Oddly enough, I used to be friends with a blind guy who insisted he was able to tell the difference in denominations of paper bills by their feel. I was totally amazed, but I was able to hand him $1 or $10 or $5 bills and he could tell me which was which.
The only thing I can figure is that maybe the smaller bills get used more frequently, so the paper has a slightly more "worn" feel to it. Of course, this probably doesn't do him any good if you hand him crisp, new $1's... but I guess it's something he learned to effectively use the majority of the time - if someone with sight wasn't able to tell him which bills were which.
Right... However unfortunate it is, the majority of the population, when push comes to shove, is not going to resort to violence (or half the time, even motivated to peacefully protest) over our diminishing individual rights, as long as they still feel "comfortable" in their lifestyle.
It's still easier to moan and groan about each little incident for a little while (until you feel better that you "got it off your chest"), and go back to your own business.
Our "founding fathers" thought a violent revolution was needed over taxes that percentage-wise were far less than what we accept willingly today, for example. But our government is also a lot smarter/more manipulative than England was back then. (When they placed the taxes on tea, for example, they didn't get it there with a bunch of empty political promises and a vote of approval by the people, who were suckered into believing the lies.) They just ordered it, and it was so.
Our govt. has also become smart about "handling the poor" so they don't rise up in protest. Welfare programs abound, but typically, only as long as those collecting it don't work too hard or too long at their jobs. If you want housing assistance (a la section 8), daycare assistance for your children, or even assistance keeping your phone and DSL service activated, you have to make sure your income stays really low. This helps ensure their "loyalty", since at least initially, they're immediately much worse off without the assistance - if they take a full-time job with a little better pay or work a second job.
The "right circumstances" would require a "critical mass" of wealthy people and remaining "middle class" folks being imprisoned for things the masses didn't feel should be illegal, or perhaps enforcing a draft that covered a wide age range of people, for another "unjust war".
Except, are you sure the post office is really sending all those junk mailers back to the sender?
I remember reading a story on/., a year or two ago, where some people who worked for the post office explained that when items arrive "bulk rate mail" and you scribble "return to sender" and throw them back in a mailbox, they only get so far in the system before the post office just trashes them. They aren't willing to return them to a sender who only paid the discount bulk mail rate in the first place....
I realize that's different for mail that includes postage-paid return mailers, but don't you think they'd simply quit including those in your junk mail, if everyone started misusing them?
Sure, you can do that... but don't kid yourself about the "environmental advantages" of it. That "crap" getting sent off to the landfill is biodegradable paper! It's not going to be a problem. On the other hand, your action of mailing the junk mail back to the sender means an increase in the amount of mail to be transported. Sure, your individual letters won't have much impact -- but if everyone started taking your suggestion, the post office would waste a *lot* of fuel delivering unnecessary mail around.
I fully realize that a LOT of good teachers undergo punishment every week by rowdy students. BUT, I venture to say that those NEA/NJEA newsletters citing teachers as punished "half the time" are probably seeing something that's almost fair.
Even if 9/10 times, the "student is provoking the teacher" - so what? The teacher is expected to maintain a higher standard. The school classroom isn't a democracy, after all. Students don't really have much in the way of "individual rights" in school. If anything, they're run much more like a prison system than anything else. Metal detectors at the entrances and guards checking who goes in and out, etc. etc. If you give teachers that level of control over their students, then you're counting on them being "benevolent dictators", at the very least.
Being a teacher isn't an easy job, not is it one that some people are cut out for. In some ways, it's like being a police officer. Most people you deal with view you as "the enemy", yet expect you to come to their rescue, on demand.
Especially in the high-schools, I think a good teacher *earns* the respect of his/her students (or not). It's not so much a problem of parents not punishing them at home. That may or may not be true, but regardless, they're a captive audience of the teacher during the school day, each and every week. What the parents do with them at home is rather irrelevant. Teens always try to "test the limits", to see what they can get away with. Teachers need to make the boundaries really clear, up front, but still give their students complete respect, within those lines they've drawn.
Sounds like a pretty accurate book to me....
on
In Search of Stupidity
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· Score: 5, Interesting
As a big OS/2 supporter back in its heyday, I can attest to the fact that IBM shot itself in the foot, repeatedly, in their half-baked attempts to sell that product. Any idea that Microsoft "killed" OS/2 is nothing but revisionist history B.S.
OS/2 had a fanatical base of users who really wanted to see it take over. Quite a few open source utilities and apps were ported over, in attempts to bolster its "credibility" as a powerful OS. Entire magazines were published just for it. It had IRC channels devoted to it. And I remember the excitement OS/2 users had every time a commercial app would finally get native 32-bit support for it. But IBM did such boneheaded maneuvers as selling a whole line of PCs that came preloaded with *Windows* and weren't even certified as compatible with OS/2. They barely even tried to sell their last version of Warp, v4.0 "Merlin" - despite it having numerous innovative features that could have easily been marketed to the public as good reasons to buy it. (The integration of IBM's voice recognition and dictation system with the OS was years ahead of the competition, for example.)
The OS/2 community tried to keep on supporting the OS long after IBM gave up on it, in fact. But eventually, it just became pointless to try to run a "dead" OS with no driver support for any new peripherals, etc.
I will say though, in defense of Apple, they doggedly stuck to their original business model - which was really the model *every* brand of computer was sold with, before MS-DOS and "IBM compatible" became the "industry standard". If they caved in and started selling PC clones, or licensed out MacOS back then, where would they be today? You can say their unwillingness to change forced them down to 5% sales vs. 30% or more... but I'd argue that if they did change, they might well be out of the computer hardware market completely today. (Asking Apple to drop their "proprietary" business model is essentially the same as asking them to become a software vendor, iPods not withstanding.)
Funny how one guy, a "tech writer", and the other, a decidedly NON tech writer, can both use the same technique to call attention to themselves.
Write a load of opinionated FUD and enjoy the fallout.
