Doing things "for the children" gets used as the excuse for mant things here as well (New York). Regarding websites, I have met a lot of people from Turkey on deviantART lately and 3 of my 16 "Watchers" are from Turkey. They are very bright kids and I hope deviantART site does not get labeled "morally detrimental" (even if it can be a bad site). One girl of 17 had a link to interview with man who was portrayed in movie "Midnight Express". I was surprised people feel upset about that movie still since it is almost 30 years old now. Interesting things you write about Turkey.
Maybe CNN was burned by Symantec updates before. In my time on computers I have had more problems with the various "helpful" updates than I have with malware etc.
Another article for the hysteria bin. Also in the news today was a warning that the UN needs to "act now!" to be ready for an asteroid strike:
"Beginning in the next few months, Schweickart's group will host a series of meetings to provide the UN with a 'decision process' for assessing and acting on the hazard posed by Apophis and other near-Earth asteroids (NEAs). A draft document ready for consideration by the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space is expected by 2009."
Thanks that's interesting, I like graphics like that. I have read climatologists who say the melting of ice would cool the gulf stream and also the UK. They say the warming tend is what will preceed a cooling trend. A retreating Gulfstream is not anything I would consider a warming trend (in UK at least). Climate fluctuates a lot over many years. Where I live is temperate but used to be under a glacier. Obvioulsy some natural warming went on. I am sure warming is going on now I just don't think humans cause it all. I also don't see any real solutions posited. It will snow here tomorrow and not a person or government can stop it. Stopping or reversing any global weather is not possible. Even Kyoto supporters admit that any real effect would be miniscule.
In the 1930's people got carried away with eugenics for political purposes. I see the same thing going on with science now. This week I was reading a writer equate denial of anthropogenic warming with the denial of the holocaust. This is not objective. It seems like any article I read about warming turns into a diatribe against Bush or the US or corportaions etc. I am sure you are sincere in your research and your ideas but I am not as sure with many others. Even the UN decree last week had no new science according to the NY Times. The actual study is not even being released until May. So they all got to make these sweeping claims with no presentaion of any studies. They have more/better "models" they say. But they once used the Mann hockey stick to support the warming crisis and yet that model has been proven flawed and was wriutten about in MIT journals. But the people creating the rush to hysteria dismiss those things without a second thought and move on to another "model" they say "everyone acgrees on".
I would say the world is about to come apart in ways that will make the 30's and 40's look like practice run and the weather won't be at the heart of it. Thanks for reply.
President of Czech Republic Calls Man-Made Global Warming a 'Myth' - Questions Gore's Sanity Mon Feb 12 2007 09:10:09 ET
Czech president Vaclav Klaus has criticized the UN panel on global warming, claiming that it was a political authority without any scientific basis.
In an interview with "Hospodárské noviny", a Czech economics daily, Klaus answered a few questions:
Q: IPCC has released its report and you say that the global warming is a false myth. How did you get this idea, Mr President?
A: It's not my idea. Global warming is a false myth and every serious person and scientist says so. It is not fair to refer to the U.N. panel. IPCC is not a scientific institution: it's a political body, a sort of non-government organization of green flavor. It's neither a forum of neutral scientists nor a balanced group of scientists. These people are politicized scientists who arrive there with a one-sided opinion and a one-sided assignment. Also, it's an undignified slapstick that people don't wait for the full report in May 2007 but instead respond, in such a serious way, to the summary for policymakers where all the "but's" are scratched, removed, and replaced by oversimplified theses. This is clearly such an incredible failure of so many people, from journalists to politicians. If the European Commission is instantly going to buy such a trick, we have another very good reason to think that the countries themselves, not the Commission, should be deciding about similar issues.
Q: How do you explain that there is no other comparably senior statesman in Europe who would advocate this viewpoint? No one else has such strong opinions...
A: My opinions about this issue simply are strong. Other top-level politicians do not express their global warming doubts because a whip of political correctness strangles their voice.
Q: But you're not a climate scientist. Do you have a sufficient knowledge and enough information?
A: Environmentalism as a metaphysical ideology and as a worldview has absolutely nothing to do with natural sciences or with the climate. Sadly, it has nothing to do with social sciences either. Still, it is becoming fashionable and this fact scares me. The second part of the sentence should be: we also have lots of reports, studies, and books of climatologists whose conclusions are diametrally opposite. Indeed, I never measure the thickness of ice in Antarctica. I really don't know how to do it and don't plan to learn it. However, as a scientifically oriented person, I know how to read science reports about these questions, for example about ice in Antarctica. I don't have to be a climate scientist myself to read them. And inside the papers I have read, the conclusions we may see in the media simply don't appear. But let me promise you something: this topic troubles me which is why I started to write an article about it last Christmas. The article expanded and became a book. In a couple of months, it will be published. One chapter out of seven will organize my opinions about the climate change. Environmentalism and green ideology is something very different from climate science. Various findings and screams of scientists are abused by this ideology.
