How many countries treat glass bottles as a single-use container?
Well, most of the US does... The Country of Texas also... Yes we have recycling programs but most people don't use them...
Remember when a bag of aluminum cans fetched $10? Subsidized recycling programs didn't seem to last very long. I've noticed my apartment's dumpster frequently overflows with trash, but the recycling cans never get full... Yet most of the stuff people throw away is paper boxes, paper plates, plastic food trays, drink cans, etc...
Also, has anyone been into a coffee shop lately? What do people do? They get their coffee, a napkin, a few packets of sugar, a plastic stirrer, and a plastic lid. Mix the sugar with the stirrer and then immediately throw away both the sugar packets and the plastic stirrer. Then 15-20 minutes later, they have drank their coffee and throw away the heavy paper cup and the plastic lid... And this is often a DAILY RITUAL for them!!! (Why not re-use the stirrer and use a mug?)
That's heck of a lot of trash produced! And from something that already tasted like crap...
One of the other postings complained that people in farming/construction do need large trucks... Well that's fine, but here in Texas, I see a whole lot of people with sooped-up 4x4 pickup trucks... Most don't even having towing hitches and the their cargo beds appear to have seen little use... WTF?!?!?! Even the Ford Truck commercials show an overweight guy driving an over-sized pickup truck. BEST IN TEXAS my ass...
Sadly, even today, being environmentally unfriendly is still a good business plan for many...
I believe next-generation wireless systems will use multiple antennas at transmitter & receiver. I think WiMax (or some standard) will allow APs to dynamically allocate spectrum across users, based upon estimated channel qualities. This will allow many users to use a single AP efficiently and would seem to also improve the situtation when multiple APs and many users are in the area... (This scheme should also prevent two users on different APs from using the exact same sub-carriers)
On an unrelated note, the "tradegy of the commons" sounds a lot like the Gas situtation in the US... Exuberant use of fuel (SUVS, boats, indoor AC, etc) is causing fuel prices to be extremely volatile... In some sense, this is causing a great deal of "wasted effort", political unrest, wars, etc. Also, rising gas prices mean low-income families have to work harder (or forgo essentials) since mass-transit often doesn't exist.
But, if things were structured better so there was a more regulated access/usage of fuel, we could be a much more energy-efficient society *and* still enjoy a high standard of living...
It must be a good sign that the USA is prosperous since there are so many hand-gun deaths (per capita)!
After all, it means even the criminals can afford these weapons instead of resorting to cheaper ones such as knives and/or manual fighting.
And I have a feeling that the home and office computers of this "U.K. Official" are participating in these celebrated botnets... Maybe he'll find out one day... Then again, likely not.
With the gross amount of editing/post-processing that goes on in music studios, I wonder if they (can/do/will) "condition" the music so that it compresses well.
Or maybe some future format will get 10x compression over MP3 by taking into account that almost all pop music sounds the same anyway... (there relatively few "unique" sounds).
I believe "A Nigerian" probably has honest intentions, but he could also be one of the scammers trying to find new ways around the prejudice they created!
Or even if HE is honest, many some of his fellow Nigerian readers are not!
This statement is incorrect - Windows 9x Filesystem (for starters) makes your program's config files (or hell binary) overwriteable by anyone in the system.
Here here!
When I was in *high school*, my CS teacher locked down a Win98 machine with the "Policy Editor". He then allowed us to attempt to break his restrictions. He removed virtually all privilages were removed. (Couldn't execute arbitrary programs, I think even Explorer was disabled). The only app allowed to run was Wordpad... (Nothing else).
Without a bootdisk or any other tool, without exploting any "bug", I removed the restrictions... How? Quite easy:
1. Remove "Read Only" attribute from msdos.sys by right-clicking on it from the File-Open box of Wordpad. 2. Edit msdos.sys to boot into the command prompt rather than start Windows.. 3. Reboot. 4. Using regedit.exe, export registry to a text file. 5. Reboot & Edit exported registry using Wordpad (edit.exe can't handle large files) 6. Reboot & import edited file using regedit.exe 7. Reboot & enjoy full privs...
(Not sure if steps #1&2 are necessary... Seem to remember that pressing something like F8 didn't work at the time, perhaps it was disabled or the timeout set to 0).
