. All must be spent on/in the USA. While that has some possible down sides, I don't see them as outweighing the benefits.
I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one that has and appreciates quality older products. I still have a component stereo system that is 22+ years old. When I turn up the volume you can see the carpet rippling in front of the speakers, of which I have two pairs. Both speaker sets have been rebuilt several times, and either can hold their own against Bose speakers in terms of perceived quality of sound. I had to rebuild them mostly because you can melt crossovers if you try :)
I still have several B&D tools that are at least that old, inherited from my dad. All of them working perfectly. My blender of some 15 years would still look as well work perfectly new had the dog not gotten hold of a corner of the lid. Quality products are not so easy to find these days, and it's heartening to hear of others who are more likely to fix than replace an item. I had to finally get a new microwave a few years back. That was a good change as the old one did not have a rotating tray. Some change is good.
On the disposal, on mine, periodically I dump ice in and let it grind it up. Clears away food and such. A little draino type stuff in with the ice seems to keep everything clear. The wife cleans with bleach in the kitchen also, so that probably helps with the pipe cleaning. Coffee grounds are for the rose bushes.
And nobody would ever do that, would they?
Not such a good thing if you are British. When bobby snoops your pc and finds out you are supporting the Hammas botnet, they will finger your collar and ask you to help them with some inquiries down at the station.
Careful that no one puts the Hammas botnet software on your pc for you!
This sort of thing could get ridiculously out of hand very quickly.
I'd go for a subscription if it gave me access to online/digital content from my choice of x magazines. A common format, easy to search, with cross references between them. Of course RSS feeds too. I would especially enjoy a mix of computer/programming/electronics information like this. On paper it just isn't possible to get the features I want, but electronically? Very cool and worth subscribing to.
You know who I am? I'm the guy at the table near the end of the bar, having a beer and reading PDFs of print magazines till my battery dies and then I go home. Happy hour is called happy for a reason. I like to see some example code in a magazine and try it out, right there if it interests me. I like ads that have URLs in them. I like things that I can search and cross reference. If reading an article has a hint in it and I suddenly want to see the functional diagram and pinout of a power management chip for battery backed CMOS RAM to see if it would wedge into a circuit backwards for battery backup functions elsewhere, well... damnit, it's nice to have links and just clickity click. I like near-instant information from greatly disparate sources, collated, indexed, and ready for consumption. I also like to use the save button, the cut-n-paste functions, and the 'lets email this to fred' button.
Print magazines never gave me that... I'm not sad to see them go, and will pay for good online/downloadable content.
I don't think of those days gone by as particularly good. I'm just saying that things were made differently than they are today. Designed obsolescence is just how things are now. Apple is a hardware maker. An upgradable iWhatever is not in the company's best interest. Part of the problem is a quicker innovation cycle than previously. Part is manufacturing things so they are not upgradeable, never mind repairable. Have you seen any printer repair shops lately? You can still find cobblers, but used PC hardware is a near worthless commodity in the current consumer market. There are many things that are simply not repairable, nor worth paying to get repaired when the cost of a newer model with more features is often less than the repair bill. When repairs are more costly, infrastructure/support for repairs disappears. Think about it, umbrellas are repairable. I've been to umbrella repair shops in Europe. Does anyone in North America even know they can be fixed?
I don't have a zenith, but I can say I wish things were manufactured for repair, and maintenance. My friend has a large flat screen. The PSU broke. It is now a 75 lb paperweight. In a close to ideal world, that would be a couple of screws to slide the PSU out of the chassis, maybe $200 for the replacement PSU, all fixed. He is being told $1800 and that it might not even fix the problem. Yes, $1800 repair on a $2500 tv. That's just awesome. I think that things should be designed better than that... at least if you want quality to be associated with your name. Of course, since no one actually repairs things anymore, I guess it no longer matters.
Wow, Wish I still had mine. Moving overseas necessitated selling it. Your thoughts on knowing how to repair your tools should go for cars, appliances, homes, etc. I was shopping for a couple of hand tools lately, and was surprised at the number of people who work in tool stores that were confused. I was looking for an 'awl', a leatherworking knife, and and ice pick. Don't ask why, ask why they didn't know what I meant. Things are changing. I'm thinking my wire-twist pliers should be framed? I bought mine for $65 some years ago, and now you can get them for $25. Does anyone know where they might be used in today's world?