Q: How do you explain that conservative media are skeptical while the left-wing media view the global warming as a done deal?
A: It is not quite exactly divided to the left-wingers and right-wingers. Nevertheless it's obvious that environmentalism is a new incarnation of modern leftism.
Q: If you look at all these things, even if you were right...
A:...I am right...
Q: Isn't there enough empirical evidence and facts we can see with our eyes that imply that Man is demolishing the planet and himself?
Maybe they want to patent it so that nobody else can. I can't see M$ wanting to see something like this in use under their name. I can't see Microsoft wanting anybody to use this sort of thing. Talk about an incentive to get Linux - sheesh.
Apple has been pissing a lot of people off, in a lot of different spheres, and yet trying to play the paragon . First, they have had a lot of hardware issues the last 3 years. Apple sold a lot of iPods but I also know a lot of people that got burned by an iPod that stopped working (for one weak reason or another- looking at it too hard!). There were batteries recalled, laptops that got too hot, Nano's that scratched very easy etc. Switching to Intel parts was good for performance but it took some shine off Apple's identity.
On top of that Apple has been in struggles with the labels for awhile (it wasn't long ago that labels wanted a share of iPod sales - Microsoft has since gone along with that) and this last proposal of Job's looks self centered even if he has good points to make. The Apple Vista ads look a bit lame along with the iTunes compatibility problems (iTunes is over-rated anyway imo). The iPhone looks makes Apple look a bit cheeky. Of course all Apple has to do in Europe ( a lot of people had crapped up iPods there too) is be the big American company and it automatically becomes a target for legal/financial bloodsucking ala Microsoft (the Clinton Justice Dept. in US did likewise).
I don't compare Apple to Microsoft at all because a lot of people "need Microsoft" (that was Gates model for along time - make people need you) where they don't need Apple at all. Not being needed by people, while still playing the declining yet still snotty, prima donna geek (waves to Linux fans!) is tempting people to harbor contempt they would like to act on. When people having this contempt notice a ground swell of it from others as well then that's when it gets ugliest. Apple might be close to that point.
I bought a new Dell 20" monitor in November. After delivery I thought it looked bad for such a well reviewed model. I found out Dell had swapped the well regarded Phillips S-IPS type panel for a lesser Samsung S-PVA type panel. People who found out about this switch and went to the Dell forum to ask questions were censored out. A thread about this problem was started in a hardware forum and it now has 790 posts and 55,000 views:
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1111100
I returned my monitor in early Dec. I still can't get my money back from Dell though even though they don't dispute the credit even they say they owe me. Between the service rep on the phone and accounting there is some disconnect.
Fair to say that after weeks of talking to Dell serivce and 2 dozen "case numbers" I think things are a real mess over there.
It seems to me Vista has had a lot of its inner gears re-tooled so that others can add-on the new applications. The sound features alone seemed to have been re-oriented more than people might be aware of.
"Vista redefines the audio landscape, but is it a landscape of forced obsolescence?"
I don't have Vista and am not in a rush to get it, but I think perhaps in time there could be more benefits to Vista than meets the eye. Certainly the 64 bit security functions don't seem exciting but if they block remote code execution then that's something to like.
I bought my first Dell product in November and I could see Dell had some real problems. I bought a well reviewed and highly regarded 2007WFP monitor for $400. After buying it I read that Dell is using a "panel lottery" and they swapped out the Philips S-IPS panel for a Samsung S-PVA that is quite inferior. Many people were upset by this because the swap really made it a different monitor since S-IPS and S-PVA have different characteristics and many photographers and graphics pros seek out the S-IPS. Dell's began to hide the panel info and told people complaining in its forums that as far as Dell was concerned "a 2007WFP was a 2007WFP".
I finally sent my monitor back to Dell but arranging that return was nightmare. From one service rep to another they lose track of issues. Mailing labels to be sent never were; emails they were to send me were never sent; credits due were never sent. I have 2 notebook pages of case numbers just for a monitor purchase and return. It's been six weeks and still I have not been sent a credit even though reps I call say it has. I can't get anyone to follow through on the simplest task.
I don't think Dell is a bad company but its obvioulsy a real mess over there.
"The papers allege that the companies, "ostensibly competitors in the recording industry, are a cartel acting collusively in violation of the antitrust laws and public policy" by bringing the piracy cases jointly and using the same agency "to make extortionate threats... to force defendants to pay."
The labels were actually found guilty of this once before:
States settle CD price-fixing case By David Lieberman, USA TODAY
NEW YORK -- The five largest music companies and three of the USA's largest music retailers agreed Monday to pay $67.4 million and distribute $75.7 million in CDs to public and non-profit groups to settle a lawsuit led by New York and Florida over alleged price-fixing in the late 1990s...
