[. ..] My personal belief is that not being imprisoned without just cause, and being able to challenge your imprisonment is in the latter set.
I'm at a loss as to how anyone can be upset at this decision.[. ..]
I completely agree. Unfortunately a lot of talking heads in the Boston area (especially hosts on WTKK 96.9FM) are aghast at this decision and ranting and raving about it - I can picture Laura Ingraham in particular foaming at the mouth. They think the constitution should apply only to protect us, not to keep us in check when dealing with foreigners.
Of course, any reasonable person would agree it is wrong to imprison anyone without a) an accusation and b) a fair trial. If they are indeed "terror" suspects then they ought to be accused and tried, and if they did have a hand in planning, facilitating, or directly financing the 9/11/01 attacks they should be executed.
If they had no part in it in any way they should be set free, regardless of who their friends or relatives may be. This holds true even if they sympathize with the terrorists, because simply having an opinon or even outright hating someone or wishing them dead is not a crime.
The minute we begin to persecute thought crime, the minute the citizens of the USA ought to be taking up arms to strike down tyranny, per the first and second amendments.
Of course holding people without charge for 42 days is perfectly acceptable. After all, 42 is the ultimate answer to life, the Universe, and everything!
Giant SUV hybrids tend to get 2-3mpg more than their non-hybrid counterparts. They're a joke.
Not really. If you NEED a truck for business (I know, most SUVs on the road are driven by soccer moms, etc. but bear with me) and you drive 150+ miles per day, you can save a LOT of fuel every week with that 2-3mpg. Given a 30-gallon tank, that's an extra 90 miles per fillup. That adds up REAL fast. Right now I drive a GMC Sierra 1500 every day, and on a GOOD day I get 16.5mpg. I usually get closer to 15mpg -- and I plot routes on my GPS going around heavy traffic whenever possible.
I NEED cargo space (busienss). I've been putting off a new vehicle because I really, really want a hybrid. I want a Toyota Highlander Hybrid Limited but it's nearly $45K. The mileage is phenomenal though -- 30+mpg (real world according to messageboards) vs. 17mpg, or an Escape Hybrid, which is over 30mpg (real world) vs. 17mpg. More likely I'll be getting a Toyota Matrix, which can carry quite a bit, is more comfortable than the Escape, and gets about 30mpg (real world), or more driven conservatively. My ideal car would be a Matrix Hybrid. I don't need anything terribly sporty - I already have sporty cars. I need something utilitarian and comfortable, and yet I drive so many miles that I _need_ economy, or we need to push our rates up, or start billing in half-day increments to recoup the cost of travel.
To a business, 2-3mpg in a truck can be significant over the course of a year. We're small and have just one truck. Think about a fleet of vehicles (be it a tech company, delivery company, construction, or whatever) that are driven MORE miles than I drive, where they're saving 1-2 tanks of fuel per week per vehicle. That kind of money adds up REAL fast - especially in stop and go/city traffic. Also consider that it's likely hybrids in the very long term will be far more reliable, so the maintenance costs should be lower as well.
For a soccer mom? The 2-3mpg isn't significant. 10+mpg might be, but it probably would not faze them either way since they buy Hummers, Suburbans, and Expeditions for image and not practicality.
Thus, SUVs increase the net likelihood of fatal vehicle collisions.
With all due respect, you are incorrect.
What increases the net likelihood of fatal vehicle collisions (in fact collisions overall) is:
People's lack of respect for right of way
the all-too-common "me first" attitude (see above)
Not paying attention to the road (if you cannot prioritize and/or multitask, put the damn phone down or pull over, or at LEAST use a headset
People driving WAY too slow on the highway
People drining WAY too fast in congested traffic, using rush hour traffic as your own personal slalom course
Failure to be courteous overall, forcing people to illegally pass on the right
Tailgaiting
Failing to use turn signals when required
Complete disregard for everyone else (see #1 and #2 below), zigging across 5 lanes of traffic to make an exit 100 yards ahead.
passing on the right
passing through [right|left]-turn-only lanes
Running stop signs and traffic lights
Taking a left turn from the right lane, or vice-versa (I see that all too often around here)
I live in Taxachusetts but I am not a masshole. I can't stand how people drive around here.
