Technology of our making is as ingrained in our society as technology of evolution's making. Would you argue that our bodies are too complex -- so many things to go wrong; diseases, cancers, etc? Technology has evolved in order to support an evergrowing population. There are over six billion people on this earth, and take away the technology, most of them will perish. And it follows that technology has to keep evolving because populations will keep growing (sex is just too damn pleasureful). Yes, even when the phone was invented, people asked what's the point. Any new technology will be met with criticizm. However, give it time to show itself, to adapt, and you will see its usefulness. We are still at the very early stage of internet development. It's like when cars had big clunky engines with no gearboxes and no brakes. But it will improve.
True. But I think there is one important modifier to this. I dont think Henry Ford started building cars to get rich. Nor do I think Edison invented things to get rich. Now, however, the allmighty dollar drives everything. From innovation to law to property rights. *THAT* is what I am scared of. That Companies feel the need to force things upon us to keep their relevance in the marketplace, rather than produce things that we come to buy because we need them.
The difference being a free market society where it is driven by what people buy by choice, vs a more corporate controlled society where people buy out of necessity because its the only thing possible.
Maeryk
Who *CAN* rebuild and tune a Holley four barrel carb.. and has, numerous times. *grin*
But it still won't tell me what's wrong. All I get is an idiot light -- check engine soon.
YMMV, but the last several "electronic" cars I have had have been able to tell you this. Its a hack, but there is usually a diagnostic output plug somewhere that if you jump pin X with pin Y wiht say, a paperclip, the "check engine" light will blink patterns at you which indicate the exact failure, or at least which system to start looking in.
Not nearly as easy as a SUN machine, but how many of us have 30K to buy a diagnostic tool for the car?
Ahh.. for the days when I could hear the engine running rough and tweak the Holly 4 bbl under the hood to tune it. Now I have to take it to a mechanic and pay 300 bucks to have a nozzle replaced. *sigh*
Why all the hate against technology and people who use/enjoy it? And who died and made you the ultimate authority on what should and should not be hooked to the internet?
I dont hate technology, and I dont hate the people who use/enjoy it. I hate being viewed by big business as a bottomless pit of money for the newest fangled crap that I dont need. I buy what I need, and otherwise ignore a lot of it, but there are people out there who dont do that. Those people are the ones spurring on this mad race to integrate everything.
I friggin love my PDA. I had paper organizers for years and I would always leave them somewhere or not have them with me when I needed to write something down. With my PDA that doesn't happen. What is your major malfunction? In another post you want people to actually be satisifed with simpler times and to not go crazy when the electricity goes out. Did you suffer a nervous breakdown recently because of your IT job or something??
Good for you. I occasionally use my Mako for something other than playing games. Rarely, though. I find I keep stuff in my head better. If I stuff it in an organizer, I have yet *another* thing to carry around, and I have to remember to read it, charge it, update it, etc. If I have it in my head, I only have to worry about forgetting IT.. not six other things tied to it.
To each their own.. Im not saying that technology is bad.. Im saying that it sometimes gets used in utterly useless ways.
why tie a pacemaker? So it can be tracked somewhere by a computer tied into the cell phone network that keeps a list on all the pacemakers out there and flags someone when it begins to falter. (Hope the batteries last longer!)
That way Medic-Alert can be rushed into action and allow someone to save the poor sap who has the failing ticker-shocker before he gets so disoriented that he cannot save himself.
This has the potential to save THOUSANDS of lives! Really!
(compare to irradiated beef.. Do I want to eat meat that has been exposed to radiation? Especially after the "people" who test it said its fine after a relatively short test period, the same people who said hormone replacement therapy was fine^H^H^H^H^H a bad idea?)
No.. but sell it as if it will "save lives" and people will jump on it. How many people die every year from bad beef? How many people WILL die in 20 years when they find out its worse for you to eat it than it is to risk getting Salmonella or E-coli? Answer: It doesnt matter. Someone somewhere is making money on the tech, so it must be good.
Oh really? "Sheeple" want fridges that print out grocerly lists? Fuuny, I don't remember any of the "Sheeple" I've talked to wanting those things. Where did I hear about stuff like that... oh yeah, it was here on/.!! Seems like either Microsoft or people here would want stuff like that, but people who are happy watching a 20" TV with mono sound are unlikely to want such things.
You are right. But people who are happy watching their 20 inch TV in mono sound are also not the people that companies are trying to sell to. They probably have a hand me down washing machine and dryer, and an old yellow fridge that freezes half the stuff in it and melts the other half. and that is FINE! But when they buy, they are going for bottom of the line, cheapest they can find, *OR* old reliable pretty-good-quality built like a tank thats going to last forever. Neither of those are the people who drive the markets that add bells and whistles and connect things to the net./. denizens might. "Oh! Theres a new Digimon out there! Lets hack it to run Linux!". (fun, but useless). Sure.. some people are really into this stuff, but a lot of people arent.
What they are preying on in the article is the people who watch Hackers, and BELIEVE it. (Or swordfish, which I saw last night, Finally.) They actually think this stuff exists. They actually want this stuff. And whether it is imaginary or real is irrelevant, because if they believe it exists, then they believe when told by the "media" that it can be hacked. And they are afraid of it.
Those are all different, though: your fridge could have sensors which detect all the things in it by RF tags to tell you what it needs, but the computer problem still wouldn't affect the cooling system, which doesn't have any reason to be connected.
Actually, I remember reading a writeup somewhere.. (might even have been here) but I have no clue where to start searching or under what.. about fridges that, using bluetooth, could self-diagnose and call the service guy FOR you. Say if the compressor started running hot, or if the temperature started fluctuating wildly.
Again.. I dont necessarily think it would catch on big at first, but you *know* how corporations have a habit of ramming stuff down your throat simply because they make it the only thing available. (Buy a carbeurated car.. go ahead.. they are easier for you to work on, and have far fewer sensors in them.. but can you get one? THere are next to none produced).
I dont want a cell phone that gets web pages, gets email, plays games, sings songs, or allows me to control my television. I want a cell phone that lasts more than two hours on a damn battery. Funny, I cant find one that doesnt do all the useless crap anymore, but I *SURE* cant find one that lives up to even its manufacturers claims on power consumption.