Former FTC chairman Robert Pitofsky said at the time that consumers had been overcharged by $480 million since 1997 and that CD prices would soon drop by as much as $5 a CD as a result.
In settling the lawsuit, Universal BMG and Warner said they simply wanted to avoid court costs and defended the practice.
"We believe our policies were pro-competitive and geared toward keeping more retailers, large and small, in business," Universal said in a statement."
Robert X. Cringely seems to be saying the same things the providers say with regard to internet eutrality issues:
This bandwidth leveraging hasn't been a problem to date, but it is about to become a huge problem as we all embrace Internet video.. there is no way the current network infrastructure will support that level of use...Instead of using 1-3 gigabytes per month, as most broadband Internet users have in recent years, we'll go to 1-3 gigabytes per DAY -- a 30X increase that will place a huge backbone burden on ISPs. Those ISPs will be faced with the option of increasing their backbone connections by 30X, which would kill all profits, OR they could accept a peering arrangement with the local Google data center.
Google does support "neutrality" and I've never suspected it was from any idealism.
I knew they were buying up dark fiber a couple years ago:
If you go to a related forum you can often post asking about a couple products and often get a reply from someone who used both. Forums can be pretty useful and users can have great expertise. I suspect some manufacturers even let forums do problem solving for them. I got much better advice for a new ASUS mobo from a user in a photography forum then I could get from the ASUS forum. If you go to a forum for webmasters you can get all sorts of advice on servers. I don't trust a lot of published reviews in magazines that take advertising. Recently I was shopping for an LCD monitor and reviews often use wrong specs and don't seem to understand the product very well (they won't even mention if a panel is S-IPS or S-PVA etc). Certain brands seem to get a lot of wiggle room and a look at the ads on the bottom of the page usually shows why. One good site for head-to-head comparisons for monitors is http://www.lesnumeriques.com/duels.php?ty=6&ma1=52 &mo1=149&p1=1606&ma2=36&mo2=105&p2=1041&ph=6 .
I know monitors are not what you asked about but I still think forums are best bet. You may be lucky not many reviews exist because I find its a good way to get hung out to fry.
I have modded a teen group with about 10,000 members mostly in US and UK. Most Kids aren't that stupid that they meet up with strangers who start to talk dirty like you read about in the stings. The biggest danger to kids are the friends they already know well, and that the rents let their guard down on. Being nervous about the boogey man in the shadows lets parents feel like they are doing a good job when realities are the kid is often getting worse stuff at school and with friends. The parents block those out. It's usually the "friends" that bring a kid harm. It's very wise for a parent to know what a child is doing on a computer and the best thing is to keep it out of their bedroom. It makes no sense to hover over a kids computer like a nuclear power regulator and then send them off to school without a second thought.
The really obscene parts of MySpace are the groups.
I am not a biologist and get confused when people talk about things that "kill" a virus when I have always been told a virus is not alive.
"It has been argued extensively whether viruses are living organisms. Most virologists consider them non-living, as they do not meet all the criteria of the generally accepted definition of life. They are similar to obligate intracellular parasites as they lack the means for self-reproduction outside a host cell, but unlike parasites, viruses are generally not considered to be true living organisms. A definitive answer is still elusive because some organisms considered to be living exhibit characteristics of both living and non-living particles, as viruses do"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus
http://money.cnn.com/2006/11/30/magazines/fortune/ obrienseagate.fortune/index.htm
"Not so with Bill Watkins, the mercurial, salty-mouthed Texan who runs the $15 billion hard-drive king Seagate Technology. At a San Francisco dinner on Tuesday evening, he was candid about his company's ultimate mission: "Let's face it, we're not changing the world. We're building a product that helps people buy more crap - and watch porn."
Democrat Electorate Doesn't Work As Much
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"There was no upswing of support for Bush throughout election day -- that impression was entirely an artifact of the media "correcting" the exit-poll figures to match the official results."
Not so. It's a fact that a lot of Democrat voters don't work and fill polls during the day. Then the people who work vote at night and Republican votes go up. Add to this that the media and other groups "tinker" with exit polls to influence election results (just like CBS manufatured forged documents). We all know an "October Suprprise" will come from Democrats each year.
This is one of those things where when it shows danger nothing will happen and if something bad happens it will be when clock suggests saftey. This is the nature of time, pride and destiny. The best and worst things happen when you dont expect them.
If they are Rubes (you know the writer wanted them seen that way) then they are at least correct the charade. Here is artcile from 1075 Newsweek calling for politicians "to act" before its too late.
