I agree they don't have many to give up, but it is just amazing to me that in just five short years Americans have become trained to give up all freedoms in exchange for so-called 'security' from terrorists. As others have pointed out, we are far more likely to die from car crashes, alcohol, cigarettes and obesity than we are from these attacks. I have a wife and 2 small toddlers, and I worry more and more every day that they won't have many freedoms left by the time they get through high school. We seem to be moving towads the Netherlands style.
I know in Virginia they have plenty of red-light cameras, and the National ID program was passed by Congress and signed by the President. We have even had rental car companies automatically give people speeding tickets using the magic of GPS, and plenty of demonstrations on how people can be tracked via their cell phone signals. It is coming, sadly.:(
But doesn't that come back around to fear-mongering by politicians and the media being used to control the population and tell them what they want?
How do you get out of that cycle, especially with a war that could never be won? No country has ever stopped terrorism, especially not world-wide terrorism. I doubt we will be the first.
I may sound hysterical and point in all directions because our freedoms are being attacked from all angles constantly right now by both parties. I'm not claiming to be Democrat or Republican. I am very, very worried about our country. I love that McCain and Warner and Graham are standing up to Bush finally on something. I would gladly vote for McCain for President if he won the Primary. But my senator Frist does whatever Bush wants almost every time. I really hate rubber stamps or following party lines on votes. Just fix our country!
Tell me something I can do other than just email my senator or other senators. Because I do that on a regular basis and all I get are blanket responses. How on earth can I help change this mess? How can I make a difference?
Considering we don't know what programs are out there, since they are all 'classified' and done outside of the FISA courts we don't really know for sure who is being monitored. All we know is Bush says it is only for terrorists. But Bush claimed up to a few days ago there were no secret prisons in Europe. Then he admitted they had them and must have them to prevent terror attacks.
The dirty bomb suspect Padilla is an example of an American citizen who has been held in solitary confinement since his arrest for suspected 'terrorist' activities. He has not gone to trial, has not been formally charged, and this was years ago. Remember him?
He may not be able to order them currently, but only because they want to keep their seats come November. Up until now, Bush got just about everything Bush wanted. He may have had to go through Congress, but they rubber-stamp whatever he said until this. Since they won't give him his version he has turned Cheney and Rice on them as well as paid several personal visits to Capitol Hill. When he can't get his way he bullies them behind closed doors. Why on earth do we need to abandon the Geneva conventions?
I'd say we are losing the freedom of speech (try speaking out against Bush and you are labelled pro-terrorist and possibly monitored)
We are losing the 4th amendment (they can see who you are calling, record calls to foreign countries, and if you are suspected of being a terrorist can haul you off even if you are an American to undisclosed locations and torture you)
And our president acts like an emperor or king instead of our elected prsident, ordering congess to pass his legislation so the cia can continue to torture people.
What I find fascinating is how I've read posts from people in other stories that live in England or other countries that have endured regular and frequent terrorism before 9/11. They didn't give up all of their freedoms and stop going to pubs and other places that were being bombed. They would rather keep doing the things they want, rather than let the terrorists win.
Here in America we just seem to roll over now and give up every bit of freedom we have. I mean, the airport screening officials even tried to get J.K. Rowling to put her only copy of the manuscript to the final Harry Potter book in checked luggage. Imagine if they 'lost' that or it ended up getting leaked out early? At least she stood up to the security people in the US at the airport, but she is not American and a celebrity, so she isn't the best example. Why doesn't anyone stand up to these things today in our country? What on earth is happening to this country?
It really seems like we are going through a new version of the McCarthy era:
"You're a communist or you support the communist party "
has changed to:
"You're a terrorist or you support the terrorists"
The worst part to me is how can this one ever go away while the media and politicians play their games?
I think the media will have to stand up to the game again and say no more, but will they do so now?
I really hate seeing our freedoms getting thrown away that our founding fathers and our fellow countrymen fought so hard to earn.
