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User: Original+Replica

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  1. Re:Trains, US? on Transportation Bill Sets Aside $45 Million For MagLev Train · · Score: 1

    there's no way in hell I would go to Disney Land unless I had young children. And there is no way in hell I would go to Vegas with young children.

    If it's a fast enough train, overlap could work well. Picture this, you go to Disney land for two or three days with relatives or friends with kids the same age. In the morning you leave your kids with the other parents, hop a train with your wife, have a glamorous adult vacation for a day, train back to Disney in time for bedtime stories. The next day it's the other set of parents' turn.

  2. Re:How About Low Prices for Very Light Users on AT&T Embraces BitTorrent, Considers Usage-Based Pricing · · Score: 1

    Young people are beginning to realize that every word that comes out of the mouth of a white-haired, white male American corporate CEO is just horseshit designed to keep the CEOs and their class rich.

    Young people are beginning to realize that every word that comes out of the mouth of any corporate CEO is just horseshit designed to keep the CEOs and their class rich. Fixed that for you. I won't deny that most CEOs are old white guys, but the few that aren't are no better than then rest of their ilk. Elitist protectionism has very little to do with race and very much to do with social circles and modern aristocratic culture. Fifty years from now the skin color and genders of the corporate elite will be much more diverse but the culture will be as exclusive and self serving as ever.

  3. Re:Fourth amendment?? on Full Body Scanners Installed In 10 US Airports · · Score: 1

    Do you have any suggestions on how to avoid flying while not screwing one's self professionally? I'd appreciate any input.

    Get first class written into your contract. Or get a shrink to write you a letter stating that you have an debilitating fear of flying, they can't fire you for a medical condition. But most likely of all is to tell management that you want to steer your career away from out of town travel, business travel = airplanes.

  4. Re:It's Not Anti-Competitive... on Is Streaming Video the Real Throttling Target? · · Score: 1

    Yes they maintain the old system, but they don't make major infrastructure improvements/updates without government backing. Remember it was government funding that built the internet in the first place not AT&T. Expecting AT&T to get our internet infrastructure up to date is like expecting Amtrak to build a European/Japanese style high speed passenger train system spanning the US, it will never happen unless taxpayers pay for it up front.

  5. Re:Aluminum? on New Method Discovered For Making Telescopes On the Moon · · Score: 4, Funny

    Aluminum is a form of Aluminium found only in North America.

  6. Re:Trains, US? on Transportation Bill Sets Aside $45 Million For MagLev Train · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's amazing how much paranoia has become ingrained in certain subsections of modern western society.

    In terms of the American political world, given how often what is called "paranoia" turns out to be close enough to fact twenty or thirty years later it's not really a surprise. In the 1980s global warming was considered paranoia,even though it had been theorized in 1896. Treehuggers were fringe political freaks thirty years ago, now we know that they were mostly right. Orwell's 1984 was thought a bit over the top during most of it's literary history. But thoughtcrime and doublethink are a modern reality. Predictions of government abuse of "anti-terrorism" laws were written off as treasonously unpatriotic just six years ago.
    Given how much "Big Oil" countries have been investing in the US, it would be foolish to think that they didn't have considerable influence here in the US, both through lobbists and through business and real estae acquisitions. Also given is the oil import/export relationship is the prime source of income to most OPEC countries, it only makes sense that they would act to protect it. Maglev trains powered by stationary nuclear plants don't burn nearly as much imported oil as jumbo jets. Now exactly how successful they would be in their efforts to block the progression of an oil free infrastructure taking hold in the US is a potential topic for debate, but the fact that they will use what considerable influence they can to that end would seem obvious.

  7. Re:It's Not Anti-Competitive... on Is Streaming Video the Real Throttling Target? · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ... it's pro-retarded.

    It is retarded, or rather retarding, as in America is falling behind in technological infrastructure. 60% of Hong Kong is using IPTV, and here in this former super power, we have ISP throttling connections because of YouTube. Maybe if we weren't spending all of our money rebuilding/destroying/rebuilding the infrastructure on the other side of the globe.....