Notice never once did I mention speeding in and of itself. I have driven extremely fast in the past -- but in conditions which allowed for it; no traffic, seeing clear ahead, if I did come up on traffic, slowing down to a very reasonable speed (why some jerks pass 55mph cars at 160+mph is beyond me, it can easily scare someone into overreacting and jerking the wheel involuntarily) and yet even though I've been pulled over for >100mph over the limit (I saw the trap, I knew I was tagged so I pulled over) I got a verbal warning (the highway was not busy, I didn't try to B.S. the officer, etc. and he saw no safety reason to ticket me). I haven't caused any collisions on the road. I've been hit a couple of times when stopped (people trying to turn through me, or pass me on the right while I'm taking a right turn).
Speeding in and of itself does NOT cause accidents. Recklesness does; speeding in the snow is just idiotic. Using congested traffic as a slalom course is moronic. Trying to drive a typical SUV like it's a Ferrari or Corvette is stupid. Using the breakdown lane as a passing lane (very common in the Greater Boston area) is stupid, and compounding that stupidity is not yielding to ALL other traffic when using the breakdown lane as a passing lane.
I DID back a truck into a friend's car in a parking lot, but that had more to do than lack of visibility in a tight space and nothing to do recklessness or lack of regard for others. That was not a fun day.
Plastic (composite, really!) cars are not unique to Saturn, and are not a new thing. There has been a model in production since 1953 which has always had a composite body and floors (except steel floors in two model years: 1976 and 1977).
In the late '80s and early '90s there was a kit car called "Conseilleur" (I may have the spelling wrong) which was entirely composite - frame and body. I can't find it on the Internet though, so I don't think too many sold. The performance figures were astonishing for the time though.
Composites in cars aren't new. Neither is fabric, really; just the application and extent of usage is (as well as more advanced fabrics). Heck, even aircraft (both lighter and heavier than air) skins used to be constructed of fabrics.
You can see some rubbernecking wank braking 4-5 cars ahead and NOT get involved in the resulting pileup. But then, if everyone is allowing 2 seconds following distance, those crashes would not occur anyhow so this point may be moot.:)
I, for one, like HDTV and see the difference, but I'm not rushing out to buy a set. When I DO buy I'm going with a high-end Samsung with the dynamic backlighting, but really. That'll wait until my Sony CRT dies.
Does HDTV make American Idol worth watching? Does it make bad writing better? Or, are you so engrossed in pixel peeping that you don't notice that most TV shows suck? Does it make good writing and acting better?
No, it doesn't.
It's good for gaming (almost required for an Xbox 360) and it's good for Discovery where the detail might matter, but when it comes to "reality TV" HDTV is utterly worthless, IMHO. It does not make reality TV suck any less.
The Social Engineering, er, Mathematics exam in 2009:
Johnny the hard-working farmer labored hard all season long and harvested 5 bushels of fruit.
Rodney the lazy sod sat on his ass all season crying about how unfair it was he didn't have any fresh fruit.
Uncle Sam took 3 bushels away from Johnny and gave them to Rodney.
Explain:
- Why giving Rodney free fruit is the right thing to do
- How it's fair to punish Johnny for working hard
- Bonus point: what is the percentage tax Johnny was charged?;)
There is at least one company already doing it - they have many movies and television shows online (classic TV series as well as newer series) - some full seasons, some are just a sampling, but check it out: http://www.hulu.com/ - it doesn't let you take the media with you (and honestly I have not tried capturing it) and there are commercials inserted into the stream, but SOMEBODY has to pay for the content, so I'm very happy with their service. I wish I could get it on my PDA though.
Oh, and yes, it works with Linux.
