Yeah, personally I'd like to see some actual specific patents rather than a CEO full of hot air making baseless threats. I'm sure Seagate has patents on storage device communication, but this article offers no insight on how SSD makers could be infringing
I think its all hot air or at least is trying to gauge Intel's and Samsung's reaction because he's not threatening some small time business here. Intel probaly had a large team of persons compiling new patents on a daily basis and if push came to shove in court Intel would counter with their own set of patents along with Samsung's team and then Toshiba and IBM might jump in and the proverbial MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) ICBM's filled with patent experts will be landing lawsuits left and right at each others door until only the lawyers are left standing.
So no... Seagate would never want to actually go through with it because they have no idea what patents Intel might have that they could claim that Seagate is currently violating. My hunch is Seagate wants to calm investor fears in the current technology.
After all, even if Seagate won the war, Intel might just start making mother boards or CPU that have lines of code that say:
if $HDD_Manufacture = Seagate { do not boot & give error message "Faulty HDD! contact OEM" }
But it's ridiculous that when I'm spending 30 seconds downloading CNN.com during a high-demand period, some asshat is using twenty times my bandwidth downloading some file that could just as easily be sent at any time of day.
1. Could that possibly be to the processor demand on the CNN servers at peak times? 2. Does not certain companies like Blizzard force P2P patches onto their customers? 3. Is your 30 second video file just as important as a technician using torrents to download a Linux Distro to put on a server used for business they need up and running ASAP? 4. And lastly... Someone using a torrent shouldn't soak up an ISPs entire bandwidth... Unless someone at CNN is using the web server to host torrents but thats nothing you or your ISP can control.
we got the upper hand, because we are techically inclined. But the wheel *will* make another revolution, and we'll be bottom-feeders once again.
I'm not sure if I follow you. Those who are technically inclined have always been on top of the majority even in times of repression. In the middle ages of course the Church frowned on certain ideas and thinking but if you take it from a pure technical aspect, the geeks of the era like book worms, blacksmiths, carpenters, alchemists, engineers (particular siege ones) where always in high demand.
Now this class never had political control, but they faired quite better than the average person.
The only few times where geeks got it rough historically was usually during things like the Chinese Cultural Revolution or when Stalin threw all his top scientists in Jail.
Otherwise, those who work with science and technology will generally be able to deal with changes far better than those who lack interest in them.
But I agree... The geek voting block will never be a very powerfully politically due to the fact we often have disinterest in politics in general when we have new gadgets to play with and new technological hurdles to overcome on a personal level (like installing and compiling an OS).
True, but think of it as "city trash pickup". Of course, a city could just require by law everyone to take their own trash to the landfill like some rural areas, but if it was deemed important enough they could instead have a referendum to raise a tax (sales, property, or income) to pay for weekly trash pickup.
Now some city dwellers may balk at the idea because they can just take the trash to the landfill themselves and save the tax money, but most cities don't work like that so their only recourse is to fight the referendum or city hall legislation. If it passes, the trash pickup truck comes once and week and picks up garbage on the sidewalk regardless of who put it there (could be someone out of town though probaly illegal if they did it regularly) and pick up any amount (some cities have limits of what they pick up but they generally don't go out and report if you left one bag or 5) and they still come by your street even if you didn't put out a bag.
The same thing with Wifi, if a city deems it a reasonable service they can levy a tax and put it to a referendum. If the citizens don't like it they can vote against it, but if it passes then its just like garbage pickup. Not everyone will use it like everyone else (if at all... personally some weeks I'm hard pressed to even put a single trash bag out but I still pay the city tax for trash pickup) and its also going towards out of towners coming into the city and throwing their cups into public trash cans.
So no... Its not a free lunch, but its fine if a city wants a service paid for by tax. You don't see Waste Management complaining that the government holds a monopoly on trash pickup services. Now the service is most likely subcontracted out to the lowest bidder, but in effect it is a monopoly for that city.
The problem with most of these city ones like the Earthlink one in Philadelphia is that they are treating it and expecting income like a regular ISP which intends to make a profit.