  8. Re:Is this safe? on How To Frame a Printer For Copyright Infringement · · Score: 2, Insightful

    They don't need "fake" experts they just need "real" experts that emphasis points that they want heard and minimize points they don't. In an adversarial legal system each side does this; it's up to the jury to decide which expert is full of it.

    Your point makes me wonder if in this day and age we don't need non-biased experts in the same way we need non-biased jurors. I would propose that each court district should have and online listing of which experts are needed, and volunteering to fill that need would fulfill one's jury service obligations.

  9. Re:6 kids around a table on Have Mathematics Exams Become Easier? · · Score: 1

    In the elementary grades, one teacher could cover all the subjects easily. 12 kids (or less) paying 4-5K per child per year would pay this teacher well.

    The nation's public school districts spent an average of $8,701 per student on elementary and secondary education in fiscal year 2005, up 5 percent from $8,287 the previous year, the U.S. Census Bureau reported today. So when you have classroom of 25 students per teacher, you have to ask if $207,175 worth of product is actually being supplied? Where does all that money go? Like most government run monopolies the majority of the labor budget is spent on a few over paid execs and a massively bloated middle management.

  10. Re:Anti-Malware Response on Sneaky Blackmailing Virus That Encrypts Data · · Score: 1

    Wouldn't one person be able to pay of the extortion, and then give out the key to everyone else?

    Wouldn't one person be able to pay the extortion, and follow the money, and bust the extortionist? Seems to me the best way to be rid of this sort of thing is to get a mobster's computer infected. A few headlines reading "Computer virus writer's body found in home" would do a great deal to suppress this sort of thing. People making frequent back-ups and improved anti-virus software only reduces the odds of a pay off for the malware creators, that is not a deterrent. Knowing that the last guy who wrote an extortion virus suffered a horrible fate just months after his virus was release, now that is a deterrent.

  11. Re:Parity on McCain Supports Warrantless Domestic Surveillance · · Score: 2, Interesting

    While it is very, very unlikely that the FISA court would leak a request for a wiretap, if the request were groundless/abusive enough, I suppose it is a possibility.

    They shouldn't have to "leak" anything. There is no reason for warrants not to be public knowledge after they have been carried out or rejected. It should be a necessary monitor both of police/DHS actions and judicial competency.

  12. Re:Parity on McCain Supports Warrantless Domestic Surveillance · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That is what the 72 hour after the fact warrant request is for. If the authorities must act right now they can, but that doesn't excuse them from judicial oversight. Nothing should ever exclude law enforcement from judicial oversight, ever. Not gag orders, not the need for expediency, not national security letters, not "sorry it's classified". Law enforcement without oversight and transparency is Fascism.

  13. Re:Pay teachers more on Have Mathematics Exams Become Easier? · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Teaching the masses in free public schools has never historically been a profession ones chooses if they want to do well financially.

    The caveat is that you frequently have to go to grad school to be qualified to teach, and grad school prices are rising much faster than public school salaries. Of course housing prices and food prices are also rising faster than salaries. Every career that used to be "just enough to get by" is in danger of falling out of the bottom of the middle class. When you have something like modern public school teaching, where most of the potential creativity and chance to influence young intellects has been replaced with neck deep bureaucracy and a focus on preparing for the next evaluation test, there isn't even a "contribute to the community" sliver lining any more. Public schools in America are broken.

  14. Re:Mediadefender is the Punisher on MediaDefender Explains Itself · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The roadblock will be getting a prosecutor or press charges

    Can't they just hire any lawyer for legal advice and then press charges themselves? It would stnd to reason that if you have the right to be your own lawyer for defense your could be your own lawyer for prosecution of crimes committed against you.

  15. Re:Market Forces At Work on FCC To Hold Hearings On Early Termination Fees · · Score: 1

    I'm not sure what you're getting at. In Europe when you want a new phone you have to shell out several hundred dollars, there are no free phones or discounts. The phone companies here give them away for free*.

