I'm surprised no one has even talked about copper under water on the continental shelves. That's not so deep that it is impossible to extract, and a lot easier to get to than an asteroid (not to mention the destruction caused by landing the asteroid on earth:).
We chould concentrate the nuclear waste into small, highly radioactive containers and place them in remote caves (and other hideouts) in Afghanistan and other areas where there are terrorists. Should do one of two things - keep them from going in the caves to hide, or keep them in the caves for good.
That also makes them easier to turn back into two separate devices (like when you are in Mexico where your cell phone has no coverage, but you still want to listen to music by the side of the pool. Or you receive a phone call while you are downloading music from your computer. Though I know that Duct Tape was one of God's greatest gifts to mankind, the adhesive tends to make its use kind of permanent.:)
Politicians, by the need to please too many people in order to be elected, must lie to someone at some point. They veil this with wording and rationalize it by saying that circumstances made it necessary to screw someone. Even the most well intentioned politicians are forced into this sell-out of their principles.
I believe that most politicians must decide what causes they will not sell out, which they may abandon, and those that they never really plan to back. The politicians that I find the most trustworthy are those that have significantly more of the former than the latter and hopefully not too many in the middle choice.
You can't really blame all politicians, but you do have to wonder about the political system we have. Unfortunately it is impossible to have a benevolent dictatorship, who has truthful, idealistic (yet realistic) advisors. And when I say impossible, I mean impossible. Of all the systems we have available, this one seems to be the best. But it could use with some reform.
If we limited political contributions to small donations from individuals, large corporations and other special interest groups would just funnel money through a bunch of willing individuals. There needs to be a cap on campaign spending - period.
We could allow additional campaign contributions into a common fund to be used by all candidates. If we gave equal minimum free airtime to all candidates, that would level the playing field more. Then those that want to spend the limited campaign spending money on more airtime could do so. Of course we would have lots of wackos coming out of the woodwork to take a piece of the action, but most communists, facists, and psychos would be easy to see. No, it isn't a cure, but its a step in the right direction.
As far as Conyers contributions go, the $10K from the entertainment industry is pretty nice, but there is also money from "misc unions" which could in fact be from entertainment unions. Then who knows where the money from the lawyers came from....
Just to put in one of my pet peeves, I think that politicians should not be allowed to take any pay raise, ever. If you go in at one pay rate, it stays that rate until you get another job. That would prevent them from giving themselves a raise and from staying in forever (which is another problem with most long term politicians - corruption by continued association, so to speak).
Well, RudeDude,... errrr, I mean DogDude, yes, I do know several families who were directly unemployed as a result of Microsoft business practices. But I don't personally know a single person who made a fortune off of Microsoft. To me it appears that there are more people who where negatively affected than who were made millionaires (and quite frankly simple, basic logic says that would be the case, let alone significant anecdotal information).
I don't really believe he has donated 60%. But even if he has,... even if he gives 100% today, it's really hard to buy your way into heaven, even if you have more money than God. When I think about all the companies he has put out of business through unfair monopolistic practices, thus throwing masses into unemployment, depression, and heartache, it makes me think that this award is "shameful". I don't believe that Gates has been transformed from being a Pre-Christmas-Scrooge-like, greedy shark, to the humanitarian that this accolade would have you believe.
To show real humanity, Gates would have to open and tell people what kind of a gutter rat he really was and how he is going to change (especially his predatory business practices).
Good comments, but my ass is not as arrogant as my brain, and my brain would do a much better job of classifying what porn is than my ass. I did post something about that very subject (classifying, not my ass or brain) already, so I won't do it again here.
There are a several studies that say that porn addition is the biggest single addition problem in the US. I didn't do the studies, but I did read some of some of them. I didn't care to read the entire text of all the studies. I'm sure that you can Google some of them if you feel so inclined, but I'd bet you aren't interested, as it would probably cut into your porn time.
As far as less harmful, and "who gives a shit"... Well, I guess if you want it, you can have it, but don't send it to me.
Popups still happen even with popup blockers. I get them once in a while. And then there are the innocent google search clicks. Ever gone to a site that you thought was going to be something entirely different? Then there is all the crap spam, which is MOSTLY taken care of by spam blockers, but not everything. So don't tell me that I have to decide to go there. That's just pure stupidity.