What scares me is they start putting this stuff in, whether we like it or not. And who is to say your fridge doesnt broadcast a signal to roving trucks with service people in them? That may sound a bit on the edge, but its possible. And anywhere that type of thing is a "convenience" it could also be abused.
Bigger and Faster is not *always* better. Give me a simpler time.. when if the power went out, people didnt lose their minds.. they simply lit candles and played cards for an hour or two. Or when people kept buckets of water around during storms so they could flush toilets. That I could understand. Technology is *SO* freakin ingrained into our lives these days that without electricity, the world grinds to a freaking halt rather suddenly. And it shouldnt have to. People did fine without it for 2000 or more years.
Why would these things be controlled via the internet? We already segregate certain high security systems from the internet to avoid even the chance of them being "hacked". I don't think a pacemaker would -EVER- be hooked up to the internet -- not only is there no point, but it's just extra risk for something to go wrong.
Because idiot sheeples want bigger faster better. They want their refrigerator to be able to print out a list of groceries it needs on their computer. They want to be able to put a recipe into their laptop, and using wireless, have it pre-program the stove and microwave, and have the refrigerator and pantry tell them what they need to buy to make it happen. Because clever marketing has convinced people that "can you hear me now? good" means you SHOULD be hauling a freakin digital phone with a billion free any time minutes a month around the grand canyon or your favorite cavern and annoying me.
Because people will BUY it if they think it is glitzy and new and makes them all hep and stuff. Maybe not many people, but people *will* buy. Look at cars! They now have more freakin features than anyone ever needed, but boy do they want them!
Figure out what people would have said about PDA's and cell phones thirty years ago had someone suggested they would exist. "Thats ridiculous..why would anyone EVER want that? I have my phone in the house, and I have my day-timer! Why carry around something that needs batteries?"
Granted.. Im as guilty as the next guy.. I gave my son a laptop to learn on when he turned six.. because I wanted him to have the edge as he grows up and be experienced and not afraid of computers.. but I think I may have done him a grave disservice, introducing electronics-as-necessity to him that young in life. (How many 9 year olds do you know who, on the phone with their friends, say "Hang on.. I'll shut down the laptop and be right over?"
Things will get hooked to the internet and to each other that never should be.. in the name of "convenience" and "cause its neat".
"We're here to defend intellectual property," said Jim DeLong, an economist at CEI. "If you want balance, go to another session."
Does it appear to anyone else that that is pretty much the running theme for ANYTHING the MPAA has its fingers in? Its all or nothing with them. They rail about how they are losing like crazy, yet refuse to hear anything even remotely like a compromise.
Well, I paid a heck of a lot of money for my home theater setup.. I guess if they manage to whack my TiVO (which I would assume they are also thinking about, as its pretty easy to dump the signal out to a decent recorder) then DirectTV is gonna lose my business. And probably a lot of OTHER peoples business as well.
This looks to me like a pre-emptive strike at the HDTV standards that are going to come out.. after all, why WOULDNT you want to record something that is twice the clarity and fidelity of even the best DVD right now? They can control DVD's to a certain extent, but they will NOT be able to control this, they know it, and they are running scared before the fact.
(Now.. if only we could get them to program something WORTH RECORDING in HDTV.. right now, I only get HBO (same old same old) and a couple of news channels.. and interminable re-runs of ER)
Okay.. I read the article. It was an interesting mix between pat on the back science and good old "Hey, aint NASA GREAT!" enthusiasm.
My question.. which I did not see answered, are where ARE they right now? I know they havent cleared the SS yet, but where exactly are they? ARe we going to get pictures Pluto and Neptune back? (Which would be GREAT.. and would solve that long running question of whether Pluto is even a planet, a bit asteroid, or a half a planet that got pulled into the gravity well here).
Does it even have the transmitting power to send real data back anymore? or simply to weakly croak "I am here".
Blue Gravity's chief executive, Tom Krwawecz, said the company was never informed. And he believes U.S. laws -- not Italy's -- ought to apply.
I don't think so...
If he really feels that way, he should just put the site back up, eat the hosting fee, and vote with his resources.
Its ridiculous to assume that one porn site getting changed is going to cause the US to throw a political molotav at Italy. But, I *would* be willing to bet there are going to be dozens of sites springi8ng up shortly that feature "madonna porn" (like the "sex" book, right? When she had the hairy armpits? and the fake mole?)
Saying the banks could have just looked deeper and found the inconsistencies is like saying that if someone goes into a bank with a fake ID, and gets a loan under an assumed ID, the bank is at fault. The wole idea is that WorldCom broke the law by falsifying records... That means it would take a full fledged investigation to determine something was wrong. Come on, it's not unreasonable for a bank to assume a company is not breaking the law.
Why not? They assume I am breaking the law every time I cash a check with them. Some of them wont even honor checks drawn on their own accounts unless you have enough money in your OWN account with them to cover the cost of the check. Have you ever gone for a mortgage? I have had less invasive background checks done by the police. (but we wont go into that now.)
It lies on the bank to secure its billions of dollars of its depositors money. After all, theoretically, the bank answers to us, the peoples money who keep it afloat day to day.
Blaming congress rather than the president is borderline. The President is the Chief Executor and Chief Legislator. If he had exercised his powers to attempt to get such laws passed, and the senate did not go along with it, I would agree with you. However, it is also true that the Senate could do so on their own (but that takes much more time).
Hmm. You have a point. However, Bush has a very tough fight to get ANYTHING through congress at this point. There are enough Dem's on the hill who have sworn to oppose just about anything he tries that he has to be rather picky and choosy about what he tries to get done. And I think he has bigger fish to fry. (Or, thought he did, what with buildings blowing up, a war in the middle east, and another two wars brewing, one between Palestine and Israeal, and one between Pakistan and India). I think he's been pretty busy with other things, truth be told. But laying all the blame on him is kind of silly. Especially when these things *HAVE* been happening for the last umpteen years, and no-one else has had the desire to do anything about it either.
Again.. it boils down to how much money these CEO's and their respective companies have put in the pockets of the people who refuse to regualte them.. or the people who refuse to prosecute when they do get caught. Or who choose to hand forth extremely lenient sentences when they finally come before a judge or a review board.