*Everyone* enjoys diversion from "reality". Movie fans, sports fans, computer gamers, opera fans.... all the same thing really. Just different ways to dodge reality for a while.
Wrong! Taking this stance completely ignores some basic realities. For one, email communications is not "real time" in nature, unlike IM. Acting like the two are really "one and the same" under the law seems foolish for that reason alone. (EG. If I testify and can prove that in some situation, I immediately informed an individual about something by typing it to them during an IM session, that should hold a lot more "weight" than making the same claim of "immediately informing them" because I sent them off an email.)
Due to the immediate nature of IM communications, you have more "confirmation" that a person received your transmission too. On email, you can request a "return receipt" upon an individual opening your message, but that may or may not even work, depending on which email client they use. Beyond that rather broken tool, you really have no way of knowing if they read your message until/unless they reply to it at some point in the future.
With IM, you know when they're online vs. offline, and if you have a chat window open with them, it's reasonable to believe they read your message you typed them if the window didn't close up in the middle of you sending the text. (Unlike email, there's not the whole concern of "Did I mis-address the mesasge?")
In my current job position (title of "network manager"), it seems they create the job description as they go! Somebody gets the idea that "Hey, it would really be good if our computer guy understood how to do such-and-such on the computers!" and next thing you know, I'm pulled from my office into entire afternoons of training classes on things I'll probably never use again.
What they can't seem to grasp is that your I.T. staff isn't supposed to know *all aspects* of all the specialized software a company uses, or even 1/10th. of it, in many cases. It's the job of I.T. to make sure said software is properly installed and functioning for the employees who DO make good use of it every day.
I've already been asked to learn how to do AutoCAD drawings (despite no drafting or previous engineering experience!), how to program shop equipment that punches holes in steel beams (old MS-DOS based PC inside the piece of industrial equipment, so once again, they decide it's something I.T. should handle), and how to do cost-estimates for jobs in a industry-specific piece of software we use for the purpose. (Heck, I'm still not even sure what the different grades of steel look like, much less have any kind of knowledge of how long our shop takes to do certain processes to metals.)
It's not that I'm unwilling to learn new things. If they decide I should work on one of these tasks, I go and do it. But we're a small business with nobody else to take care of all the computers but myself and an outside consultant who comes in once a week. IMHO, they're foolish to waste my time with these tasks.
But again, it comes down to dollars and cents. They can't cost-justify hiring an engineer who can actually use AutoCAD properly, when the only real reason they need it is to make drawings of customer parts to be fed into another program that runs a burning table/cutting torch. So they figure "Ah, another task for our I.T. guy to do for us!"
I had no idea they'd need these things based on my job description... but they probably didn't even think to put them in one when they wrote it up either. If we were slightly larger, I bet they would turn to "H1B workers" as a possible solution -- so I definitely can see how this all comes about.
But what you're discussing is quite a bit different than the original poster's suggestion, is it not? In the original post, he was proposing criminalizing the operation of an infected PC. In your case, you're talking more about some sort of "public PC health policy". (EG. I can't be arrested and criminally charged because I got sick with the measles. BUT, the health dept. can offer vaccinations against it, and in co-operation with such places as school systems, it can be demanded that a child receives one before being allowed in school.)
Exactly what the computer equivalent might be is probably still unclear. But one example I could envision might be "Homeland Security" developing guidelines on firewall requirements that they recommend all Internet users follow. Then, commercial ISPs could mandate that you use a hardware firewall/router that meets this minimum requirements, or be subject to account termination. (Presumably, they could issue an appropriate unit with all new accounts, and run automated processes that do some sort of "challenge/response" query at random, to see if the units are still in place?) I know in my own community, Charter Cable is very bad about this - since their standard install only includes a cable modem with no firewall or even NAT capabilities in it. Sure, they provide an "installation CD" with some half-baked anti-spyware/virus type software on it and tell you to use the Windows firewall on your PC. But in my opinion, that's ineffective. It slows down older computers so people uninstall it. Some people just neglect to install it when they realize their net connection works fine without it. Others purposely skip it in favor of their own pet programs, which may or may not turn out to be good choices.
Nope! Not a viable or reasonable solution. You think the RIAA looks bad now for suing grandmas and small kids?!?
Think of all the computer users out there who did nothing more than purchase a brand new PC in order to use it exactly for its "intended purposes". (writing school papers, getting on the Internet to read web sites and do email, and play a few games) The fact that they get hijacked and serve as part of a bot-net while being used as-advertised means the fault doesn't lie with the end-user!
Put yourself in the shoes of "Joe User" for a moment, if you will. You know nothing about software programming. You simply purchased your new Dell/HP/IBM/Acer/whatever because it was recommended to you as a "good computer", and your kid's school said they needed one for homework assignments. Now, you're looking at being charged with a crime for not properly securing a flawed Microsoft OS against someone's botnet?? What would constitute "properly securing" the machine, anyway? In court, you'd certainly be able to argue that this amounts to a demand you start a new career as a software developer and get hired at Microsoft, or else you can't comply!
Yeah, tried the freezer trick (which did work for me once before). No luck. I think the motor in the drive simply died.
The freezer trick is more likely to work in cases where a component on the circuit board of the drive is defective/failing. (Bad components often still function as long as they're cold enough, but quit performing within normal specs when they warm up.)
That's also why the old-time TV repairmen used to carry a spray can of "component cooler" with them. They could temporarily chill individual parts until they found a culprit.
Yeah... OnTrack has been around for *years*, doing data-recovery. I believe "DriveSavers" is another worthy competitor offering the same services.
I used to work for a small business that partnered up with them to get a discount on drive recovery work we sent in to them (and then we'd get to keep the difference as a commission).