"Here is the text of Newsweek's 1975 story on the trend toward global cooling. It may look foolish today, but in fact world temperatures had been falling since about 1940. It was around 1979 that they reversed direction and resumed the general rise that had begun in the 1880s, bringing us today back to around 1940 levels. A PDF of the original is available here ( http://denisdutton.com/newsweek_coolingworld.pdf )
There are ominous signs that the Earth's weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production - with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now. The regions destined to feel its impact are the great wheat-producing lands of Canada and the U.S.S.R. in the North, along with a number of marginally self-sufficient tropical areas - parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indochina and Indonesia - where the growing season is dependent upon the rains brought by the monsoon.
The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it. In England, farmers have seen their growing season decline by about two weeks since 1950, with a resultant overall loss in grain production estimated at up to 100,000 tons annually. During the same time, the average temperature around the equator has risen by a fraction of a degree - a fraction that in some areas can mean drought and desolation. Last April, in the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded, 148 twisters killed more than 300 people and caused half a billion dollars' worth of damage in 13 U.S. states.
To scientists, these seemingly disparate incidents represent the advance signs of fundamental changes in the world's weather. The central fact is that after three quarters of a century of extraordinarily mild conditions, the earth's climate seems to be cooling down. Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the cooling trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic. "A major climatic change would force economic and social adjustments on a worldwide scale," warns a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences, "because the global patterns of food production and population that have evolved are implicitly dependent on the climate of the present century."
A survey completed last year by Dr. Murray Mitchell of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reveals a drop of half a degree in average ground temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere between 1945 and 1968. According to George Kukla of Columbia University, satellite photos indicated a sudden, large increase in Northern Hemisphere snow cover in the winter of 1971-72. And a study released last month by two NOAA scientists notes that the amount of sunshine reaching the ground in the continental U.S. diminished by 1.3% between 1964 and 1972.
To the layman, the relatively small changes in temperature and sunshine can be highly misleading. Reid Bryson of the University of Wisconsin points out that the Earth's average temperature during the great Ice Ages was only about seven degrees lower than during its warmest eras - and that the present decline has taken the planet about a sixth of the way toward the Ice Age average. Others regard the cooling as a reversion to the "little ice age" conditions that brought bitter winters to much of Europe and northern America between 1600 and 1900 - years
Intellectuals are known to be the easiest people to hypnotise. A hypnotists greatest asset is an authoritarian manner because people are conditioned to suspend their own critical factors and take suggestions from authority figures. Wide spread belief in anthropogenic global warming is a good example of hypnosis among educated people. An uneducated farmer would not be fooled by Al Gore (who is obviously demented) but a lot of egg heads will be. Ice ages have ended have they not? Was there pollution at the time? It's clear we have been in a warming trend in some areas. To think people created it and can reverse it is ego psychosis.
With reagrds to the article, it's plain to see the author wanted to portray all the dissenters as rubes and a lot of people here fell into it as if that was the whole story.
Bill Gray has things right in this paragraph:
"The only inconvenient truth about global warming, contends Colorado State University's Bill Gray, is that a genuine debate has never actually taken place. Hundreds of scientists, many of them prominent in the field, agree.
Gray is perhaps the world's foremost hurricane expert. His Tropical Storm Forecast sets the standard. Yet, his criticism of the global warming "hoax" makes him an outcast.
"They've been brainwashing us for 20 years," Gray says. "Starting with the nuclear winter and now with the global warming. This scare will also run its course. In 15-20 years, we'll look back and see what a hoax this was."
Gray directs me to a 1975 Newsweek article that whipped up a different fear: a coming ice age.
"Climatologists," reads the piece, "are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change.... The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality."
Thank God they did nothing. Imagine how warm we'd be?
"Let's just say a crowd of baby boomers and yuppies have hijacked this thing," Gray says. "It's about politics. Very few people have experience with some real data. I think that there is so much general lack of knowledge on this. I've been at this over 50 years down in the trenches working, thinking and teaching."
Re:Wow, what an interesting universe you inhabit.
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If you want something that "smells" a homosexual encounter is probably way up there on the stink index. Lol you asked for it. Nothing hateful about thinking men sexing each others behinds is gross. It is what it is (and that's gross). Would it be hateful to not want people passing gas in public whenever they felt like it? You should know a study released on that "homophobia" contrivance showed that people weren't afraid of homosexualks as much as "disgusted". Come on now you can do better than this.
Slashdot Mirror
Doing things "for the children" gets used as the excuse for mant things here as well (New York). Regarding websites, I have met a lot of people from Turkey on deviantART lately and 3 of my 16 "Watchers" are from Turkey. They are very bright kids and I hope deviantART site does not get labeled "morally detrimental" (even if it can be a bad site). One girl of 17 had a link to interview with man who was portrayed in movie "Midnight Express". I was surprised people feel upset about that movie still since it is almost 30 years old now. Interesting things you write about Turkey.