This won't work for me, my Senator is Frist. I've contacted them on numerous issues that I felt were wrong. All his office tells you is
thanks for contacting him, he is working hard for Americans and then you get a blanket email on some random topic that you didn't even email him about. He is Bush's rubber stamp so he doesn't care what his constituents think.
I've contacted other senators (Democratic) in other states and they say they can't really help me with my issue, I should contact my own Senator. I know I should try calling, but I assume you get an operator who will make sure all you do is leave your comment on a voicemail that is never answered. Has anyone called successfully?
And I don't just write emails saying something sucks, I spend hours putting together possible solutions that consider several angles, like with how to help with health care costs or prescription drug prices skyrocketing. But when all you get back is a blanket email, it is very discouraging. I think only the lobbyists with the big bucks have their attention in Congress now.:(
She was a great 'warrior' in her own right, I loved watching her show.
Especially those outfits, that was one of the best parts. I can never get my wife to wear things like that.
Try to run XP on a 286 or 386 and see what happens. It will not run. You could probably get it to run on a 486. My point is there is still code in there supporting even those old machines. Why? Those people will stay running 3.1 or 95 or 98 forever, they cannot upgrade. Likewise, most people running 98 or XP will stay with that same OS until that computer is too slow or they get tired of it. Then they will buy a new computer.
Companies don't upgrade their OS, they keep the same one until they are forced to upgrade too.
Why would Microsoft do this? To make their OS and applications easier to maintain would be one idea. To cut how many developers and managers they are throwing at their project. Sure it would need more up front development to build the compact kernel and the modules, but once they are in place it would be far simpler than their current outdated architecture.
Didn't Apple do this already? I seem to recall that they rewrote their OS from scratch and I know for a fact they don't support their old hardware. You can't put Safari 2.0.X on an older Mac. And who says they have to be 3rd party apps. Microsoft could build add-ons to sell for their OS that they can't now.
Example: Are you an elite gamer, get the high speed networking module, ultra-fast hard drive caching and the ultimate tweaks for your network card.
They could spend hours coming up with configs for various needs so that if you don't need certain features of the OS, you don't get them. If you want them later, buy them at a low price as downloadable modules from their Windows Update store.
I think that for the next release of Windows, they should just stop trying to support old hardware and software. Just write a small, compact kernel that is secure, and have turn everything else into independent modules that can be easily switched out, similar to Linux and Unix. If you don't like your filesystem, change it. If you don't want IE, take it out and put in Firefox.
I think the UI is fine and they should keep it fairly consistent. But if they'd just lose having to support things that ran on 95, 98, 2000, ME,... they would make their lives a lot easier. Plus, without all of the old legacy code in there it would probably be more secure. And maybe for that version we could have WinFS.
And dump the registry, that was a really stupid idea.
But I think this could work. Most new copies of the OS are sold on computers built by Dell and other pc makers so they can control what goes in them. Hardware could be certified to work on the new version. Fairly new hardware could get new drivers that could be loaded on and it would work too. But older stuff would just get left behind.
Anyway, just a thought. On a random note, painting a two story house by yourself sucks!
I have known a variety of people in my short life (28 years) who have used alcohol, drugs and/or video games to escape from life. It is very hard to avoid stereotypes. I grew up on welfare and saw it from that end in numerous bad cities. When everything looks bleak, choose any one or more of those three and abuse it.
I then managed to break free and went to an ivy league university. I knew plenty of very rich kids who did the same thing. After graduating and going to work, it just keeps showing up wherever I go.
I have never used drugs or alcohol in my entire life. But I have been hooked on video games and used them for an escape myself. Breaking that habit was very hard.
You deviate from what I've seen and I salute you. But I haven't met very many people like you yet, no matter where I go or what I do.
I never said to sing kumbaya or to throw money at their governments. We need a new strategy we've never done before to help these other countries so they can be self sustainable. That would show the US has good will again and is a beneficial superpower, rather than a hostile one.
I spend a lot of time thinking about this, but can't come up with a good solution. I know there must be a way, though.
If you have any ideas that would work, I know I'd like to hear about them.