The problem with these places is that the cost of recovering data is so high, it's unfathomable for most home or small business customers. For example, one of my previous customers had their home office PC's drive fail after it was only a year old or so. They had all of their tax records stored on it, and shortly after it crashed, they discovered they were being audited by the IRS! They wanted us to attempt to recover it, but the drive refused to even spin up - so there was nothing else I was able to do. The quotes I received for recovery started at the $3000 range and up. (They go by the size of the hard drive, primarily.) When I told them the estimated cost, they cringed and saying "That's 3 times what the whole computer cost us new, last year!", decided to manually reassemble all their tax records, rather than retrieve the data from the drive.
Not only does this figure not really surprise me, but I'm not even sure why it makes people feel like porn on the net isn't very prevalent?
When you consider that the majority of businesses put up some type of web site advertising their existence, all of the personal web pages/sites people have built over the years, all of the educational and research sites that exist, and all of the non-profit/charitable organizations with a web presence -- not to mention the huge amount of content related to computers, technology and even gaming (since the net is the best place to publish that type of content), it surely comes out to FAR more than the number of sites interested in selling porn.
For that matter, the porn site business on the net has probably been downsizing to reflect market interest, just like any other industry does as it "matures". For a while, everybody thought "throw up a web site full of naked women pics and PROFIT!" Now, you're seeing them struggle to find creative "niches" that hold people's interest. Otherwise, they look just like every other porn site and they slowly die off. I'm sure there's been a lot of consolidation going on too, with a successful site buying up not-so-successful sites and hosting them at new locations, with more cross-advertising and promotional subscription packages giving someone access to both site for one price, etc. etc.
Like someone else already said though, arguing "Fair Use" as the provision for allowing backups of your work or conversions to other formats for personal use is a flawed idea. The RIAA is simply pointing this out, rather than addressing the fact that the "Right of First Sale" is actually the legislation better suited to support the legality of doing these things.
The "Fair Use" portions of our copyright law weren't really designed to address issues like making copies of one's purchased music in MP3 format, or burning a copy of a CD to use in case you scratch up your original. Many people (including myself, before I read more deeply into the laws) just assume "Fair Use" provisions are what we're fighting over, since the name would make you think that's the part of the law that's applicable.
And for what it's worth, the issue of groups like the CEA backing Grokster (or any other p2p sharing network) probably hinge on the idea that one shouldn't get in trouble for selectively downloading the same songs or albums he/she already purchased in the past, in one form or another. I'd say that's sensible enough. (Because after all, what's the difference between ripping tracks off your purchased CD to MP3s you can then use in your portable player, and downloading them, pre-ripped, just to save you some duplication of effort?) Problem is, it's the guy *sharing* the tracks that's the issue. He/she doesn't appear to legally be able to share the songs with everybody in the world happening to request them off his/her server.
The solution? Probably should come down to the record labels being forced to provide their *own* download servers, capable of serving customers digital copies of tracks upon providing proof of initial purchase of the tracks on CD or other format.....
Someone modded your post "funny", but I think you make a valid point. On the other hand though, without a relatively charismatic "face" to attach to the "concept" of the Linux OS - how far would the project really have gotten?
Outside the realm of software developers, students and computer enthusiasts, it takes some kind of actual "marketing" to create awareness and legitimacy for a piece of software. Torvalds, by retaining the rights to his kernel, while still allowing unlimited free usage of it, became the de-facto authority behind the whole project. He gave the mass media a figure to interview and question about Linux.
And as for proclaiming YouTube "invention of the year" - maybe they were just exercising some foresight? Personally, I think YouTube has the potential to change the way people watch television... only not in the immediate future. Essentially, it forces some issues and makes media conglomerates seriously consider the potential value in letting 3rd. parties repost their content on the Internet for public viewing. Without the financial backing of a business the size of Google - it would just be legislated away, without a second thought. But now, it becomes a possible "driver" of change. Networks have to actually consider concepts like allowing unlimited reproductions of their copyrighted content to be made and hosted on a web site, in exchange for a flat up-front fee. Maybe this model will finally become "the norm" someday, allowing cheaper channel subcriptions on cable/satellite, and eventually, moving the networks onto broadband Internet.
Re:I find it interesting ...
on
The Zune Cometh
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· Score: 1
No - MS discontinued their line of wireless cards and routers. Too much competition from the likes of Linksys, D-Link and SMC.
They also briefly experimented with selling a Microsoft cordless phone with USB interface to a PC, for the purposes of handling call logging and caller ID display to your PC screen. But that one flopped too.
I don't quite agree with that statement. I know quite a few Mac OS X users who are still running version 10.3 Panther, and even a couple 10.2 Jaguar systems out there. Upgrading at $129 each and every time Apple releases a new OS version isn't at all a requirement.
The "granularity" simply means you can buy an OS with the "latest and greatest" features more often, instead of having to wait years for one to come out...
I've been saying this since day 1, and my opinion still hasn't changed. Microsoft is only a "monopoly" because most customers are complacent/satisfied enough with what they offer to keep buying it. As far as I'm concerned, anti-trust laws were designed and envisioned to be used in situations where one firm has complete control of something necessary for everyone's daily life. Oil companies, for example, pretty much act as "hinge-pins" for all the other aspects of our economy. (No gasoline means no more deliveries, which means no more commerce, online or offline. It also severely curtails people's ability to travel to and from work each day.) We'd have serious problems if, say, Shell Oil was the *only* supplier of heating oil and gasoline for all of the United States.
Microsoft's operating system and software products are simply *not* purchases that are "necessities" for any of us. Sure, computers are everywhere - but let's face it. The copy of Windows you already use today will work tomorrow the same way it worked today, whether or not Microsoft keeps selling new products and versions tomorrow.
There's really no reason companies like Acer couldn't just say "Screw it!" and sell their PCs with no operating system pre-loaded at all. Or better yet, include a nicely configured Linux distro. If everyone started doing this, in lieu of paying the "Vista OEM tax" - it would immediately force MS to reconsider their pricing structure. (It might not even mean more users would actually switch OS's... but that's not the point. It would make customers all go out and pay full retail price for Windows, which in turn, would cause backlash as they suddenly realize how much of the price of their new PC *really* goes towards the OS on it.)