I have no mod points so I have to say that was funny. THe chubby cheeks in cloud of carbon dioxide was great : )
Maybe CNN was burned by Symantec updates before. In my time on computers I have had more problems with the various "helpful" updates than I have with malware etc.
Another article for the hysteria bin. Also in the news today was a warning that the UN needs to "act now!" to be ready for an asteroid strike:
e roid-threat-demands-response-experts-warn.html
"Beginning in the next few months, Schweickart's group will host a series of meetings to provide the UN with a 'decision process' for assessing and acting on the hazard posed by Apophis and other near-Earth asteroids (NEAs). A draft document ready for consideration by the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space is expected by 2009."
http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn11207-ast
When do people see through this racket?
Wherein your problems REALLY begin because the paraistes suck clients dry. The legal class today is 90% pond scum.
Thanks that's interesting, I like graphics like that. I have read climatologists who say the melting of ice would cool the gulf stream and also the UK. They say the warming tend is what will preceed a cooling trend. A retreating Gulfstream is not anything I would consider a warming trend (in UK at least). Climate fluctuates a lot over many years. Where I live is temperate but used to be under a glacier. Obvioulsy some natural warming went on. I am sure warming is going on now I just don't think humans cause it all. I also don't see any real solutions posited. It will snow here tomorrow and not a person or government can stop it. Stopping or reversing any global weather is not possible. Even Kyoto supporters admit that any real effect would be miniscule.
In the 1930's people got carried away with eugenics for political purposes. I see the same thing going on with science now. This week I was reading a writer equate denial of anthropogenic warming with the denial of the holocaust. This is not objective. It seems like any article I read about warming turns into a diatribe against Bush or the US or corportaions etc. I am sure you are sincere in your research and your ideas but I am not as sure with many others. Even the UN decree last week had no new science according to the NY Times. The actual study is not even being released until May. So they all got to make these sweeping claims with no presentaion of any studies. They have more/better "models" they say. But they once used the Mann hockey stick to support the warming crisis and yet that model has been proven flawed and was wriutten about in MIT journals. But the people creating the rush to hysteria dismiss those things without a second thought and move on to another "model" they say "everyone acgrees on".
I would say the world is about to come apart in ways that will make the 30's and 40's look like practice run and the weather won't be at the heart of it. Thanks for reply.
Vaclav Klaus has a pretty fair view of things. He recognises how whacky this has all been. Paint the earth white indeed..
...
...I am right...
http://www.drudgereport.com/flash.htm
President of Czech Republic Calls Man-Made Global Warming a 'Myth' - Questions Gore's Sanity
Mon Feb 12 2007 09:10:09 ET
Czech president Vaclav Klaus has criticized the UN panel on global warming, claiming that it was a political authority without any scientific basis.
In an interview with "Hospodárské noviny", a Czech economics daily, Klaus answered a few questions:
Q: IPCC has released its report and you say that the global warming is a false myth. How did you get this idea, Mr President?
A: It's not my idea. Global warming is a false myth and every serious person and scientist says so. It is not fair to refer to the U.N. panel. IPCC is not a scientific institution: it's a political body, a sort of non-government organization of green flavor. It's neither a forum of neutral scientists nor a balanced group of scientists. These people are politicized scientists who arrive there with a one-sided opinion and a one-sided assignment. Also, it's an undignified slapstick that people don't wait for the full report in May 2007 but instead respond, in such a serious way, to the summary for policymakers where all the "but's" are scratched, removed, and replaced by oversimplified theses. This is clearly such an incredible failure of so many people, from journalists to politicians. If the European Commission is instantly going to buy such a trick, we have another very good reason to think that the countries themselves, not the Commission, should be deciding about similar issues.
Q: How do you explain that there is no other comparably senior statesman in Europe who would advocate this viewpoint? No one else has such strong opinions...
A: My opinions about this issue simply are strong. Other top-level politicians do not express their global warming doubts because a whip of political correctness strangles their voice.
Q: But you're not a climate scientist. Do you have a sufficient knowledge and enough information?
A: Environmentalism as a metaphysical ideology and as a worldview has absolutely nothing to do with natural sciences or with the climate. Sadly, it has nothing to do with social sciences either. Still, it is becoming fashionable and this fact scares me. The second part of the sentence should be: we also have lots of reports, studies, and books of climatologists whose conclusions are diametrally opposite. Indeed, I never measure the thickness of ice in Antarctica. I really don't know how to do it and don't plan to learn it. However, as a scientifically oriented person, I know how to read science reports about these questions, for example about ice in Antarctica. I don't have to be a climate scientist myself to read them. And inside the papers I have read, the conclusions we may see in the media simply don't appear. But let me promise you something: this topic troubles me which is why I started to write an article about it last Christmas. The article expanded and became a book. In a couple of months, it will be published. One chapter out of seven will organize my opinions about the climate change. Environmentalism and green ideology is something very different from climate science. Various findings and screams of scientists are abused by this ideology.
