Are you insane? The whole point of free speech has precious little to do with whether or not you offend someone. Who gives a rats ass. You know those kids in Tianamen Square offended the hell out of the government and its supporters. So...when attempting to keep your slipping nation free, you should have to identify yourself publicly as a dissenter? So wiretaps and the like don't bother you either right? Because you should only be free when you identify yourself. The same holds true of corruption, when you blow the whistle on corruption you lose reputation with the people in power that are corrupt, if you can do it anonymously you can maintain your safety and still help justice be done.
Try military IT. Holy freaking crap talk about acronym hell. While the military tends to avoid recursive acronyms (thank god), they are VERY fond of acronyms that you can pronounce in some fashion.
Its pretty bad when you can sit around attempting to create a meaningful sentence using nothing but acronyms and a few articles (a, the, etc) and not only succeed but succeed frequently.
If the numbers are correct I imagine its just a lack of clarity in the comparison. A bicycle is 'very fast' compared to a skateboard, but not to a car.
Ok..first my main issue is this. Redhat costs X, OEM Windows costs Y. Well my friend...you need to compare the cost of RETAIL Windows to RETAIL Redhat because unless you are doing something illegal, or giving unfair advantage due to draconian pc mfg deals, you can't typically buy OEM legally.
That said, I'm a little sketchy on the whole OSS business model, and I imagine a great number of big companies are still trying to figure out how to play the game and not lose a ton. I have always questioned the support costs because the IT department of a Windows shop and the IT department of a *nix shop are also an apples and oranges kind of deal. You don't need the same kind of people in those shops, and if you are hiring the same kind of people you are probably suffering. I have met alot of really smart windows admin types, but comparing the really good windows admin types to the really good *nix admin types, the *nix admins typically have a MUCH better understanding of the underlying concepts involved in networking and computing. I have gotten into many an argument with otherwise very intelligent Win admins that just do not get the lower level workings and interactions of things like SMTP and DNS and other stuff. It has been my experience that solid *nix admins do things MUCH cleaner on the network, the reliance on pretty GUI stuff just isn't as strong and the understanding of lower level concepts tends to be much more rounded. Win networks tend to have dozens of different software packages floating around that are all duplicating functionality and chewing through bandwidth for no particular reason. I spent a bit of time with MRTG and some scripting and was able to provide more information about the network in an easier to read format at $0 cost, while CiscoWorks, HP OV, and some other monitoring software were all running, barely utilized because they are all everything and the kitchen sink type applications, and chewing through bandwidth like there was no tommorow, and require a considerable amount of training just to make good use of them, and a great deal of training to properly set them up and operate them.
Parallel? It was the first thing I thought...and given that Heinlein was a military man (Navy IIRC) I don't know that it really counts as a parallel or just evidence of how slow the military can move on ideas:) Remember we are still flying jets that were built decades ago.
I suppose it depends on the specifics of "protectionism". I mean realistically, the whole cheap labor thing in the US has been made illegal for good reason. Child labor, sweat shops, and don't forget "company towns". All of these terribly unethical practices are illegal here stateside, but not illegal in many of the cheap offshore places...in fact, in quite a few that is what makes them cheap. I don't think we should ban offshoring, or even penalize it. I think we should just enforce standards on the companies wanting to offshore. You will make sure that your offshore business partners aren't doing the things that are illgal here or we nail you too. I mean after all...its ok to go after 'sex tourists' for going over seas and sleeping with kids because its legal there, why turn a blind eye to companies effectively engaging in the same types of quasilegal behavior just because they turn a buck doing it.
Your idealism is admirable but your realism is lacking. The key point of our union of states was to allow the states to basically handle their own business while the federal only existed to ensure the states played nice with eachother. A UN of sorts. If you think that the Civil War had anything to do with slavery you are sadly mistaken and need to reread your history. The Civil War was all about states rights, the slavery issue is just a nice way to polorize the people against states rights by making states rights = all about slavery. As much as I deplore slavery of any form, I'm afraid the wrong side may have won. But if you don't believe me, tell your state to change the speedlimit or drinking age and see what happens to the federal dollars. The feds will take taxes from a states citizens, and then if that state doesn't do what the fed wants them to do (see drinking age or speed limits for example) they refuse to give the money back to the state. The whole reason for the federal government was to maintain that union, and a huge part of that is the interstate commerce aspect (not levying huge import/export taxes for example). Those days are LONG since gone, and now the federal government lords over the states...and you see our rights suffering because of this.