But if he can lose his power due to Democrats taking the House and Senate, he will have a very useless final two years. And if we could impeach him and Cheney, that would be a nice bonus.:) They really need to be punished for what they've done to our country and so many others.
This is a stereotype. Many Americans like myself are very concerned about the world's problems, the environment which is being destroyed, and many other things that are going wrong with this world. Some people will hide from the world and its problems. They choose alcohol, or drugs, or video games, or some other distraction to take their mind off of life. But we don't all do this.
I disagree heavily with the current administration's policies. I will do my part and vote against them in the Fall election. Hopefully if the Democrats can take control then Bush the madman will lose some of his power, but our superpower status as a country is being abused and ruined by a man who is waging his own holy war against muslims. I think everyone should be able to plainly see that the US needs another evil enemy to fight without Russia, so they decided the muslims of the world are the next big threat.
I think if we pulled our army out of every country, cut its funding dramatically and used money to help poor third world countries learn to become self sufficient and generate jobs for many of their citizens that this would go a lot further towards combating terrorism then taking over countries that we don't agree with and rebuilding 'democratic' governments for them. What if China took over countries for fun and made them 'communist' to make them better? We would cry foul pretty quickly.
Anyway, I know this is a long answer to your slam against Americans, and I'll probably get flagged as troll and/or offtopic too, but some of us are nice people who want our country to be noble again, the country other countries wished they could be. Now most of them hate us because of Bush and his policies.
Why are you adding in DRM controls to Vista that regular users are not going to want? It may come in handy for corporations wanting to control their documents, but I can't see how regular users would knowingly want a product that restricts their access to their documents or files.
Also, I think you could dramatically improve security by decoupling Internet Explorer from Windows. Have it be a separate program similar to Opera, FireFox, Safari, etc... Is there really a valid reason that Windows Explorer has to be driven by Internet Explorer?
This was the funniest judgemental comment I've ever received.
Facts:
I own my own two story real home that I work on all the time. I love my house.
I am a minimalist. My wife and I accumulated lots of good items we don't want any more. We give it all away on Freecycle if we can't sell it on ebay. We have given people many thousands of dollars worth of items just to clear our house out a little.
I have a very fast computer that I built myself, have a wireless network and a cable modem.
The formula was from a very nice 25 year old mother who just had her first child and her baby drank Similac. She received Enfamil Lipil. Babies won't drink other types once they have one type. When you go to the pediatrician, they give you free sealed cans of formula. It is called marketing by the formula companies. It isn't like I got a bag of white powder from some nutjob. I wouldn't do that. I also didn't have to pay for it. Freecycle is free, hence the name.
My mom was on welfare, I went to an ivy league school and got a job as a computer consultant. I make a very large amount of money a year. I'm not ashamed of my past, but I'm certainly not in need of handouts. I like the people we meet on Freecycle, I like giving things away, and sometimes it is fun to try getting something and succeeding. We don't try to get much, usually gardening items or formula or diapers or the swing set.
If life were that simple, there wouldn't be formula, now would there? With our first child, my wife's milk didn't come in for 9 days, and our baby wouldn't drink from her breast no matter what we did. We had to go to formula and her milk dried up. We tried for several weeks but failed. She felt horrible about it.
With our second child, her milk came in quicker and he learned to drink. However, she got horrible cramps that had her screaming for hours after even a small amount of his suckling. No painkillers could take away the pain. She endured this for several days and almost passed out numerous times. Finally, she had to give up because it only got worse. Yes, this could have passed eventually, but the doctors were concerned about what could happen to her if she kept breastfeeding. So she stopped.
So if you have a wife, and she had babies, that is great for you guys if she breastfed. But not every mother can do it, so formula has to exist. I certainly haven't noticed any problems from our wonderful children. They are a delight and almost never cause trouble. They don't have any developmental problems. So I'm not going to slam formula, because it is what we had to do, and it worked for us.
Maybe it is crap in your area, but we have gotten a $400 swing set (2 years old) for free, you can get landscaping timbers, bulbs, sometimes you can get mulch, excess building materials, etc... You can also get working televisions and computers that people are giving away because they have newer ones.