What constitutes pr0n? Give me a break! That's even more stupid. Is the site meant to create a sexual arrousal in someone for the purpose of self gratification or other personal gain of some kind? There are people who get off on all kinds of things, but that is not the fault of the producer, unless it falls into the category I describe above. If that is too broad for you, then maybe this posting is turning you on? Sorry, I didn't mean to.
We can thank our former President Billy-Bob Clinton for the redefinition of words ("It depends on what the definition of the word 'is', is." - What a load!). Are you going to follow in his illustrious footsteps? I have only sited information passed along by studies that have been conducted by individuals seeking truth, not a twisted view of the truth.
Like it or not, to be against pornography depicting consenting adults performing various sexual acts is to be against freedom.
According to the logic found above, if a=b and c=d, then e=f.
Pull your head out!
What about my freedom to block unwanted material (e.g. pr0n) from my email and browsing? If all pr0n sites were.xxx, then I could easily prevent most such material from getting to my computer.
Pr0n is the single largest addiction in the US. Pr0nographers know this and use absolutely unethical means to distribute their wares. "Get it into the hands of someone and you've got a customer for life." I don't want you entering my house and F'ing your S.O. in front of me on my floor, but most pr0nographers take it upon themselves to do almost that very thing (and don't tell me they don't, I'm not stupid enough to believe it, though you may be).
.xxx domains don't limit ones ability to get pr0n as much as it prevents pr0nographers from delivering pr0n to those who just don't want to see it, or who don't want their kids exposed to it..xxx can be circumvented in many cases by using the IP address. Even reverse lookups may not protect if there are multiple domains for the IP address. But, it gets us closer to freedom from pr0n if we don't want it.
The US Supreme Court has already ruled that is it not okay to yell "fire" in a crowded theater. You also cannot legally steal from people, nor can you distribute controlled substances without a license. Since pr0n is such an addiction, and we already have laws against distributing pr0n to minors, the.xxx domains is at least a step in the right direction towards regulating an increasingly harmful addiction. Yes, there are plenty of studies that prove the detrimental effects of pr0n on society, and I believe them more than the studies that indicate otherwise, because most of those that indicate otherwise are about an unbiased as TCO studies funded by Micro$oft.
Don't give me any crap about how it's all natural. Do it where you like, just not in front of people that don't want to see it.
Low cost is good, but if the domain is NOT used for a legitimate use (uses other than to hold onto it for the purpose of reselling for a profit) within a short window, rights to the domain can be contested and the name re-sold. If then re-purchased by the original owner, the price is 10 times the previous yearly price (and then 10 times that price for the re-purchaser if it still isn't put to proper use, etc.). No more cyber-squatting would be done, because it would be too expensive. A cybersquatter would have to have a legitimate use for the domain soon, or go broke trying to keep hold of the domain.
Or at least stop the ads after 937 GB of advertising has passed through my computer.
I can't see any reason I would want to use an OS that kept making money off of my using it. For one thing, I doubt you would ever see an upgrade. Why provide an upgrade to an OS that they keep making money off of every time it is turned on, used, hijacked, etc. M$ might even drop all other types of licensing, because then their cash cow would live on forever, $day after $day, $month after $month, $year after $year.
Just use an unencumbered OS (like linux, *BSD, etc), and you will have all the functionality you need, and NO ADS!
Of course supply and demand is supposed to make the price of things which are in short supply go up, and the price of things in greater supply go down, but tell me, are the electrons used to encode popular songs in shorter supply than the electrons used to encode less popular songs?
If enough developers got informed about the real Directions at Microsoft and stayed away from the Windows platform,...
I've come to face the fact that Windoze is a big market that has to be addressed. BUT, if you look at most of the really successful developers out there, it is easy to see that they become a target for Micro$oft to put them out of business. If developers did their products on multiple platforms, then they would continue to have a market in the non-windoze arena even if M$ took away their Windoze market. In addition, if you have a product on more platforms, and are successful, it is harder for M$ to take over your market.
The thing that scares M$ the most is that someone will come along and make them obsolete, That's why they see Google as such a threat. If there were enough directions that M$ had to go at once, they would fail miserably. If the world wants to take back their freedom from the oppression of M$ (face it, they have too much power over the market), we have to unite, come at them from all directions at once, and bring down Goliath like an army of Davids.
Purchase date of computer: 12/24/2001
# Times OS had to be reloaded since: 4 (once per year is common)
Version of WindowsXP to start from: XP w/out SP1
Now someone without even SP1 and uses a modem to connect to the internet will probably not do all the updates, or at least within the first two weeks (even if they leave the computer connected to the internet the whole time). This poor dumb sod doesn't have a snowballs chance of getting his system patched before getting hit unless he spends more money to get an upgraded version of the OS for his old system.