It would have been better if Philadelphia had a referendum to use some of the city wage tax to go for free wifi and then explained to Earthlink how much of the taxes they would get rather than expected income from monthly services from individuals who may or may not cancel their account next month.
Parent was modded as funny, but its the one of the main reasons Tesla's wireless power transmission never got serious funding and interest by investors.
However, in 1903, when the tower structure was near completion, it was still not yet functional due to last-minute design changes. Tesla intended for the tower to demonstrate how the ionosphere could be used to provide free electricity to everyone without the need for power lines. Morgan, who could not foresee any financial gain from providing free electricity to everyone, balked. Construction costs eventually exceeded the money provided by Morgan, and additional financiers were reluctant to come forward.
And the fact that WWI broke out didn't help either...
Even if he could get it working on a mass scale, there was no way to tell if people were using it for free or how much they were using. I suppose in retrospect they could have put a meter on the other side of the customer power receiver, but the way Tesla envision is that the devices would be independent so putting a meter on each and every light bulb would be impractical.
With wireless, they can at least track mac addresses and force a radius login, but it still has similar problems so its easy to see why businesses are reluctant to move forward with it.
Wrong. Torture generates a lot of bad leads, interrogators are told what they want to hear.
If a court determines who is a criminal and who is not, then by default a confession of a crime makes the person a criminal regardless of if its true. I think I may have missed a sarcasm tag about torture though. That was the point of the Pol Pot interrogator who was truly shocked on how many criminals he was finding among the populace which just what the interrogator wanted to hear.
No criminality is determined by data mining. It is statistically generating a list of people to check out.
But isn't there a bias towards the investigators that these persons are indeed criminals? If an investigator believes this person is the most likley candidate according to their dataset, regardless of it really was that person who committed the crime, would they not naturally treat the person as the criminal until they find some other information that said otherwise.
Now a more calm and collected investigator would keep all options on the table, but wouldn't a more zealous one haul the person in for questioning and then accuse them of the crime and attempt to gather information with hopes they can make them break?
Human nature cannot be taken out of the equation and information will be abused to acheive their goals. This can never be denied.
You may rightfully question the legality of acquisition methods and raise privacy concerns, but mocking the technique only demonstrates an ignorance of the topic.
Torture is also great way to find criminals. As one of the Pol Pot interrogators in Cambodia once stated (in that History Channel documentary which I'm paraphrasing), "After a while, I was surprised how much anti-government activity was going on in our nation and reported this to my superior! We were ordered to double the amount of persons we tortured and through their confession we found that the anti-government conspiracy was even larger than we ever imagined!"
The point being is that using these techniques used in a certain way can make criminals out of otherwise innocent people through circumstance or confessions. If you throw an innocent person in jail and then interrogate him for a few hours (non-tortured mind you) and then show him that his pizza boy was a carrier for organized crime and then showed him enough material he might actually start believing it too and sign a confession at a certain point.
Its why many distraught family members often confess to murder of a loved one when they are questioned long enough and accused of the crime.
Yes, of course it can find real criminals, but used in the wrong way you can find a lot more than you expected.
they may not even know it themselves, but that's just because the data mining is so good
Thats the problem with crimes of theory rather than actual crimes that took place. If you documented every single action of any citizen, you could eventually cherry pick enough activities that are statistically related to being a terrorist and then haul the person in front of a court and say "This person was planning on committing a terrorist act! Our database shows the following activities that give a 95% probability of a plan to commit terrorist related activities."
Since they aren't accusing you of an actual crime that you carried out, you can only dispute whether or not you actually did the things in the list. Since you cannot say they you didn't do those things in the list, then you must be a terrorist according to their logic unless you somehow prove that those actives are not related to terrorism.
That is a harder to defend against since the crime in question was whether or not you were going to do something and not if you actually did it. Sadly, you cannot have someone crack open your brain and discern what you were really thinking for the past year and even if you take a polygraph the cards are stacked against you due to interrogation techniques.