Q: How do you explain that conservative media are skeptical while the left-wing media view the global warming as a done deal?
A: It is not quite exactly divided to the left-wingers and right-wingers. Nevertheless it's obvious that environmentalism is a new incarnation of modern leftism.
Q: If you look at all these things, even if you were right
A:
Q: Isn't there enough empirical evidence and facts we can see with our eyes that imply that Man is demolishing the planet and himself?
A: It
Maybe they want to patent it so that nobody else can. I can't see M$ wanting to see something like this in use under their name. I can't see Microsoft wanting anybody to use this sort of thing. Talk about an incentive to get Linux - sheesh.
Apple has been pissing a lot of people off, in a lot of different spheres, and yet trying to play the paragon . First, they have had a lot of hardware issues the last 3 years. Apple sold a lot of iPods but I also know a lot of people that got burned by an iPod that stopped working (for one weak reason or another- looking at it too hard!). There were batteries recalled, laptops that got too hot, Nano's that scratched very easy etc. Switching to Intel parts was good for performance but it took some shine off Apple's identity.
On top of that Apple has been in struggles with the labels for awhile (it wasn't long ago that labels wanted a share of iPod sales - Microsoft has since gone along with that) and this last proposal of Job's looks self centered even if he has good points to make. The Apple Vista ads look a bit lame along with the iTunes compatibility problems (iTunes is over-rated anyway imo). The iPhone looks makes Apple look a bit cheeky. Of course all Apple has to do in Europe ( a lot of people had crapped up iPods there too) is be the big American company and it automatically becomes a target for legal/financial bloodsucking ala Microsoft (the Clinton Justice Dept. in US did likewise).
I don't compare Apple to Microsoft at all because a lot of people "need Microsoft" (that was Gates model for along time - make people need you) where they don't need Apple at all. Not being needed by people, while still playing the declining yet still snotty, prima donna geek (waves to Linux fans!) is tempting people to harbor contempt they would like to act on. When people having this contempt notice a ground swell of it from others as well then that's when it gets ugliest. Apple might be close to that point.
Send married people since they are used to high stress and no sex.
I bought a new Dell 20" monitor in November. After delivery I thought it looked bad for such a well reviewed model. I found out Dell had swapped the well regarded Phillips S-IPS type panel for a lesser Samsung S-PVA type panel. People who found out about this switch and went to the Dell forum to ask questions were censored out. A thread about this problem was started in a hardware forum and it now has 790 posts and 55,000 views: http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1111100 I returned my monitor in early Dec. I still can't get my money back from Dell though even though they don't dispute the credit even they say they owe me. Between the service rep on the phone and accounting there is some disconnect. Fair to say that after weeks of talking to Dell serivce and 2 dozen "case numbers" I think things are a real mess over there.
It seems to me Vista has had a lot of its inner gears re-tooled so that others can add-on the new applications. The sound features alone seemed to have been re-oriented more than people might be aware of.
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"Vista redefines the audio landscape, but is it a landscape of forced obsolescence?"
http://pc.ign.com/articles/759/759538p1.html
In this blog there is video about how the audio stack in Windows Vista has been rewritten so people can have per-app audio control.
http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=116
I don't have Vista and am not in a rush to get it, but I think perhaps in time there could be more benefits to Vista than meets the eye. Certainly the 64 bit security functions don't seem exciting but if they block remote code execution then that's something to like.
I bought my first Dell product in November and I could see Dell had some real problems. I bought a well reviewed and highly regarded 2007WFP monitor for $400. After buying it I read that Dell is using a "panel lottery" and they swapped out the Philips S-IPS panel for a Samsung S-PVA that is quite inferior. Many people were upset by this because the swap really made it a different monitor since S-IPS and S-PVA have different characteristics and many photographers and graphics pros seek out the S-IPS. Dell's began to hide the panel info and told people complaining in its forums that as far as Dell was concerned "a 2007WFP was a 2007WFP".
I finally sent my monitor back to Dell but arranging that return was nightmare. From one service rep to another they lose track of issues. Mailing labels to be sent never were; emails they were to send me were never sent; credits due were never sent. I have 2 notebook pages of case numbers just for a monitor purchase and return. It's been six weeks and still I have not been sent a credit even though reps I call say it has. I can't get anyone to follow through on the simplest task.
I don't think Dell is a bad company but its obvioulsy a real mess over there.
"The papers allege that the companies, "ostensibly competitors in the recording industry, are a cartel acting collusively in violation of the antitrust laws and public policy" by bringing the piracy cases jointly and using the same agency "to make extortionate threats ... to force defendants to pay."