Steps 4,5,6 could be simplified if one knew exactly what keys to overwrite... (I didn't have a reference in front of me).
So the parent makes an extremely good point... File systems with user-level permissions don't allow most users to modify OS files without some type of external action. (e.g. mount drive in Linux, most HD to another computer, exploit kernel bug, etc)
While it's not illegal to be a ruthless telecom, it certainly is immoral.
Parent is touching upon a good point...
What is supposed to be the reason drugs are illegal? Don't drugs harm societies since the addicts ruin their families and steal/rob/murder others in order to get (more money)/(more drugs)??? In some sense, it seems as if society has decided that the harms from drugs are intolerable...
The telecoms (especially cell carriers) do many things that harm society in a similar way (maybe less severe per person, but affect greater numbers of people). Look at the effect on developing adolescents...
Unfortunately, unlike "drugs", most of society is duped by the advertising of such companies to see the true evil that lurks... Some clothing companies such as "Old Navy" seem equally evil...
Why are cell "ringtones" an industry??? How many people ever bought wired telephones for the sound of their ringer? (I'd bet most didn't). So why are cell phone ring tones all the noise? One word: Marketing. Mass advertising has convinced the public that the only way they can differentiate themselves is by the sound of their cell phone, and that they must change their cell phone ringer as often as their shirt.
Why are cell phone "screensavers" something that is advertised??? It only shows how fickle society has become...
Marketing also dupes the public into thinking that they only way they can get ringtones is by paying a few bucks each or by getting them for "free" by special offers that require full disclosure of personal info...
It doesn't seem to occur to most people that they could simply just download a cool MID or WAV file from any website and upload to their phone via the USB port in their phone (or via email/text message)... (FREE)
Please note that I am not trying to confuse things "immoral" from those "illegal". These are two separate concepts... However many societies tend to make things that are "highly immoral" formally "illegal".
The wireless carriers have built entire sub-industries out of deception... Although this isn't strictly illegal, it is certainly immoral.
I think most people have a strongly distorted view of what constitutes 'intelligence'.
And there are many, many ways to "change the world" that do not require any of the sterotypical quality of 'intelligence'. Was Mother Theresa unusually intelligent? The Wright brothers? What about Hitler? What about Bush?
Also, what is "intelligence". It is really a mental disease...
So called "intelligent" people lie awake at night pondering topics that most people don't bother with... The reason they do well at things like computers, math, science, arts, etc is that they put a heck a lot of their spare time into these areas... Even the teenager that "wastes" his childhood blowing up stuff (or torturing bugs) is still exercising things such as scientific thinking and parts of his mind that most people otherwise wouldn't. These "intelligent" people are inherently motivated to study/do "X" and willing to forgo other things/pleasures/luxuries/options in order to do this... Something usually suffers, and it is not necessarily social skills. (The lack of which is likely to be more prominent than other lackings...)
Their internal motivation for doing such things is extremely high (even bordering on obsession) -- far higher than the motivations provided by money/parents/society/etc... So to the "common" people, "intelligent" people appear to do difficult things easily... But it only comes "easy" because they have exerted themselves far more than most people... Also such "intelligence" tends to be a result of some type of shortsightedness (What drives a CS grad student to spend 5 years of his/her life to come up with an idea that improves CPU performance by 5-10%?) What drives people in this day to write software to ensure that our nations nuclear weapons are still capable of mass destruction?)
Of course, such "hellbent" people tend to do well in graduate school and in R&D groups in companies... They are the ones that often drive technological (and even social) innovation. Meanwhile, the rest of the community focuses on their families, leading balanced lives, etc...
I applaud the garbage man in "Dilbert" (even though fictional). When his workday ends, he can go home and completely not think about work... How many "intelligent" people can really do that?
So please, stop talking about who is "intelligent"... You are only describing people with "obsessions".
If you are still skeptical... Picture a typical dog and (human) owner... The dog doesn't worry about politics, world destruction, corporate layoffs, taxes, etc, etc... The dog is regularly fed, bathed, and kept in a heated/AC room. Who is getting the better deal? But which would typically be called more "intelligent"?