With Linux, he can get the latest release on CD/DVD for under $10 (that would be 10+ years worth of updates - with new improvements all along the way) for much less then the one upgrade to his WinXP (where he never sees much improvement along the way, except for those pesky bugs and security flaws). He also gets his on-line updates MUCH faster because they aren't 100+MB in size.
-- In an insane society, the sane man must appear insane.
I wonder what kind of impact a Google branded Linux would have on the fight? I think the biggest hinderance to acceptance of a non-M$ OS is that people are afraid. If a name like Google were to brand a linux, that would make many people be more curious and likely to try it out, because people think of Google as easy and helpful, where IBM, etc. are the computer companies that no one understands. Granted there are still those who will choose Windoze, but those that see the benefits of a non-M$ OS would make Billy Gates and Stinky Balmer cry themselves to sleep at night. They'd have to call a strategy meeting to see what they could do to duplicate what Google is doing (again). Maybe that would lead to M$-Linux. Now that would make me wet my pants with laughter.
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I'm surprised no one has even talked about copper under water on the continental shelves. That's not so deep that it is impossible to extract, and a lot easier to get to than an asteroid (not to mention the destruction caused by landing the asteroid on earth :).
We chould concentrate the nuclear waste into small, highly radioactive containers and place them in remote caves (and other hideouts) in Afghanistan and other areas where there are terrorists. Should do one of two things - keep them from going in the caves to hide, or keep them in the caves for good.
That also makes them easier to turn back into two separate devices (like when you are in Mexico where your cell phone has no coverage, but you still want to listen to music by the side of the pool. Or you receive a phone call while you are downloading music from your computer. Though I know that Duct Tape was one of God's greatest gifts to mankind, the adhesive tends to make its use kind of permanent. :)
And the last time I tried that on Linux/Wine it didn't work anyway. :( And I really tried! :( :(
Anyone ever get it to work on Linux?
I believe that most politicians must decide what causes they will not sell out, which they may abandon, and those that they never really plan to back. The politicians that I find the most trustworthy are those that have significantly more of the former than the latter and hopefully not too many in the middle choice.
You can't really blame all politicians, but you do have to wonder about the political system we have. Unfortunately it is impossible to have a benevolent dictatorship, who has truthful, idealistic (yet realistic) advisors. And when I say impossible, I mean impossible. Of all the systems we have available, this one seems to be the best. But it could use with some reform.
If we limited political contributions to small donations from individuals, large corporations and other special interest groups would just funnel money through a bunch of willing individuals. There needs to be a cap on campaign spending - period.
We could allow additional campaign contributions into a common fund to be used by all candidates. If we gave equal minimum free airtime to all candidates, that would level the playing field more. Then those that want to spend the limited campaign spending money on more airtime could do so. Of course we would have lots of wackos coming out of the woodwork to take a piece of the action, but most communists, facists, and psychos would be easy to see. No, it isn't a cure, but its a step in the right direction.
As far as Conyers contributions go, the $10K from the entertainment industry is pretty nice, but there is also money from "misc unions" which could in fact be from entertainment unions. Then who knows where the money from the lawyers came from....
Just to put in one of my pet peeves, I think that politicians should not be allowed to take any pay raise, ever. If you go in at one pay rate, it stays that rate until you get another job. That would prevent them from giving themselves a raise and from staying in forever (which is another problem with most long term politicians - corruption by continued association, so to speak).
Well, RudeDude,... errrr, I mean DogDude, yes, I do know several families who were directly unemployed as a result of Microsoft business practices. But I don't personally know a single person who made a fortune off of Microsoft. To me it appears that there are more people who where negatively affected than who were made millionaires (and quite frankly simple, basic logic says that would be the case, let alone significant anecdotal information).
To show real humanity, Gates would have to open and tell people what kind of a gutter rat he really was and how he is going to change (especially his predatory business practices).
There are a several studies that say that porn addition is the biggest single addition problem in the US. I didn't do the studies, but I did read some of some of them. I didn't care to read the entire text of all the studies. I'm sure that you can Google some of them if you feel so inclined, but I'd bet you aren't interested, as it would probably cut into your porn time.
As far as less harmful, and "who gives a shit"... Well, I guess if you want it, you can have it, but don't send it to me.