There was a time, before surface mount components, when US manufacturers made products to last. Products that were repairable. Products of quality. About the time that surface mount components came along, everything turned to 'throw away' production values. If the electronics is not repairable, no need to make the rest of it last 27 years. This was before trade with China. Zenith televisions? Remember them? Motorola started making throw away radios about 1988. Before that you could use the mic cord to repel from a burning building. Walmart made stuff cheaper, and to keep up, manufacturers started making things of lower quality to be cheaper. Later on, there was a kind of backlash on the cheaper craze, and we have Lexus et al to show for it.
Chances are that your phone was designed to be replaced before or at the end of life of the battery in it. It's not designed to be upgraded or refurbished per se'... just replaced. Your microwave oven is the same, and on and on. Many things manufactured in the last 15 years can't be maintained. Look inside a blender or other such appliance. If a piece of the plastic breaks, it's fucked. Nothing short of a super glue miracle will fix it. Does your car come with a gizmo for reading information from the computer? The typical handyman toolkit from Sears doesn't have a spark plug wrench any more.
It will take quite a bit to turn the throw away consumer into a maintenance consumer. There are some brand names that still represent value and quality. Hopefully they will see a benefit from all this and other will have learned their lesson about quality.
Interestingly, computers have not quite run the same gauntlet. Hardware quality has remained about the same. Custom hardware like Compaq still sucks for upgrading etc. but all in, pretty much the same or better quality for systems as in the last 15 years. Software has only improved, no matter how bad it seems some days :)
Furniture restoration should revive. Home DIY will/is. Computers remain throw away in as much as they always were. New OS available, buy new hardware. This is why I like Linux. It breaks that cycle.
No, not even close. I see a future where the end user has to know little if anything about computers to run one, and they are fun, not just fancy typewriters that double as video displays.
I see your point but I'd rather think of it as something like KDE 14.7.3, or as they like to say in Marketing "VR Desktop" or some such nonsense.
The idea that you use a 3D world/space to access applications brings the user into a realm where their natural given manipulations and perceptions make sense rather than having to 'learn about computers' to get anything done.
There is a corollary to what you are saying. Demand drives innovation in the consumer market, this much is certain. Can you say betamax vs. VHS? That was not a positive innovative step that was driven by demand, so it works both ways.
What twitter and facebook are... well, technically speaking, they are tweaks to current hardware and understanding of the Internet as a system. One of the key driving factors is that they are reasonably simple to use and users are allowed to 'pimp out' their little space fairly easily. This is something that I've noticed in consumer driven changes. If you can't pimp it out, then people want to have the item that is envied as is. Can you say 'Apple halo effect'?
Computers and software often offer neither of these, or they are not accomplished easily. I've been trying to understand how to apply this to Linux. Any good small business has to have a plan. That plan should include something that sets it apart from every kid in his mom's basement.
I don't think that Idiocracy is where it's at, but rather where the next personal tech that can be pimped out or personalized. I predict (not necessarily in 2009) that computing will make the grade again when a user interface can be pimped out with voice and 3D animations so that the actual experience is nothing like we get with /. or current technology. Some of this can be seen already, but requires a bit more than average hardware to get oohs and aahhhs. When average hardware catches up and the end user experience starts closing in on that experience we viewed on Star Trek (RIP Magel) it will see a resurgence in popularity and development.
I can envision a 3D world not unlike SecondLife that is the end user interface. Documents are in a virtual file cabinet, the little tv is where you launch videos, Perhaps your avatar has a tricorder for surfing the web etc. Who knows exactly, but this virtual world end user experience will make a large difference. Instant messaging will be more like going to visit a friend's house, or meet them in virtual Paris. MySpace will be a small chunck of the 3D world, pimped out for visitors. When surfing the web becomes as interesting as the end user wants to make it, we'll see changes. You and I might prefer some stark spartan setup with FF for browsing with tabs and multiple windows etc. A 16 year old girl might like it to be an Internet full of ponies and glass slippers. Guys might like to decorate the trashcan of their OS with the logo from a football team they despise. There are myriad and as yet unfathomable ways to pimp out the end user experience yet keep them inside a sandbox and away from the important stuff that the neither want to fuck with nor know about. One youngster here in this house would be fine with a user interface or desktop that looks like a hockey rink, and move about in the rink to access 3D objects that opened what you and I call normal applications. He'd pay the NHL $50 bucks for the 'skins' to pimp it 0ut too. Nothing like hearing your team's anthem instead of a drumroll when you log in. Yeah, sure, that can be done now, but it's much more consumer oriented to sell a CD with the install icon and have it all set up for you except for a few tweeks of picking the tune etc.
