It's like having on multiple condoms, but each with a hole in it somewhere. It might be a little more difficult, but one of the little buggers is bound to get through one day, and then there's no turning back from there.
That isn't a very good example either. Hurricanes typically gust up to 100+ MPH. Sustained winds are often less than that, 60% or so of the maximum gust speed. But more importantly, nobody really rides out a hurricane unshielded, and if anything, you can turn 180 degrees away from the winds if you need to breathe inside a storm. It's a little difficult to turn 180 degrees in a car, not to mention dangerous. I guarantee you'll have trouble breathing behind the wheel of a car without a windshield at 30MPH.
Regardless, the car analogy is inappropriate. The physical effects of high levels of stress on the human body have been well studied for many centuries now. It hasn't necessarily been well understood, and there haven't been latin-based names for every little phenomena, but the effects have been known.
With the LHC, we're entering uncharted territory, and not in the sense of parting the next clump of bushes to see what's behind. It is uncharted territory in the sense that we're charging through the next clump of bushes to see what's on the other side when we're legally blind and have left our glasses at home. It's probably more trees on the other side, but there's always a chance of a cliff. And while it's not that easy to fall even if there was a cliff, it's possible to slip on some wet foilage or trip on a low branch or root.
The software and business method patent fiasco is a good case study on how patents actually reduce innovation in todays markets. The technological boom of the 70's-90's was entirely made possible by the inability for people to patent their software and business method ideas. We wouldn't have Windows and MacOS if PARC had patented the GUI. Likewise for the internet. Software would have been set back at least fifty years with software patents. There wouldn't be a WWW right now, and this entire idea of the 21st century being the dawn of the "information age" wouldn't happen until at least the 22nd century. If you can extend this to every other industry, then patents aren't doing any good for any industry today.
Some people use the "reveal trade secrets for a limited monopoly" excuse for having patents. That might have applied back then (but then again, things were so much easier to reverse-engineer back then maybe not), but it certainly doesn't apply now. Things that don't need to be revealed to the public are still kept as trade secrets whenever possible e.g. Google's search algorithms. And with laws against revealing trade secrets (or laws that enforce contracts that prevent revealing trade secrets), there's no incentive for companies to patent things they don't have to reveal to the public anymore.
Some argue that they protect the small business from being stillborn, or later outcompeted by large companies. But anticompetition laws already take care of those, and a strengthening of those laws would suffice to protect small businesses. Instead, it is now forcing small businesses to waste resources entering an arms race just for self defense.
So in reality, patents serve no purpose for society as a whole. However, I would never advocate for their complete dissolution. It would be a major shock to the system, and economies will collapse. Instead, increasing the threshold for patentability, weakening patent law by limiting damages to or outright invalidating the patents of companies holding patents but have no demonstrable products in progress, would be a great start. Striking down the DMCA so that reverse-engineering is not illegal again would also help promote innovation and progress.
But patents have been great as a club for the US to hold over developing countries' heads to keep them from becoming superpowers, so we're not going to see it go away or get any weaker any time soon.
No, they haven't really crumbled yet. They're not making money off Vista. But everybody's still running XP.
Their failure with Vista has more to do with the bloat that has appeared over the years, and a very low s/n of good, agile designers and managers, than with any outside force.
Maybe they just couldn't find their promissory note among the stacks of files they submitted to the court system. It would be poetic justic if true, but alas, things just don't work out that way.
It has always annoyed and somewhat puzzled me when I hear people refer to Andrew Jackson as a "strong" president. Even in grade school, after reading about him and the atrocities he committed, I couldn't believe that it was possible to defend him. Yet, every piece of printed literature I had read at the time simply wouldn't say what was blindingly obvious, instead choosing to say he was a "strong" president.
That's about when I realized the heavy pro-US propaganda in the material used by public schools in "liberal" places. About the same time was when I realized most people don't think for themselves, instead choosing to repeat verbatim the things others have told them. These are pretty frightening thoughts for a preteen.
Here's hoping history will give Bush Jr. the treatment he deserves.
I don't watch TV news, and I read Ted Rall and Ann Coulter and everyone in between just to keep my cognitives well-dissonanced.