After all, the laws already exist to enforce punishment on these things. Not everyone gets the Michael Milken Club Med prison treatment.
You could have fooled me. That's exactly what it appears to be. A corporation is designed with the intent to do anything within the law to make money. That mindset is a dangerous one, which is why companies are subject to laws designed specifically to regulate corporations. The fact that individuals inside a company went just too far is not unusual
You are right. It is not unusual. It should be however. The laws should be changed so that those responsible for running the companies into the ground at the expense of the stock holders and the workers should be personally liable. Their golden parachutes and multi-million dollar palaces and perks should be at risk, as well. Those smart enough to take their cash out before it gets ugly and sink it into material goods should lose those goods until they are in the position of those they have damaged on the way.
Of course, a lot of this would not happen if investors had a clue. The market of recent years has been one of rapid wealth and fast returns on big buys. That can only lead to artifially inflated stocks, and huge amounts of cash trading hands. Look at RedHat.. and see what ESR said about his "sudden millionaire status" when they IPO'd. He said he couldnt touch it for six months.. but a lot of other people made a lot of money on that stock in the first couple of days it was out. The system isnt broken.. but it sure aint perfect either.
STop with THe FUcked up CAptialization before i SMack YOu SIlly.:)
Too late.:P. Sorry its this goddamned laptop.. the shift key is a bit sticky, and I type to fast and often get double caps, and, well, im just too damned lazy to go back and correct em, as long as the spelling is marginally correct.
LOL.. this is almost funny. I love the fact that it is THE one guy in the hot seats fault. Not Congress. Not the SEnate. Not the last eight YEARS of ignoring signs and worrying about guys selling sawed off shotguns in the mountains rather than corporate scandal and greed.
There is a cycle here you'se guys arent noticing. (Or arent mentioning, anyway). After *EVERY* huge economic gain in this, our american society, companies tank like this. Its called "spending money you dont have". Hate to be a bible quoter.. but "Neither a borrower nor a lender be."
The issue isnt as much with the government allowing the companies to regulate themselves.. it is with the BANKS looking to turn huge profits on overnight and offshore loans. See, thats where the banks make money. ANd if they would pass anything more than even a cursory glance at a company's books, they might catch the cookage instead of loaning 3B to a company to aquire another company, and find out six months later its all cotton candy.
The president has a certain amount of expectation to speak on this, but he has no REAL control. He cannot magically wave his pen and make longer prison sentences. That requires an act of the full government. ANd as stated, they wont do it. How many of them do you think have taken payoffs from various companies? Or money for their camppaigns? Or thrown huge bones to these companies in pork barrel politics? If anyone, your senators and congressmen should be the ones you are screaming bloody murder to. Not the PResident.
Why should we pay tax dollars to keep a monopoly up and running? I hope the government doesnt step in, the government should never step in to save any company unless its an absolutely vital company such as a food company, or water or electric company where peoples lives are on the line.
Umm.. we should because, simply put, people who are employed spend money. People who are unemployed DONT spend money. Thats basic economics. The situation right now is a very rare one.. the stock market has slid for 19 straight weeks, yet the economy is actually on a slow but steady increase. HOwever, a whole heck of a lot of people losing their jobs would rather suddenly change that swing up to a swing down.
Worldcom is a communications company and I hate this corperate welfare shit, we cant get welfare, so why should they? I dunno.. why the hell should the government step in when a major sport strikes? Cause it keeps people happy. It would depend on who Worldcom serviced, and the ability of their customers to get rapid replacement service if they went down. That would probably have more to do with the decision to offer corporate welfare or not. Sometimes it is easier all around to throw some money at a company that may be able to restructure and survive than it is to let it fail and leave a lot of people out in the cold.
However, the alternative is in plain sight. THe only industry in the world that can mistreat its customers every step of the way are the Airlines. They got bailed out, hence meaning they can mistreat even MORE customers without even having to worry if they lose them or not. (SOrry.. personal rant.. my wife is now stuck in Charlotte NC because the airline had "mechanical failure" (read.. six people waiting for a large plane, which they dont want to fly) and they are making noises about canceling the later flight as well. (Same six people.. ).
Well, sort of, anyway. ANyone remember when Inacom tanked? I was working for them at the time. Luckily, I got picked up by a "competitor" who was also onsite at the same place, so I only had a week of questionability.
THe schematic is slightly different.. Inacom claimed they *might* fold.. they claimed they *MIGHT* declare bankruptcy, and they put themselves on the block to be purchased, in whole or in part. Other groups came in, looked decided "I want part of this, but they are going to crash anyway, so I will just wait and absorb their assets after the crash, rather than paying an inflated (read: more than bottom penny) price for them.
However, what Inacom DID do, was broadcast a message on Wednesday, saying everything was cheery, bankruptcy could be avoided, etc. On Friday we got a voicemail saying "the vast majority of Inacom employees have been let go. Pinkertons (I think.. one of hte security companies) employees will escort you from the site."
We sued, in a class action, for lost wages, and violation of the WARN act.. (if a company knows its tanking, and doesnt tell you, they are liable.) This suit is still in progress, as far as I know. And may be for several years.. seeing ANY money, including 401K money can be tough as well. Once the IRS gets ahold of it, they can hold it pretty much as long as they want. Especially if there was financial malfeasance within the company.. you may also find out your company did not pay as much into the 401, health, insurance, unemployment, as they claimed they had. ANd there is nothing you can do, really, once the corporation folds/loses all its assets. The individuals who ran it are blameless, and it is very very difficult to sue them personally. (Hence, corporations of one.. for that very reason).
Good luck.. hope it all works out for you.. but it is often ugly in the long run.
Those really streight lines that people say no one could make unless they were in the air? Heard of string?
No.. the straight ones are pretty mundane. Its the animals and birds and things that get wierd.. because they are only truly visible from the air. The are called "nasca" or "nazca" lines, and they are in Peru. (Which, if you believe the UFO-ians, is a real hotbed of interplanetary activity nightly. Most of the really good sightings tend to come from South America.)
anyway.. linkage:
Check it out! neat stuff.. and very likely *NOT* hoaxed.
The crop circles were made by a couple of fellows from Winchester named Doug Bower and Dave Chorley. They made the circles for years at night, and Bower even kept the secret from his wife for seven years.