Not that I disagree with your conclusion, but your reasoning is terribly faulty. If our economy tanks...we go into a depression...and while yes the corporations did lose alot of money...they lost it because the PEOPLE were struggling to stay alive. So the state of the economy is a terribly important thing for the government to worry about, in fact, that really was the main purpose for our government even existing, to manage interstate commerce of our united states (USA isn't just some catchy acronym...it actually used to stand for United States of America...as in a group of independent states working together). I am more concerned why they are so worried about all this other garbage that really has no place in government instead of the state of our economy (which is pretty shakey from a peoples perspective) but not terribly shakey for the global corporation. When you can make stuff for pennies in China and sell them to "rich" by comparison americans...your company is doing great, but the American economy is going to suffer due to the displacement.
You just spoke negatively against the administration and against the past actions of the religious right. You have been convicted and found guilty of 2 thought crimes and are now considered a terrorist. Prepare for rights violation.
Its up on the barrel where your off hand rests the gun. Typically on the right side given that most shooters are right handed, and if it was on the left side it would be an L1 button and they would have to rewrite reality to allow for L1 to being your aim button. If it is broke I would suggest filing a lawsuit against the gun manufacturer for not creating a gun that allowed to use your video game training to fire it.
And your point is totally lost in your condesending tone and poor explanation. It has nothing to do with "your relation to congress" it has to do with your legal rights and you cannot be charged with anything for exercising freedom of speech. I don't have to let you exercise your freedom of speech on PRIVATE property...however public property your right to free speech is also my right to be offended, but nothing can come of it. TSA officials are government employees and thus DID attempt to abridge his right of free speech, actually if anything, even assuming that airports are somehow private property...the little screening area would be government controlled area and thus his free speech would exist INSIDE the screening area and the airport owners could remove him for exercising it OUTSIDE of that area.
I had honestly always wondered how effective it would even be really. I mean...certainly nice idea...but in the case of MAD...how many radio stations will still be operational due to being either molten slag or EMPd to death. Or really if the federal government would survive in any meaningful way to even make use of said system. I had always kind of assumed that really the only thing left would be the pirate radio stations at that point:)
Well the anti incumbent sentiment doesn't mean a party switch either. They could just be replaced with more moderate Rs. As far as 2000 and 2004 elections that kept Bush in...well...widely know that there were alot of "issues" in both, 2004 too with lots of bullying and denied voting. Even assuming that both elections were 100% clean and no coercement and whatnot...you don't get to be president on 51% of the vote because anyone wanted you in office...you get there because they didn't want the other guy a little more than you. I blame the Dems for the last 8 years of Bush. Had they run candidates that didn't suck total donkey dick then it would have been non issue. Karl Rove is a mud slinging genius n all, but the Ds pretty much gave him gold to work with.
Or more than likely, like most of the suddenly less stupid things as of late...he knows America is pissed as hell, that as high as 60% want a total replacement of all incumbents in this election...that his support is pathetic...and that his control over the other 2 branches is not going to be very good if all of his little R friends are replaced by Ds.
The populace tends to stay terribly uninformed...but enough noise has been made about "They have Dubya Em Dees!" "Ooops, ok well Saddam and Bin Laden were working together!" "Ooops, well uhm...we are bringing freedom to the..." Yeah...people are starting to catch on that this guy can't seem to breath a word of truth about much of his policy.
Even a growing wave of his own party is turning against him...I suspect history will not be kind to Condi, Rummy, and the Shrub. And what the hell happened to Cheney anyways...you don't hear shit about him anymore...safely tucked away after the Halliburton stuff came out.
"OOOOH other companies are making money on game consoles we should do that too!"
"OOOOH other companies are making money on online music we should do that too!"
"OOOOH other companies are making money on mp3 players we should do that too!"
"OOOOH other companies are making money on social websites we should do that too!"
"OOOOH other companies are making money on security software we should do that too!"
"OOOOH other companies are making money on search engines we should do that too!"