So you acknowledge the difference between Ted Rall and Ann Coulter.
Fox News is basically the TV version of Ann Coulter, presenting the ideas that Ann Coulter would, but as news and more importantly, as truth and fact.
It's pretty easy to judge the bias of a particular organization as long as there's a good point of reference. That point of reference doesn't have to be in the middle, but it's usually a good idea if it is. All you have to do is look at which "facts" get trotted out, and the conclusion that comes about based on those "facts" ("facts" is in quotes because despite being presented as such, not everything said on the news is necessarily true).
To over-simplify the process, if the facts are completely different, then likely, both your point of reference and the material you are comparing it to are biased, but on opposite ends. If the facts are exactly the same, then both things share the same bias (or the lack thereof). Variations determine how biased the material actually is. It's up to you to figure out where in reality your point of reference lies, but that's why you get to pick your point of reference. And your point of reference doesn't have to be an actual thing, but it could be based on multiple sources.
On the contrary, the Bush administration is interested in a big central government (the great debate in the US has never been about big or small government, but big or small federal government). However, the "big" government they envision applies only to the executive.
Since congress is pushing this through, they're not interested. If they had gotten to this idea first, they would've done a PR blitz for it that would put Apple's marketing department to shame.
Now that making available is no longer sufficient for infringement, what would really stop the RIAA's lawsuits would be local entrapment laws for PI's. There are already states where Media Sentry's operations are illegal because they aren't legal PI's. It'd be even better if all states adopted laws such where licenses are required for PI's, with rules for PI conduct whereby the breaking of those rules would result in the suspension or revocation of the license, as well as the disregarding of any evidence gathered by the breaking of the rules.
Never say never. I completely agree that cameras on phones suck big ones, and if I was going to take pictures, I'd never use a camera phone in place of even a good point-and-shoot. If I was seriously going to take pictures, I'd use a DSLR.
However, I once received a parking citation for a very obvious non-violation (it was the end of the month, and I'm guessing someone had a quota to make), and not having a camera on me at the time, I instead used my phone to take the pictures I needed. It wasn't an ideal situation, but I was able to frame the shots well enough to make my case. If my phone didn't have a camera, I'd be short a hundred bucks or so.
You know what they say about features: 80% of the people use 80% of the features, but everybody uses a different 80%.
There's no reason for a phone to be tailored specifically to your wants and needs and hence have fifty different models for all fifty combinations, if for a few more cents, manufacturers can make a phone that appeals to a much wider audience. Besides, remember the study about choices, and how too many choices actually confuses people and puts them off.
Anyway, just because you don't need it now, and you currently don't think you have any need for the features you find extraneous, doesn't necessarily imply that you won't, within the lifetime of the phone, ever have a need for them.
I know ever since Google came along, we have a tendency to attribute personalities and other human characteristics to companies. However, this is a very dangerous fallacy. Companies, in fact, are amoral. They are neither good nor evil. The nature of a company is to make money and to survive. Survival requires growth, so it isn't wrong to say that companies exist to make more and more money. So for them, to do right is to bring in revenue, and to do wrong is to lose revenue. That is all, no more, no less.
IBM will champion open source and open standards so long as it makes them money. It is the same with Novell and Sun. They don't contribute to open source software if the people running the show doesn't somehow think that such contributions will bring in revenue, and eventually profit. It is the same for Google. If participataing in open source or making somehow loses m
Yes, the goodwill of the people does count, but for very little. Look at Microsoft. Despite all of their actions that have antagonized people here, and even their userbase, how many people own XBoxes? Sony is another good example. How many people have Bravia televisions or own a PS3? We talk about rewarding companies who do good and voting with our wallets, but not only are we on the fringe, but at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. As long as they make a good product, a useful product, nobody really cares about what else they do.
And yes, there are humans behind the scense who run the company and decide on its direction. However, those people come and go. They are not permanent. One day, the CEO could be for open source software, and the next day, that person could be replaced by someone hostile to open source. And get this, the ones who go are usually the ones who don't make money for the company. Philanthropy has no place in a company if it can't make money.