Eventually, if such a scenario did occur, there will be a chilling effect and many people will be guessing what those activities are... Attending anti-war rallies... Writing anti-government blog posts... Or generally belonging to the wrong political party and then simply stop doing them out of fear of showing up as a probable terrorist.
The human body is not a machine, and we cannot even come close to mimicking one, let alone thousands to millions.
Wasn't that the whole point with using a machine?
A human can only hold a knife so still and accurate where a machine could cut on an accuracy scales below a millimeter.
I mean do we build planes with wings that flap like a bird? It would make sense to build a machine that does surgery without the flaws the inherit instability of the human hand.
There was a lot of hype surrounding the release of Nintendo's Power Glove, and in the end it was used for only a few games and then abandoned.
True. However, it wasn't that the new interface that made the Power Glove fail but rather the fact it didn't work. I had gotten one as a kid and the thing never worked and was very cumbersome to program. The was most likley due to the fact it was of poor quality and was more of a gimmick than actually being a well designed product.
The same fate happened for the VR Boy. It was basically an LED that was on a spinning mirror. Great idea but the worst possible implementation ever.
I personally think the technology was not ready for either back in the 90s. However, they kind of got it right with the Wii remote and maybe someday LED technology will allow VR glasses that don't weigh 20lbs and give you a head ache after an hour of use.
Heck, last time I was in Target shopping with my significant other, I was bored out of my mind so I decided to play a game called "Find something not made in China" it took me 30 minutes or so until I found a candle holder made in India.
I will NEVER give any one company the power to switch off my entire music or movie collection with the push of a button, or because of a computer error, or because their company went bankrupt or got sold.
I dunno. I like the way Netflix works and I could see the same for music because there is a lot of movies I know I might like but I haven't seen them so I don't know if its worth the purchase.
So if I watch a DVD that I got from netflix that I really liked, I could go out and buy it if I wanted to add to my collection. If I just bought it in the first place, there is always the chance I might not like it and it goes on the shelf for all eternity taking up space.
The same could be said for music and as long as the fee is cheaper than actually buying the music then I wouldn't mind it if it were as a trial basis. Then if I really liked it I could go and buy the CD.
Currently the only way to "try out" music is to download it off pirate sites and thats not a good way to support musicians.
Technically it was a joke as I being an American would be the one most likley candidate to be offended by what I just said.;)
Its like saying that the reason the Canadian Government isn't as bad as the American Government is that the Canadian doesn't have American Politicians in it. Apparently someone took offense and none taking about that Cuba issue. Shame we Americans can't visit.
With those states (ie, the Dakotas), there aren't enough people to justify the cost. With a nationwide network, that cost is absorbed by the profits in the 10 major population states.
What incentive would a nationwide private owner of a spectrum have to provide service to the Dakotan's when they can focus on the East and West Coasts? This is what happens to many rural communities when you have major companies like Verizon or Comcast with land line service so the same thing would most likley apply to wireless.
Unless you dictate that the owner of this spectrum must provide service to all 50 states (including Alaska) then its not going to happen because its just not profitable.
In all reality, if South or North Dakota had control over their own wireless then a smaller then you could see municipality ISPs for those far off places or at least small start up companies would take the risk in providing wireless broad band to sparsely populated areas.
If the Chinese government chooses to block YouTube, or any site which publishes articles critical of the government, that is their right. Every government, whether you like it or not, has the right to dictate the rules within its boundaries.
Rights? Governments have no rights. Rights are inherent to the person and not the state. They can neither be granted nor taken away by the state.
That said, Governments do have sovereignty which I agree that China has. However, the Chinese government does not have the right to torture, murder, or repress the freedom of its citizens. It is wrong and the practice should stop.
Now I will admit, I have a very relativistic western view on the matter, but I don't see how you can say that killing protesters even if they are violent is OK.
Even in the LA riots in the states we didn't have soldiers shooting people indiscriminately without attempts to use non-lethal methods.
At the same time, I will agree that its not our business to go into China forcefully with our military and force them to stop (or any nation for that matter) but it doesn't mean we shouldn't ignore the fact they do such a thing.
"Well, if you're not doing something bad, who cares if the government is watching?"