"OOOOH other companies..." well you get the picture
I realize that MS "innovation" has largely been a joke from day one given they steal or copy most of their "innovations" but its just getting sad watching them. Couple that with them losing so many of their higher ups these days...not looking good for Redmond. I still don't understand how they managed to get anywhere...marketing seems to be the common excuse because its certainly not a good product...but I give you the following examples of MS marketing's pathetic failures. Windows CE, Windows ME, Windows NT, Windows XP...Win CEMENT XP PCs into paperweights one desktop at a time.... Or just Windows CE, Win CE, wince (as in wincing because its that aweful). Or the final one that REALLY explains Bill Gates and his must dominate the world mentality...Micro Soft...sounds like someone who needs a penis pump and viagra....unless that was the plan all along...create a shoddy OS, dominate the world, create spambots...get discrete emails for penis pumps and viagra!!! success!! no wonder he is stepping down...his job is done!
I think what he is saying is that N'sync is the same thing as New Kids on the Block..and you only know that N'sync sucks now because you forgot about,New Kids on the Block (until I just mentioned it of coarse, and if you have any taste you will loathing me for those aweful memories).
Quite frankly I'm dissapointed. It SHOULD kill small children and eat them for any meal! We need to make sure it can determine the outcome of any given child's future. Future lawyers...kill em n eat em... Future **AA employees... kill em n eat em... Future DRM creators... warm them up and eat them alive so we can all hear them scream... Future MS programmers...kill them but don't eat them...lord knows what kind of evil sits in their minds waiting to come out.
People were identified by the searches. There was the old woman in FL who they were able to identify based on her searches...then showed up on her door step to interview her and she kindly explained that yes those were her searches. She also was able to demonstrate quite well why obtaining search information (see feds clamoring for it) is worthless...all of the diseases and what not that would lead you to believe she is very sick or hypocondriac...turns out she was doing research for friends. Oh well... for all the "Freedom" we have here in America I don't think ANY other group of people is so willing to sell it or hand it over to the government for money or protection or both.
I mostly agree but there is a bit more to it than just that. There is the whole emergency broadcast thing. Where basically every station shuts down and a few ramp up their power to unreal levels and can thus broadcast emergency information. IIRC there is a station in TX that when this system is activated can be heard clearly in the northern states. Been some years since I have heard anything about it, but one of my history teachers worked at a radio station as a kid, that whole cold war era stuff. Well the little emergency message thing came across that said shutdown...so he did...then turns out it was a mistake and it was supposed to be a test. Anyone dealing with high power broadcast systems knows that the power up/down on these monstrosities is not just an on/off switch like a TV...it takes quite a while for them to warm up/cool down for operation. His bosses weren't pleased, but the message was a mistake so he got off the hook:). So the FCC does have its purpose...but that purpose has been steadily growing and THAT needs to be stopped immediately...they need to be shoved back into regulating and managing the things they were designed for...not censorship and all of this other nonsense. A good start would be enforcing its rules about media channel ownership...but hey...how else can corporate america force feed you garbage? What gain is there for MSNBC to report MS court stuff without tremendous spin? Oh well..
Well the site is down, but browsing through the summary and comments I see that Jurrasic Park is on there and Firewall...so my bones to be picking.
Jurrasic Park...well when I saw this I thought "damnit that is stupid" but I hadn't touched linux yet...some years roll by...I install linux...stumble across a 3d file system viewer thing and I thought to myself "This is Jurrasic Park! I know this!" Not to mention any claims of a kid that young not being able to use a computer has obviously not spent any time around kids that young with computers. I was writing simple programs in BASIC on my C64 at age 11, and I have seen kids these days that make that seem pretty behind the curve.
Firewall...iffy movie...was sorta entertaining...was actually hoping for a little more tech focus but was still pleasantly surprised that they addressed the whole security thing as not just being wizbang nonsense. You can bet when your organization catches some alerts all your firewall guys are going to be sitting watching traffic and putting in new blocks...or you should probably be letting them go. As far as the iPod thing..well..it was a bit of a stretch, but hardly unbelievable given the number of odd ipod hacks out and about. I mean its totally unrealistic to expect people to do strange things with an ipod right? Go look at how they got linux on an ipod...using the piezo to dump the software via audio and recording it and then reassembling it from an audio dump?! That is freaking impressive geek stuff, and terribly innovative. So you are going to tell me there is no possible way to make an ipod a portable scanning thing when its already been hacked so much? Quit yer bitchin, just because noone has ACTUALLY done it doesn't mean it can't be done...of coarse...unless you refuse to believe that aircraft work, radar works, or computers exist, etc etc etc.