THey were even infiltrated by a BBC reporter who filmed them making a few of them. However, this *STILL* doesnt explain the ones in Brazil, and other parts of the world that were turning up also. Im sure Bower and Chorley made a few or even a few dozen, but there have been hundreds upon hundreds of these things, all over the world, and they seem to co-appear, rather than being as random as CNBC would have you believe.
Im not a nutcase, and I dont believe there are spaceships landing to play bocce in wheat fields, but two pranksters from England claiming they did them all is kind of ridiculous as well.
Plus, there are other wierd phenomena involved in *some* circles that two guys with a 2x4 and large feet cannot make happen.
Plus, I'd like to know how they get into some of these places that are guarded now.. (some of the farmers have put their fields under video surveillance, found no evidence of people wandering around and had a crop circle the next morning..).
We may never know, but they are happening all over the place.
Next those two will claim they built the bizarre desert mounds that are only visible from aircraft!
I have read of some interesting phenomenon in a few of the circles investigated. Molecular changes at the base of the stalks causing them to bend, rather than break. (do that with a 2x4!) and magnetic issues inside the circle formations.
I agree that most of them are man made, and probably the most intricate ones are man made as well.. but I also remember reading with a giggle as the SKeptic Observer reported definitively that they were being made by "mating hedgehogs".
I feel safe in saying we dont KNOW they are all man made, but we do know a lot of them are.
Perhaps I was confused about your statement then, I thought the article was referring to local solar system sized objects, very few of which contain high power radio transmitters
Nono.. my bad. THe article was referring to local, but I was thinking longterm extra-solar-sytem uses. SOrry! I failed to make myself clear. Seti is clearly useless within the solar system, unless the BEMS happen to have the radio cranked in their skimmer while they are cruising our atmosphere to laugh at the locals.
Right. But astronomical objects put out radio static as well as visible light, in some cases. They have found quasars and double stars just because they have a very rhythmic and repeating radio pattern that they have been able to locate. Granted, it might not point RIGHT to it, but it does seem to indicate in what general area it is, which gives us a bit more to work with when looking there with optical and/or IR scopes.
There is a huge difference between KNOWING something is there and trying to find it, and just scanning in the hopes of locating something.
(INsert obligatory jedi kids in training comment here, Obiwan.)
As much as I love to hear theorys like this out of NASA, and as much as I love NASA, I think they have a few other bugs to iron out first.
While this is a great idea.. and something that has been proposed since the earliest days of Sci-Fi, (using heavy masses as centerpoints for gravitational slingshots, among other things), we need to get a lot of other things settled first. People back on the moon looking for raw materials, some actual exploration of Mars, the ISS up and running properly and actually doing something that John Q Public cares about, would be a good start.
This is really coool, and Hubble will probably help a lot, as well as that Muckin Huge Telescope they are building, and SETI may even factor in, as it picks up signals from objects that we cant see, but we can hear.
Its good to see that even in times of "national trouble" NASA is forging ahead and is out on the edge with theorys and predictions, but unfortunately, thats all they are, or are likey to be, unless the Gubmint gets serious about funding space travel. Or NASA becomes self sufficient.. which they could be, if only they collected royalties on the mundane uses of some of the hundreds of things that have been invented/developed by them for the space program.
1). The adverage IQ is 100 that means half of the people who can vote have below adverage IQ however you measure IQ, thats just the way it is, who's to say you vote is better than somone elses.
Oh.. no doubt. And I'm not saying anyones vote is "better" than anyone elses.. but I am saying that you have to take into account the fact that a lot of politicians drum up support from sectors of society who cannot figure out how to work a VCR.. and do it intentionally, because they know large *OTHER* sectors of society cant be bothered to go out and vote, because they feel above the system, or are so distrustful of politics in general that they dont trust ANYONE in the office. Sheep *can* be good for something other than tight sweaters on cute girlys, it appears.
). They should really have thaught about this first, don't forget polititians have an adverage IQ of 90,
I think they *did* think about this. I think they went for the "simplest" and "best" (read, hardest to "misinterpret") method they could find, and it STILL leaves people in the dust as far as satisfaction of voting experience goes. Bear in mind, that that election (bush-gore) changed the political face of society. From now on it will be accepted that people are going to complain if they lose the election, demand recounts until the end of time, and demand re-votes because they THINK they should have won. Get used to it, because it will keep happening. Sore losers are nothing new to politics, but they are now a dominant force, I am afraid. I can understand recounts and revotes when it comes down to 1 or 10 votes.. but I think it is going to be way out of hand from now on.
anyhow i think there should only be numbers on the ballot and any campains so that you have to know what your voting for!.
Hehehe.. yeah. I agree.. but then, I also think voting should be conducted in english only. See.. maybe I'm an elitist prick, but I figure if you love this country enough to choose the people who run it, you at *LEAST* oughtta learn the national language while you are at it.
(ah hell.. I have karma to burn.. mod as troll if'n ya want, its just my personal opinion)
Like the problem is that there is a real issue with the machines, as much as two other things.
1)voters who claim their vote wasnt taken (how do they know? Did the machine go:ding: "you smell.. Im not taking your vote! No vote for you!" or something? Remember.. these people were too stupid in a lot of cases to understand how to poke a hole in a butterfly ballot or to follow a line to a persons name.. you expect them to make a bilingual computer screen work?
2) SOmeone who wanted to get elected did not get elected, and knowing the machines were under an NDA or were otherwise inauditable at the moment (even though they apparently passed all their initial tests with flying colors) started screaming ITS THE MACHINES FAULT! Great tradition we have started here.. "The people did not elect me by their votes.. I must challenge and challenge until I win!"
Cant we just go back to the days of dropping small rocks into boxes for votes? *sigh*
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Technology of our making is as ingrained in our society as technology of evolution's making. Would you argue that our bodies are too complex -- so many things to go wrong; diseases, cancers, etc? Technology has evolved in order to support an evergrowing population. There are over six billion people on this earth, and take away the technology, most of them will perish. And it follows that technology has to keep evolving because populations will keep growing (sex is just too damn pleasureful). Yes, even when the phone was invented, people asked what's the point. Any new technology will be met with criticizm. However, give it time to show itself, to adapt, and you will see its usefulness. We are still at the very early stage of internet development. It's like when cars had big clunky engines with no gearboxes and no brakes. But it will improve.