The problem that most humans have is they don't understand the difference between good and evil and legal and illegal.
As the overly but not enough quoted Cardinal Richelieu stated "If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged."
This basically means, the everyday Joe goes about his business based on his set of morals and simply thinks "If its good or 'not evil' I won't be arrested for it".
However, I'd wager if I followed the around all day with a video camera and then had a team of people watch it for the slightest infraction we'd find at least one or two things to fine them for or if we are lucky have them arrested. And when the person stands before the judge they will of course say "But I've always done this! My parents did this! How can this be wrong? I didn't even know it was illegal!" and then the judge will reply "Ignorance of the law is no excuse! Guilty!"
So if you ever get into an argument with someone about this, ask them to write everything they did that day on a piece of paper including the most private details (including things as mundane how much toilet paper they used and how many times they flushed the toilet). Now they might get the point right then and there that thats no one elese's business, but if they do write everything down look for something that could get them arrested or at least fined such as speeding, copyright violation, or violating water laws (for those that live in drought areas in the south... hence why I mentioned the toilet) and even if they cursed under their breath at the driver of another car (death threat).
There are so many things you could get arrested for that most people aren't aware that they are breaking the law on a daily basis and if there were 24/7 monitoring life would be unpleasant for them.
From a personal prospective law and justice was always intended to punish those who took things to an extreme. When speeding laws were passed it was never intended to instantly fine everyone who went one mile per hour over the limit nor were it to arrested anyone who said something ill tempered at someone else. It was for those who always went to far (as in going 20 miles over the limit and those who wrote the letters and stalked other people).
But the way that most laws were written was so that judges could make the call. Unfortunately, it didn't specifically say that people who weren't in the extremes were not to be punished. It was never considered that technology would allow all crimes to be caught instantly with the new obtrusive technologies.
So pretty much it will get to the point where the government knows everyone is a criminal and will just selectively haul people away at any given moment regardless of justice and more for either personal or political reasons.
I have this image of millions of angry lines of code rampaging across the steppings, raping and pillaging peaceful programs, stealing their output and burning their execution platforms.
Thats odd. Thats exactly what it says on the Windows ME warranty disclaimer.
If I can call one of your employees and pretend to be the remote helpdesk, and say that I need your password so I can install some software on your computer, and they give me the password, I am in your network.
Which is why you mitigate how much damage a single person can do.
So if you do get a password of a normal user in a corporate office, all can do is read their mail and delete their home directory. If their machine was properly locked down, you won't be able to install anything either and if their password expires in 60 days you got that long to harass them.
Yeah... Your employees will complain they can't get anything done because they can't install programs or save files on the network or modify databases as they would like. At the same time, you have to put in procedures that minimize damage if a IT person is socially engineered such as not even let them look at existing password and temp ones have to changed on login.
This technique also is useful for rogue employees who plan on going postal with your companies data.
And this is not about trying to hide some illicit activity, but a defense of my right to live without being watched everywhere I go.
Personally, I visit religious sites and political sites all the time in which they are a personal thing. Does my ISP need to know which religion I belong to or who am I going to vote for?
It's interesting how high sales are despite a stalled economy. Maybe it's cheaper to sit at home and play video games instead of going out, given the price of gas.
I think Buffet said when there is a recession is to pick recession proof stocks like food and alcohol companies. Perhaps video games are also a recession proof industry due to the fact unemployed people tend to scrounge up enough to buy them since they are sitting at home anyways.
... what is the evolutionary benefit that mammals get from not regenerating?
Given the hostile everyday nature of the wild, an animal has a far better chance of surviving in the long run if he gets back on his feet after an injury even if it isn't a full one. Its far quicker for scar tissue to reform than it is to recreate all the tissue back in a perfect fashion.