I've submitted feature requests to them, one of which is to be able to opt out of certain advertisers. For example, I'm not going into the military so I should be able to opt out of those ads, and I don't do fast food so I should be able to opt out of those. This would make advertising less likely to be ignored, and would actually increase the value of each ad delivered to the viewer.
I ignore environmentalist groups. I am not a treehugger and I am sick of alarmists ZOMG! POLLUTION! -- They are the perfect example of the boy who cried wolf, because they whine about EVERYTHING. We could go back to living in wigwams and use only renewable fuels (wood) for heating, and poop in the woods like every other animal does, and that kind of "environmentalist" would STILL say we're not green enough. That is why Rush, etc. refer to them as "environmentalist wackos," and you know what? They're right. Greenpeace is not much better than a terrorist organization - except they fight with economics and lobbyists rather than suicide bombs.
The problem? There is no happy medium with them. I consider myself a conservationist: I do drive a gas-guzzling pickup truck and do own sportscars. One car gets 16mpg (not too bad for the mid-70s) and one gets 27mpg combined with the stock EPROM and driven sanely (damn good for ~400hp car made in the early '90s) - about the same as many of today's compact cars. I won't give up the cars, but the pickup is going to be replaced by either a hybrid SUV or a toyota matrix (and considering I drive the truck the most, that is the one I need to replace).
I need the cargo space, but the mileage sucks - at least the Matrix will get around 30mpg, or a hybrid SUV about the same. When I can afford to build my dream home, I want to have full climate control and keep the place at 72* in the winter, but plan to offset it by using photovoltaic roofing to feed the grid, and completely offset creature comforts. For supplemental heat in extreme cold I do plan to use coal, but the same furnace would be able to also burn corn husks, peat, and other "renewable" fuels as they become available. My apartment is heated by oil, so what I am doing for next winter (unless I move in the meantime) is investing in a heat pump so I can minimize oil use. I switched to CFL even though my past experience with them was bad (I'm prone to migraines), hoping the more modern ones would be improved, and found that the new CFLs are great. I use terry cloth at home for most cleaning, and use paper towels sparingly, as reusing a cloth is less wasteful than constantly throwing away paper. I do what I can to conserve.
Why do I refer myself to a conservationist? I strive for balance, not eliminating technology and resource usage. I want to have my cake and eat it too, and it is possible to do so, with a slightly higher initial investment. I want to treat the environment kindly for self-serving reasons: If I squander resources now, when I'm older they will be scarce or unobtainable, and it will be bad for my country in general.
Greenpeace needs to focus on serious issues, not major over minors. Is there a Chernobyl-style nuclear plant being built? Protest THAT and insist it's an American-styled nuclear plant which would contain any catastrophic, worst-case incident. Is there an oil company leaking millions of barrels of oil into the environment? Focus on them, and holding the executives and board members personally responsible - don't block off ALL oil exploration and reclamation. Focus on the fact that China is exempt from CO2 eemissions, AND uses slave/forced labor, and don't focus on trivial issues like game consoles not being quite green enough. There are bigger-impact issues at hand, and focusing on the minors does not solve ANYTHING. It only serves to make your organization irrelevant as even your most liberal supporters begin to realize that you exist only to media whore, not bring attention to real, serious issues that affect us all.
Ultimately, what we need is a return to personal responsibility, NOT a bunch of alarmists who cry wolf at every gnat, flea, and fly that comes along. If you take responsibility for your own actions and are looking out for your own best long-term interest, you'll come to the conclusion that you need to use resources and the environment responsibly.
Yes, AVG is great, and it comes without support, but don't ever buy the commercial versions.
Why?
Their software doesn't save settings or apply updates unless you're on NTFS (not a problem on new machines but many, many older machines shipped to businesses shipped with FAT - NTFS became the default from Dell only about a year ago! If you didn't specify they shipped their Optiplexes and Precisions on FAT).
Support takes three days to respond.
