I suppose it all depends on what you consider to be potentially damaging information. You may not be able to run up my credit card if you possess my account number with my cellphone company but you will have access to information I consider private. Imagine, for example, an employer suspecting you of having contact with a rival company. It would be possible, with information other than your SSN, to obtain copies of your call records. I would consider this a breach of privacy and potentially damaging.
I expect (though I don't always trust) any company I give my personal information to keep that information private no matter what that company perceives the potential damage of that information to be. The bad guys are often more inovative than the good guys and who knows what they can do with any given piece of data?
"There have been credible reports dating back several years that Exxon Mobil Corporation, along with its predecessor companies, Mobil Oil Corporation and Mobil Oil Indonesia (collectively "Exxon Mobil"), hired military units of the Indonesian national army to provide "security" for their gas extraction and liquification project in Aceh, Indonesia. Members of these military units regularly have perpetrated ongoing and severe human rights abuses against local villagers, including murder, rape, torture, destruction of property and other acts of terror." A statement from April Johnson's attorneys -- Lopez, Hodes Restaino, Milman & Skikos -- contends that "Halliburton/KBR deployed its civilian truck drivers into a hostile active war zone despite knowledge from intelligence sources that there existed a substantial certainty the civilian drivers, moving in U.S. military vehicles, would be ambushed by Iraqi insurgents and killed or seriously injured."
Sorry I can't provide you with a numerical estimate.
I have had just about the opposite experience. Ubuntu was my introduction to linux with their first release and I enjoyed it. After using it for a few months, though, I found that there was so much going on that when something went wrong or I wanted to make a change I didn't know where to start. Enter gentoo. With gentoo I have built a desktop system that has everything I want (including gaming) with very little bloat. And by building that desktop I know far, far more about linux and the bones of my system. I still recomend Ubutnu to anyone making their first leap into using linux or who wants a solid full featured desktop on a more powerful machine, but gentoo offers a solid distro that will grow (and shrink) with you.
I don't entirely know what I'm talking about but I believe Gimp is raster-based and Xara is vector-based, so they would more likely work side by side than compete. And, uh, correct me quickly if I'm wrong.
"Hmm, but really, what have we got from all the space research investment put into so far?"
Come on, man! VELCRO!
No, really, what do you mean when you ask what did we get out of it? Others have pointed out some of the material aspects, but when asking this question what you are really asking is what is the value of knowledge. My parents didn't get a free toaster when we put someone on the moon but all the research and experience gained by actually doing it is still very real.
Also, exploration has always been one of the strongest drives in human history. For politicians space travel may just be propoganda but for many people it is a real and meaningful desire.
"To me it feels like the original Xbox all over again."
And remember the drive problems the Xbox had in its first two incarnations. I was all hot to buy a 360 until a friend of mine reminded me of this. Instead I think I will wait a bit and see what the overall experience seems to be like for those who bought the first run. With Microsoft's record of pushing out products before they are truly complete I say it will be wise to wait. Elder Scrolls IV will be just as much fun in six months. Until then there is always Tuxcart.
Does anyone remember an ad technique tried out a few places around the States where billboards were able to tune in to the radio frequencies given off by radios in passing cars? A sample would be taken of all the different stations being listened to near the billboard and then an ad deemed appropiate for the majority of the targets around would be shown. Would you consider that invasion of privacy? The ad is in public space but it is mining information from your private space, and without permission. Now that I think about it, would you consider the net public or private space? The computer is in your home (office, school) but network is not, so are you giving passive consent simply by being out there?
Except that the ice on Mars is made of CO2, a somewhat different chemical than the water ice that makes up ice caps on earth. CO2 is somewhat more volatile than H2O which helps explain why such dramatic changes in the southern polar Martian ice caps have occured, making these two processes very different. The top search returned in your link to Google points out the difference between the two types of ice by the way. Besides, I thought you said global warming was a myth?