Well, enough of that. Computers are not made for the throw-away generations. Not yet. When they are, we'll see much more innovation and hi-tech application to low tech processes. Imagine that little girl who loves the computer to be ponies. Her alarm clock is a soft toy pony. She can talk to the pony alarm clock and because it is connected to her computer, the pony can tell her she has a message from Grandma. Read it to me says the girl. The pony does. Tell grandma I love her says the girl. The pony replies to the email. At some point in the future, the near future, none of us will think this is awesome or odd or amazing. It will just be how things are.... or can be.
Well, no readership otherwise. For all my SO knows, I could be hacking the great Chinese firewall. She would not know otherwise and would not care. Trying to get Adobe flashplayer 10 64bit alphaOMGpre-release to work on Ubuntu looks exactly the same as hacking the Chinese Embassy's coke machine server to her if there is no narrative to let her know what is exactly happening.
Well, in some circumstances people want to know what you think on a given topic. The lecture circuit is full of people that are thought of that way... or think they are. You know, Bill, Woz, Steve, Bruce, ex-presidents, former criminals, and a host of others. At any rate, they get paid well enough to keep telling people about it. Basically a personal presentation of a blog, or is a blog a free but impersonal presentation of a lecture? The responses in blogs are often more entertaining since they have some original material to work with whereas the blogger has to make it all up from scratch. Judging from the Internet, originality has been over-rated for a very long time. With a shout to grammar Nazis of the world, apparently written English has been over-rated for quite some time as well.
That doesn't even begin to cover logging onto SecondLife and attending a lecture by someone at Cisco. I have no clue if that is a lecture or a blog reading? Animated blog? Cartoon lecture? My head is aspolodin!
An end to the war on drugs... most likely. If you have any sway with big pharma, perhaps some aspirin-X-treme for headaches and cramps and sports injuries.
Seriously, if we could just get little electric generators in their keyboards while they tweet, perhaps we could help solve the almost was global warming problem? All for the minor cost of having people be quietly annoying on the train ride to work.
The logo is actually a ninja!! Can't you see it? The kiteh is only there for size approximations.
I'm kind of with you on this one. I remember back in the day, if you spent more than an hour on the phone people thought there was something wrong with you. Back then I thought they were right. If some galactic disaster wiped out electronics on Earth, there would be a lot of people who suddenly lose it because they have nobody to blab to. Twitter gives them this outlet even when they are surrounded by people that really don't want to hear their crap. It's really no different than thinking outloud or talking to walls; an umbilical cord to keep them from having to be alone. They talk about how great it is because they are addicted and cannot function without someone listening to them blabber on about nothing all day. As long as they are talking, they feel somehow important. - Yes, I get the irony
Actually, they did complete in 90 days, but since the hardware didn't die, they kept going with the project. Today is a day that the design team can sit back, kick their feet up and know they did a damned good job. This is an awesome achievement. Anyone who has built a robot will tell you that keeping those rovers alive for such a long time in a harsh environment is a huge achievement. The team that worked this project, dealing with the rovers 24/7 should be proud. Imagine, 5 years of knowing that if you make a mistake the entire world will know. For 5 years, in the face of all adversity, they did not fail. That's awesome.
Just a couple of observations:
How many times have terrorists used planes as weapons before or since 9/11? Anywhere in the world? That's not even addressing the concerns of those that think it was an inside job which would make airport security the biggest joke. ever. period.
How many houses are broken into daily across the country? Way more than the number of airplanes being hijacked by terrorists!
Why would an airplane be a much bigger target than a train loaded with chlorine gas or other toxic chemicals while it's moving through Chicago or some other metropolitan area? I don't want to scare anyone, but there are a shit-load of ways to do more damage than flying an airplane into a building.
18 organized terrorists with good timing and good planning could bring any US metropolitan area to it's knees in about 45 minutes, at which point they would have their choice of targets, both human and infrastructure. It would not take hi-tech gadgets per se' and would be unstoppable once initiated. All that could be done is triage in the wake of the 'disaster' initiated by the terrorists. I do mean ANY US metropolitan area, including Washington D.C.
The math on your 'waste of resources for a door lock' statement is farcically fallacious. A one time $40 expenditure. This is not the case for TSA/DHS efforts in airports. We spend more money NOT catching terrorists every month than is believable. Upgrading equipment, installing new screening equipment, new checkpoint equipment, check point employees etc. The weakest point in the whole system is TSA itself. More specifically, the more people they need to hire, the more chance there is of an airport or TSA/DHS employee being a terrorist plant, and who could easily bring a bomb into the airport and put it on a plane. There have been incidents of TSA failures that are unbelievable, and make mockery of your opinion of the current airport security systems. I seriously doubt that we are any safer as a country now, than we were before 9/11, and in some ways we are less safe because of misappropriated resources for security.