    If they want to rent or lease cell phones then they should rent or lease cell phones. Don't tell me the phone is only $50 then try to recoup the cost by marking up service and then charging me $200 to cancel my service. Just say the phone costs $250. It's called honesty, the marketing guys won't understand it at all but the customers really find it refreshing.

  16. Re:So, basically on Is 'Corporate Citizen' an Oxymoron? · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "What would accomplish more? Suing the shareholders who were not involved but merely own the company? The crew of the ship who likely did what they could to prevent the incident much less don't have the funds to cover all the cleanup costs? Or the overall corporate entity which handles the operations and has the funds to cover cleanup costs? Obviously suing the corporate entity would have the greatest effect, and most likely the management would then reprimand the ship's crew as well."

    I disagree. I exactly think it should be the shareholders who should be sued, as a group. If the ship's route and scheduling, crew size, and oil spill first response measures are dictated by "maximizing the shareholder's profit" at the (implied) bidding of those shareholders. The shareholders are owners of the company, they should be involved in any legal proceedings against it. If a million different people own the company, then a million different people will be pissed when they have to write a check to pay for the poor behavior of that company, and they will be more likely to take action to prevent future poor behavior then if they are barely aware of the problem, because all they every look at is the stock price.

  17. Re:So, basically on Is 'Corporate Citizen' an Oxymoron? · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Though a cynic might argue that aligning the interests of the nation to that of its corporations is what is going on now, and that that is merely a different form of fascism.

    OK I'll be that cynic. It makes perfect sense that such problems should arise, money is essentially a tool used to trade power, influence, and ownership. So when you have corporations with as much money as many powerful countries, that they would begin to exert the same levels of influence as countries. The problem with this is that they are countries with only one law: profit. More enlightened countries understand that by improving the lives of their citizens and the lives of citizens in countries close to them, they improve the value of the country itself. The real wealth of nations is in the quality of life of it's citizens, much more so then the exchange rate and quantity of it's currency.

    Oil, soil, copper, and forests are forms of wealth. So are factories, houses, and roads. But according to a 2005 study by the World Bank, such solid goods amount to only about 20 percent of the wealth of rich nations and 40 percent of the wealth of poor countries. So what accounts for the majority? World Bank environmental economist Kirk Hamilton and his team in the bank's environment department have found that most of humanity's wealth isn't made of physical stuff. It is intangible....The rest of the story is intangible capital. That encompasses raw labor; human capital, which includes the sum of a population's knowledge and skills; and the level of trust in a society and the quality of its formal and informal institutions. Worldwide, the study finds, "natural capital accounts for 5 percent of total wealth, produced capital for 18 percent, and intangible capital 77 percent." Social institutions are most crucial. The World Bank has devised a rule of law index that measures the extent to which people have confidence in and abide by the rules of their society. An economy with a very efficient judicial system, clear and enforceable property rights, and an effective and uncorrupt government will produce higher total wealth.

    When you have economic enities as powerful as nations that do not work to preserve and improve the intangible capital within their domain as a priority higher than simple short term monetary profit, then all society loses wealth. So really this is just a more enlightened enforcement of that requirement to "maximize profit".
  18. Re:So, basically on Is 'Corporate Citizen' an Oxymoron? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If one accepts that a corporation should be treated as an individual

    ... then when a corporation breaks a law, they should be removed from society for the duration of the applicable prison sentence. So instead of an OSHA fine, a corporation that has a fatal worker injury due to failure to follow standards should be on trial for involuntary manslaughter, and serious injuries should be treated as criminal recklessness. The problem arises when you stop to ask "What does everyone who worked for that company do during it's prison term?" or "What do you do the the assets of a company that earned a life sentence?"

    The problem is, that corporations aren't people. Attempting to treat them as such is ludicrous.

  19. Re:can't work even if they wanted it to on RIM In Trouble For Not Violating Privacy · · Score: 1

    "And there's the downside of governments trying to fight modern technology. I bet if Blackberry did as they asked then people would start loading custom firmware on their phones to work around it."