So rather having an open wound for several weeks on on end, a wild mammal would have a scab within 24 hours and then later initial scar tissue within a week
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, personally I'd like to see some actual specific patents rather than a CEO full of hot air making baseless threats. I'm sure Seagate has patents on storage device communication, but this article offers no insight on how SSD makers could be infringing
I think its all hot air or at least is trying to gauge Intel's and Samsung's reaction because he's not threatening some small time business here. Intel probaly had a large team of persons compiling new patents on a daily basis and if push came to shove in court Intel would counter with their own set of patents along with Samsung's team and then Toshiba and IBM might jump in and the proverbial MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) ICBM's filled with patent experts will be landing lawsuits left and right at each others door until only the lawyers are left standing.
So no... Seagate would never want to actually go through with it because they have no idea what patents Intel might have that they could claim that Seagate is currently violating. My hunch is Seagate wants to calm investor fears in the current technology.
After all, even if Seagate won the war, Intel might just start making mother boards or CPU that have lines of code that say:
if $HDD_Manufacture = Seagate { do not boot & give error message "Faulty HDD! contact OEM" }
But it's ridiculous that when I'm spending 30 seconds downloading CNN.com during a high-demand period, some asshat is using twenty times my bandwidth downloading some file that could just as easily be sent at any time of day.
1. Could that possibly be to the processor demand on the CNN servers at peak times?
2. Does not certain companies like Blizzard force P2P patches onto their customers?
3. Is your 30 second video file just as important as a technician using torrents to download a Linux Distro to put on a server used for business they need up and running ASAP?
4. And lastly... Someone using a torrent shouldn't soak up an ISPs entire bandwidth... Unless someone at CNN is using the web server to host torrents but thats nothing you or your ISP can control.
we got the upper hand, because we are techically inclined. But the wheel *will* make another revolution, and we'll be bottom-feeders once again.
I'm not sure if I follow you. Those who are technically inclined have always been on top of the majority even in times of repression. In the middle ages of course the Church frowned on certain ideas and thinking but if you take it from a pure technical aspect, the geeks of the era like book worms, blacksmiths, carpenters, alchemists, engineers (particular siege ones) where always in high demand.
Now this class never had political control, but they faired quite better than the average person.
The only few times where geeks got it rough historically was usually during things like the Chinese Cultural Revolution or when Stalin threw all his top scientists in Jail.
Otherwise, those who work with science and technology will generally be able to deal with changes far better than those who lack interest in them.
But I agree... The geek voting block will never be a very powerfully politically due to the fact we often have disinterest in politics in general when we have new gadgets to play with and new technological hurdles to overcome on a personal level (like installing and compiling an OS).
There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
True, but think of it as "city trash pickup". Of course, a city could just require by law everyone to take their own trash to the landfill like some rural areas, but if it was deemed important enough they could instead have a referendum to raise a tax (sales, property, or income) to pay for weekly trash pickup.
Now some city dwellers may balk at the idea because they can just take the trash to the landfill themselves and save the tax money, but most cities don't work like that so their only recourse is to fight the referendum or city hall legislation. If it passes, the trash pickup truck comes once and week and picks up garbage on the sidewalk regardless of who put it there (could be someone out of town though probaly illegal if they did it regularly) and pick up any amount (some cities have limits of what they pick up but they generally don't go out and report if you left one bag or 5) and they still come by your street even if you didn't put out a bag.
The same thing with Wifi, if a city deems it a reasonable service they can levy a tax and put it to a referendum. If the citizens don't like it they can vote against it, but if it passes then its just like garbage pickup. Not everyone will use it like everyone else (if at all... personally some weeks I'm hard pressed to even put a single trash bag out but I still pay the city tax for trash pickup) and its also going towards out of towners coming into the city and throwing their cups into public trash cans.
So no... Its not a free lunch, but its fine if a city wants a service paid for by tax. You don't see Waste Management complaining that the government holds a monopoly on trash pickup services. Now the service is most likely subcontracted out to the lowest bidder, but in effect it is a monopoly for that city.
The problem with most of these city ones like the Earthlink one in Philadelphia is that they are treating it and expecting income like a regular ISP which intends to make a profit.
It would have been better if Philadelphia had a referendum to use some of the city wage tax to go for free wifi and then explained to Earthlink how much of the taxes they would get rather than expected income from monthly services from individuals who may or may not cancel their account next month.