Hmm.. Are you admitting that you played their CD on a MAC without being under the control of their DRM software???
And your not posting as an AC?
Well, if they can convince a judge that your use of a Mac and/or P2P was a method to evade their copy-protection mechanism, then they most certainly WILL BITE YOU and you will find yourself spending many years answering to someone named "Bruno"
Imagine if they had the equivalent of DRM and/or EULAs in the 1900s...
Each cylinder would come with a warning
This cylinder may only be played using a licensed RCA needle. Using any other needle is a violation of the Pony Millenium Rights Act and is a federal offense. By removing this cylinder from its box, you agree to be bound and gagged by the terms of this End-User License agreement. You may not play this music before a publicly audience without expressed written consent of RCA. Within 30 days of purchase, you must write RCA via pony express to "activate" your cylinder. Failure to do so is a violation of this agreeement and is punishable by hanging. After 5 different people have heard playback (or any portion thereof) this cylinder, you might re-activate it by submitting a written request to RCA. Failure to do so is punishable...
Boston Tea Party? Nah. What were they thinking???????????
abstract algebra, which, IMHO, is one of the most fascinating branches of mathematics and, oddly, seems normally to be kept well-hidden from the eyes of non-math or non-physics majors.
WTF is this crap? Do Physicists really use abstract algebra? I question the validity of the summary's statement... The person who wrote the summary seems to have a naieve view that physics people are the only ones who really use the "hard" maths... (And they would be sorely mistaken).
For example, abstract algebra is extremely important in many areas of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. (Although both majors have sub-areas cover a fairly extreme range from "using no math at all", to the almost unspeakable branches...)
I'm noticing that my brand-new laser printer manages to still make the lights flicker wildly even hours after its LCD screen reads "sleeping...". WTF!?!
Even on a less dramatic scale. I bet things like VCRs draw tons of power while off just due to power supply circuits of a brain-dead design.
For example, I do know that some types of power supplies (switching) are not stable unless a *minimum* amount of current is drawn. I'd guess that some devices either have a "dummy load" to ensure this or use even less efficient techniques of supplying power (such as a resistor divder instead of a transformer). Both result in unnecessary consumption of energy albeit reduced manufacturing cost...
Consider this: Your cell phone is highly energy-efficient. But what motivation is there to produce energy-efficient chargers? NONE, since they rely on wall-power or car-power... Primary motivation for these is cost -> low part count.
Also, I wonder if enough consumer equipment doesn't have power factor correction circuitry to cause a significant amount of waste... Anything with a switching power supply (practically everything electronic these days) would generally have a non-ideal power factor unless it contained *additional* capacitors to correct. I think highly non-ideal power factor devices cause (additional) high amounts of current to flow at certain times (but average to zero). Although they would average out to zero, loss due to resistance in lines causes some energy wasted...
Because of competition, they'll spend it on service quality improvements for services their customers do use. If they pocketed it, they'd lose business.
Being an ISP today means giving the user the most bandwidth, the least downtime and the cheapest cost.
I thought the American trend was for the CEO to pocket half and spend the other half on mindless advertising to further brainwash customers that they are in fact better than their competitors.
I'm not sure about your second point either. Most ISPs just seem to want to brainwash the customer in to thinking they are getting a ton of bandwidth. THE ISPs real plot is to sell the user as many services as possible for a monthless fee... (Such as "wireless" APs, "pop-up blockers", and the rest of the host of items that they charge monthly fees for fixed-cost items). Of course, these are considered "Value-Added" because they add value to shareholders, not to the customer.
So, please don't try to deceive yourself or other readers about what is really happening. This ISP is just trying to find a way to increase their profits... The customer will not benefit from the removal of usenet service.
Frankly, I'm still amazed that home cable/DSL users are still getting their own IP address... I figured long ago, they would have put everyone on a private network and used NAT and/or WWW proxies for access... Despite the financial cost, I suspect there are technical motovations for not doing this. (Such as scalability).
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Well, most of the US does... The Country of Texas also... Yes we have recycling programs but most people don't use them...
Remember when a bag of aluminum cans fetched $10? Subsidized recycling programs didn't seem to last very long. I've noticed my apartment's dumpster frequently overflows with trash, but the recycling cans never get full... Yet most of the stuff people throw away is paper boxes, paper plates, plastic food trays, drink cans, etc...