Today, IBM works for openness now, in this instance, for this situation. And it is a "good" thing. But they do it not for the sake of "good" but because it will make them money. It isn't to say that they're not doing something "evil" at the same time, or that they won't tomorrow.
This inability for one to recognize reality for what it is is very dangerous. Call me a cynic, but if we continue to attribute "good" and "evil" to companies, we won't see what's really happening until it's too late.
But does it still support DRM (Trusted Computing or whatever)? Because so long as it does, I'm never going to switch, nor recommend anyone I know to switch from XP.
That's how things used to happen, 10, maybe 20 years ago.
Today, it's a phone call the night before that says, "Don't bother coming in tomorrow" or security guards at the lobby that escort you directly to a waiting car service.
All of your personal possessions will be mailed to you after people sort out what's company possessions and what's personal.
If it works as stated and he delivers it to the public well.
A lot of geniuses have trouble with the marketing part of the process. Even if it does work as advertised, he might still get the shaft by a greedy businessman and his lawyer friend.
That having been said, all the more power to the kid.
Privacy for the individual is very important, but privacy is for individuals, not for government. People acting as agents of the government are not entitled to privacy during the time they are in that capacity. That is, the govenor of Alaska, when she is performing the duties of govenor of Alaska, should not and does not have any expectation of privacy.
If she gets AIDS, that's her problem, and a personal matter. If she has schitzophrenia, that's a different story. Once she's out of office though, and becomes a regular citizen again, she's entitled to whatever rights not taken away from every other citizen.
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It's like having on multiple condoms, but each with a hole in it somewhere. It might be a little more difficult, but one of the little buggers is bound to get through one day, and then there's no turning back from there.
That isn't a very good example either. Hurricanes typically gust up to 100+ MPH. Sustained winds are often less than that, 60% or so of the maximum gust speed. But more importantly, nobody really rides out a hurricane unshielded, and if anything, you can turn 180 degrees away from the winds if you need to breathe inside a storm. It's a little difficult to turn 180 degrees in a car, not to mention dangerous. I guarantee you'll have trouble breathing behind the wheel of a car without a windshield at 30MPH.
Regardless, the car analogy is inappropriate. The physical effects of high levels of stress on the human body have been well studied for many centuries now. It hasn't necessarily been well understood, and there haven't been latin-based names for every little phenomena, but the effects have been known.
With the LHC, we're entering uncharted territory, and not in the sense of parting the next clump of bushes to see what's behind. It is uncharted territory in the sense that we're charging through the next clump of bushes to see what's on the other side when we're legally blind and have left our glasses at home. It's probably more trees on the other side, but there's always a chance of a cliff. And while it's not that easy to fall even if there was a cliff, it's possible to slip on some wet foilage or trip on a low branch or root.
The software and business method patent fiasco is a good case study on how patents actually reduce innovation in todays markets. The technological boom of the 70's-90's was entirely made possible by the inability for people to patent their software and business method ideas. We wouldn't have Windows and MacOS if PARC had patented the GUI. Likewise for the internet. Software would have been set back at least fifty years with software patents. There wouldn't be a WWW right now, and this entire idea of the 21st century being the dawn of the "information age" wouldn't happen until at least the 22nd century. If you can extend this to every other industry, then patents aren't doing any good for any industry today.
Some people use the "reveal trade secrets for a limited monopoly" excuse for having patents. That might have applied back then (but then again, things were so much easier to reverse-engineer back then maybe not), but it certainly doesn't apply now. Things that don't need to be revealed to the public are still kept as trade secrets whenever possible e.g. Google's search algorithms. And with laws against revealing trade secrets (or laws that enforce contracts that prevent revealing trade secrets), there's no incentive for companies to patent things they don't have to reveal to the public anymore.
Some argue that they protect the small business from being stillborn, or later outcompeted by large companies. But anticompetition laws already take care of those, and a strengthening of those laws would suffice to protect small businesses. Instead, it is now forcing small businesses to waste resources entering an arms race just for self defense.