That having been said...I think some of the other movies are probably spot on. Hackers was so much innane drivel that the parts bearing any truth were so lost in the cruft that its just easier to assume its all stupid...fun movie to watch none the less...but technologically stupid...and a villian on a skateboard...ugh how Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle do you have to be?
Well it sounds like you have a sketchy understanding of economics. I would have had the same issue, but I had a pretty decent econ teacher that explained it in a pretty sane manner. "Wealth Creation" has 2 major problems...1. The connotations to the folks with more science backgrounds doesn't come off quite right 2. Its used and abused to sell self help and get rich quick type books.
I am also no economist, but I guess to try and explain at least why your understanding is a bit off we will start with a circle. 360 degrees of round. Now I use "Angle Creation" to turn it into a triangle...still 360 degrees...now I create some more angles and make it a square...etc etc etc. In economics its considerably more complicated than that, but it is largely based around leveraging debt. If I have a $500k house that is paid off its not doing anything for me, but if I take out a home equity loan of $400k to put 10% down on buying a 4 million dollar appt complex which I then procede to rent out all the units which covers the mortgage and expenses and gives me profit...that is wealth creation. Sure I now have $4 million in debt now, but I also have revenue coming in as opposed to having 0 debt and 0 revenue. Additionaly "wealth" isn't generally a fixed number like "money", its more of a ratio of your incoming money to outgoing money.
Of coarse this is largley moot point now that our wonderful Supreme Court found immenent domain constitutional, so the government can come in and just take any property you own regardless of if its paid off or not and without compensation, if some other shmuck will pay more in taxes on it.
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Are you insane? The whole point of free speech has precious little to do with whether or not you offend someone. Who gives a rats ass. You know those kids in Tianamen Square offended the hell out of the government and its supporters. So...when attempting to keep your slipping nation free, you should have to identify yourself publicly as a dissenter? So wiretaps and the like don't bother you either right? Because you should only be free when you identify yourself. The same holds true of corruption, when you blow the whistle on corruption you lose reputation with the people in power that are corrupt, if you can do it anonymously you can maintain your safety and still help justice be done.
Try military IT. Holy freaking crap talk about acronym hell. While the military tends to avoid recursive acronyms (thank god), they are VERY fond of acronyms that you can pronounce in some fashion.
Its pretty bad when you can sit around attempting to create a meaningful sentence using nothing but acronyms and a few articles (a, the, etc) and not only succeed but succeed frequently.
If the numbers are correct I imagine its just a lack of clarity in the comparison. A bicycle is 'very fast' compared to a skateboard, but not to a car.
Ok..first my main issue is this. Redhat costs X, OEM Windows costs Y. Well my friend...you need to compare the cost of RETAIL Windows to RETAIL Redhat because unless you are doing something illegal, or giving unfair advantage due to draconian pc mfg deals, you can't typically buy OEM legally.
That said, I'm a little sketchy on the whole OSS business model, and I imagine a great number of big companies are still trying to figure out how to play the game and not lose a ton. I have always questioned the support costs because the IT department of a Windows shop and the IT department of a *nix shop are also an apples and oranges kind of deal. You don't need the same kind of people in those shops, and if you are hiring the same kind of people you are probably suffering. I have met alot of really smart windows admin types, but comparing the really good windows admin types to the really good *nix admin types, the *nix admins typically have a MUCH better understanding of the underlying concepts involved in networking and computing. I have gotten into many an argument with otherwise very intelligent Win admins that just do not get the lower level workings and interactions of things like SMTP and DNS and other stuff. It has been my experience that solid *nix admins do things MUCH cleaner on the network, the reliance on pretty GUI stuff just isn't as strong and the understanding of lower level concepts tends to be much more rounded. Win networks tend to have dozens of different software packages floating around that are all duplicating functionality and chewing through bandwidth for no particular reason. I spent a bit of time with MRTG and some scripting and was able to provide more information about the network in an easier to read format at $0 cost, while CiscoWorks, HP OV, and some other monitoring software were all running, barely utilized because they are all everything and the kitchen sink type applications, and chewing through bandwidth like there was no tommorow, and require a considerable amount of training just to make good use of them, and a great deal of training to properly set them up and operate them.