True. But I think there is one important modifier to this. I dont think Henry Ford started building cars to get rich. Nor do I think Edison invented things to get rich. Now, however, the allmighty dollar drives everything. From innovation to law to property rights. *THAT* is what I am scared of. That Companies feel the need to force things upon us to keep their relevance in the marketplace, rather than produce things that we come to buy because we need them.
The difference being a free market society where it is driven by what people buy by choice, vs a more corporate controlled society where people buy out of necessity because its the only thing possible.
Maeryk
Who *CAN* rebuild and tune a Holley four barrel carb.. and has, numerous times. *grin*
But it still won't tell me what's wrong. All I get is an idiot light -- check engine soon.
YMMV, but the last several "electronic" cars I have had have been able to tell you this. Its a hack, but there is usually a diagnostic output plug somewhere that if you jump pin X with pin Y wiht say, a paperclip, the "check engine" light will blink patterns at you which indicate the exact failure, or at least which system to start looking in.
Not nearly as easy as a SUN machine, but how many of us have 30K to buy a diagnostic tool for the car?
Ahh.. for the days when I could hear the engine running rough and tweak the Holly 4 bbl under the hood to tune it. Now I have to take it to a mechanic and pay 300 bucks to have a nozzle replaced. *sigh*
maeryk
Why all the hate against technology and people who use/enjoy it? And who died and made you the ultimate authority on what should and should not be hooked to the internet?
I dont hate technology, and I dont hate the people who use/enjoy it. I hate being viewed by big business as a bottomless pit of money for the newest fangled crap that I dont need. I buy what I need, and otherwise ignore a lot of it, but there are people out there who dont do that. Those people are the ones spurring on this mad race to integrate everything.
I friggin love my PDA. I had paper organizers for years and I would always leave them somewhere or not have them with me when I needed to write something down. With my PDA that doesn't happen. What is your major malfunction? In another post you want people to actually be satisifed with simpler times and to not go crazy when the electricity goes out. Did you suffer a nervous breakdown recently because of your IT job or something??
Good for you. I occasionally use my Mako for something other than playing games. Rarely, though. I find I keep stuff in my head better. If I stuff it in an organizer, I have yet *another* thing to carry around, and I have to remember to read it, charge it, update it, etc. If I have it in my head, I only have to worry about forgetting IT.. not six other things tied to it.
To each their own.. Im not saying that technology is bad.. Im saying that it sometimes gets used in utterly useless ways.
Maeryk
why tie a pacemaker? So it can be tracked somewhere by a computer tied into the cell phone network that keeps a list on all the pacemakers out there and flags someone when it begins to falter. (Hope the batteries last longer!)
That way Medic-Alert can be rushed into action and allow someone to save the poor sap who has the failing ticker-shocker before he gets so disoriented that he cannot save himself.
This has the potential to save THOUSANDS of lives! Really!
(compare to irradiated beef.. Do I want to eat meat that has been exposed to radiation? Especially after the "people" who test it said its fine after a relatively short test period, the same people who said hormone replacement therapy was fine^H^H^H^H^H a bad idea?)
No.. but sell it as if it will "save lives" and people will jump on it. How many people die every year from bad beef? How many people WILL die in 20 years when they find out its worse for you to eat it than it is to risk getting Salmonella or E-coli? Answer: It doesnt matter. Someone somewhere is making money on the tech, so it must be good.
Oh really? "Sheeple" want fridges that print out grocerly lists? Fuuny, I don't remember any of the "Sheeple" I've talked to wanting those things. Where did I hear about stuff like that... oh yeah, it was here on /.!! Seems like either Microsoft or people here would want stuff like that, but people who are happy watching a 20" TV with mono sound are unlikely to want such things.
/. denizens might. "Oh! Theres a new Digimon out there! Lets hack it to run Linux!". (fun, but useless). Sure.. some people are really into this stuff, but a lot of people arent.
You are right. But people who are happy watching their 20 inch TV in mono sound are also not the people that companies are trying to sell to. They probably have a hand me down washing machine and dryer, and an old yellow fridge that freezes half the stuff in it and melts the other half. and that is FINE! But when they buy, they are going for bottom of the line, cheapest they can find, *OR* old reliable pretty-good-quality built like a tank thats going to last forever. Neither of those are the people who drive the markets that add bells and whistles and connect things to the net.
What they are preying on in the article is the people who watch Hackers, and BELIEVE it. (Or swordfish, which I saw last night, Finally.) They actually think this stuff exists. They actually want this stuff. And whether it is imaginary or real is irrelevant, because if they believe it exists, then they believe when told by the "media" that it can be hacked. And they are afraid of it.
Maeryk
Those are all different, though: your fridge could have sensors which detect all the things in it by RF tags to tell you what it needs, but the computer problem still wouldn't affect the cooling system, which doesn't have any reason to be connected.
Actually, I remember reading a writeup somewhere.. (might even have been here) but I have no clue where to start searching or under what.. about fridges that, using bluetooth, could self-diagnose and call the service guy FOR you. Say if the compressor started running hot, or if the temperature started fluctuating wildly.
Again.. I dont necessarily think it would catch on big at first, but you *know* how corporations have a habit of ramming stuff down your throat simply because they make it the only thing available. (Buy a carbeurated car.. go ahead.. they are easier for you to work on, and have far fewer sensors in them.. but can you get one? THere are next to none produced).
I dont want a cell phone that gets web pages, gets email, plays games, sings songs, or allows me to control my television. I want a cell phone that lasts more than two hours on a damn battery. Funny, I cant find one that doesnt do all the useless crap anymore, but I *SURE* cant find one that lives up to even its manufacturers claims on power consumption.
What scares me is they start putting this stuff in, whether we like it or not. And who is to say your fridge doesnt broadcast a signal to roving trucks with service people in them? That may sound a bit on the edge, but its possible. And anywhere that type of thing is a "convenience" it could also be abused.