There is no phone number to contact them in the USA.
Their software works incredibly well (aside from the undocumented requirement for NTFS) but in a business you cannot afford a three-day turnaround time for support inquiries, and a game of email tag which takes hours to days.
Share out music reviews with the.mp3 extension. Just play _short_ sound clips and talk about the composition, the performance, sound quality, etc. and make the song review the same length (in minutes and seconds) as the original track. Throw it up on torrent sites, share it out on limewire, etc.
Remember: the sound clip does not contain a substantial amount of their "IP" -- just sound clips which are very brief, used as samples for the purpose of a review that a music or movie critic might use. The fact is you are presenting this as a music critic, and you are WELL within fair use guidelines to use short sound clips in your reviews.
When they come a-suing present the evidence and then countersue, citing harassment, libel, extortion, and fraud (abusing copyright law). Also complain about the frivilous lawsuit as they obviously are just trolling for people who will just settle rather than fight their ridiculous claims.
Are you telling everyone to create a slashdot account, chow down on doughnuts and get addicted to Mountain Dew? It's a good way to ensure you'll never get laid again!
On the other hand, Unix-like operating systems have been trivial to gain access to as long as you have boot media and physical access to the box (well, encrypted filesystems notwithstanding). I can't say that I blame Microsoft for this, since admins need to be given SOME way to fix broken servers. Hell if Windows were THAT secure we'd be bitching and moaning about having no way to fix other than reformat/reinstall.
Furthermore if you have private data which needs to remain private in Windows, you can enable encryption on selected directories.
That's because it was never intended to be used for ducts; it was intended to be used to waterproof ammo boxes.
If you use it on ducts (I've seen it used on ducts) it breaks down very quickly. Actual duct tape is usually adhesive-backed foil or mylar. Only idiots use Duck Tape for ducts.
Instead of embracing P2P and offering low-resolution (say no higher than 320x240 with low bitrates) versions of your movies available for pennies or even no cost (maybe embed advertisements for discounted DVDs, or trailers for upcoming DVD and theatrical releases) you instead chose to start a public campaign slandering all P2P usage.
For me, ALL of my P2P usage is legit (linux distros, etc). I no longer try before I buy. When I was, I was buying anywhere from 5 to 15 DVDs per month. Now I buy two or three per month. I buy maybe one CD a year because the RIAA chose to bite the hand that feeds it. I have reduced my DVD purchases for the same reason - you are trying to squelch new technology and what you DO offer in downloadable formats, you INSIST on crippling it with DRM, which breaks fair use and prevents me from watching the content on my computer (I run Linux).
With your propaganda, all you have succeeded in doing is providing bittorrent free publicity. Joe Sixpack, who was previously totally unaware that bittorrent even existed, is now using it for everything from music to movies to software.
System requirements != a EULA; system requirements = setting the bar for warranty of merchantability. It sets customer expectations so some nimrod doesn't decide to try something boneheaded like installing OS X on an Apple IIe
Symptoms? the audio driver would just start looping, sometimes just freeze the system or bluescreen. It is generally the result of poor thread management.
Back before SMP went mainstream and was limited to large enterprises, I worked for a company which produced a development and runtime environment for a knowledgebase solution. Lockups and 100% CPU utilization was reported in the field but no one in support could reproduce it - client was threatening to walk. I heard about the support issue and I knew what the problem was right away and had an idea of how to reproduce it, but on a single processor machine everything is serialized anyhow, making it difficult and sometimes impossible to reproduce thread management bugs. At this company I was Sr. QA Engineer (and acting QA director at the time. I HATE being in a director position, at least in QA) and insisted the company release an unused multiprocessor box to QA (it was just sitting in the server room unused). I set up a debug build of the runtime environment on the machine and got about 12 people to hit the machine concurrently with specific requests (previous sessions on a single processor box failed to reproduce it). First attempt, we reproduced it and identified where it was failing (and no it wasn't a machine issue - booting with/OneCPU made the problem unreproducible).