This kind of system exacerbates the problems that currently exist. Currently 100% of all searches are performed on non-terrorists and almost 100% are performed on innocent people. Wrap your head around that for a bit. The quality of the searching is based on facts from incidents where terrorists were not caught, not based on terrorists who were. That is to say, oh, if people *can* put explosives in their shoes, we'll search all peoples shoes. All a terrorist has to do is try something that has not been tried before and they will be successful - more or less. I can't wait till someone sneaks a liquid explosive on board a plane inside a bladder that encases their crotch. Yes, the TSA's reaction to that will be awesome!
This machine will search 100% of all travellers (for a given set of travellers) and any who are pulled aside for further searching is supposedly equal to a smaller number than are searched now. They will still be innocent, but this justifies the inconvenience to them because a machine detected something. What is the accuracy of lie detectors BTW?
Since there appear to be no stories of Gitmo prisoners being loaned out to security equipment manufacturers the probability that any 'real terrorists' were used to test the machine is zero. Does anyone have the statistics handy? How many terrorists that have been caught since 9/11 have been caught anywhere near an airport, never mind trying to board the plane?
This seems to amount to a lie detector test that you are forced to take because you choose the criminal activity of traveling from one place to another by air. Apparently, if you wanted to bomb a bus there is no one to stop you. If you want to poison a water supply there is no one to stop you. If you wanted to sabotage an underwater cable there is no one to stop you. If you wanted to car bomb a public building there is no one to stop you. Think about that for a second or two. Airport security as it is currently implemented is 99% waste of time and resources. It inconveniences all, catches no guilty persons, and robs resources away from efforts to protect other infrastructure etcetera.
What would I suggest we do for security? The same thing we do for security for any other public transportation. The goal of terrorism is to make you waste resources, to make a violent statement that circumvents any implemented security. It's a whack-a-mole game. Catching terrorists should be done long before they strap on the explosives. That's the only effective way to catch them. I don't have links, but I can't remember any story about a terrorist being caught by airport security measures. The only ones that were caught were caught with normal pre-9/11 police measures. Right now, the terrorists are winning.
From wikipedia:
The distributor of the cult film Night of the Living Dead, after changing the film's title at the last moment before release in 1968, failed to include a proper copyright notice in the new titles, thereby immediately putting the film into the public domain after its release.[23] This provision of US copyright law was revised with the United States Copyright Act of 1976, which allowed such negligence to be remedied within five years of publication.[24]
I was not aware that you are allowed to fix your screw ups like this.
Despite that, there is something inherently wrong with EMI et al releasing works free to the public in an immensely easy-to-copy form, with no license or copyright notification and then expecting the law to support them in trying to control further distribution. IANAL but I bet there are cases to support such an act (stupidity) being rewarded with exactly what it deserves: no support from the law. Any judge and of course any consumer has a right to expect that if it was free to download and was downloaded without warranty or copyright or license, it is free to distribute further. That is to say that in view of the RIAAs litigation war on consumers, if a music work is released this way, it is fair to assume it to be free of copyright issues. Further, it is fair to say that a consumer would have a right to expect that such a work is free of copyright infringement issues and they can redistribute as they please.
The RIAA and others have discovered that once a work is in digital form, controlling further distribution is much like nailing gelatin to a wall. When a record company releases a work in digital format sans license or copyright notice, they have no right to expect that further distribution will not occur. Any thinking otherwise is foolish.
Yes, your honor, I left my two new $100 bills on that park bench in the NE corner of city park, and when I came back they were gone. Then two hours later in a restaurant, the defendant was overheard telling how he found $200. He stole my money!!!! The sound of a gavel banging is heard as the judge has the man thrown out of the courtroom.
Or perhaps a closer thought is: While I was walking downtown I was approached by a man wearing a sandwich board. The sign was in support of re-election of Judge Whopner. I initially went to ignore him, but the man asked if I knew where to get free coffee. I like coffee, so I stopped and replied that I did not. He then pointed out that TrekDollars coffee shop was giving away free coffee today, all the while displaying his sign so that I might read it. I thanked him and walked around the corner to get a free cup of joe. Apparently it's their 10th anniversary of business today or something like that. They didn't ask where I heard about the free coffee, nor did they enquire as to how I would use it. After all, it's free coffee.