If you have children (like I do), you can get your type of formula, coupons for formula, clothing for your little ones, toys for them, etc...
If you have pets or just got a pet, you can get litter boxes (for cats) and toys. You can get aquariums, fish, dogs, cats, hamsters, snakes, birds, rabbits, etc... (Yes, Freecycle does allow people to give away pets, but gives lots of warnings on doing this).
You can get furniture (usually good quality), cooking materials, school books, books on any topic you can imagine, magazines, etc... People have even given away pool tables, above ground pools, spas, etc...
And if you want to reduce the clutter in your house, there is always somebody that could use what you consider 'crap'. There are a lot of people who can't afford to buy very much, so be considerate.
Wasn't it last week, or the week before when CmdrTaco posted his response to the Beatles-Beatles theories? That was a pretty lively discussion, and I think he answered this during one of the threads. Since it is a slow day, maybe he can re-post it as a dupe and we can have the discussion again. Try submitting that, and I'll bet it will get accepted. You must know how all of this works by now, I've seen you around for a while.;)
Oh, and so I stay on topic, hopefully in the next few days we'll see that some l337 hacker has a beowolf cluster of Intel Macs running XP and will be hosting his video of how he did it using that cluster, and then he'll have to post another video of the whole thing going up in flames when it gets slashdotted.
Let's say a political group such as the Republicans are in power (for example). They have established the precedent that it is okay to spy on Americans if they call foreign phone numbers and record all transcripts of all conversations those people make from that point on (since you are okay with that). You are the Democratic candidate (Bob) for Senator in a large, important state and you are battling a powerful incumbent Republican (Mike). Mike is worried about a strong challenge from this contender.
Bob calls his mother in Germany, who is on a vacation. Now Bob is flagged as a potential terrorist, and all of his phone calls are being recorded indefinitely. Since Mike is the head of the Intelligence Committee, he finds out and gets permission to read Bob's phone call transcripts, including all of his strategic calls with his party headquarters. The FBI also starts surveillance on him since he is a 'potential terrorist'. Bob does something that is slightly illegal or damaging to a campaign. Let's say you went a few miles over the speed limit one time while late to a speech, or you spank one of your children, or you burn an MP3 from a CD (which will be illegal in the future), or talk to a mistress over the phone.
Your action is leaked to the media and kills your campaign, in addition to Mike using your campaign stratagies against you. You lose by a huge margin, and your political career is destroyed.
Maybe that is an extreme example, but political campaigns get very ugly. How about this?
If all of your phone calls are being recorded, this can be abused in many ways. The data can be stolen and used by marketing companies or detectives, political parties can abuse them, your calls can be analyzed by police-written pyschiatric programs for stress in your voice or certain keywords that indicate you might commit a future crime, etc...
Imagine being arrested for something you might do in the future, just because you yelled at your mother-in-law this morning on the phone and said you'd like to kill her for embarrassing you at the party last night. Would the world be safer? Maybe 1984 and Minority Report have the right idea. Or maybe society works fine the way it is, and we shouldn't have all of our conversations analyzed and recorded.
From reading the article, the algae suck up the CO2 and the Nitrogen Oxides from the power plant emissions. That's obviously a good thing. The algae are then used to create methanol and biodiesel. What happens when you burn the methanol and biodiesel? Doesn't that just release the stored CO2 and Nitrogen Oxides back into the atmosphere, or am I missing something here?
Also, if these algae are so great, why don't we fill up thousands of acres with them, not just 15,000, and suck the CO2 and Nitrogen Oxides out of the atmosphere, reducing greenhouse gasses. Maybe the algae could then be dumped into the deep ocean, creating a carbon sink.
Does it take less pollution to create methanol and biodiesel this way, versus drilling them from the earth?
Slashdot Mirror
I agree they don't have many to give up, but it is just amazing to me that in just five short years Americans have become trained to give up all freedoms in exchange for so-called 'security' from terrorists. As others have pointed out, we are far more likely to die from car crashes, alcohol, cigarettes and obesity than we are from these attacks. I have a wife and 2 small toddlers, and I worry more and more every day that they won't have many freedoms left by the time they get through high school. We seem to be moving towads the Netherlands style.