Parallel? It was the first thing I thought...and given that Heinlein was a military man (Navy IIRC) I don't know that it really counts as a parallel or just evidence of how slow the military can move on ideas :) Remember we are still flying jets that were built decades ago.
I suppose it depends on the specifics of "protectionism". I mean realistically, the whole cheap labor thing in the US has been made illegal for good reason. Child labor, sweat shops, and don't forget "company towns". All of these terribly unethical practices are illegal here stateside, but not illegal in many of the cheap offshore places...in fact, in quite a few that is what makes them cheap. I don't think we should ban offshoring, or even penalize it. I think we should just enforce standards on the companies wanting to offshore. You will make sure that your offshore business partners aren't doing the things that are illgal here or we nail you too. I mean after all...its ok to go after 'sex tourists' for going over seas and sleeping with kids because its legal there, why turn a blind eye to companies effectively engaging in the same types of quasilegal behavior just because they turn a buck doing it.
Your idealism is admirable but your realism is lacking. The key point of our union of states was to allow the states to basically handle their own business while the federal only existed to ensure the states played nice with eachother. A UN of sorts. If you think that the Civil War had anything to do with slavery you are sadly mistaken and need to reread your history. The Civil War was all about states rights, the slavery issue is just a nice way to polorize the people against states rights by making states rights = all about slavery. As much as I deplore slavery of any form, I'm afraid the wrong side may have won. But if you don't believe me, tell your state to change the speedlimit or drinking age and see what happens to the federal dollars. The feds will take taxes from a states citizens, and then if that state doesn't do what the fed wants them to do (see drinking age or speed limits for example) they refuse to give the money back to the state. The whole reason for the federal government was to maintain that union, and a huge part of that is the interstate commerce aspect (not levying huge import/export taxes for example). Those days are LONG since gone, and now the federal government lords over the states...and you see our rights suffering because of this.
Not that I disagree with your conclusion, but your reasoning is terribly faulty. If our economy tanks...we go into a depression...and while yes the corporations did lose alot of money...they lost it because the PEOPLE were struggling to stay alive. So the state of the economy is a terribly important thing for the government to worry about, in fact, that really was the main purpose for our government even existing, to manage interstate commerce of our united states (USA isn't just some catchy acronym...it actually used to stand for United States of America...as in a group of independent states working together). I am more concerned why they are so worried about all this other garbage that really has no place in government instead of the state of our economy (which is pretty shakey from a peoples perspective) but not terribly shakey for the global corporation. When you can make stuff for pennies in China and sell them to "rich" by comparison americans...your company is doing great, but the American economy is going to suffer due to the displacement.
You just spoke negatively against the administration and against the past actions of the religious right. You have been convicted and found guilty of 2 thought crimes and are now considered a terrorist. Prepare for rights violation.
Its up on the barrel where your off hand rests the gun. Typically on the right side given that most shooters are right handed, and if it was on the left side it would be an L1 button and they would have to rewrite reality to allow for L1 to being your aim button. If it is broke I would suggest filing a lawsuit against the gun manufacturer for not creating a gun that allowed to use your video game training to fire it.
And your point is totally lost in your condesending tone and poor explanation. It has nothing to do with "your relation to congress" it has to do with your legal rights and you cannot be charged with anything for exercising freedom of speech. I don't have to let you exercise your freedom of speech on PRIVATE property...however public property your right to free speech is also my right to be offended, but nothing can come of it. TSA officials are government employees and thus DID attempt to abridge his right of free speech, actually if anything, even assuming that airports are somehow private property...the little screening area would be government controlled area and thus his free speech would exist INSIDE the screening area and the airport owners could remove him for exercising it OUTSIDE of that area.
I had honestly always wondered how effective it would even be really. I mean...certainly nice idea...but in the case of MAD...how many radio stations will still be operational due to being either molten slag or EMPd to death. Or really if the federal government would survive in any meaningful way to even make use of said system. I had always kind of assumed that really the only thing left would be the pirate radio stations at that point :)
It would seem the anti overlord regime modded me overrated. Doom on them when the overlords arive!