For my part, I've pretty much switched to Apple Macs, because I feel I'm getting a much better value for my dollar out of their hardware/OS/software combination than what MS has been offering lately. I just helped a good friend of mine switch to a Mac too. She never used anything but Windows before using my Mac - but immediately liked it. Unfortunately, she just didn't have the money for a new Mac (since she was still plugging along on Windows ME on a used Pentium II machine). But I was able to find a used PowerMac G4 Cube for about $225 on eBay. Spent about $120 more to get it upgraded to 1.5GB of RAM, and threw a used IDE hard drive in it I had lying around - and voila! A system that runs OS X Tiger 10.4 for well below the cost of a Mac Mini, and is more upgradable than one too. The fact it fits in a small amount of desk space and runs nearly sliently are extra bonuses.
Now, she has no more hassles with spyware and virus problems (which caused her huge problems at least twice in the past year or two), a "modern" OS instead of something that wasn't even good 5-6 years ago when it was released, and an OS that will only cost about $129 to upgrade when the next major release comes out - vs. Microsoft's $300 or so for something roughly equivalent in Vista.
I tend to agree. MS has already witnessed what BSD's code could do for Apple with OS X, and they're probably concerned, deep down, that maybe their proprietary OS core really isn't ever going to pan out as the best solution. (EG. They rewrote their whole TCP/IP stack from scratch for Vista, supposedly. Who knows what bugs will be exploited there in the years to come, or how long it will take to reach "maturity", where it's comparably as solid as the one used by free Unix OS's?)
If they buy some friends in the Linux community, they can start implementing their code without looking like they "lost" to the competition.
Furthermore, at least in Novell's case, you're talking about a company that was a huge thorn in MS's side for YEARS. Novell had an enterprise-level product that MS couldn't match... a dedicated file/print server that was rock-solid reliable. The eventual migration of Novell to Linux as the base of their product finally opened the door for MS to partner up with them or buy "influence" in them. That has to be worth *some* money to MS, just for the sake of "tying up loose ends".
Right... but how long will the catalyst remain effective? As we all know from our cars, the catalytic converters wear out. (Very quickly if something else goes wrong with the engine's timing and it runs "rich" for a little while.)
Seems to me this doctored concrete might have its pollution-converting properties exhausted pretty quickly in a polluted environment.
I do print my own greeting cards nowdays. Can't see the point in paying today's high prices for pre-made greeting cards, when the only thing "personal" about one is your signature or note scribbled on the bottom.
Otherwise though, it comes down to the "time is money" adage. I have a little electronics experience, but I don't consider myself particularly skilled in woodworking or other elements of crafting that would be required to make a nice "enclosure" for anything I made for someone.
The time it would take me to make my own gift would make it much more sensible to just buy a gift instead, and spend a few extra hours working to cover the expense.
Absolutely! I gave every single Libertarian candidate on the ballot my vote this time around. The most disappointing thing was, in several cases, my *only* choice was a Democrat or a write-in candidate! Not only were there no Independents to vote for, but Republicans didn't even have anyone running against them!
You have to wonder what the point is in voting when you only get one option, plus a random chance to write someone in. (Obviously, lacking some sort of special campaign aimed at it, write-ins are throw-away votes.)
1. You buy hundreds of dollars worth of iPod compatible accessories (such as the iPod interfaces that integrate one with your car stereo, or something like a DLO dock to attach to a home stereo and TV set), so why look for alternatives that make all those add-ons useless?
2. If you dropped your $400 iPod and broke it, it's just like dropping your $400 PDA/phone and breaking it, or dropping you $1000+ laptop and cracking the screen. You *might* get it serviced for free, IF you paid extra for an extended warranty of some type. Otherwise, yeah - that's how it works. You buy another one, or pay full price for a non-warranty repair (which is often not as good a deal as just buying another device). Why would you think other brands of MP3 players would be "more repairable" than iPods are?
3. Replacement batteries are available for iPods of all generations, usually with even better life between charges than the original had. My local CompUSA had several in their "bargain bin" for about $15 each, last month - including replacement instructions and a special tool to help pry off the back of the iPod.
Yeah, but in reality, is "stability" that much of an issue anymore, anyway? Most everyone I know who uses XP (or even Windows 2000) admits that major crashes and instability are mostly a thing of the past. Sure, you get the occasional glitchy application that causes a memory leak and forces you to reboot after a while. But that's true of OS X software as well. And more often than not, you can pin down the culprit after a while. (Just uninstall suspicious apps until your problem disappears.)
I think the *big* reason people are unhappy with Windows is spyware/virus/security issues. Much of this junk creates the "instability" people talk about. Plus, you have quite a few Windows software packages that have been through so many revisions over the years, they're just bloated monstrosities that slow down people's 2-3 year old PCs. (ACT! Contact Manager is a great example. It used to be a pretty slick application, but in the last 2 revisions or so, it's sluggish on a typical Pentium 4 class PC with 512MB of RAM running XP. Arguably, MS Office has reached the same point. MS "cheated" a bit with Office to make it appear "snappy" by pre-loading a bunch of code at Windows startup - but it starves other apps of RAM.)
At the end of the day, I think Apple likes being a "hardware" company, and knows tying the hardware to an excellent OS like OS X ensures they get those hardware sales. Microsoft, by contrast, doesn't sell PCs. I'm sure they agonize over the pros and cons of selling OS X for standard PCs all the time. But right now, I have to admit, selling OS X like that would probably put an end to their cool Mac hardware. I just don't think there would be enough unique features to justify a Mac purchase anymore? Already, the Chinese rip off their case designs almost as soon as they come up with them. (You can buy an aluminum G5/Mac Pro look-alike tower, or a Mac Mini look-alike. In the past, even eMachines sold an iMac look-alike.)