Also, has anyone been into a coffee shop lately? What do people do? They get their coffee, a napkin, a few packets of sugar, a plastic stirrer, and a plastic lid. Mix the sugar with the stirrer and then immediately throw away both the sugar packets and the plastic stirrer. Then 15-20 minutes later, they have drank their coffee and throw away the heavy paper cup and the plastic lid... And this is often a DAILY RITUAL for them!!! (Why not re-use the stirrer and use a mug?)
That's heck of a lot of trash produced! And from something that already tasted like crap...
One of the other postings complained that people in farming/construction do need large trucks... Well that's fine, but here in Texas, I see a whole lot of people with sooped-up 4x4 pickup trucks... Most don't even having towing hitches and the their cargo beds appear to have seen little use... WTF?!?!?! Even the Ford Truck commercials show an overweight guy driving an over-sized pickup truck. BEST IN TEXAS my ass...
Sadly, even today, being environmentally unfriendly is still a good business plan for many...
Or maybe the Earth is flat and stationary so that it can be used as stationery...
I believe next-generation wireless systems will use multiple antennas at transmitter & receiver. I think WiMax (or some standard) will allow APs to dynamically allocate spectrum across users, based upon estimated channel qualities. This will allow many users to use a single AP efficiently and would seem to also improve the situtation when multiple APs and many users are in the area... (This scheme should also prevent two users on different APs from using the exact same sub-carriers)
On an unrelated note, the "tradegy of the commons" sounds a lot like the Gas situtation in the US... Exuberant use of fuel (SUVS, boats, indoor AC, etc) is causing fuel prices to be extremely volatile... In some sense, this is causing a great deal of "wasted effort", political unrest, wars, etc. Also, rising gas prices mean low-income families have to work harder (or forgo essentials) since mass-transit often doesn't exist.
But, if things were structured better so there was a more regulated access/usage of fuel, we could be a much more energy-efficient society *and* still enjoy a high standard of living...
Or maybe the author IS a turkey!
It must be a good sign that the USA is prosperous since there are so many hand-gun deaths (per capita)!
After all, it means even the criminals can afford these weapons instead of resorting to cheaper ones such as knives and/or manual fighting.
And I have a feeling that the home and office computers of this "U.K. Official" are participating in these celebrated botnets... Maybe he'll find out one day... Then again, likely not.
Dude, lay off the grass! --- Didn't like Einstein totally die long before the Hubble was like, launched???
Bummer man!
Let's see them find this one!
What is this talk about buying pre-made motherboards???
Real geeks build their computers with a PCB board and a soldering iron!
Aluminum makes people exclaim, Ooooh! Shiny!!!
IANAL (or economist), but this sounds like predatory pricing....which is illegal...
Also, what will happen to MS for recommending that people violate the DMCA?
Well, Louisiana does have sesimic faults!!! (Baton Rouge for one, has at least one running through the city [and it is moving])
And hurricanes do strike the eastern coast of India...so it seems plausible that Pakistan (on India's west coast) *could* get one....
I'd be really be impressed to see alien technology for energy production...
With the gross amount of editing/post-processing that goes on in music studios, I wonder if they (can/do/will) "condition" the music so that it compresses well.
Or maybe some future format will get 10x compression over MP3 by taking into account that almost all pop music sounds the same anyway... (there relatively few "unique" sounds).
I think the "CowboyNeal" option would be
...
"What makes a cellphone cool?"
D. Same phone as CowboyNeal's
I believe "A Nigerian" probably has honest intentions, but he could also be one of the scammers trying to find new ways around the prejudice they created! Or even if HE is honest, many some of his fellow Nigerian readers are not!
Here here!
When I was in *high school*, my CS teacher locked down a Win98 machine with the "Policy Editor". He then allowed us to attempt to break his restrictions. He removed virtually all privilages were removed. (Couldn't execute arbitrary programs, I think even Explorer was disabled). The only app allowed to run was Wordpad... (Nothing else).