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I completely agree. Unfortunately a lot of talking heads in the Boston area (especially hosts on WTKK 96.9FM) are aghast at this decision and ranting and raving about it - I can picture Laura Ingraham in particular foaming at the mouth. They think the constitution should apply only to protect us, not to keep us in check when dealing with foreigners.
Of course, any reasonable person would agree it is wrong to imprison anyone without a) an accusation and b) a fair trial. If they are indeed "terror" suspects then they ought to be accused and tried, and if they did have a hand in planning, facilitating, or directly financing the 9/11/01 attacks they should be executed.
If they had no part in it in any way they should be set free, regardless of who their friends or relatives may be. This holds true even if they sympathize with the terrorists, because simply having an opinon or even outright hating someone or wishing them dead is not a crime.
The minute we begin to persecute thought crime, the minute the citizens of the USA ought to be taking up arms to strike down tyranny, per the first and second amendments.
Of course holding people without charge for 42 days is perfectly acceptable. After all, 42 is the ultimate answer to life, the Universe, and everything!
Tagged theanswertolifeuniverseeverything
Not really. If you NEED a truck for business (I know, most SUVs on the road are driven by soccer moms, etc. but bear with me) and you drive 150+ miles per day, you can save a LOT of fuel every week with that 2-3mpg. Given a 30-gallon tank, that's an extra 90 miles per fillup. That adds up REAL fast. Right now I drive a GMC Sierra 1500 every day, and on a GOOD day I get 16.5mpg. I usually get closer to 15mpg -- and I plot routes on my GPS going around heavy traffic whenever possible.
I NEED cargo space (busienss). I've been putting off a new vehicle because I really, really want a hybrid. I want a Toyota Highlander Hybrid Limited but it's nearly $45K. The mileage is phenomenal though -- 30+mpg (real world according to messageboards) vs. 17mpg, or an Escape Hybrid, which is over 30mpg (real world) vs. 17mpg. More likely I'll be getting a Toyota Matrix, which can carry quite a bit, is more comfortable than the Escape, and gets about 30mpg (real world), or more driven conservatively. My ideal car would be a Matrix Hybrid. I don't need anything terribly sporty - I already have sporty cars. I need something utilitarian and comfortable, and yet I drive so many miles that I _need_ economy, or we need to push our rates up, or start billing in half-day increments to recoup the cost of travel.
To a business, 2-3mpg in a truck can be significant over the course of a year. We're small and have just one truck. Think about a fleet of vehicles (be it a tech company, delivery company, construction, or whatever) that are driven MORE miles than I drive, where they're saving 1-2 tanks of fuel per week per vehicle. That kind of money adds up REAL fast - especially in stop and go/city traffic. Also consider that it's likely hybrids in the very long term will be far more reliable, so the maintenance costs should be lower as well.
For a soccer mom? The 2-3mpg isn't significant. 10+mpg might be, but it probably would not faze them either way since they buy Hummers, Suburbans, and Expeditions for image and not practicality.
With all due respect, you are incorrect.
What increases the net likelihood of fatal vehicle collisions (in fact collisions overall) is:
I live in Taxachusetts but I am not a masshole. I can't stand how people drive around here.
Notice never once did I mention speeding in and of itself. I have driven extremely fast in the past -- but in conditions which allowed for it; no traffic, seeing clear ahead, if I did come up on traffic, slowing down to a very reasonable speed (why some jerks pass 55mph cars at 160+mph is beyond me, it can easily scare someone into overreacting and jerking the wheel involuntarily) and yet even though I've been pulled over for >100mph over the limit (I saw the trap, I knew I was tagged so I pulled over) I got a verbal warning (the highway was not busy, I didn't try to B.S. the officer, etc. and he saw no safety reason to ticket me). I haven't caused any collisions on the road. I've been hit a couple of times when stopped (people trying to turn through me, or pass me on the right while I'm taking a right turn).