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Oddly enough, I used to be friends with a blind guy who insisted he was able to tell the difference in denominations of paper bills by their feel. I was totally amazed, but I was able to hand him $1 or $10 or $5 bills and he could tell me which was which.
... but I guess it's something he learned to effectively use the majority of the time - if someone with sight wasn't able to tell him which bills were which.
The only thing I can figure is that maybe the smaller bills get used more frequently, so the paper has a slightly more "worn" feel to it. Of course, this probably doesn't do him any good if you hand him crisp, new $1's
Right... However unfortunate it is, the majority of the population, when push comes to shove, is not going to resort to violence (or half the time, even motivated to peacefully protest) over our diminishing individual rights, as long as they still feel "comfortable" in their lifestyle.
It's still easier to moan and groan about each little incident for a little while (until you feel better that you "got it off your chest"), and go back to your own business.
Our "founding fathers" thought a violent revolution was needed over taxes that percentage-wise were far less than what we accept willingly today, for example. But our government is also a lot smarter/more manipulative than England was back then. (When they placed the taxes on tea, for example, they didn't get it there with a bunch of empty political promises and a vote of approval by the people, who were suckered into believing the lies.) They just ordered it, and it was so.
Our govt. has also become smart about "handling the poor" so they don't rise up in protest. Welfare programs abound, but typically, only as long as those collecting it don't work too hard or too long at their jobs. If you want housing assistance (a la section 8), daycare assistance for your children, or even assistance keeping your phone and DSL service activated, you have to make sure your income stays really low. This helps ensure their "loyalty", since at least initially, they're immediately much worse off without the assistance - if they take a full-time job with a little better pay or work a second job.
The "right circumstances" would require a "critical mass" of wealthy people and remaining "middle class" folks being imprisoned for things the masses didn't feel should be illegal, or perhaps enforcing a draft that covered a wide age range of people, for another "unjust war".
Except, are you sure the post office is really sending all those junk mailers back to the sender?
/., a year or two ago, where some people who worked for the post office explained that when items arrive "bulk rate mail" and you scribble "return to sender" and throw them back in a mailbox, they only get so far in the system before the post office just trashes them. They aren't willing to return them to a sender who only paid the discount bulk mail rate in the first place....
I remember reading a story on
I realize that's different for mail that includes postage-paid return mailers, but don't you think they'd simply quit including those in your junk mail, if everyone started misusing them?
Sure, you can do that ... but don't kid yourself about the "environmental advantages" of it. That "crap" getting sent off to the landfill is biodegradable paper! It's not going to be a problem. On the other hand, your action of mailing the junk mail back to the sender means an increase in the amount of mail to be transported. Sure, your individual letters won't have much impact -- but if everyone started taking your suggestion, the post office would waste a *lot* of fuel delivering unnecessary mail around.
I fully realize that a LOT of good teachers undergo punishment every week by rowdy students. BUT, I venture to say that those NEA/NJEA newsletters citing teachers as punished "half the time" are probably seeing something that's almost fair.
Even if 9/10 times, the "student is provoking the teacher" - so what? The teacher is expected to maintain a higher standard. The school classroom isn't a democracy, after all. Students don't really have much in the way of "individual rights" in school. If anything, they're run much more like a prison system than anything else. Metal detectors at the entrances and guards checking who goes in and out, etc. etc. If you give teachers that level of control over their students, then you're counting on them being "benevolent dictators", at the very least.
Being a teacher isn't an easy job, not is it one that some people are cut out for. In some ways, it's like being a police officer. Most people you deal with view you as "the enemy", yet expect you to come to their rescue, on demand.
Especially in the high-schools, I think a good teacher *earns* the respect of his/her students (or not). It's not so much a problem of parents not punishing them at home. That may or may not be true, but regardless, they're a captive audience of the teacher during the school day, each and every week. What the parents do with them at home is rather irrelevant. Teens always try to "test the limits", to see what they can get away with. Teachers need to make the boundaries really clear, up front, but still give their students complete respect, within those lines they've drawn.
As a big OS/2 supporter back in its heyday, I can attest to the fact that IBM shot itself in the foot, repeatedly, in their half-baked attempts to sell that product. Any idea that Microsoft "killed" OS/2 is nothing but revisionist history B.S.
... but I'd argue that if they did change, they might well be out of the computer hardware market completely today. (Asking Apple to drop their "proprietary" business model is essentially the same as asking them to become a software vendor, iPods not withstanding.)
OS/2 had a fanatical base of users who really wanted to see it take over. Quite a few open source utilities and apps were ported over, in attempts to bolster its "credibility" as a powerful OS. Entire magazines were published just for it. It had IRC channels devoted to it. And I remember the excitement OS/2 users had every time a commercial app would finally get native 32-bit support for it. But IBM did such boneheaded maneuvers as selling a whole line of PCs that came preloaded with *Windows* and weren't even certified as compatible with OS/2. They barely even tried to sell their last version of Warp, v4.0 "Merlin" - despite it having numerous innovative features that could have easily been marketed to the public as good reasons to buy it. (The integration of IBM's voice recognition and dictation system with the OS was years ahead of the competition, for example.)
The OS/2 community tried to keep on supporting the OS long after IBM gave up on it, in fact. But eventually, it just became pointless to try to run a "dead" OS with no driver support for any new peripherals, etc.
I will say though, in defense of Apple, they doggedly stuck to their original business model - which was really the model *every* brand of computer was sold with, before MS-DOS and "IBM compatible" became the "industry standard". If they caved in and started selling PC clones, or licensed out MacOS back then, where would they be today? You can say their unwillingness to change forced them down to 5% sales vs. 30% or more
Funny how one guy, a "tech writer", and the other, a decidedly NON tech writer, can both use the same technique to call attention to themselves.
.... all the same thing really. Just different ways to dodge reality for a while.