Bigger and Faster is not *always* better. Give me a simpler time.. when if the power went out, people didnt lose their minds.. they simply lit candles and played cards for an hour or two. Or when people kept buckets of water around during storms so they could flush toilets. That I could understand. Technology is *SO* freakin ingrained into our lives these days that without electricity, the world grinds to a freaking halt rather suddenly. And it shouldnt have to. People did fine without it for 2000 or more years.
Maeryk
Why would these things be controlled via the internet? We already segregate certain high security systems from the internet to avoid even the chance of them being "hacked". I don't think a pacemaker would -EVER- be hooked up to the internet -- not only is there no point, but it's just extra risk for something to go wrong.
Because idiot sheeples want bigger faster better. They want their refrigerator to be able to print out a list of groceries it needs on their computer. They want to be able to put a recipe into their laptop, and using wireless, have it pre-program the stove and microwave, and have the refrigerator and pantry tell them what they need to buy to make it happen. Because clever marketing has convinced people that "can you hear me now? good" means you SHOULD be hauling a freakin digital phone with a billion free any time minutes a month around the grand canyon or your favorite cavern and annoying me.
Because people will BUY it if they think it is glitzy and new and makes them all hep and stuff. Maybe not many people, but people *will* buy. Look at cars! They now have more freakin features than anyone ever needed, but boy do they want them!
Figure out what people would have said about PDA's and cell phones thirty years ago had someone suggested they would exist. "Thats ridiculous..why would anyone EVER want that? I have my phone in the house, and I have my day-timer! Why carry around something that needs batteries?"
Granted.. Im as guilty as the next guy.. I gave my son a laptop to learn on when he turned six.. because I wanted him to have the edge as he grows up and be experienced and not afraid of computers.. but I think I may have done him a grave disservice, introducing electronics-as-necessity to him that young in life. (How many 9 year olds do you know who, on the phone with their friends, say "Hang on.. I'll shut down the laptop and be right over?"
Things will get hooked to the internet and to each other that never should be.. in the name of "convenience" and "cause its neat".
Maeryk
"We're here to defend intellectual property," said Jim DeLong, an economist at CEI. "If you want balance, go to another session."
Does it appear to anyone else that that is pretty much the running theme for ANYTHING the MPAA has its fingers in? Its all or nothing with them. They rail about how they are losing like crazy, yet refuse to hear anything even remotely like a compromise.
Well, I paid a heck of a lot of money for my home theater setup.. I guess if they manage to whack my TiVO (which I would assume they are also thinking about, as its pretty easy to dump the signal out to a decent recorder) then DirectTV is gonna lose my business. And probably a lot of OTHER peoples business as well.
This looks to me like a pre-emptive strike at the HDTV standards that are going to come out.. after all, why WOULDNT you want to record something that is twice the clarity and fidelity of even the best DVD right now? They can control DVD's to a certain extent, but they will NOT be able to control this, they know it, and they are running scared before the fact.
(Now.. if only we could get them to program something WORTH RECORDING in HDTV.. right now, I only get HBO (same old same old) and a couple of news channels.. and interminable re-runs of ER)
Maeryk
Okay.. I read the article. It was an interesting mix between pat on the back science and good old "Hey, aint NASA GREAT!" enthusiasm.
My question.. which I did not see answered, are where ARE they right now? I know they havent cleared the SS yet, but where exactly are they? ARe we going to get pictures Pluto and Neptune back? (Which would be GREAT.. and would solve that long running question of whether Pluto is even a planet, a bit asteroid, or a half a planet that got pulled into the gravity well here).
Does it even have the transmitting power to send real data back anymore? or simply to weakly croak "I am here".
Maeryk
If people REALLY wanna see Porn featuring the Madonna, they can just hit amazon and pick up that awful coffee table book she put out a few years ago!
Maeryk
Blue Gravity's chief executive, Tom Krwawecz, said the company was never informed. And he believes U.S. laws -- not Italy's -- ought to apply.
I don't think so...
If he really feels that way, he should just put the site back up, eat the hosting fee, and vote with his resources.
Its ridiculous to assume that one porn site getting changed is going to cause the US to throw a political molotav at Italy. But, I *would* be willing to bet there are going to be dozens of sites springi8ng up shortly that feature "madonna porn" (like the "sex" book, right? When she had the hairy armpits? and the fake mole?)
Maeryk
Saying the banks could have just looked deeper and found the inconsistencies is like saying that if someone goes into a bank with a fake ID, and gets a loan under an assumed ID, the bank is at fault. The wole idea is that WorldCom broke the law by falsifying records... That means it would take a full fledged investigation to determine something was wrong. Come on, it's not unreasonable for a bank to assume a company is not breaking the law.
Why not? They assume I am breaking the law every time I cash a check with them. Some of them wont even honor checks drawn on their own accounts unless you have enough money in your OWN account with them to cover the cost of the check. Have you ever gone for a mortgage? I have had less invasive background checks done by the police. (but we wont go into that now.)
It lies on the bank to secure its billions of dollars of its depositors money. After all, theoretically, the bank answers to us, the peoples money who keep it afloat day to day.
Blaming congress rather than the president is borderline. The President is the Chief Executor and Chief Legislator. If he had exercised his powers to attempt to get such laws passed, and the senate did not go along with it, I would agree with you. However, it is also true that the Senate could do so on their own (but that takes much more time).
Hmm. You have a point. However, Bush has a very tough fight to get ANYTHING through congress at this point. There are enough Dem's on the hill who have sworn to oppose just about anything he tries that he has to be rather picky and choosy about what he tries to get done. And I think he has bigger fish to fry. (Or, thought he did, what with buildings blowing up, a war in the middle east, and another two wars brewing, one between Palestine and Israeal, and one between Pakistan and India). I think he's been pretty busy with other things, truth be told. But laying all the blame on him is kind of silly. Especially when these things *HAVE* been happening for the last umpteen years, and no-one else has had the desire to do anything about it either.
Again.. it boils down to how much money these CEO's and their respective companies have put in the pockets of the people who refuse to regualte them.. or the people who refuse to prosecute when they do get caught. Or who choose to hand forth extremely lenient sentences when they finally come before a judge or a review board.
After all, the laws already exist to enforce punishment on these things. Not everyone gets the Michael Milken Club Med prison treatment.