Speeding in and of itself does NOT cause accidents. Recklesness does; speeding in the snow is just idiotic. Using congested traffic as a slalom course is moronic. Trying to drive a typical SUV like it's a Ferrari or Corvette is stupid. Using the breakdown lane as a passing lane (very common in the Greater Boston area) is stupid, and compounding that stupidity is not yielding to ALL other traffic when using the breakdown lane as a passing lane.
I DID back a truck into a friend's car in a parking lot, but that had more to do than lack of visibility in a tight space and nothing to do recklessness or lack of regard for others. That was not a fun day.
Some people simply can't handle the heat. A/C is a necessity for some even in the Northeast for folks with salt wasting and other electrolyte issues.
Yeah but a McLaren cost what, $1.2 mil or so?
;)
Oh sure, that's pocket change.
Plastic (composite, really!) cars are not unique to Saturn, and are not a new thing. There has been a model in production since 1953 which has always had a composite body and floors (except steel floors in two model years: 1976 and 1977).
In the late '80s and early '90s there was a kit car called "Conseilleur" (I may have the spelling wrong) which was entirely composite - frame and body. I can't find it on the Internet though, so I don't think too many sold. The performance figures were astonishing for the time though.
Composites in cars aren't new. Neither is fabric, really; just the application and extent of usage is (as well as more advanced fabrics). Heck, even aircraft (both lighter and heavier than air) skins used to be constructed of fabrics.
You can see some rubbernecking wank braking 4-5 cars ahead and NOT get involved in the resulting pileup. But then, if everyone is allowing 2 seconds following distance, those crashes would not occur anyhow so this point may be moot. :)
I, for one, like HDTV and see the difference, but I'm not rushing out to buy a set. When I DO buy I'm going with a high-end Samsung with the dynamic backlighting, but really. That'll wait until my Sony CRT dies.
Does HDTV make American Idol worth watching? Does it make bad writing better? Or, are you so engrossed in pixel peeping that you don't notice that most TV shows suck? Does it make good writing and acting better?
No, it doesn't.
It's good for gaming (almost required for an Xbox 360) and it's good for Discovery where the detail might matter, but when it comes to "reality TV" HDTV is utterly worthless, IMHO. It does not make reality TV suck any less.
The Social Engineering, er, Mathematics exam in 2009:
;)
Johnny the hard-working farmer labored hard all season long and harvested 5 bushels of fruit.
Rodney the lazy sod sat on his ass all season crying about how unfair it was he didn't have any fresh fruit.
Uncle Sam took 3 bushels away from Johnny and gave them to Rodney.
Explain:
- Why giving Rodney free fruit is the right thing to do
- How it's fair to punish Johnny for working hard
- Bonus point: what is the percentage tax Johnny was charged?
There is at least one company already doing it - they have many movies and television shows online (classic TV series as well as newer series) - some full seasons, some are just a sampling, but check it out: http://www.hulu.com/ - it doesn't let you take the media with you (and honestly I have not tried capturing it) and there are commercials inserted into the stream, but SOMEBODY has to pay for the content, so I'm very happy with their service. I wish I could get it on my PDA though.
Oh, and yes, it works with Linux.
I've submitted feature requests to them, one of which is to be able to opt out of certain advertisers. For example, I'm not going into the military so I should be able to opt out of those ads, and I don't do fast food so I should be able to opt out of those. This would make advertising less likely to be ignored, and would actually increase the value of each ad delivered to the viewer.
I don't think deforestation or global warming is much of an issue on the moon. . .
I ignore environmentalist groups. I am not a treehugger and I am sick of alarmists ZOMG! POLLUTION! -- They are the perfect example of the boy who cried wolf, because they whine about EVERYTHING. We could go back to living in wigwams and use only renewable fuels (wood) for heating, and poop in the woods like every other animal does, and that kind of "environmentalist" would STILL say we're not green enough. That is why Rush, etc. refer to them as "environmentalist wackos," and you know what? They're right. Greenpeace is not much better than a terrorist organization - except they fight with economics and lobbyists rather than suicide bombs.