0 -cd-settlement_x.htm
The labels were actually found guilty of this once before:
States settle CD price-fixing case
By David Lieberman, USA TODAY
NEW YORK -- The five largest music companies and three of the USA's largest music retailers agreed Monday to pay $67.4 million and distribute $75.7 million in CDs to public and non-profit groups to settle a lawsuit led by New York and Florida over alleged price-fixing in the late 1990s...
Former FTC chairman Robert Pitofsky said at the time that consumers had been overcharged by $480 million since 1997 and that CD prices would soon drop by as much as $5 a CD as a result.
In settling the lawsuit, Universal BMG and Warner said they simply wanted to avoid court costs and defended the practice.
"We believe our policies were pro-competitive and geared toward keeping more retailers, large and small, in business," Universal said in a statement."
http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2002-09-3
Maybe some of those jobs being lost should never have been there to start with
Robert X. Cringely seems to be saying the same things the providers say with regard to internet eutrality issues:
1 034_3-5537392.html
This bandwidth leveraging hasn't been a problem to date, but it is about to become a huge problem as we all embrace Internet video.. there is no way the current network infrastructure will support that level of use...Instead of using 1-3 gigabytes per month, as most broadband Internet users have in recent years, we'll go to 1-3 gigabytes per DAY -- a 30X increase that will place a huge backbone burden on ISPs. Those ISPs will be faced with the option of increasing their backbone connections by 30X, which would kill all profits, OR they could accept a peering arrangement with the local Google data center.
Google does support "neutrality" and I've never suspected it was from any idealism.
I knew they were buying up dark fiber a couple years ago:
"Google wants 'dark fiber'"
http://news.com.com/Google+wants+dark+fiber/2100-
If you go to a related forum you can often post asking about a couple products and often get a reply from someone who used both. Forums can be pretty useful and users can have great expertise. I suspect some manufacturers even let forums do problem solving for them. I got much better advice for a new ASUS mobo from a user in a photography forum then I could get from the ASUS forum. If you go to a forum for webmasters you can get all sorts of advice on servers. I don't trust a lot of published reviews in magazines that take advertising. Recently I was shopping for an LCD monitor and reviews often use wrong specs and don't seem to understand the product very well (they won't even mention if a panel is S-IPS or S-PVA etc). Certain brands seem to get a lot of wiggle room and a look at the ads on the bottom of the page usually shows why. One good site for head-to-head comparisons for monitors is http://www.lesnumeriques.com/duels.php?ty=6&ma1=52 &mo1=149&p1=1606&ma2=36&mo2=105&p2=1041&ph=6 .
I know monitors are not what you asked about but I still think forums are best bet. You may be lucky not many reviews exist because I find its a good way to get hung out to fry.
I have modded a teen group with about 10,000 members mostly in US and UK. Most Kids aren't that stupid that they meet up with strangers who start to talk dirty like you read about in the stings. The biggest danger to kids are the friends they already know well, and that the rents let their guard down on. Being nervous about the boogey man in the shadows lets parents feel like they are doing a good job when realities are the kid is often getting worse stuff at school and with friends. The parents block those out. It's usually the "friends" that bring a kid harm. It's very wise for a parent to know what a child is doing on a computer and the best thing is to keep it out of their bedroom. It makes no sense to hover over a kids computer like a nuclear power regulator and then send them off to school without a second thought.
The really obscene parts of MySpace are the groups.
I am not a biologist and get confused when people talk about things that "kill" a virus when I have always been told a virus is not alive. "It has been argued extensively whether viruses are living organisms. Most virologists consider them non-living, as they do not meet all the criteria of the generally accepted definition of life. They are similar to obligate intracellular parasites as they lack the means for self-reproduction outside a host cell, but unlike parasites, viruses are generally not considered to be true living organisms. A definitive answer is still elusive because some organisms considered to be living exhibit characteristics of both living and non-living particles, as viruses do" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus
http://money.cnn.com/2006/11/30/magazines/fortune/ obrienseagate.fortune/index.htm
"Not so with Bill Watkins, the mercurial, salty-mouthed Texan who runs the $15 billion hard-drive king Seagate Technology. At a San Francisco dinner on Tuesday evening, he was candid about his company's ultimate mission: "Let's face it, we're not changing the world. We're building a product that helps people buy more crap - and watch porn."
"There was no upswing of support for Bush throughout election day -- that impression was entirely an artifact of the media "correcting" the exit-poll figures to match the official results." Not so. It's a fact that a lot of Democrat voters don't work and fill polls during the day. Then the people who work vote at night and Republican votes go up. Add to this that the media and other groups "tinker" with exit polls to influence election results (just like CBS manufatured forged documents). We all know an "October Suprprise" will come from Democrats each year.
This is one of those things where when it shows danger nothing will happen and if something bad happens it will be when clock suggests saftey. This is the nature of time, pride and destiny. The best and worst things happen when you dont expect them.