Popups still happen even with popup blockers. I get them once in a while. And then there are the innocent google search clicks. Ever gone to a site that you thought was going to be something entirely different? Then there is all the crap spam, which is MOSTLY taken care of by spam blockers, but not everything. So don't tell me that I have to decide to go there. That's just pure stupidity. What constitutes pr0n? Give me a break! That's even more stupid. Is the site meant to create a sexual arrousal in someone for the purpose of self gratification or other personal gain of some kind? There are people who get off on all kinds of things, but that is not the fault of the producer, unless it falls into the category I describe above. If that is too broad for you, then maybe this posting is turning you on? Sorry, I didn't mean to. We can thank our former President Billy-Bob Clinton for the redefinition of words ("It depends on what the definition of the word 'is', is." - What a load!). Are you going to follow in his illustrious footsteps? I have only sited information passed along by studies that have been conducted by individuals seeking truth, not a twisted view of the truth.
According to the logic found above, if a=b and c=d, then e=f.
Pull your head out!
I have plenty of other arguments, but it's late.
Low cost is good, but if the domain is NOT used for a legitimate use (uses other than to hold onto it for the purpose of reselling for a profit) within a short window, rights to the domain can be contested and the name re-sold. If then re-purchased by the original owner, the price is 10 times the previous yearly price (and then 10 times that price for the re-purchaser if it still isn't put to proper use, etc.). No more cyber-squatting would be done, because it would be too expensive. A cybersquatter would have to have a legitimate use for the domain soon, or go broke trying to keep hold of the domain.
I can't see any reason I would want to use an OS that kept making money off of my using it. For one thing, I doubt you would ever see an upgrade. Why provide an upgrade to an OS that they keep making money off of every time it is turned on, used, hijacked, etc. M$ might even drop all other types of licensing, because then their cash cow would live on forever, $day after $day, $month after $month, $year after $year.
Just use an unencumbered OS (like linux, *BSD, etc), and you will have all the functionality you need, and NO ADS!
Of course supply and demand is supposed to make the price of things which are in short supply go up, and the price of things in greater supply go down, but tell me, are the electrons used to encode popular songs in shorter supply than the electrons used to encode less popular songs?
I've come to face the fact that Windoze is a big market that has to be addressed. BUT, if you look at most of the really successful developers out there, it is easy to see that they become a target for Micro$oft to put them out of business. If developers did their products on multiple platforms, then they would continue to have a market in the non-windoze arena even if M$ took away their Windoze market. In addition, if you have a product on more platforms, and are successful, it is harder for M$ to take over your market.
The thing that scares M$ the most is that someone will come along and make them obsolete, That's why they see Google as such a threat. If there were enough directions that M$ had to go at once, they would fail miserably. If the world wants to take back their freedom from the oppression of M$ (face it, they have too much power over the market), we have to unite, come at them from all directions at once, and bring down Goliath like an army of Davids.
Not my case, but a common case I see:
Purchase date of computer: 12/24/2001
# Times OS had to be reloaded since: 4 (once per year is common)
Version of WindowsXP to start from: XP w/out SP1
Now someone without even SP1 and uses a modem to connect to the internet will probably not do all the updates, or at least within the first two weeks (even if they leave the computer connected to the internet the whole time). This poor dumb sod doesn't have a snowballs chance of getting his system patched before getting hit unless he spends more money to get an upgraded version of the OS for his old system.
With Linux, he can get the latest release on CD/DVD for under $10 (that would be 10+ years worth of updates - with new improvements all along the way) for much less then the one upgrade to his WinXP (where he never sees much improvement along the way, except for those pesky bugs and security flaws). He also gets his on-line updates MUCH faster because they aren't 100+MB in size.
--
In an insane society, the sane man must appear insane.
I wonder what kind of impact a Google branded Linux would have on the fight? I think the biggest hinderance to acceptance of a non-M$ OS is that people are afraid. If a name like Google were to brand a linux, that would make many people be more curious and likely to try it out, because people think of Google as easy and helpful, where IBM, etc. are the computer companies that no one understands. Granted there are still those who will choose Windoze, but those that see the benefits of a non-M$ OS would make Billy Gates and Stinky Balmer cry themselves to sleep at night. They'd have to call a strategy meeting to see what they could do to duplicate what Google is doing (again). Maybe that would lead to M$-Linux. Now that would make me wet my pants with laughter.