The problem? There is no happy medium with them. I consider myself a conservationist: I do drive a gas-guzzling pickup truck and do own sportscars. One car gets 16mpg (not too bad for the mid-70s) and one gets 27mpg combined with the stock EPROM and driven sanely (damn good for ~400hp car made in the early '90s) - about the same as many of today's compact cars. I won't give up the cars, but the pickup is going to be replaced by either a hybrid SUV or a toyota matrix (and considering I drive the truck the most, that is the one I need to replace).
I need the cargo space, but the mileage sucks - at least the Matrix will get around 30mpg, or a hybrid SUV about the same. When I can afford to build my dream home, I want to have full climate control and keep the place at 72* in the winter, but plan to offset it by using photovoltaic roofing to feed the grid, and completely offset creature comforts. For supplemental heat in extreme cold I do plan to use coal, but the same furnace would be able to also burn corn husks, peat, and other "renewable" fuels as they become available. My apartment is heated by oil, so what I am doing for next winter (unless I move in the meantime) is investing in a heat pump so I can minimize oil use. I switched to CFL even though my past experience with them was bad (I'm prone to migraines), hoping the more modern ones would be improved, and found that the new CFLs are great. I use terry cloth at home for most cleaning, and use paper towels sparingly, as reusing a cloth is less wasteful than constantly throwing away paper. I do what I can to conserve.
Why do I refer myself to a conservationist? I strive for balance, not eliminating technology and resource usage. I want to have my cake and eat it too, and it is possible to do so, with a slightly higher initial investment. I want to treat the environment kindly for self-serving reasons: If I squander resources now, when I'm older they will be scarce or unobtainable, and it will be bad for my country in general.
Greenpeace needs to focus on serious issues, not major over minors. Is there a Chernobyl-style nuclear plant being built? Protest THAT and insist it's an American-styled nuclear plant which would contain any catastrophic, worst-case incident. Is there an oil company leaking millions of barrels of oil into the environment? Focus on them, and holding the executives and board members personally responsible - don't block off ALL oil exploration and reclamation. Focus on the fact that China is exempt from CO2 eemissions, AND uses slave/forced labor, and don't focus on trivial issues like game consoles not being quite green enough. There are bigger-impact issues at hand, and focusing on the minors does not solve ANYTHING. It only serves to make your organization irrelevant as even your most liberal supporters begin to realize that you exist only to media whore, not bring attention to real, serious issues that affect us all.
Ultimately, what we need is a return to personal responsibility, NOT a bunch of alarmists who cry wolf at every gnat, flea, and fly that comes along. If you take responsibility for your own actions and are looking out for your own best long-term interest, you'll come to the conclusion that you need to use resources and the environment responsibly.
Yes, AVG is great, and it comes without support, but don't ever buy the commercial versions.
Why?
Their software doesn't save settings or apply updates unless you're on NTFS (not a problem on new machines but many, many older machines shipped to businesses shipped with FAT - NTFS became the default from Dell only about a year ago! If you didn't specify they shipped their Optiplexes and Precisions on FAT).
Support takes three days to respond.
There is no phone number to contact them in the USA.
Their software works incredibly well (aside from the undocumented requirement for NTFS) but in a business you cannot afford a three-day turnaround time for support inquiries, and a game of email tag which takes hours to days.
Well, if you lived in your mom's basement and emerged only to get pizza and Mountain Dew, you'd be unaware of major world events too! ;)
Want to royally fuck over RIAA members?
.mp3 extension. Just play _short_ sound clips and talk about the composition, the performance, sound quality, etc. and make the song review the same length (in minutes and seconds) as the original track. Throw it up on torrent sites, share it out on limewire, etc.