    Maybe some few people would feel the need to have Big Brother proof texting, but the terrorist could just use something as simple as a one time pad. People that really really want to communicate in secret will be able to do so, and broad government snooping program only achieve two things: encourage the badguys (tm) to be more careful, and trample all over the privacy rights of the goodguys (tm). I'm sure this will only ever actually be used to bust a few minor pot dealers and truant teens.

  20. Re:The Iraq theater on What Examples of Security Theater Have You Encountered? · · Score: 1

    I feel safer killing insurgents in their backyard rather than killing them here

    If we weren't in their backyard, they wouldn't be insurgents, they would just be some people who don't like use, but live several thousand miles away. Any Iraqis who want to come to the USA and blow shit up would do just that. It would actually be much easier for and Iraqi to sneak into the US and bomb a shopping mall than it would be for them to stay and fight the trained, armed, armored troops that are "in their backyard". The only reason for the insurgents to pick the more difficult option of fighting or military is because they are fighting to get get us to leave, not because they want an American jihad.

  21. Re:One anti-competative practice down, many to go. on Internet-Based Realtors Win Monster Settlement · · Score: 1

    Two of the places I've lived in NYC, my rent checks went to management companies that handled all the details (rent collection, maintaince, lease renewal, etc.) the landlord never had to do a thing. In my current apartment, not only do I have know idea who the actual property owner is, it is actually written into my lease that I will make no efforts to contact the landlord, but that all of my apartment concerns must be directed through the management company. These are 60+ unit buildings. Simply by virtue of owning the property, the landlord could easily be profiting $6000 a month without expending any effort other than checking in with the management company every couple of weeks. Sure maybe they could be making twice that if they didn't use a management company or brokers, but a permanent paid vacation is worth more than the extra cash.

  22. Re:One anti-competative practice down, many to go. on Internet-Based Realtors Win Monster Settlement · · Score: 1

    Sorry here is a link to the second quote and a good article discussing the rental situation in NYC in general.

  23. Re:One anti-competative practice down, many to go. on Internet-Based Realtors Win Monster Settlement · · Score: 4, Informative

    The landlord will never pay the fee, because there is always someone who will step in and pay it for them, because of the permanent housing shortage in NYC. "As of April 2005, the rental vacancy rate in New York City was 3.3%, making it one of the tightest housing markets in the United States. (A vacancy rate under 5% is considered an official housing emergency under New York state law. Nationally, the rental vacancy rate is approximately 10%.)" The apartment scene in NYC is out of control, for $2000 a month which will get you a small studio in Manhattan or a small one bedroom in Brooklyn, this is what you pay: "In addition to a security deposit, some landlords also want the first and last month's rent. Tack on a broker's fee and a prospective renter for that $2,000 apartment is out of pocket nearly $10,000 just to get the keys to the place."

  24. One anti-competative practice down, many to go. on Internet-Based Realtors Win Monster Settlement · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm glad to see anti-competative practice and brokers in the same sentence. I don't know if internet brokers are going to have any positive effect on the rental market in major cities though. Right now the only realistic way to get a new apartment in NYC is to pay a fee equivalent to 15% of the annual rent to a broker for the privilege of renting from the landlord who has given them the exclusive right to make the public aware of the apartment's availability. So that's easily $3600, just to be allowed to deal with the apartment management company. I once paid a broker's fee to someone who had an exclusive on all the apartments owned by the broker who shared an office with her. I was in the same room with the landlord, but I couldn't rent from him without paying her first. i would love to use capitalism properly and not give my money to brokers, but they control far to high a percentage of the real estate for that to be a viable option.

  25. Re:Imaginary Property on Would You Rent a Song For a Dime? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So if we pay per song, aside form the obvious distraction of having to make all of our own song playlists (radio pays people for that same job) we also get to pay about $2.00 per hour for the rental of songs. Between commuting and the work day, let's call that ten hours of rental radio, $20 per day. So by the end of the second week you could have purchased a href=http://shop.sirius.com/edealinv/servlet/ExecMacro?nurl=control/StoreDirectory.vm&ctl_nbr=2640&catLevel=1&catParentID=7874&scId=7874&oldParentID=7870>satellite radio and had the same thing minus the hour a day of lost productivity while you fiddle with your playlist.