Write a load of opinionated FUD and enjoy the fallout.
*Everyone* enjoys diversion from "reality". Movie fans, sports fans, computer gamers, opera fans
Wrong! Taking this stance completely ignores some basic realities. For one, email communications is not "real time" in nature, unlike IM. Acting like the two are really "one and the same" under the law seems foolish for that reason alone. (EG. If I testify and can prove that in some situation, I immediately informed an individual about something by typing it to them during an IM session, that should hold a lot more "weight" than making the same claim of "immediately informing them" because I sent them off an email.)
Due to the immediate nature of IM communications, you have more "confirmation" that a person received your transmission too. On email, you can request a "return receipt" upon an individual opening your message, but that may or may not even work, depending on which email client they use. Beyond that rather broken tool, you really have no way of knowing if they read your message until/unless they reply to it at some point in the future.
With IM, you know when they're online vs. offline, and if you have a chat window open with them, it's reasonable to believe they read your message you typed them if the window didn't close up in the middle of you sending the text. (Unlike email, there's not the whole concern of "Did I mis-address the mesasge?")
I *so* agree with the original poster!
... but they probably didn't even think to put them in one when they wrote it up either. If we were slightly larger, I bet they would turn to "H1B workers" as a possible solution -- so I definitely can see how this all comes about.
In my current job position (title of "network manager"), it seems they create the job description as they go! Somebody gets the idea that "Hey, it would really be good if our computer guy understood how to do such-and-such on the computers!" and next thing you know, I'm pulled from my office into entire afternoons of training classes on things I'll probably never use again.
What they can't seem to grasp is that your I.T. staff isn't supposed to know *all aspects* of all the specialized software a company uses, or even 1/10th. of it, in many cases. It's the job of I.T. to make sure said software is properly installed and functioning for the employees who DO make good use of it every day.
I've already been asked to learn how to do AutoCAD drawings (despite no drafting or previous engineering experience!), how to program shop equipment that punches holes in steel beams (old MS-DOS based PC inside the piece of industrial equipment, so once again, they decide it's something I.T. should handle), and how to do cost-estimates for jobs in a industry-specific piece of software we use for the purpose. (Heck, I'm still not even sure what the different grades of steel look like, much less have any kind of knowledge of how long our shop takes to do certain processes to metals.)
It's not that I'm unwilling to learn new things. If they decide I should work on one of these tasks, I go and do it. But we're a small business with nobody else to take care of all the computers but myself and an outside consultant who comes in once a week. IMHO, they're foolish to waste my time with these tasks.
But again, it comes down to dollars and cents. They can't cost-justify hiring an engineer who can actually use AutoCAD properly, when the only real reason they need it is to make drawings of customer parts to be fed into another program that runs a burning table/cutting torch. So they figure "Ah, another task for our I.T. guy to do for us!"
I had no idea they'd need these things based on my job description
But what you're discussing is quite a bit different than the original poster's suggestion, is it not?
In the original post, he was proposing criminalizing the operation of an infected PC. In your case, you're talking more about some sort of "public PC health policy". (EG. I can't be arrested and criminally charged because I got sick with the measles. BUT, the health dept. can offer vaccinations against it, and in co-operation with such places as school systems, it can be demanded that a child receives one before being allowed in school.)
Exactly what the computer equivalent might be is probably still unclear. But one example I could envision might be "Homeland Security" developing guidelines on firewall requirements that they recommend all Internet users follow. Then, commercial ISPs could mandate that you use a hardware firewall/router that meets this minimum requirements, or be subject to account termination. (Presumably, they could issue an appropriate unit with all new accounts, and run automated processes that do some sort of "challenge/response" query at random, to see if the units are still in place?) I know in my own community, Charter Cable is very bad about this - since their standard install only includes a cable modem with no firewall or even NAT capabilities in it. Sure, they provide an "installation CD" with some half-baked anti-spyware/virus type software on it and tell you to use the Windows firewall on your PC. But in my opinion, that's ineffective. It slows down older computers so people uninstall it. Some people just neglect to install it when they realize their net connection works fine without it. Others purposely skip it in favor of their own pet programs, which may or may not turn out to be good choices.
Nope! Not a viable or reasonable solution. You think the RIAA looks bad now for suing grandmas and small kids?!?
Think of all the computer users out there who did nothing more than purchase a brand new PC in order to use it exactly for its "intended purposes". (writing school papers, getting on the Internet to read web sites and do email, and play a few games) The fact that they get hijacked and serve as part of a bot-net while being used as-advertised means the fault doesn't lie with the end-user!
Put yourself in the shoes of "Joe User" for a moment, if you will. You know nothing about software programming. You simply purchased your new Dell/HP/IBM/Acer/whatever because it was recommended to you as a "good computer", and your kid's school said they needed one for homework assignments. Now, you're looking at being charged with a crime for not properly securing a flawed Microsoft OS against someone's botnet?? What would constitute "properly securing" the machine, anyway? In court, you'd certainly be able to argue that this amounts to a demand you start a new career as a software developer and get hired at Microsoft, or else you can't comply!
Yeah, tried the freezer trick (which did work for me once before). No luck. I think the motor in the drive simply died.
The freezer trick is more likely to work in cases where a component on the circuit board of the drive is defective/failing. (Bad components often still function as long as they're cold enough, but quit performing within normal specs when they warm up.)
That's also why the old-time TV repairmen used to carry a spray can of "component cooler" with them. They could temporarily chill individual parts until they found a culprit.
Yeah... OnTrack has been around for *years*, doing data-recovery. I believe "DriveSavers" is another worthy competitor offering the same services.
I used to work for a small business that partnered up with them to get a discount on drive recovery work we sent in to them (and then we'd get to keep the difference as a commission).