:(
I know in Virginia they have plenty of red-light cameras, and the National ID program was passed by Congress and signed by the President. We have even had rental car companies automatically give people speeding tickets using the magic of GPS, and plenty of demonstrations on how people can be tracked via their cell phone signals. It is coming, sadly.
But doesn't that come back around to fear-mongering by politicians and the media being used to control the population and tell them what they want? How do you get out of that cycle, especially with a war that could never be won? No country has ever stopped terrorism, especially not world-wide terrorism. I doubt we will be the first.
I may sound hysterical and point in all directions because our freedoms are being attacked from all angles constantly right now by both parties. I'm not claiming to be Democrat or Republican. I am very, very worried about our country. I love that McCain and Warner and Graham are standing up to Bush finally on something. I would gladly vote for McCain for President if he won the Primary. But my senator Frist does whatever Bush wants almost every time. I really hate rubber stamps or following party lines on votes. Just fix our country!
Tell me something I can do other than just email my senator or other senators. Because I do that on a regular basis and all I get are blanket responses. How on earth can I help change this mess? How can I make a difference?
Considering we don't know what programs are out there, since they are all 'classified' and done outside of the FISA courts we don't really know for sure who is being monitored. All we know is Bush says it is only for terrorists. But Bush claimed up to a few days ago there were no secret prisons in Europe. Then he admitted they had them and must have them to prevent terror attacks.
The dirty bomb suspect Padilla is an example of an American citizen who has been held in solitary confinement since his arrest for suspected 'terrorist' activities. He has not gone to trial, has not been formally charged, and this was years ago. Remember him?
He may not be able to order them currently, but only because they want to keep their seats come November. Up until now, Bush got just about everything Bush wanted. He may have had to go through Congress, but they rubber-stamp whatever he said until this. Since they won't give him his version he has turned Cheney and Rice on them as well as paid several personal visits to Capitol Hill. When he can't get his way he bullies them behind closed doors. Why on earth do we need to abandon the Geneva conventions?
I'd say we are losing the freedom of speech (try speaking out against Bush and you are labelled pro-terrorist and possibly monitored)
We are losing the 4th amendment (they can see who you are calling, record calls to foreign countries, and if you are suspected of being a terrorist can haul you off even if you are an American to undisclosed locations and torture you)
And our president acts like an emperor or king instead of our elected prsident, ordering congess to pass his legislation so the cia can continue to torture people.
What I find fascinating is how I've read posts from people in other stories that live in England or other countries that have endured regular and frequent terrorism before 9/11. They didn't give up all of their freedoms and stop going to pubs and other places that were being bombed. They would rather keep doing the things they want, rather than let the terrorists win.
Here in America we just seem to roll over now and give up every bit of freedom we have. I mean, the airport screening officials even tried to get J.K. Rowling to put her only copy of the manuscript to the final Harry Potter book in checked luggage. Imagine if they 'lost' that or it ended up getting leaked out early? At least she stood up to the security people in the US at the airport, but she is not American and a celebrity, so she isn't the best example. Why doesn't anyone stand up to these things today in our country? What on earth is happening to this country?
It really seems like we are going through a new version of the McCarthy era:
"You're a communist or you support the communist party "
has changed to:
"You're a terrorist or you support the terrorists"
The worst part to me is how can this one ever go away while the media and politicians play their games?
I think the media will have to stand up to the game again and say no more, but will they do so now?
I really hate seeing our freedoms getting thrown away that our founding fathers and our fellow countrymen fought so hard to earn.
Okay, you have me on that one, but you just have to love Xena.
Plus I'm not really into the midget thing.
This won't work for me, my Senator is Frist. I've contacted them on numerous issues that I felt were wrong. All his office tells you is thanks for contacting him, he is working hard for Americans and then you get a blanket email on some random topic that you didn't even email him about. He is Bush's rubber stamp so he doesn't care what his constituents think.
