This runs so counter to the concept of using eminent domain for the public good that I could scream. I guess there's not much chance Congress would consider limiting eminent domain to the more 'traditional' uses like roads, schools, etc. Sigh.
Seems to me the oddball units in the English system were chosen because they make it possible to divide the larger units in lots of ways. There's usually some multiple of 60 involved because you can divide 60 by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15. Factor out one mile = 5280 feet = 60 * 88. The 88 part might be oddball: perhaps it makes the mile close to some distance that was significant to somebody way way back.
Anyway, you're mixing systems. What do cubits have to do with the English system?
In the past year or so I've had potential interest in several Yahoo Groups. However, I'm really put off by the need to create a full-blown Yahoo account just to contribute to them. What if I don't want another G-D email address that I'll never use? Let me create a user-id/password pair, and NOTHING MORE. Just because I want to post to a group doesn't mean I want to create a significant relationship with the hosting service.
I've also run into contests that you can only enter through a Yahoo account. Stupid advertisers, trying to draw interest in their product and creating an obstacle for the customer at the same time.
I just bought a great item for converting our home movie collection to DVD. It's the Sony DVDirect, VRDVC20. Unlike its predecessor, it accepts a Firewire input and can control a DV camcorder, in addition to accepting S-Video and composite inputs.
However, if you try to dub a commercial VHS to DVD, you get a nice friendly "Recording Prohibited" message. And all I wanted to do was transfer my kid's videos (that I BOUGHT) to DVD so they won't rot away after 'n' plays (where 'n' is much larger than any adult could ever stand). If I could convert to DVD I'd probably throw away the original tapes and save the space in my house.
What's that you say, you need raw materials? Oh crap. Well, how about this pound of lead I happen to have lying around. Oh crap, can't do it.
How the hell could we ever have a machine that can fab anything unless we stockpiled it with every element under the sun (never know what you might need), or we happen to develop some fantastic forms of fusion/fission that can transform elements?
The same problem defeats the whole 'gray goo' idea. If a self-replicating nano-bot needs silicon to replicate, but there's no silicon within its reach, what will it do? Nothing.
I'm still creeped out by the gray goo idea, but thankfully, I find it very unlikely that we'll get to self-replicating bots any time soon.
Why put the list in cyberspace at all? That's the beauty of paper, nobody online can steal a sheet of paper sitting in your home/office/dorm/loft/cave.
...accidental sperm from unexpected ejaculation...
If you're that numb, skip the (uni?)sex and go back to your XBOX. OTOH, there are some psychoactive drugs that make ejaculation come before the orgasm - I'm guessing you should avoid those...
You spell it out very well. Also, I think the unspoken undercurrent here is largely one of "Hey, I want to rip those vids from my PVR, and damn you to hell for stopping me". Well, if Dish didn't do it's absolute best to lock down those streams, you wouldn't have a PVR that basically you didn't even pay for, when you compare the deals they offer with the real cost of hardware.
And to the GP saying the security is done in hardware, I wouldn't assume that without digging in there myself. I suspect at least some of the code they aren't releasing is essential to the DRM.
If they say 'probably', and you go off and break the damn thing, you might come back and say 'you didn't try hard enough to warn me'. If they say 'it will break', you don't have a case.
Same reason every damn cup of coffee we buy now has to warn us that it's 'hot'.
but we have only good things to say about Dish here. I have been more than happy with Dish since we signed up about 8 years ago. No problems with equipment, installation, billing, etc. I saved a bundle switching from cable, now I have a PVR that we love, and even at current prices we're doing much better than we ever could have with cable. YMMV
OTOH, all those asinine commercials from the cable industry that try to tell you satellite TV is nothing but trouble, just piss me off.
Small correction. There's no Home selection at the bottom of their page (at least when I look today). However, if you select "About Us", you get a page where a Home selection is prominently displayed at the top.
I work in a large building where practically every PC is on the corporate LAN, but we use USB flash drives all the time. Why? Because it's quicker and cleaner to plug in the drive I carry around, than to establish a network connection back to my office PC. No need to search the domains (yeah, it's an XP network), enter my user name and password (you have heard of security, right?), and browse to a folder where I might want to dump the file. Then when I get back to my desk, I have to remember exactly where that was in all my folders. Even ignoring all the security/browsing/storing tedium, writing data to a USB 2.0 drive is simply faster than sending it over the network. And every now and then, you hit a machine that either isn't on the network, or for who-knows-what stupid Windows reason, won't let you connect back to your own PC. USB drives have been one of the biggest productivity enhancers to hit our office. Needless to say (I will anyway), they've also made floppies extinct.
or did you mean original only as in one of the first with skip protection? I bought my Discman in 1987. IIRC, the model number is D4. No skip protection on that one. I have to admit I have no idea whether it works or not. I'm sure the NiCad battery (a big gray brick larger than a candy bar) has bitten the dust by now.
Getting back to the original topic: my first DVD player was a promising Go-Video model that wouldn't properly read three different disks we tried. Went back to the store the next day, leaving me convinced DVDs were still not mature enough. About a year later I tried again with a Samsung model, which still works but sometimes seems to take a very long time to load. None of the PC-based DVD-ROM drives I've used has shown any problems.
On the other hand, a number of CD-ROM drives I've bought became useless after 1-2 years. I think the real problem is buying cheap.