From Wikipedia
And the fact that WWI broke out didn't help either...
Even if he could get it working on a mass scale, there was no way to tell if people were using it for free or how much they were using. I suppose in retrospect they could have put a meter on the other side of the customer power receiver, but the way Tesla envision is that the devices would be independent so putting a meter on each and every light bulb would be impractical.
With wireless, they can at least track mac addresses and force a radius login, but it still has similar problems so its easy to see why businesses are reluctant to move forward with it.
Wrong. Torture generates a lot of bad leads, interrogators are told what they want to hear.
If a court determines who is a criminal and who is not, then by default a confession of a crime makes the person a criminal regardless of if its true. I think I may have missed a sarcasm tag about torture though. That was the point of the Pol Pot interrogator who was truly shocked on how many criminals he was finding among the populace which just what the interrogator wanted to hear.
No criminality is determined by data mining. It is statistically generating a list of people to check out.
But isn't there a bias towards the investigators that these persons are indeed criminals? If an investigator believes this person is the most likley candidate according to their dataset, regardless of it really was that person who committed the crime, would they not naturally treat the person as the criminal until they find some other information that said otherwise.
Now a more calm and collected investigator would keep all options on the table, but wouldn't a more zealous one haul the person in for questioning and then accuse them of the crime and attempt to gather information with hopes they can make them break?
Human nature cannot be taken out of the equation and information will be abused to acheive their goals. This can never be denied.
You may rightfully question the legality of acquisition methods and raise privacy concerns, but mocking the technique only demonstrates an ignorance of the topic.
Torture is also great way to find criminals. As one of the Pol Pot interrogators in Cambodia once stated (in that History Channel documentary which I'm paraphrasing), "After a while, I was surprised how much anti-government activity was going on in our nation and reported this to my superior! We were ordered to double the amount of persons we tortured and through their confession we found that the anti-government conspiracy was even larger than we ever imagined!"
The point being is that using these techniques used in a certain way can make criminals out of otherwise innocent people through circumstance or confessions. If you throw an innocent person in jail and then interrogate him for a few hours (non-tortured mind you) and then show him that his pizza boy was a carrier for organized crime and then showed him enough material he might actually start believing it too and sign a confession at a certain point.
Its why many distraught family members often confess to murder of a loved one when they are questioned long enough and accused of the crime.
Yes, of course it can find real criminals, but used in the wrong way you can find a lot more than you expected.
they may not even know it themselves, but that's just because the data mining is so good
Thats the problem with crimes of theory rather than actual crimes that took place. If you documented every single action of any citizen, you could eventually cherry pick enough activities that are statistically related to being a terrorist and then haul the person in front of a court and say "This person was planning on committing a terrorist act! Our database shows the following activities that give a 95% probability of a plan to commit terrorist related activities."
Since they aren't accusing you of an actual crime that you carried out, you can only dispute whether or not you actually did the things in the list. Since you cannot say they you didn't do those things in the list, then you must be a terrorist according to their logic unless you somehow prove that those actives are not related to terrorism.
That is a harder to defend against since the crime in question was whether or not you were going to do something and not if you actually did it. Sadly, you cannot have someone crack open your brain and discern what you were really thinking for the past year and even if you take a polygraph the cards are stacked against you due to interrogation techniques.
Eventually, if such a scenario did occur, there will be a chilling effect and many people will be guessing what those activities are... Attending anti-war rallies... Writing anti-government blog posts... Or generally belonging to the wrong political party and then simply stop doing them out of fear of showing up as a probable terrorist.
The human body is not a machine, and we cannot even come close to mimicking one, let alone thousands to millions.
Wasn't that the whole point with using a machine?
A human can only hold a knife so still and accurate where a machine could cut on an accuracy scales below a millimeter.
I mean do we build planes with wings that flap like a bird? It would make sense to build a machine that does surgery without the flaws the inherit instability of the human hand.
There was a lot of hype surrounding the release of Nintendo's Power Glove, and in the end it was used for only a few games and then abandoned.