:(
I've contacted other senators (Democratic) in other states and they say they can't really help me with my issue, I should contact my own Senator. I know I should try calling, but I assume you get an operator who will make sure all you do is leave your comment on a voicemail that is never answered. Has anyone called successfully?
And I don't just write emails saying something sucks, I spend hours putting together possible solutions that consider several angles, like with how to help with health care costs or prescription drug prices skyrocketing. But when all you get back is a blanket email, it is very discouraging. I think only the lobbyists with the big bucks have their attention in Congress now.
She was a great 'warrior' in her own right, I loved watching her show.
Especially those outfits, that was one of the best parts. I can never get my wife to wear things like that.
You will be missed, Xena.
Same thing with used cars. They are all called pre-owned now. "Look at our beautiful pre-owned Lexus cars, better than new"
No they aren't, they are USED!!
If you look at the root, wouldn't pre-owned mean "before owned"
Try to run XP on a 286 or 386 and see what happens. It will not run. You could probably get it to run on a 486. My point is there is still code in there supporting even those old machines. Why? Those people will stay running 3.1 or 95 or 98 forever, they cannot upgrade. Likewise, most people running 98 or XP will stay with that same OS until that computer is too slow or they get tired of it. Then they will buy a new computer.
Companies don't upgrade their OS, they keep the same one until they are forced to upgrade too.
Why would Microsoft do this? To make their OS and applications easier to maintain would be one idea. To cut how many developers and managers they are throwing at their project. Sure it would need more up front development to build the compact kernel and the modules, but once they are in place it would be far simpler than their current outdated architecture.
Didn't Apple do this already? I seem to recall that they rewrote their OS from scratch and I know for a fact they don't support their old hardware. You can't put Safari 2.0.X on an older Mac. And who says they have to be 3rd party apps. Microsoft could build add-ons to sell for their OS that they can't now.
Example: Are you an elite gamer, get the high speed networking module, ultra-fast hard drive caching and the ultimate tweaks for your network card.
They could spend hours coming up with configs for various needs so that if you don't need certain features of the OS, you don't get them. If you want them later, buy them at a low price as downloadable modules from their Windows Update store.
I think that for the next release of Windows, they should just stop trying to support old hardware and software. Just write a small, compact kernel that is secure, and have turn everything else into independent modules that can be easily switched out, similar to Linux and Unix. If you don't like your filesystem, change it. If you don't want IE, take it out and put in Firefox.
... they would make their lives a lot easier. Plus, without all of the old legacy code in there it would probably be more secure. And maybe for that version we could have WinFS.
I think the UI is fine and they should keep it fairly consistent. But if they'd just lose having to support things that ran on 95, 98, 2000, ME,
And dump the registry, that was a really stupid idea.
But I think this could work. Most new copies of the OS are sold on computers built by Dell and other pc makers so they can control what goes in them. Hardware could be certified to work on the new version. Fairly new hardware could get new drivers that could be loaded on and it would work too. But older stuff would just get left behind.
Anyway, just a thought. On a random note, painting a two story house by yourself sucks!
I have known a variety of people in my short life (28 years) who have used alcohol, drugs and/or video games to escape from life. It is very hard to avoid stereotypes. I grew up on welfare and saw it from that end in numerous bad cities. When everything looks bleak, choose any one or more of those three and abuse it.
I then managed to break free and went to an ivy league university. I knew plenty of very rich kids who did the same thing. After graduating and going to work, it just keeps showing up wherever I go.
I have never used drugs or alcohol in my entire life. But I have been hooked on video games and used them for an escape myself. Breaking that habit was very hard.
You deviate from what I've seen and I salute you. But I haven't met very many people like you yet, no matter where I go or what I do.
I never said to sing kumbaya or to throw money at their governments. We need a new strategy we've never done before to help these other countries so they can be self sustainable. That would show the US has good will again and is a beneficial superpower, rather than a hostile one.
I spend a lot of time thinking about this, but can't come up with a good solution. I know there must be a way, though.