The problem with these places is that the cost of recovering data is so high, it's unfathomable for most home or small business customers. For example, one of my previous customers had their home office PC's drive fail after it was only a year old or so. They had all of their tax records stored on it, and shortly after it crashed, they discovered they were being audited by the IRS! They wanted us to attempt to recover it, but the drive refused to even spin up - so there was nothing else I was able to do. The quotes I received for recovery started at the $3000 range and up. (They go by the size of the hard drive, primarily.) When I told them the estimated cost, they cringed and saying "That's 3 times what the whole computer cost us new, last year!", decided to manually reassemble all their tax records, rather than retrieve the data from the drive.
Not only does this figure not really surprise me, but I'm not even sure why it makes people feel like porn on the net isn't very prevalent?
When you consider that the majority of businesses put up some type of web site advertising their existence, all of the personal web pages/sites people have built over the years, all of the educational and research sites that exist, and all of the non-profit/charitable organizations with a web presence -- not to mention the huge amount of content related to computers, technology and even gaming (since the net is the best place to publish that type of content), it surely comes out to FAR more than the number of sites interested in selling porn.
For that matter, the porn site business on the net has probably been downsizing to reflect market interest, just like any other industry does as it "matures". For a while, everybody thought "throw up a web site full of naked women pics and PROFIT!" Now, you're seeing them struggle to find creative "niches" that hold people's interest. Otherwise, they look just like every other porn site and they slowly die off. I'm sure there's been a lot of consolidation going on too, with a successful site buying up not-so-successful sites and hosting them at new locations, with more cross-advertising and promotional subscription packages giving someone access to both site for one price, etc. etc.
Like someone else already said though, arguing "Fair Use" as the provision for allowing backups of your work or conversions to other formats for personal use is a flawed idea. The RIAA is simply pointing this out, rather than addressing the fact that the "Right of First Sale" is actually the legislation better suited to support the legality of doing these things.
The "Fair Use" portions of our copyright law weren't really designed to address issues like making copies of one's purchased music in MP3 format, or burning a copy of a CD to use in case you scratch up your original. Many people (including myself, before I read more deeply into the laws) just assume "Fair Use" provisions are what we're fighting over, since the name would make you think that's the part of the law that's applicable.
And for what it's worth, the issue of groups like the CEA backing Grokster (or any other p2p sharing network) probably hinge on the idea that one shouldn't get in trouble for selectively downloading the same songs or albums he/she already purchased in the past, in one form or another. I'd say that's sensible enough. (Because after all, what's the difference between ripping tracks off your purchased CD to MP3s you can then use in your portable player, and downloading them, pre-ripped, just to save you some duplication of effort?) Problem is, it's the guy *sharing* the tracks that's the issue. He/she doesn't appear to legally be able to share the songs with everybody in the world happening to request them off his/her server.
The solution? Probably should come down to the record labels being forced to provide their *own* download servers, capable of serving customers digital copies of tracks upon providing proof of initial purchase of the tracks on CD or other format.....
Someone modded your post "funny", but I think you make a valid point. On the other hand though, without a relatively charismatic "face" to attach to the "concept" of the Linux OS - how far would the project really have gotten?
... only not in the immediate future. Essentially, it forces some issues and makes media conglomerates seriously consider the potential value in letting 3rd. parties repost their content on the Internet for public viewing. Without the financial backing of a business the size of Google - it would just be legislated away, without a second thought. But now, it becomes a possible "driver" of change. Networks have to actually consider concepts like allowing unlimited reproductions of their copyrighted content to be made and hosted on a web site, in exchange for a flat up-front fee. Maybe this model will finally become "the norm" someday, allowing cheaper channel subcriptions on cable/satellite, and eventually, moving the networks onto broadband Internet.
Outside the realm of software developers, students and computer enthusiasts, it takes some kind of actual "marketing" to create awareness and legitimacy for a piece of software. Torvalds, by retaining the rights to his kernel, while still allowing unlimited free usage of it, became the de-facto authority behind the whole project. He gave the mass media a figure to interview and question about Linux.
And as for proclaiming YouTube "invention of the year" - maybe they were just exercising some foresight? Personally, I think YouTube has the potential to change the way people watch television
No - MS discontinued their line of wireless cards and routers. Too much competition from the likes of Linksys, D-Link and SMC.
They also briefly experimented with selling a Microsoft cordless phone with USB interface to a PC, for the purposes of handling call logging and caller ID display to your PC screen. But that one flopped too.
I don't quite agree with that statement. I know quite a few Mac OS X users who are still running version 10.3 Panther, and even a couple 10.2 Jaguar systems out there. Upgrading at $129 each and every time Apple releases a new OS version isn't at all a requirement.
The "granularity" simply means you can buy an OS with the "latest and greatest" features more often, instead of having to wait years for one to come out...
If I had points handy, I'd mod you up right now.
... but that's not the point. It would make customers all go out and pay full retail price for Windows, which in turn, would cause backlash as they suddenly realize how much of the price of their new PC *really* goes towards the OS on it.)
I've been saying this since day 1, and my opinion still hasn't changed. Microsoft is only a "monopoly" because most customers are complacent/satisfied enough with what they offer to keep buying it. As far as I'm concerned, anti-trust laws were designed and envisioned to be used in situations where one firm has complete control of something necessary for everyone's daily life. Oil companies, for example, pretty much act as "hinge-pins" for all the other aspects of our economy. (No gasoline means no more deliveries, which means no more commerce, online or offline. It also severely curtails people's ability to travel to and from work each day.) We'd have serious problems if, say, Shell Oil was the *only* supplier of heating oil and gasoline for all of the United States.
Microsoft's operating system and software products are simply *not* purchases that are "necessities" for any of us. Sure, computers are everywhere - but let's face it. The copy of Windows you already use today will work tomorrow the same way it worked today, whether or not Microsoft keeps selling new products and versions tomorrow.