So in reality, patents serve no purpose for society as a whole. However, I would never advocate for their complete dissolution. It would be a major shock to the system, and economies will collapse. Instead, increasing the threshold for patentability, weakening patent law by limiting damages to or outright invalidating the patents of companies holding patents but have no demonstrable products in progress, would be a great start. Striking down the DMCA so that reverse-engineering is not illegal again would also help promote innovation and progress.
But patents have been great as a club for the US to hold over developing countries' heads to keep them from becoming superpowers, so we're not going to see it go away or get any weaker any time soon.
No, they haven't really crumbled yet. They're not making money off Vista. But everybody's still running XP.
Their failure with Vista has more to do with the bloat that has appeared over the years, and a very low s/n of good, agile designers and managers, than with any outside force.
Maybe they just couldn't find their promissory note among the stacks of files they submitted to the court system. It would be poetic justic if true, but alas, things just don't work out that way.
It has always annoyed and somewhat puzzled me when I hear people refer to Andrew Jackson as a "strong" president. Even in grade school, after reading about him and the atrocities he committed, I couldn't believe that it was possible to defend him. Yet, every piece of printed literature I had read at the time simply wouldn't say what was blindingly obvious, instead choosing to say he was a "strong" president.
That's about when I realized the heavy pro-US propaganda in the material used by public schools in "liberal" places. About the same time was when I realized most people don't think for themselves, instead choosing to repeat verbatim the things others have told them. These are pretty frightening thoughts for a preteen.
Here's hoping history will give Bush Jr. the treatment he deserves.
Sarah Palin is Chuck Norris with boobs.
I don't watch TV news, and I read Ted Rall and Ann Coulter and everyone in between just to keep my cognitives well-dissonanced.
So you acknowledge the difference between Ted Rall and Ann Coulter.
Fox News is basically the TV version of Ann Coulter, presenting the ideas that Ann Coulter would, but as news and more importantly, as truth and fact.
It's pretty easy to judge the bias of a particular organization as long as there's a good point of reference. That point of reference doesn't have to be in the middle, but it's usually a good idea if it is. All you have to do is look at which "facts" get trotted out, and the conclusion that comes about based on those "facts" ("facts" is in quotes because despite being presented as such, not everything said on the news is necessarily true).
To over-simplify the process, if the facts are completely different, then likely, both your point of reference and the material you are comparing it to are biased, but on opposite ends. If the facts are exactly the same, then both things share the same bias (or the lack thereof). Variations determine how biased the material actually is. It's up to you to figure out where in reality your point of reference lies, but that's why you get to pick your point of reference. And your point of reference doesn't have to be an actual thing, but it could be based on multiple sources.
Proven wrong by the fact that he is blue.
On the contrary, the Bush administration is interested in a big central government (the great debate in the US has never been about big or small government, but big or small federal government). However, the "big" government they envision applies only to the executive.
Since congress is pushing this through, they're not interested. If they had gotten to this idea first, they would've done a PR blitz for it that would put Apple's marketing department to shame.
Now that making available is no longer sufficient for infringement, what would really stop the RIAA's lawsuits would be local entrapment laws for PI's. There are already states where Media Sentry's operations are illegal because they aren't legal PI's. It'd be even better if all states adopted laws such where licenses are required for PI's, with rules for PI conduct whereby the breaking of those rules would result in the suspension or revocation of the license, as well as the disregarding of any evidence gathered by the breaking of the rules.
One of the more pervasive memes I've seen here regarding Apple is (and I paraphrase):
They're shafting me in the ass right now, but I'm hoping they'll stop soon.
The paper has also been embued with the subtly fragrance of a fresh ripe McIntosh apple.
Never say never. I completely agree that cameras on phones suck big ones, and if I was going to take pictures, I'd never use a camera phone in place of even a good point-and-shoot. If I was seriously going to take pictures, I'd use a DSLR.
However, I once received a parking citation for a very obvious non-violation (it was the end of the month, and I'm guessing someone had a quota to make), and not having a camera on me at the time, I instead used my phone to take the pictures I needed. It wasn't an ideal situation, but I was able to frame the shots well enough to make my case. If my phone didn't have a camera, I'd be short a hundred bucks or so.
You know what they say about features: 80% of the people use 80% of the features, but everybody uses a different 80%.