If you have any ideas that would work, I know I'd like to hear about them.
But if he can lose his power due to Democrats taking the House and Senate, he will have a very useless final two years. And if we could impeach him and Cheney, that would be a nice bonus. :) They really need to be punished for what they've done to our country and so many others.
This is a stereotype. Many Americans like myself are very concerned about the world's problems, the environment which is being destroyed, and many other things that are going wrong with this world. Some people will hide from the world and its problems. They choose alcohol, or drugs, or video games, or some other distraction to take their mind off of life. But we don't all do this.
I disagree heavily with the current administration's policies. I will do my part and vote against them in the Fall election. Hopefully if the Democrats can take control then Bush the madman will lose some of his power, but our superpower status as a country is being abused and ruined by a man who is waging his own holy war against muslims. I think everyone should be able to plainly see that the US needs another evil enemy to fight without Russia, so they decided the muslims of the world are the next big threat.
I think if we pulled our army out of every country, cut its funding dramatically and used money to help poor third world countries learn to become self sufficient and generate jobs for many of their citizens that this would go a lot further towards combating terrorism then taking over countries that we don't agree with and rebuilding 'democratic' governments for them. What if China took over countries for fun and made them 'communist' to make them better? We would cry foul pretty quickly.
Anyway, I know this is a long answer to your slam against Americans, and I'll probably get flagged as troll and/or offtopic too, but some of us are nice people who want our country to be noble again, the country other countries wished they could be. Now most of them hate us because of Bush and his policies.
You forgot about dupes of course! We'll end up with duplicate patents using your method.
Why are you adding in DRM controls to Vista that regular users are not going to want? It may come in handy for corporations wanting to control their documents, but I can't see how regular users would knowingly want a product that restricts their access to their documents or files.
Also, I think you could dramatically improve security by decoupling Internet Explorer from Windows. Have it be a separate program similar to Opera, FireFox, Safari, etc... Is there really a valid reason that Windows Explorer has to be driven by Internet Explorer?
This was the funniest judgemental comment I've ever received.
Facts:
I own my own two story real home that I work on all the time. I love my house.
I am a minimalist. My wife and I accumulated lots of good items we don't want any more. We give it all away on Freecycle if we can't sell it on ebay. We have given people many thousands of dollars worth of items just to clear our house out a little.
I have a very fast computer that I built myself, have a wireless network and a cable modem.
The formula was from a very nice 25 year old mother who just had her first child and her baby drank Similac. She received Enfamil Lipil. Babies won't drink other types once they have one type. When you go to the pediatrician, they give you free sealed cans of formula. It is called marketing by the formula companies. It isn't like I got a bag of white powder from some nutjob. I wouldn't do that. I also didn't have to pay for it. Freecycle is free, hence the name.
My mom was on welfare, I went to an ivy league school and got a job as a computer consultant. I make a very large amount of money a year. I'm not ashamed of my past, but I'm certainly not in need of handouts. I like the people we meet on Freecycle, I like giving things away, and sometimes it is fun to try getting something and succeeding. We don't try to get much, usually gardening items or formula or diapers or the swing set.
Thanks for the good laugh.
If life were that simple, there wouldn't be formula, now would there? With our first child, my wife's milk didn't come in for 9 days, and our baby wouldn't drink from her breast no matter what we did. We had to go to formula and her milk dried up. We tried for several weeks but failed. She felt horrible about it.
With our second child, her milk came in quicker and he learned to drink. However, she got horrible cramps that had her screaming for hours after even a small amount of his suckling. No painkillers could take away the pain. She endured this for several days and almost passed out numerous times. Finally, she had to give up because it only got worse. Yes, this could have passed eventually, but the doctors were concerned about what could happen to her if she kept breastfeeding. So she stopped.
So if you have a wife, and she had babies, that is great for you guys if she breastfed. But not every mother can do it, so formula has to exist. I certainly haven't noticed any problems from our wonderful children. They are a delight and almost never cause trouble. They don't have any developmental problems. So I'm not going to slam formula, because it is what we had to do, and it worked for us.