Without a bootdisk or any other tool, without exploting any "bug", I removed the restrictions... How? Quite easy:
1. Remove "Read Only" attribute from msdos.sys by right-clicking on it from the File-Open box of Wordpad.
2. Edit msdos.sys to boot into the command prompt rather than start Windows..
3. Reboot.
4. Using regedit.exe, export registry to a text file.
5. Reboot & Edit exported registry using Wordpad (edit.exe can't handle large files)
6. Reboot & import edited file using regedit.exe
7. Reboot & enjoy full privs...
(Not sure if steps #1&2 are necessary... Seem to remember that pressing something like F8 didn't work at the time, perhaps it was disabled or the timeout set to 0).
Steps 4,5,6 could be simplified if one knew exactly what keys to overwrite... (I didn't have a reference in front of me).
So the parent makes an extremely good point... File systems with user-level permissions don't allow most users to modify OS files without some type of external action. (e.g. mount drive in Linux, most HD to another computer, exploit kernel bug, etc)
Hmmm. Now we know what food the non-vegetarian dinos ate...
Parent is touching upon a good point...
What is supposed to be the reason drugs are illegal? Don't drugs harm societies since the addicts ruin their families and steal/rob/murder others in order to get (more money)/(more drugs)??? In some sense, it seems as if society has decided that the harms from drugs are intolerable...
The telecoms (especially cell carriers) do many things that harm society in a similar way (maybe less severe per person, but affect greater numbers of people). Look at the effect on developing adolescents...
Unfortunately, unlike "drugs", most of society is duped by the advertising of such companies to see the true evil that lurks... Some clothing companies such as "Old Navy" seem equally evil...
Why are cell "ringtones" an industry??? How many people ever bought wired telephones for the sound of their ringer? (I'd bet most didn't). So why are cell phone ring tones all the noise? One word: Marketing. Mass advertising has convinced the public that the only way they can differentiate themselves is by the sound of their cell phone, and that they must change their cell phone ringer as often as their shirt.
Why are cell phone "screensavers" something that is advertised??? It only shows how fickle society has become...
Marketing also dupes the public into thinking that they only way they can get ringtones is by paying a few bucks each or by getting them for "free" by special offers that require full disclosure of personal info...
It doesn't seem to occur to most people that they could simply just download a cool MID or WAV file from any website and upload to their phone via the USB port in their phone (or via email/text message)... (FREE)
Please note that I am not trying to confuse things "immoral" from those "illegal". These are two separate concepts... However many societies tend to make things that are "highly immoral" formally "illegal".
The wireless carriers have built entire sub-industries out of deception... Although this isn't strictly illegal, it is certainly immoral.
I think most people have a strongly distorted view of what constitutes 'intelligence'.
And there are many, many ways to "change the world" that do not require any of the sterotypical quality of 'intelligence'. Was Mother Theresa unusually intelligent? The Wright brothers? What about Hitler? What about Bush?
Also, what is "intelligence". It is really a mental disease...
So called "intelligent" people lie awake at night pondering topics that most people don't bother with... The reason they do well at things like computers, math, science, arts, etc is that they put a heck a lot of their spare time into these areas... Even the teenager that "wastes" his childhood blowing up stuff (or torturing bugs) is still exercising things such as scientific thinking and parts of his mind that most people otherwise wouldn't. These "intelligent" people are inherently motivated to study/do "X" and willing to forgo other things/pleasures/luxuries/options in order to do this... Something usually suffers, and it is not necessarily social skills. (The lack of which is likely to be more prominent than other lackings...)
Their internal motivation for doing such things is extremely high (even bordering on obsession) -- far higher than the motivations provided by money/parents/society/etc... So to the "common" people, "intelligent" people appear to do difficult things easily... But it only comes "easy" because they have exerted themselves far more than most people... Also such "intelligence" tends to be a result of some type of shortsightedness (What drives a CS grad student to spend 5 years of his/her life to come up with an idea that improves CPU performance by 5-10%?) What drives people in this day to write software to ensure that our nations nuclear weapons are still capable of mass destruction?)
Of course, such "hellbent" people tend to do well in graduate school and in R&D groups in companies... They are the ones that often drive technological (and even social) innovation. Meanwhile, the rest of the community focuses on their families, leading balanced lives, etc...