There's no reason for a phone to be tailored specifically to your wants and needs and hence have fifty different models for all fifty combinations, if for a few more cents, manufacturers can make a phone that appeals to a much wider audience. Besides, remember the study about choices, and how too many choices actually confuses people and puts them off.
Anyway, just because you don't need it now, and you currently don't think you have any need for the features you find extraneous, doesn't necessarily imply that you won't, within the lifetime of the phone, ever have a need for them.
Full disclosure, I'm partial to Nokia phones.
Obligatory XKCD.
As you can see, Asia has several /8 blocks allocated to it. I'll bet China has a few of those /8 blocks.
Besides, NAT's can only handle 65536-1024 connections (number of ports minus 1024 reserved).
It's Steve Job's Reality Distortion Field (TM) hiding itself from prying eyes.
algebra, sex ed, and government
One of the things is not like the others...
On a side note, I hate idle's font scheme, its layout, and its broken comment box.
I know ever since Google came along, we have a tendency to attribute personalities and other human characteristics to companies. However, this is a very dangerous fallacy. Companies, in fact, are amoral. They are neither good nor evil. The nature of a company is to make money and to survive. Survival requires growth, so it isn't wrong to say that companies exist to make more and more money. So for them, to do right is to bring in revenue, and to do wrong is to lose revenue. That is all, no more, no less.
IBM will champion open source and open standards so long as it makes them money. It is the same with Novell and Sun. They don't contribute to open source software if the people running the show doesn't somehow think that such contributions will bring in revenue, and eventually profit. It is the same for Google. If participataing in open source or making somehow loses m
Yes, the goodwill of the people does count, but for very little. Look at Microsoft. Despite all of their actions that have antagonized people here, and even their userbase, how many people own XBoxes? Sony is another good example. How many people have Bravia televisions or own a PS3? We talk about rewarding companies who do good and voting with our wallets, but not only are we on the fringe, but at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. As long as they make a good product, a useful product, nobody really cares about what else they do.
And yes, there are humans behind the scense who run the company and decide on its direction. However, those people come and go. They are not permanent. One day, the CEO could be for open source software, and the next day, that person could be replaced by someone hostile to open source. And get this, the ones who go are usually the ones who don't make money for the company. Philanthropy has no place in a company if it can't make money.
Today, IBM works for openness now, in this instance, for this situation. And it is a "good" thing. But they do it not for the sake of "good" but because it will make them money. It isn't to say that they're not doing something "evil" at the same time, or that they won't tomorrow.
This inability for one to recognize reality for what it is is very dangerous. Call me a cynic, but if we continue to attribute "good" and "evil" to companies, we won't see what's really happening until it's too late.
Chefs sometimes spit in the pizza.
What, do you think that extra tang comes from nowhere?
But does it still support DRM (Trusted Computing or whatever)? Because so long as it does, I'm never going to switch, nor recommend anyone I know to switch from XP.
That's how things used to happen, 10, maybe 20 years ago.
Today, it's a phone call the night before that says, "Don't bother coming in tomorrow" or security guards at the lobby that escort you directly to a waiting car service.
All of your personal possessions will be mailed to you after people sort out what's company possessions and what's personal.
Tell that to the Iraqis or for that matter, the thousands of families in the US hanging a gold star.
If it works as stated and he delivers it to the public well.
A lot of geniuses have trouble with the marketing part of the process. Even if it does work as advertised, he might still get the shaft by a greedy businessman and his lawyer friend.
That having been said, all the more power to the kid.
Privacy for the individual is very important, but privacy is for individuals, not for government. People acting as agents of the government are not entitled to privacy during the time they are in that capacity. That is, the govenor of Alaska, when she is performing the duties of govenor of Alaska, should not and does not have any expectation of privacy.
If she gets AIDS, that's her problem, and a personal matter. If she has schitzophrenia, that's a different story. Once she's out of office though, and becomes a regular citizen again, she's entitled to whatever rights not taken away from every other citizen.
Erm, they are the media cartels. Obviously, they're going to ignore it.
The internet is a great threat to them, and in more than one way. That's why they want to control it with treaties such as this.