IANAL, but IMO if the law generally holds these examples as true and useful, then copyright is being used wrongly in many cases. I believe this is one of them.
The Sidekick allows you to use both hands to hold the device, two thumbs typing, and also has two buttons for fingers much the same way that nintendo game controllers do. It is possible to use more than thumbs with the two hands holding the device posture.
This is exactly right..... if it is published, it is "in" the public domain. At this point, the auther or copyright holder no longer has right over distribution. period.
EMI has no right over this, they have claimed something that is false, and published the works for free, as in anyone can have a copy without license and without agreement. It's free for the taking. There can be NO ad hoc after the fact licensing. It was put in the public domain without licensing, and is therefor public domain. The argument is moot..... EMI fucked up.
I'm curious. How do you explain the root kit on Sony CDs with ignorance or stupidity? Anyone that stupid should not be in business. period. The Sony legal team has enough experience to protect trademarks, read the news, and study the laws. Any software release that was not run through the legal team opens the company to unknown litigation costs. When you have that much to lose, being stupid is not an option.
Enron, as I mentioned them, is but one example of a big business going out of their way to screw over customers and employees alike. I don't think it's so hard to imagine that executives at Sony and other record companies are just as immoral and unscrupulous. In fact, it's rather easy. Yes, you can go ahead and keep giving them the benefit of the doubt, but I won't and there are a lot of people feeling the same way. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me... or if you like, once bitten, twice shy. Oh, then there is an old fav: A leopard does not change his spots. If you are familiar with them, Metallica has a song about a scorpion which seems rather appropriate.
If you believe that this is about enforcing copyrights... I'm aghast. After all that the RIAA and members have done, now saying who can have free downloads? That's not copyright, it's tantamount to saying 'here is a free MP3, but you can't use it for anything other than listening alone to it at home. A completely unrealistic expectation under current and all foreseeable copyright laws.
If Ford gave you a free car but then said you can't put any bumper stickers on it, would you tell them to fuck off? Anyone else can put bumper stickers on the free cars we gave them, but not you! This is the thing about public domain. Once a thing is released to the public domain you have lost control of how it is then distributed.
There is little if any difference between reality here and having a site that has advertisements on it that points (with deep links) to sites that have free MP3 files, although that is a bit cheap, using someone else's bandwidth for the actual downloads. Point remains. If it's free for downloading, it doesn't matter one iota how the downloader finds the link.
Regardless of how unsavory this company might actually be, this is wrong of EMI, and should they win it would set a very bad precedent for copyrights, patents, and many other things with regard to the public domain and 'things' released to the public domain with no license. You can indeed follow a URL link to the actual file and not be presented a EULA or license, so whether they intended it that way or were just stupid, they are free for downloading and free of licensing, and therefore EMI has lost distribution rights of any kind.
Para 15 says it all really:
In short, EMI has engaged in active marketing of its music directly and through hundreds if not thousands of online music partners. As a consequence, thousands of EMI songs are available on the Internet for free download with its authorization. Yet EMI is seeking to impose liability upon MP3tunes because it runs a search engine that links to many of the same files. MP3tunes respectfully requests that EMIâ(TM)s motion to dismiss be denied.
I am thinking that 2009 is going to be a very interesting year for the RIAA's legal team. Who hasn't heard/read about the latest foibles from the record companies and I'm willing to bet that this one won't be the last.
Monopolistic practices? Unfair trade practices? Come on now! The RIAA and it's members would NEVER do anything like that. How many here wonder how many tune/files were seeded to P2P networks by the RIAA members themselves never mind paid third parties so that their 'investigative' group could actually find file sharers? Can you say Enron? Yeah, I know it's not even close to the same thing, but I am betting it breaks open as big in the news and it's after affects when the real truth of what big record labels have been up to for the last 5 years.
Take what Sony did. There is an example of how unscrupulous they really are. Imagine the money that they have and they don't have employees that know it was not just morally bad, but illegal? Ignorance of the law is not acceptable in court.... unless you have several hundred million dollars to buy things for legislators holidays and such.
Like my great grandfather used to say... "The shit you see when you don't have a gun... damn"
He was of course talking about deer on the side of the road, which is close to road kill, and I hope that is what 2009 will label the RIAA, so it kind of fits.
That's awesome, but not really what I mean. I mean a place where the end user can tribute their gratitude toward those that have already created software that the end user is using, and do so in such a way as to make it painless to donate money to all the packages in a distribution, or just some select packages etc.
This seems to be a place to gather funding for specific software yet to be developed. That is also a good idea.