I applaud the garbage man in "Dilbert" (even though fictional). When his workday ends, he can go home and completely not think about work... How many "intelligent" people can really do that?
So please, stop talking about who is "intelligent"... You are only describing people with "obsessions".
If you are still skeptical... Picture a typical dog and (human) owner... The dog doesn't worry about politics, world destruction, corporate layoffs, taxes, etc, etc... The dog is regularly fed, bathed, and kept in a heated/AC room. Who is getting the better deal? But which would typically be called more "intelligent"?
How much does Anna Nicole Smith distort this vortex?
Hmm.. Are you admitting that you played their CD on a MAC without being under the control of their DRM software???
And your not posting as an AC?
Well, if they can convince a judge that your use of a Mac and/or P2P was a method to evade their copy-protection mechanism, then they most certainly WILL BITE YOU and you will find yourself spending many years answering to someone named "Bruno"
Imagine if they had the equivalent of DRM and/or EULAs in the 1900s...
Each cylinder would come with a warning
This cylinder may only be played using a licensed RCA needle. Using any other needle is a violation of the Pony Millenium Rights Act and is a federal offense. By removing this cylinder from its box, you agree to be bound and gagged by the terms of this End-User License agreement. You may not play this music before a publicly audience without expressed written consent of RCA. Within 30 days of purchase, you must write RCA via pony express to "activate" your cylinder. Failure to do so is a violation of this agreeement and is punishable by hanging. After 5 different people have heard playback (or any portion thereof) this cylinder, you might re-activate it by submitting a written request to RCA. Failure to do so is punishable...
Boston Tea Party? Nah. What were they thinking???????????
WTF is this crap? Do Physicists really use abstract algebra? I question the validity of the summary's statement... The person who wrote the summary seems to have a naieve view that physics people are the only ones who really use the "hard" maths... (And they would be sorely mistaken).
For example, abstract algebra is extremely important in many areas of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. (Although both majors have sub-areas cover a fairly extreme range from "using no math at all", to the almost unspeakable branches...)
It SHOULD be in everything but its not...
I'm noticing that my brand-new laser printer manages to still make the lights flicker wildly even hours after its LCD screen reads "sleeping...". WTF!?!
Even on a less dramatic scale. I bet things like VCRs draw tons of power while off just due to power supply circuits of a brain-dead design.
For example, I do know that some types of power supplies (switching) are not stable unless a *minimum* amount of current is drawn. I'd guess that some devices either have a "dummy load" to ensure this or use even less efficient techniques of supplying power (such as a resistor divder instead of a transformer). Both result in unnecessary consumption of energy albeit reduced manufacturing cost...
Consider this: Your cell phone is highly energy-efficient. But what motivation is there to produce energy-efficient chargers? NONE, since they rely on wall-power or car-power... Primary motivation for these is cost -> low part count.
Also, I wonder if enough consumer equipment doesn't have power factor correction circuitry to cause a significant amount of waste... Anything with a switching power supply (practically everything electronic these days) would generally have a non-ideal power factor unless it contained *additional* capacitors to correct. I think highly non-ideal power factor devices cause (additional) high amounts of current to flow at certain times (but average to zero). Although they would average out to zero, loss due to resistance in lines causes some energy wasted...
Sounds just like a pyramid scheme using the legal system.... Yikes!
I thought the American trend was for the CEO to pocket half and spend the other half on mindless advertising to further brainwash customers that they are in fact better than their competitors.
I'm not sure about your second point either. Most ISPs just seem to want to brainwash the customer in to thinking they are getting a ton of bandwidth. THE ISPs real plot is to sell the user as many services as possible for a monthless fee... (Such as "wireless" APs, "pop-up blockers", and the rest of the host of items that they charge monthly fees for fixed-cost items). Of course, these are considered "Value-Added" because they add value to shareholders, not to the customer.
So, please don't try to deceive yourself or other readers about what is really happening. This ISP is just trying to find a way to increase their profits... The customer will not benefit from the removal of usenet service.
Frankly, I'm still amazed that home cable/DSL users are still getting their own IP address... I figured long ago, they would have put everyone on a private network and used NAT and/or WWW proxies for access... Despite the financial cost, I suspect there are technical motovations for not doing this. (Such as scalability).