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This runs so counter to the concept of using eminent domain for the public good that I could scream. I guess there's not much chance Congress would consider limiting eminent domain to the more 'traditional' uses like roads, schools, etc. Sigh.
Seems to me the oddball units in the English system were chosen because they make it possible to divide the larger units in lots of ways. There's usually some multiple of 60 involved because you can divide 60 by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15. Factor out one mile = 5280 feet = 60 * 88. The 88 part might be oddball: perhaps it makes the mile close to some distance that was significant to somebody way way back.
Anyway, you're mixing systems. What do cubits have to do with the English system?
In the past year or so I've had potential interest in several Yahoo Groups. However, I'm really put off by the need to create a full-blown Yahoo account just to contribute to them. What if I don't want another G-D email address that I'll never use? Let me create a user-id/password pair, and NOTHING MORE. Just because I want to post to a group doesn't mean I want to create a significant relationship with the hosting service.
I've also run into contests that you can only enter through a Yahoo account. Stupid advertisers, trying to draw interest in their product and creating an obstacle for the customer at the same time.
I just bought a great item for converting our home movie collection to DVD. It's the Sony DVDirect, VRDVC20. Unlike its predecessor, it accepts a Firewire input and can control a DV camcorder, in addition to accepting S-Video and composite inputs.
However, if you try to dub a commercial VHS to DVD, you get a nice friendly "Recording Prohibited" message. And all I wanted to do was transfer my kid's videos (that I BOUGHT) to DVD so they won't rot away after 'n' plays (where 'n' is much larger than any adult could ever stand). If I could convert to DVD I'd probably throw away the original tapes and save the space in my house.
What's that you say, you need raw materials? Oh crap. Well, how about this pound of lead I happen to have lying around. Oh crap, can't do it. How the hell could we ever have a machine that can fab anything unless we stockpiled it with every element under the sun (never know what you might need), or we happen to develop some fantastic forms of fusion/fission that can transform elements? The same problem defeats the whole 'gray goo' idea. If a self-replicating nano-bot needs silicon to replicate, but there's no silicon within its reach, what will it do? Nothing. I'm still creeped out by the gray goo idea, but thankfully, I find it very unlikely that we'll get to self-replicating bots any time soon.
But of course, I still have no idea WTF that means.
Why put the list in cyberspace at all? That's the beauty of paper, nobody online can steal a sheet of paper sitting in your home/office/dorm/loft/cave.
...accidental sperm from unexpected ejaculation...
If you're that numb, skip the (uni?)sex and go back to your XBOX.
OTOH, there are some psychoactive drugs that make ejaculation come before the orgasm - I'm guessing you should avoid those...
You spell it out very well. Also, I think the unspoken undercurrent here is largely one of "Hey, I want to rip those vids from my PVR, and damn you to hell for stopping me". Well, if Dish didn't do it's absolute best to lock down those streams, you wouldn't have a PVR that basically you didn't even pay for, when you compare the deals they offer with the real cost of hardware. And to the GP saying the security is done in hardware, I wouldn't assume that without digging in there myself. I suspect at least some of the code they aren't releasing is essential to the DRM.
If they say 'probably', and you go off and break the damn thing, you might come back and say 'you didn't try hard enough to warn me'. If they say 'it will break', you don't have a case. Same reason every damn cup of coffee we buy now has to warn us that it's 'hot'.
but we have only good things to say about Dish here. I have been more than happy with Dish since we signed up about 8 years ago. No problems with equipment, installation, billing, etc. I saved a bundle switching from cable, now I have a PVR that we love, and even at current prices we're doing much better than we ever could have with cable. YMMV
OTOH, all those asinine commercials from the cable industry that try to tell you satellite TV is nothing but trouble, just piss me off.
Small correction. There's no Home selection at the bottom of their page (at least when I look today). However, if you select "About Us", you get a page where a Home selection is prominently displayed at the top.
That's why I love to kill'em.
I work in a large building where practically every PC is on the corporate LAN, but we use USB flash drives all the time. Why? Because it's quicker and cleaner to plug in the drive I carry around, than to establish a network connection back to my office PC. No need to search the domains (yeah, it's an XP network), enter my user name and password (you have heard of security, right?), and browse to a folder where I might want to dump the file. Then when I get back to my desk, I have to remember exactly where that was in all my folders.
Even ignoring all the security/browsing/storing tedium, writing data to a USB 2.0 drive is simply faster than sending it over the network.
And every now and then, you hit a machine that either isn't on the network, or for who-knows-what stupid Windows reason, won't let you connect back to your own PC.
USB drives have been one of the biggest productivity enhancers to hit our office. Needless to say (I will anyway), they've also made floppies extinct.
or did you mean original only as in one of the first with skip protection? I bought my Discman in 1987. IIRC, the model number is D4. No skip protection on that one. I have to admit I have no idea whether it works or not. I'm sure the NiCad battery (a big gray brick larger than a candy bar) has bitten the dust by now. Getting back to the original topic: my first DVD player was a promising Go-Video model that wouldn't properly read three different disks we tried. Went back to the store the next day, leaving me convinced DVDs were still not mature enough. About a year later I tried again with a Samsung model, which still works but sometimes seems to take a very long time to load. None of the PC-based DVD-ROM drives I've used has shown any problems. On the other hand, a number of CD-ROM drives I've bought became useless after 1-2 years. I think the real problem is buying cheap.