True. However, it wasn't that the new interface that made the Power Glove fail but rather the fact it didn't work. I had gotten one as a kid and the thing never worked and was very cumbersome to program. The was most likley due to the fact it was of poor quality and was more of a gimmick than actually being a well designed product.
The same fate happened for the VR Boy. It was basically an LED that was on a spinning mirror. Great idea but the worst possible implementation ever.
I personally think the technology was not ready for either back in the 90s. However, they kind of got it right with the Wii remote and maybe someday LED technology will allow VR glasses that don't weigh 20lbs and give you a head ache after an hour of use.
1. If it's powered by your body heat, it's going to make you colder...
Considering how much of your body is devoted to getting rid of excess heat (skin and sweat glands) I don't see this as a bad thing.
2. Don't you need a temperature _gradient_ to get useful power out of heat?
It never hurts to exercise.
Because we look back at Einstein and wonder how he could be so stupid to think quantum mechanics was wrong..
I was thinking more on the lines of who we voted into office and our reality TV shows, but to each his own.
Heck, last time I was in Target shopping with my significant other, I was bored out of my mind so I decided to play a game called "Find something not made in China" it took me 30 minutes or so until I found a candle holder made in India.
Everything else was made in China.
I will NEVER give any one company the power to switch off my entire music or movie collection with the push of a button, or because of a computer error, or because their company went bankrupt or got sold.
I dunno. I like the way Netflix works and I could see the same for music because there is a lot of movies I know I might like but I haven't seen them so I don't know if its worth the purchase.
So if I watch a DVD that I got from netflix that I really liked, I could go out and buy it if I wanted to add to my collection. If I just bought it in the first place, there is always the chance I might not like it and it goes on the shelf for all eternity taking up space.
The same could be said for music and as long as the fee is cheaper than actually buying the music then I wouldn't mind it if it were as a trial basis. Then if I really liked it I could go and buy the CD.
Currently the only way to "try out" music is to download it off pirate sites and thats not a good way to support musicians.
Although the GP was marked as Flamebait
;)
Technically it was a joke as I being an American would be the one most likley candidate to be offended by what I just said.
Its like saying that the reason the Canadian Government isn't as bad as the American Government is that the Canadian doesn't have American Politicians in it. Apparently someone took offense and none taking about that Cuba issue. Shame we Americans can't visit.
Why is this, does anyone even know?
Lack of Americans.
With those states (ie, the Dakotas), there aren't enough people to justify the cost. With a nationwide network, that cost is absorbed by the profits in the 10 major population states.
What incentive would a nationwide private owner of a spectrum have to provide service to the Dakotan's when they can focus on the East and West Coasts? This is what happens to many rural communities when you have major companies like Verizon or Comcast with land line service so the same thing would most likley apply to wireless.
Unless you dictate that the owner of this spectrum must provide service to all 50 states (including Alaska) then its not going to happen because its just not profitable.
In all reality, if South or North Dakota had control over their own wireless then a smaller then you could see municipality ISPs for those far off places or at least small start up companies would take the risk in providing wireless broad band to sparsely populated areas.
If your Mac runs MS-Office software or other cross-platform software that has infectable data files, you are vulnerable to some Macro viruses.
;)
To be fair, Office 2004 VBA is stuck in limbo around Visual Basic 4 so some of the newer commands won't work
Granted, I run AVG everyday in Bootcamp and I look at the process view in OS X since I'm paranoid.
If the Chinese government chooses to block YouTube, or any site which publishes articles critical of the government, that is their right. Every government, whether you like it or not, has the right to dictate the rules within its boundaries.
Rights? Governments have no rights. Rights are inherent to the person and not the state. They can neither be granted nor taken away by the state.
That said, Governments do have sovereignty which I agree that China has. However, the Chinese government does not have the right to torture, murder, or repress the freedom of its citizens. It is wrong and the practice should stop.
Now I will admit, I have a very relativistic western view on the matter, but I don't see how you can say that killing protesters even if they are violent is OK.
Even in the LA riots in the states we didn't have soldiers shooting people indiscriminately without attempts to use non-lethal methods.