You could have fooled me. That's exactly what it appears to be. A corporation is designed with the intent to do anything within the law to make money. That mindset is a dangerous one, which is why companies are subject to laws designed specifically to regulate corporations. The fact that individuals inside a company went just too far is not unusual
You are right. It is not unusual. It should be however. The laws should be changed so that those responsible for running the companies into the ground at the expense of the stock holders and the workers should be personally liable. Their golden parachutes and multi-million dollar palaces and perks should be at risk, as well. Those smart enough to take their cash out before it gets ugly and sink it into material goods should lose those goods until they are in the position of those they have damaged on the way.
Of course, a lot of this would not happen if investors had a clue. The market of recent years has been one of rapid wealth and fast returns on big buys. That can only lead to artifially inflated stocks, and huge amounts of cash trading hands. Look at RedHat.. and see what ESR said about his "sudden millionaire status" when they IPO'd. He said he couldnt touch it for six months.. but a lot of other people made a lot of money on that stock in the first couple of days it was out. The system isnt broken.. but it sure aint perfect either.
maeryk
its a paraphrase of something said a couple of times.. the quote I can think of off the top of my head is
Proberbs 22:7 "The rich is the one that rules over those of little means, and the borrower is servant to the man doing the lending"
Maeryk
STop with THe FUcked up CAptialization before i SMack YOu SIlly. :)
:P. Sorry its this goddamned laptop.. the shift key is a bit sticky, and I type to fast and often get double caps, and, well, im just too damned lazy to go back and correct em, as long as the spelling is marginally correct.
Too late.
Maeryk
LOL.. this is almost funny. I love the fact that it is THE one guy in the hot seats fault. Not Congress. Not the SEnate. Not the last eight YEARS of ignoring signs and worrying about guys selling sawed off shotguns in the mountains rather than corporate scandal and greed.
There is a cycle here you'se guys arent noticing. (Or arent mentioning, anyway). After *EVERY* huge economic gain in this, our american society, companies tank like this. Its called "spending money you dont have". Hate to be a bible quoter.. but "Neither a borrower nor a lender be."
The issue isnt as much with the government allowing the companies to regulate themselves.. it is with the BANKS looking to turn huge profits on overnight and offshore loans. See, thats where the banks make money. ANd if they would pass anything more than even a cursory glance at a company's books, they might catch the cookage instead of loaning 3B to a company to aquire another company, and find out six months later its all cotton candy.
The president has a certain amount of expectation to speak on this, but he has no REAL control. He cannot magically wave his pen and make longer prison sentences. That requires an act of the full government. ANd as stated, they wont do it. How many of them do you think have taken payoffs from various companies? Or money for their camppaigns? Or thrown huge bones to these companies in pork barrel politics? If anyone, your senators and congressmen should be the ones you are screaming bloody murder to. Not the PResident.
Maeryk
Why should we pay tax dollars to keep a monopoly up and running? I hope the government doesnt step in, the government should never step in to save any company unless its an absolutely vital company such as a food company, or water or electric company where peoples lives are on the line.
Umm.. we should because, simply put, people who are employed spend money. People who are unemployed DONT spend money. Thats basic economics. The situation right now is a very rare one.. the stock market has slid for 19 straight weeks, yet the economy is actually on a slow but steady increase. HOwever, a whole heck of a lot of people losing their jobs would rather suddenly change that swing up to a swing down.
Worldcom is a communications company and I hate this corperate welfare shit, we cant get welfare, so why should they?
I dunno.. why the hell should the government step in when a major sport strikes? Cause it keeps people happy. It would depend on who Worldcom serviced, and the ability of their customers to get rapid replacement service if they went down. That would probably have more to do with the decision to offer corporate welfare or not. Sometimes it is easier all around to throw some money at a company that may be able to restructure and survive than it is to let it fail and leave a lot of people out in the cold.
However, the alternative is in plain sight. THe only industry in the world that can mistreat its customers every step of the way are the Airlines. They got bailed out, hence meaning they can mistreat even MORE customers without even having to worry if they lose them or not. (SOrry.. personal rant.. my wife is now stuck in Charlotte NC because the airline had "mechanical failure" (read.. six people waiting for a large plane, which they dont want to fly) and they are making noises about canceling the later flight as well. (Same six people.. ).
Maeryk
Well, sort of, anyway. ANyone remember when Inacom tanked? I was working for them at the time.
Luckily, I got picked up by a "competitor" who was also onsite at the same place, so I only had a week of questionability.
THe schematic is slightly different.. Inacom claimed they *might* fold.. they claimed they *MIGHT* declare bankruptcy, and they put themselves on the block to be purchased, in whole or in part. Other groups came in, looked decided "I want part of this, but they are going to crash anyway, so I will just wait and absorb their assets after the crash, rather than paying an inflated (read: more than bottom penny) price for them.
However, what Inacom DID do, was broadcast a message on Wednesday, saying everything was cheery, bankruptcy could be avoided, etc. On Friday we got a voicemail saying "the vast majority of Inacom employees have been let go. Pinkertons (I think.. one of hte security companies) employees will escort you from the site."
We sued, in a class action, for lost wages, and violation of the WARN act.. (if a company knows its tanking, and doesnt tell you, they are liable.) This suit is still in progress, as far as I know. And may be for several years.. seeing ANY money, including 401K money can be tough as well. Once the IRS gets ahold of it, they can hold it pretty much as long as they want. Especially if there was financial malfeasance within the company.. you may also find out your company did not pay as much into the 401, health, insurance, unemployment, as they claimed they had. ANd there is nothing you can do, really, once the corporation folds/loses all its assets. The individuals who ran it are blameless, and it is very very difficult to sue them personally. (Hence, corporations of one.. for that very reason).
Good luck.. hope it all works out for you.. but it is often ugly in the long run.
Maeryk
Those really streight lines that people say no one could make unless they were in the air? Heard of string?
No.. the straight ones are pretty mundane. Its the animals and birds and things that get wierd.. because they are only truly visible from the air.