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I suppose it all depends on what you consider to be potentially damaging information. You may not be able to run up my credit card if you possess my account number with my cellphone company but you will have access to information I consider private. Imagine, for example, an employer suspecting you of having contact with a rival company. It would be possible, with information other than your SSN, to obtain copies of your call records. I would consider this a breach of privacy and potentially damaging.
I expect (though I don't always trust) any company I give my personal information to keep that information private no matter what that company perceives the potential damage of that information to be. The bad guys are often more inovative than the good guys and who knows what they can do with any given piece of data?
"There have been credible reports dating back several years that Exxon Mobil Corporation, along with its predecessor companies, Mobil Oil Corporation and Mobil Oil Indonesia (collectively "Exxon Mobil"), hired military units of the Indonesian national army to provide "security" for their gas extraction and liquification project in Aceh, Indonesia. Members of these military units regularly have perpetrated ongoing and severe human rights abuses against local villagers, including murder, rape, torture, destruction of property and other acts of terror."
A statement from April Johnson's attorneys -- Lopez, Hodes Restaino, Milman & Skikos -- contends that "Halliburton/KBR deployed its civilian truck drivers into a hostile active war zone despite knowledge from intelligence sources that there existed a substantial certainty the civilian drivers, moving in U.S. military vehicles, would be ambushed by Iraqi insurgents and killed or seriously injured."
Sorry I can't provide you with a numerical estimate.
I have had just about the opposite experience. Ubuntu was my introduction to linux with their first release and I enjoyed it. After using it for a few months, though, I found that there was so much going on that when something went wrong or I wanted to make a change I didn't know where to start. Enter gentoo. With gentoo I have built a desktop system that has everything I want (including gaming) with very little bloat. And by building that desktop I know far, far more about linux and the bones of my system. I still recomend Ubutnu to anyone making their first leap into using linux or who wants a solid full featured desktop on a more powerful machine, but gentoo offers a solid distro that will grow (and shrink) with you.
I don't entirely know what I'm talking about but I believe Gimp is raster-based and Xara is vector-based, so they would more likely work side by side than compete. And, uh, correct me quickly if I'm wrong.
"Hmm, but really, what have we got from all the space research investment put into so far?" Come on, man! VELCRO! No, really, what do you mean when you ask what did we get out of it? Others have pointed out some of the material aspects, but when asking this question what you are really asking is what is the value of knowledge. My parents didn't get a free toaster when we put someone on the moon but all the research and experience gained by actually doing it is still very real. Also, exploration has always been one of the strongest drives in human history. For politicians space travel may just be propoganda but for many people it is a real and meaningful desire.
"To me it feels like the original Xbox all over again." And remember the drive problems the Xbox had in its first two incarnations. I was all hot to buy a 360 until a friend of mine reminded me of this. Instead I think I will wait a bit and see what the overall experience seems to be like for those who bought the first run. With Microsoft's record of pushing out products before they are truly complete I say it will be wise to wait. Elder Scrolls IV will be just as much fun in six months. Until then there is always Tuxcart.
Does anyone remember an ad technique tried out a few places around the States where billboards were able to tune in to the radio frequencies given off by radios in passing cars? A sample would be taken of all the different stations being listened to near the billboard and then an ad deemed appropiate for the majority of the targets around would be shown. Would you consider that invasion of privacy? The ad is in public space but it is mining information from your private space, and without permission.
Now that I think about it, would you consider the net public or private space? The computer is in your home (office, school) but network is not, so are you giving passive consent simply by being out there?
Except that the ice on Mars is made of CO2, a somewhat different chemical than the water ice that makes up ice caps on earth. CO2 is somewhat more volatile than H2O which helps explain why such dramatic changes in the southern polar Martian ice caps have occured, making these two processes very different. The top search returned in your link to Google points out the difference between the two types of ice by the way. Besides, I thought you said global warming was a myth?
When you say "the liberal media resorts to putting filth and porn on TV to get ratings.", can I assume you are refering to FOX?