At the same time, I will agree that its not our business to go into China forcefully with our military and force them to stop (or any nation for that matter) but it doesn't mean we shouldn't ignore the fact they do such a thing.
"Well, if you're not doing something bad, who cares if the government is watching?"
The problem that most humans have is they don't understand the difference between good and evil and legal and illegal.
As the overly but not enough quoted Cardinal Richelieu stated "If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged."
This basically means, the everyday Joe goes about his business based on his set of morals and simply thinks "If its good or 'not evil' I won't be arrested for it".
However, I'd wager if I followed the around all day with a video camera and then had a team of people watch it for the slightest infraction we'd find at least one or two things to fine them for or if we are lucky have them arrested. And when the person stands before the judge they will of course say "But I've always done this! My parents did this! How can this be wrong? I didn't even know it was illegal!" and then the judge will reply "Ignorance of the law is no excuse! Guilty!"
So if you ever get into an argument with someone about this, ask them to write everything they did that day on a piece of paper including the most private details (including things as mundane how much toilet paper they used and how many times they flushed the toilet). Now they might get the point right then and there that thats no one elese's business, but if they do write everything down look for something that could get them arrested or at least fined such as speeding, copyright violation, or violating water laws (for those that live in drought areas in the south... hence why I mentioned the toilet) and even if they cursed under their breath at the driver of another car (death threat).
There are so many things you could get arrested for that most people aren't aware that they are breaking the law on a daily basis and if there were 24/7 monitoring life would be unpleasant for them.
From a personal prospective law and justice was always intended to punish those who took things to an extreme. When speeding laws were passed it was never intended to instantly fine everyone who went one mile per hour over the limit nor were it to arrested anyone who said something ill tempered at someone else. It was for those who always went to far (as in going 20 miles over the limit and those who wrote the letters and stalked other people).
But the way that most laws were written was so that judges could make the call. Unfortunately, it didn't specifically say that people who weren't in the extremes were not to be punished. It was never considered that technology would allow all crimes to be caught instantly with the new obtrusive technologies.
So pretty much it will get to the point where the government knows everyone is a criminal and will just selectively haul people away at any given moment regardless of justice and more for either personal or political reasons.
I have this image of millions of angry lines of code rampaging across the steppings, raping and pillaging peaceful programs, stealing their output and burning their execution platforms.
Thats odd. Thats exactly what it says on the Windows ME warranty disclaimer.
If I can call one of your employees and pretend to be the remote helpdesk, and say that I need your password so I can install some software on your computer, and they give me the password, I am in your network.
Which is why you mitigate how much damage a single person can do.
So if you do get a password of a normal user in a corporate office, all can do is read their mail and delete their home directory. If their machine was properly locked down, you won't be able to install anything either and if their password expires in 60 days you got that long to harass them.
Yeah... Your employees will complain they can't get anything done because they can't install programs or save files on the network or modify databases as they would like. At the same time, you have to put in procedures that minimize damage if a IT person is socially engineered such as not even let them look at existing password and temp ones have to changed on login.
This technique also is useful for rogue employees who plan on going postal with your companies data.
And this is not about trying to hide some illicit activity, but a defense of my right to live without being watched everywhere I go.
Personally, I visit religious sites and political sites all the time in which they are a personal thing. Does my ISP need to know which religion I belong to or who am I going to vote for?
Hell no.
It's interesting how high sales are despite a stalled economy. Maybe it's cheaper to sit at home and play video games instead of going out, given the price of gas.
I think Buffet said when there is a recession is to pick recession proof stocks like food and alcohol companies. Perhaps video games are also a recession proof industry due to the fact unemployed people tend to scrounge up enough to buy them since they are sitting at home anyways.
... what is the evolutionary benefit that mammals get from not regenerating?
Given the hostile everyday nature of the wild, an animal has a far better chance of surviving in the long run if he gets back on his feet after an injury even if it isn't a full one. Its far quicker for scar tissue to reform than it is to recreate all the tissue back in a perfect fashion.
So rather having an open wound for several weeks on on end, a wild mammal would have a scab within 24 hours and then later initial scar tissue within a week