What ever happened to the rumors of "Spaceballs 3: The Search for Spaceballs 2"?
I for one welcome our six eyed overlords or something.
Well the anti incumbent sentiment doesn't mean a party switch either. They could just be replaced with more moderate Rs. As far as 2000 and 2004 elections that kept Bush in...well...widely know that there were alot of "issues" in both, 2004 too with lots of bullying and denied voting. Even assuming that both elections were 100% clean and no coercement and whatnot...you don't get to be president on 51% of the vote because anyone wanted you in office...you get there because they didn't want the other guy a little more than you. I blame the Dems for the last 8 years of Bush. Had they run candidates that didn't suck total donkey dick then it would have been non issue. Karl Rove is a mud slinging genius n all, but the Ds pretty much gave him gold to work with.
Or more than likely, like most of the suddenly less stupid things as of late...he knows America is pissed as hell, that as high as 60% want a total replacement of all incumbents in this election...that his support is pathetic...and that his control over the other 2 branches is not going to be very good if all of his little R friends are replaced by Ds.
The populace tends to stay terribly uninformed...but enough noise has been made about "They have Dubya Em Dees!" "Ooops, ok well Saddam and Bin Laden were working together!" "Ooops, well uhm...we are bringing freedom to the..." Yeah...people are starting to catch on that this guy can't seem to breath a word of truth about much of his policy.
Even a growing wave of his own party is turning against him...I suspect history will not be kind to Condi, Rummy, and the Shrub. And what the hell happened to Cheney anyways...you don't hear shit about him anymore...safely tucked away after the Halliburton stuff came out.
Does anyone else see the trend?
"OOOOH other companies are making money on game consoles we should do that too!"
"OOOOH other companies are making money on online music we should do that too!"
"OOOOH other companies are making money on mp3 players we should do that too!"
"OOOOH other companies are making money on social websites we should do that too!"
"OOOOH other companies are making money on security software we should do that too!"
"OOOOH other companies are making money on search engines we should do that too!"
"OOOOH other companies..." well you get the picture
I realize that MS "innovation" has largely been a joke from day one given they steal or copy most of their "innovations" but its just getting sad watching them. Couple that with them losing so many of their higher ups these days...not looking good for Redmond. I still don't understand how they managed to get anywhere...marketing seems to be the common excuse because its certainly not a good product...but I give you the following examples of MS marketing's pathetic failures. Windows CE, Windows ME, Windows NT, Windows XP...Win CEMENT XP PCs into paperweights one desktop at a time.... Or just Windows CE, Win CE, wince (as in wincing because its that aweful). Or the final one that REALLY explains Bill Gates and his must dominate the world mentality...Micro Soft...sounds like someone who needs a penis pump and viagra....unless that was the plan all along...create a shoddy OS, dominate the world, create spambots...get discrete emails for penis pumps and viagra!!! success!! no wonder he is stepping down...his job is done!
I think what he is saying is that N'sync is the same thing as New Kids on the Block..and you only know that N'sync sucks now because you forgot about ,New Kids on the Block (until I just mentioned it of coarse, and if you have any taste you will loathing me for those aweful memories).
Quite frankly I'm dissapointed. It SHOULD kill small children and eat them for any meal! We need to make sure it can determine the outcome of any given child's future. Future lawyers...kill em n eat em... Future **AA employees... kill em n eat em... Future DRM creators... warm them up and eat them alive so we can all hear them scream... Future MS programmers...kill them but don't eat them...lord knows what kind of evil sits in their minds waiting to come out.
I hope the Germans have a better missile defense system than we do. Intercontinental Ballmer Missiles (ICBM) incoming!
People were identified by the searches. There was the old woman in FL who they were able to identify based on her searches...then showed up on her door step to interview her and she kindly explained that yes those were her searches. She also was able to demonstrate quite well why obtaining search information (see feds clamoring for it) is worthless...all of the diseases and what not that would lead you to believe she is very sick or hypocondriac...turns out she was doing research for friends. Oh well... for all the "Freedom" we have here in America I don't think ANY other group of people is so willing to sell it or hand it over to the government for money or protection or both.