The are called "nasca" or "nazca" lines, and they are in Peru. (Which, if you believe the UFO-ians, is a real hotbed of interplanetary activity nightly. Most of the really good sightings tend to come from South America.)
anyway.. linkage:
Check it out! neat stuff.. and very likely *NOT* hoaxed.
maeryk
The crop circles were made by a couple of fellows from Winchester named Doug Bower and Dave Chorley. They made the circles for years at night, and Bower even kept the secret from his wife for seven years.
THey were even infiltrated by a BBC reporter who filmed them making a few of them. However, this *STILL* doesnt explain the ones in Brazil, and other parts of the world that were turning up also. Im sure Bower and Chorley made a few or even a few dozen, but there have been hundreds upon hundreds of these things, all over the world, and they seem to co-appear, rather than being as random as CNBC would have you believe.
Im not a nutcase, and I dont believe there are spaceships landing to play bocce in wheat fields, but two pranksters from England claiming they did them all is kind of ridiculous as well.
Plus, there are other wierd phenomena involved in *some* circles that two guys with a 2x4 and large feet cannot make happen.
Plus, I'd like to know how they get into some of these places that are guarded now.. (some of the farmers have put their fields under video surveillance, found no evidence of people wandering around and had a crop circle the next morning..).
We may never know, but they are happening all over the place.
Next those two will claim they built the bizarre desert mounds that are only visible from aircraft!
Maeryk
I have read of some interesting phenomenon in a few of the circles investigated. Molecular changes at the base of the stalks causing them to bend, rather than break. (do that with a 2x4!) and magnetic issues inside the circle formations.
I agree that most of them are man made, and probably the most intricate ones are man made as well.. but I also remember reading with a giggle as the SKeptic Observer reported definitively that they were being made by "mating hedgehogs".
I feel safe in saying we dont KNOW they are all man made, but we do know a lot of them are.
Check here: for more info. This guy seems to be a genuine researcher who accepts it when his hypothesis dont come out right.
Maeryk
Perhaps I was confused about your statement then, I thought the article was referring to local solar system sized objects, very few of which contain high power radio transmitters
Nono.. my bad. THe article was referring to local, but I was thinking longterm extra-solar-sytem uses. SOrry! I failed to make myself clear. Seti is clearly useless within the solar system, unless the BEMS happen to have the radio cranked in their skimmer while they are cruising our atmosphere to laugh at the locals.
maeryk
Right. But astronomical objects put out radio static as well as visible light, in some cases. They have found quasars and double stars just because they have a very rhythmic and repeating radio pattern that they have been able to locate.
Granted, it might not point RIGHT to it, but it does seem to indicate in what general area it is, which gives us a bit more to work with when looking there with optical and/or IR scopes.
There is a huge difference between KNOWING something is there and trying to find it, and just scanning in the hopes of locating something.
(INsert obligatory jedi kids in training comment here, Obiwan.)
Maeryk
As much as I love to hear theorys like this out of NASA, and as much as I love NASA, I think they have a few other bugs to iron out first.
While this is a great idea.. and something that has been proposed since the earliest days of Sci-Fi, (using heavy masses as centerpoints for gravitational slingshots, among other things), we
need to get a lot of other things settled first.
People back on the moon looking for raw materials, some actual exploration of Mars, the ISS up and running properly and actually doing something that John Q Public cares about, would be a good start.
This is really coool, and Hubble will probably help a lot, as well as that Muckin Huge Telescope they are building, and SETI may even factor in, as it picks up signals from objects that we cant see, but we can hear.
Its good to see that even in times of "national trouble" NASA is forging ahead and is out on the edge with theorys and predictions, but unfortunately, thats all they are, or are likey to be, unless the Gubmint gets serious about funding space travel. Or NASA becomes self sufficient.. which they could be, if only they collected royalties on the mundane uses of some of the hundreds of things that have been invented/developed by them for the space program.
*sigh*
in a perfect world...
Maeryk
1). The adverage IQ is 100 that means half of the people who can vote have below adverage IQ however you measure IQ, thats just the way it is, who's to say you vote is better than somone elses.
Oh.. no doubt. And I'm not saying anyones vote is "better" than anyone elses.. but I am saying that you have to take into account the fact that a lot of politicians drum up support from sectors of society who cannot figure out how to work a VCR.. and do it intentionally, because they know large *OTHER* sectors of society cant be bothered to go out and vote, because they feel above the system, or are so distrustful of politics in general that they dont trust ANYONE in the office.
Sheep *can* be good for something other than tight sweaters on cute girlys, it appears.
). They should really have thaught about this first, don't forget polititians have an adverage IQ of 90,
I think they *did* think about this. I think they went for the "simplest" and "best" (read, hardest to "misinterpret") method they could find, and it STILL leaves people in the dust as far as satisfaction of voting experience goes.
Bear in mind, that that election (bush-gore) changed the political face of society. From now on it will be accepted that people are going to complain if they lose the election, demand recounts until the end of time, and demand re-votes because they THINK they should have won. Get used to it, because it will keep happening. Sore losers are nothing new to politics, but they are now a dominant force, I am afraid. I can understand recounts and revotes when it comes down to 1 or 10 votes.. but I think it is going to be way out of hand from now on.
anyhow i think there should only be numbers on the ballot and any campains so that you have to know what your voting for!.
Hehehe.. yeah. I agree.. but then, I also think voting should be conducted in english only. See.. maybe I'm an elitist prick, but I figure if you love this country enough to choose the people who run it, you at *LEAST* oughtta learn the national language while you are at it.
(ah hell.. I have karma to burn.. mod as troll if'n ya want, its just my personal opinion)
Maeryk
Like the problem is that there is a real issue with the machines, as much as two other things.
:ding: "you smell.. Im not taking your vote! No vote for you!" or something? Remember.. these people were too stupid in a lot of cases to understand how to poke a hole in a butterfly ballot or to follow a line to a persons name.. you expect them to make a bilingual computer screen work?
1)voters who claim their vote wasnt taken (how do they know? Did the machine go
2) SOmeone who wanted to get elected did not get elected, and knowing the machines were under an NDA or were otherwise inauditable at the moment (even though they apparently passed all their initial tests with flying colors) started screaming ITS THE MACHINES FAULT!
Great tradition we have started here.. "The people did not elect me by their votes.. I must challenge and challenge until I win!"
Cant we just go back to the days of dropping small rocks into boxes for votes?
*sigh*
Maeryk