ASUS has just put out an external video card. Maybe keeping those toasters outside the box is easier: http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=7610
If they are Rubes (you know the writer wanted them seen that way) then they are at least correct the charade. Here is artcile from 1075 Newsweek calling for politicians "to act" before its too late.
"Here is the text of Newsweek's 1975 story on the trend toward global cooling. It may look foolish today, but in fact world temperatures had been falling since about 1940. It was around 1979 that they reversed direction and resumed the general rise that had begun in the 1880s, bringing us today back to around 1940 levels. A PDF of the original is available here ( http://denisdutton.com/newsweek_coolingworld.pdf )
There are ominous signs that the Earth's weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production - with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now. The regions destined to feel its impact are the great wheat-producing lands of Canada and the U.S.S.R. in the North, along with a number of marginally self-sufficient tropical areas - parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indochina and Indonesia - where the growing season is dependent upon the rains brought by the monsoon.
The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it. In England, farmers have seen their growing season decline by about two weeks since 1950, with a resultant overall loss in grain production estimated at up to 100,000 tons annually. During the same time, the average temperature around the equator has risen by a fraction of a degree - a fraction that in some areas can mean drought and desolation. Last April, in the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded, 148 twisters killed more than 300 people and caused half a billion dollars' worth of damage in 13 U.S. states.
To scientists, these seemingly disparate incidents represent the advance signs of fundamental changes in the world's weather. The central fact is that after three quarters of a century of extraordinarily mild conditions, the earth's climate seems to be cooling down. Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the cooling trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic. "A major climatic change would force economic and social adjustments on a worldwide scale," warns a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences, "because the global patterns of food production and population that have evolved are implicitly dependent on the climate of the present century."
A survey completed last year by Dr. Murray Mitchell of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reveals a drop of half a degree in average ground temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere between 1945 and 1968. According to George Kukla of Columbia University, satellite photos indicated a sudden, large increase in Northern Hemisphere snow cover in the winter of 1971-72. And a study released last month by two NOAA scientists notes that the amount of sunshine reaching the ground in the continental U.S. diminished by 1.3% between 1964 and 1972.
To the layman, the relatively small changes in temperature and sunshine can be highly misleading. Reid Bryson of the University of Wisconsin points out that the Earth's average temperature during the great Ice Ages was only about seven degrees lower than during its warmest eras - and that the present decline has taken the planet about a sixth of the way toward the Ice Age average. Others regard the cooling as a reversion to the "little ice age" conditions that brought bitter winters to much of Europe and northern America between 1600 and 1900 - years
Intellectuals are known to be the easiest people to hypnotise. A hypnotists greatest asset is an authoritarian manner because people are conditioned to suspend their own critical factors and take suggestions from authority figures. Wide spread belief in anthropogenic global warming is a good example of hypnosis among educated people. An uneducated farmer would not be fooled by Al Gore (who is obviously demented) but a lot of egg heads will be. Ice ages have ended have they not? Was there pollution at the time? It's clear we have been in a warming trend in some areas. To think people created it and can reverse it is ego psychosis.
... The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality."
With reagrds to the article, it's plain to see the author wanted to portray all the dissenters as rubes and a lot of people here fell into it as if that was the whole story.
Bill Gray has things right in this paragraph:
"The only inconvenient truth about global warming, contends Colorado State University's Bill Gray, is that a genuine debate has never actually taken place. Hundreds of scientists, many of them prominent in the field, agree.
Gray is perhaps the world's foremost hurricane expert. His Tropical Storm Forecast sets the standard. Yet, his criticism of the global warming "hoax" makes him an outcast.
"They've been brainwashing us for 20 years," Gray says. "Starting with the nuclear winter and now with the global warming. This scare will also run its course. In 15-20 years, we'll look back and see what a hoax this was."
Gray directs me to a 1975 Newsweek article that whipped up a different fear: a coming ice age.
"Climatologists," reads the piece, "are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change.
Thank God they did nothing. Imagine how warm we'd be?
"Let's just say a crowd of baby boomers and yuppies have hijacked this thing," Gray says. "It's about politics. Very few people have experience with some real data. I think that there is so much general lack of knowledge on this. I've been at this over 50 years down in the trenches working, thinking and teaching."
http://www.denverpost.com/harsanyi/ci_3899807
Snap out of it!
If you want something that "smells" a homosexual encounter is probably way up there on the stink index. Lol you asked for it. Nothing hateful about thinking men sexing each others behinds is gross. It is what it is (and that's gross). Would it be hateful to not want people passing gas in public whenever they felt like it? You should know a study released on that "homophobia" contrivance showed that people weren't afraid of homosexualks as much as "disgusted". Come on now you can do better than this.