Maybe it is crap in your area, but we have gotten a $400 swing set (2 years old) for free, you can get landscaping timbers, bulbs, sometimes you can get mulch, excess building materials, etc... You can also get working televisions and computers that people are giving away because they have newer ones.
If you have children (like I do), you can get your type of formula, coupons for formula, clothing for your little ones, toys for them, etc...
If you have pets or just got a pet, you can get litter boxes (for cats) and toys. You can get aquariums, fish, dogs, cats, hamsters, snakes, birds, rabbits, etc... (Yes, Freecycle does allow people to give away pets, but gives lots of warnings on doing this).
You can get furniture (usually good quality), cooking materials, school books, books on any topic you can imagine, magazines, etc... People have even given away pool tables, above ground pools, spas, etc...
And if you want to reduce the clutter in your house, there is always somebody that could use what you consider 'crap'. There are a lot of people who can't afford to buy very much, so be considerate.
Wasn't it last week, or the week before when CmdrTaco posted his response to the Beatles-Beatles theories? That was a pretty lively discussion, and I think he answered this during one of the threads. Since it is a slow day, maybe he can re-post it as a dupe and we can have the discussion again. Try submitting that, and I'll bet it will get accepted. You must know how all of this works by now, I've seen you around for a while. ;)
Oh, and so I stay on topic, hopefully in the next few days we'll see that some l337 hacker has a beowolf cluster of Intel Macs running XP and will be hosting his video of how he did it using that cluster, and then he'll have to post another video of the whole thing going up in flames when it gets slashdotted.
Let's say a political group such as the Republicans are in power (for example). They have established the precedent that it is okay to spy on Americans if they call foreign phone numbers and record all transcripts of all conversations those people make from that point on (since you are okay with that). You are the Democratic candidate (Bob) for Senator in a large, important state and you are battling a powerful incumbent Republican (Mike). Mike is worried about a strong challenge from this contender.
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Bob calls his mother in Germany, who is on a vacation. Now Bob is flagged as a potential terrorist, and all of his phone calls are being recorded indefinitely. Since Mike is the head of the Intelligence Committee, he finds out and gets permission to read Bob's phone call transcripts, including all of his strategic calls with his party headquarters. The FBI also starts surveillance on him since he is a 'potential terrorist'. Bob does something that is slightly illegal or damaging to a campaign. Let's say you went a few miles over the speed limit one time while late to a speech, or you spank one of your children, or you burn an MP3 from a CD (which will be illegal in the future), or talk to a mistress over the phone.
Your action is leaked to the media and kills your campaign, in addition to Mike using your campaign stratagies against you. You lose by a huge margin, and your political career is destroyed.
Maybe that is an extreme example, but political campaigns get very ugly. How about this?
If all of your phone calls are being recorded, this can be abused in many ways. The data can be stolen and used by marketing companies or detectives, political parties can abuse them, your calls can be analyzed by police-written pyschiatric programs for stress in your voice or certain keywords that indicate you might commit a future crime, etc...
Imagine being arrested for something you might do in the future, just because you yelled at your mother-in-law this morning on the phone and said you'd like to kill her for embarrassing you at the party last night. Would the world be safer? Maybe 1984 and Minority Report have the right idea. Or maybe society works fine the way it is, and we shouldn't have all of our conversations analyzed and recorded.
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From reading the article, the algae suck up the CO2 and the Nitrogen Oxides from the power plant emissions. That's obviously a good thing. The algae are then used to create methanol and biodiesel. What happens when you burn the methanol and biodiesel? Doesn't that just release the stored CO2 and Nitrogen Oxides back into the atmosphere, or am I missing something here?
Also, if these algae are so great, why don't we fill up thousands of acres with them, not just 15,000, and suck the CO2 and Nitrogen Oxides out of the atmosphere, reducing greenhouse gasses. Maybe the algae could then be dumped into the deep ocean, creating a carbon sink.
Does it take less pollution to create methanol and biodiesel this way, versus drilling them from the earth?