Share out music reviews with the
Remember: the sound clip does not contain a substantial amount of their "IP" -- just sound clips which are very brief, used as samples for the purpose of a review that a music or movie critic might use. The fact is you are presenting this as a music critic, and you are WELL within fair use guidelines to use short sound clips in your reviews.
When they come a-suing present the evidence and then countersue, citing harassment, libel, extortion, and fraud (abusing copyright law). Also complain about the frivilous lawsuit as they obviously are just trolling for people who will just settle rather than fight their ridiculous claims.
Are you telling everyone to create a slashdot account, chow down on doughnuts and get addicted to Mountain Dew? It's a good way to ensure you'll never get laid again!
It even allows for bypassing for the purpose of interoperability - which is why that clause is there to begin with.
Well perhaps Yahoo, Microsoft, and all the wannabe search engines can buy pay-per-click ads on Google?
On the other hand, Unix-like operating systems have been trivial to gain access to as long as you have boot media and physical access to the box (well, encrypted filesystems notwithstanding). I can't say that I blame Microsoft for this, since admins need to be given SOME way to fix broken servers. Hell if Windows were THAT secure we'd be bitching and moaning about having no way to fix other than reformat/reinstall.
Furthermore if you have private data which needs to remain private in Windows, you can enable encryption on selected directories.
That's because it was never intended to be used for ducts; it was intended to be used to waterproof ammo boxes.
If you use it on ducts (I've seen it used on ducts) it breaks down very quickly. Actual duct tape is usually adhesive-backed foil or mylar. Only idiots use Duck Tape for ducts.
Which is why they say "Own it on CD today" or in the case of movies "own it on DVD today" ?
Instead of embracing P2P and offering low-resolution (say no higher than 320x240 with low bitrates) versions of your movies available for pennies or even no cost (maybe embed advertisements for discounted DVDs, or trailers for upcoming DVD and theatrical releases) you instead chose to start a public campaign slandering all P2P usage.
For me, ALL of my P2P usage is legit (linux distros, etc). I no longer try before I buy. When I was, I was buying anywhere from 5 to 15 DVDs per month. Now I buy two or three per month. I buy maybe one CD a year because the RIAA chose to bite the hand that feeds it. I have reduced my DVD purchases for the same reason - you are trying to squelch new technology and what you DO offer in downloadable formats, you INSIST on crippling it with DRM, which breaks fair use and prevents me from watching the content on my computer (I run Linux).
With your propaganda, all you have succeeded in doing is providing bittorrent free publicity. Joe Sixpack, who was previously totally unaware that bittorrent even existed, is now using it for everything from music to movies to software.
System requirements != a EULA; system requirements = setting the bar for warranty of merchantability. It sets customer expectations so some nimrod doesn't decide to try something boneheaded like installing OS X on an Apple IIe
Symptoms? the audio driver would just start looping, sometimes just freeze the system or bluescreen. It is generally the result of poor thread management.
/OneCPU made the problem unreproducible).
Back before SMP went mainstream and was limited to large enterprises, I worked for a company which produced a development and runtime environment for a knowledgebase solution. Lockups and 100% CPU utilization was reported in the field but no one in support could reproduce it - client was threatening to walk. I heard about the support issue and I knew what the problem was right away and had an idea of how to reproduce it, but on a single processor machine everything is serialized anyhow, making it difficult and sometimes impossible to reproduce thread management bugs. At this company I was Sr. QA Engineer (and acting QA director at the time. I HATE being in a director position, at least in QA) and insisted the company release an unused multiprocessor box to QA (it was just sitting in the server room unused). I set up a debug build of the runtime environment on the machine and got about 12 people to hit the machine concurrently with specific requests (previous sessions on a single processor box failed to reproduce it). First attempt, we reproduced it and identified where it was failing (and no it wasn't a machine issue - booting with
What is a race condition?
http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid5_gci871100,00.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_condition
And a related topic, the deadlock:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadlock
One workaround was intfilter, binding one or two libraries to a single processor, but that didn't solve all the problems with the Creative driver.