There's really no reason companies like Acer couldn't just say "Screw it!" and sell their PCs with no operating system pre-loaded at all. Or better yet, include a nicely configured Linux distro. If everyone started doing this, in lieu of paying the "Vista OEM tax" - it would immediately force MS to reconsider their pricing structure. (It might not even mean more users would actually switch OS's
For my part, I've pretty much switched to Apple Macs, because I feel I'm getting a much better value for my dollar out of their hardware/OS/software combination than what MS has been offering lately. I just helped a good friend of mine switch to a Mac too. She never used anything but Windows before using my Mac - but immediately liked it. Unfortunately, she just didn't have the money for a new Mac (since she was still plugging along on Windows ME on a used Pentium II machine). But I was able to find a used PowerMac G4 Cube for about $225 on eBay. Spent about $120 more to get it upgraded to 1.5GB of RAM, and threw a used IDE hard drive in it I had lying around - and voila! A system that runs OS X Tiger 10.4 for well below the cost of a Mac Mini, and is more upgradable than one too. The fact it fits in a small amount of desk space and runs nearly sliently are extra bonuses.
Now, she has no more hassles with spyware and virus problems (which caused her huge problems at least twice in the past year or two), a "modern" OS instead of something that wasn't even good 5-6 years ago when it was released, and an OS that will only cost about $129 to upgrade when the next major release comes out - vs. Microsoft's $300 or so for something roughly equivalent in Vista.
I tend to agree. MS has already witnessed what BSD's code could do for Apple with OS X, and they're probably concerned, deep down, that maybe their proprietary OS core really isn't ever going to pan out as the best solution. (EG. They rewrote their whole TCP/IP stack from scratch for Vista, supposedly. Who knows what bugs will be exploited there in the years to come, or how long it will take to reach "maturity", where it's comparably as solid as the one used by free Unix OS's?)
... a dedicated file/print server that was rock-solid reliable. The eventual migration of Novell to Linux as the base of their product finally opened the door for MS to partner up with them or buy "influence" in them. That has to be worth *some* money to MS, just for the sake of "tying up loose ends".
If they buy some friends in the Linux community, they can start implementing their code without looking like they "lost" to the competition.
Furthermore, at least in Novell's case, you're talking about a company that was a huge thorn in MS's side for YEARS. Novell had an enterprise-level product that MS couldn't match
Right... but how long will the catalyst remain effective? As we all know from our cars, the catalytic converters wear out. (Very quickly if something else goes wrong with the engine's timing and it runs "rich" for a little while.)
Seems to me this doctored concrete might have its pollution-converting properties exhausted pretty quickly in a polluted environment.
I do print my own greeting cards nowdays. Can't see the point in paying today's high prices for pre-made greeting cards, when the only thing "personal" about one is your signature or note scribbled on the bottom.
Otherwise though, it comes down to the "time is money" adage. I have a little electronics experience, but I don't consider myself particularly skilled in woodworking or other elements of crafting that would be required to make a nice "enclosure" for anything I made for someone.
The time it would take me to make my own gift would make it much more sensible to just buy a gift instead, and spend a few extra hours working to cover the expense.
Absolutely! I gave every single Libertarian candidate on the ballot my vote this time around. The most disappointing thing was, in several cases, my *only* choice was a Democrat or a write-in candidate! Not only were there no Independents to vote for, but Republicans didn't even have anyone running against them!
You have to wonder what the point is in voting when you only get one option, plus a random chance to write someone in. (Obviously, lacking some sort of special campaign aimed at it, write-ins are throw-away votes.)
1. You buy hundreds of dollars worth of iPod compatible accessories (such as the iPod interfaces that integrate one with your car stereo, or something like a DLO dock to attach to a home stereo and TV set), so why look for alternatives that make all those add-ons useless?
2. If you dropped your $400 iPod and broke it, it's just like dropping your $400 PDA/phone and breaking it, or dropping you $1000+ laptop and cracking the screen. You *might* get it serviced for free, IF you paid extra for an extended warranty of some type. Otherwise, yeah - that's how it works. You buy another one, or pay full price for a non-warranty repair (which is often not as good a deal as just buying another device). Why would you think other brands of MP3 players would be "more repairable" than iPods are?
3. Replacement batteries are available for iPods of all generations, usually with even better life between charges than the original had. My local CompUSA had several in their "bargain bin" for about $15 each, last month - including replacement instructions and a special tool to help pry off the back of the iPod.
Yeah, but in reality, is "stability" that much of an issue anymore, anyway? Most everyone I know who uses XP (or even Windows 2000) admits that major crashes and instability are mostly a thing of the past. Sure, you get the occasional glitchy application that causes a memory leak and forces you to reboot after a while. But that's true of OS X software as well. And more often than not, you can pin down the culprit after a while. (Just uninstall suspicious apps until your problem disappears.)
I think the *big* reason people are unhappy with Windows is spyware/virus/security issues. Much of this junk creates the "instability" people talk about. Plus, you have quite a few Windows software packages that have been through so many revisions over the years, they're just bloated monstrosities that slow down people's 2-3 year old PCs. (ACT! Contact Manager is a great example. It used to be a pretty slick application, but in the last 2 revisions or so, it's sluggish on a typical Pentium 4 class PC with 512MB of RAM running XP. Arguably, MS Office has reached the same point. MS "cheated" a bit with Office to make it appear "snappy" by pre-loading a bunch of code at Windows startup - but it starves other apps of RAM.)
At the end of the day, I think Apple likes being a "hardware" company, and knows tying the hardware to an excellent OS like OS X ensures they get those hardware sales. Microsoft, by contrast, doesn't sell PCs. I'm sure they agonize over the pros and cons of selling OS X for standard PCs all the time. But right now, I have to admit, selling OS X like that would probably put an end to their cool Mac hardware. I just don't think there would be enough unique features to justify a Mac purchase anymore? Already, the Chinese rip off their case designs almost as soon as they come up with them. (You can buy an aluminum G5/Mac Pro look-alike tower, or a Mac Mini look-alike. In the past, even eMachines sold an iMac look-alike.)