I mostly agree but there is a bit more to it than just that. There is the whole emergency broadcast thing. Where basically every station shuts down and a few ramp up their power to unreal levels and can thus broadcast emergency information. IIRC there is a station in TX that when this system is activated can be heard clearly in the northern states. Been some years since I have heard anything about it, but one of my history teachers worked at a radio station as a kid, that whole cold war era stuff. Well the little emergency message thing came across that said shutdown...so he did...then turns out it was a mistake and it was supposed to be a test. Anyone dealing with high power broadcast systems knows that the power up/down on these monstrosities is not just an on/off switch like a TV...it takes quite a while for them to warm up/cool down for operation. His bosses weren't pleased, but the message was a mistake so he got off the hook :). So the FCC does have its purpose...but that purpose has been steadily growing and THAT needs to be stopped immediately...they need to be shoved back into regulating and managing the things they were designed for...not censorship and all of this other nonsense. A good start would be enforcing its rules about media channel ownership...but hey...how else can corporate america force feed you garbage? What gain is there for MSNBC to report MS court stuff without tremendous spin? Oh well..
Well the site is down, but browsing through the summary and comments I see that Jurrasic Park is on there and Firewall...so my bones to be picking.
Jurrasic Park...well when I saw this I thought "damnit that is stupid" but I hadn't touched linux yet...some years roll by...I install linux...stumble across a 3d file system viewer thing and I thought to myself "This is Jurrasic Park! I know this!" Not to mention any claims of a kid that young not being able to use a computer has obviously not spent any time around kids that young with computers. I was writing simple programs in BASIC on my C64 at age 11, and I have seen kids these days that make that seem pretty behind the curve.
Firewall...iffy movie...was sorta entertaining...was actually hoping for a little more tech focus but was still pleasantly surprised that they addressed the whole security thing as not just being wizbang nonsense. You can bet when your organization catches some alerts all your firewall guys are going to be sitting watching traffic and putting in new blocks...or you should probably be letting them go. As far as the iPod thing..well..it was a bit of a stretch, but hardly unbelievable given the number of odd ipod hacks out and about. I mean its totally unrealistic to expect people to do strange things with an ipod right? Go look at how they got linux on an ipod...using the piezo to dump the software via audio and recording it and then reassembling it from an audio dump?! That is freaking impressive geek stuff, and terribly innovative. So you are going to tell me there is no possible way to make an ipod a portable scanning thing when its already been hacked so much? Quit yer bitchin, just because noone has ACTUALLY done it doesn't mean it can't be done...of coarse...unless you refuse to believe that aircraft work, radar works, or computers exist, etc etc etc.
That having been said...I think some of the other movies are probably spot on. Hackers was so much innane drivel that the parts bearing any truth were so lost in the cruft that its just easier to assume its all stupid...fun movie to watch none the less...but technologically stupid...and a villian on a skateboard...ugh how Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle do you have to be?
Well it sounds like you have a sketchy understanding of economics. I would have had the same issue, but I had a pretty decent econ teacher that explained it in a pretty sane manner. "Wealth Creation" has 2 major problems...1. The connotations to the folks with more science backgrounds doesn't come off quite right 2. Its used and abused to sell self help and get rich quick type books.
I am also no economist, but I guess to try and explain at least why your understanding is a bit off we will start with a circle. 360 degrees of round. Now I use "Angle Creation" to turn it into a triangle...still 360 degrees...now I create some more angles and make it a square...etc etc etc. In economics its considerably more complicated than that, but it is largely based around leveraging debt. If I have a $500k house that is paid off its not doing anything for me, but if I take out a home equity loan of $400k to put 10% down on buying a 4 million dollar appt complex which I then procede to rent out all the units which covers the mortgage and expenses and gives me profit...that is wealth creation. Sure I now have $4 million in debt now, but I also have revenue coming in as opposed to having 0 debt and 0 revenue. Additionaly "wealth" isn't generally a fixed number like "money", its more of a ratio of your incoming money to outgoing money.
Of coarse this is largley moot point now that our wonderful Supreme Court found immenent domain constitutional, so the government can come in and just take any property you own regardless of if its paid off or not and without compensation, if some other shmuck will pay more in taxes on it.