> We get our drinking water from Lake Ontario. All of the GTA (Greater Toronto Area), > including the City of Toronto, York Region, Durham, Peel etc, use water pumped from the lake. > Our sewage is sent back down to Toronto, where it is treated before being dumped back into the lake.
<Catch 22> So why don't you eliminate the middleman? </Catch 22>
> Now, I am not a libertarian, I am a liberal (and btw, we liberals have > nothing against big business, just big business that breaks the law, ie. > Microsoft or Enron). > > [...] > > But what business does, as long as they're not breaking any laws, is business.
What happens when "big business" gets to write the law?
> Hmmm, strange indeed, I feel much safer knowing that when the shit hits the fan there will be some firepower around to neutralize the situation properly.
Before I came to Canada, I lived in a place where quite a few people had permits to carry "concealed" guns for the stated purpose of self defence. I had a 9mm S&W myself but I rarely carried it.
Anyway, accidents and near-accidents were too common.
A particular case that I rememberer was when several vigilant citizens shot a guy that was trying to plant an explosive device in a shopping district. A policeman later said on a TV interview that 5 or 6 bullets hit the terrorist while DOZENS more struck random targets, some OVER TEN METERS from where he stood. That policeman went on to say that it happened early in the morning when all the shops were closed and there were almost no people around to be hit by those stray bullets.
> The last thing I need is some wacko 'tazing' a rampaging heroin addict and accomplishing nothing more than pissing him off. But that's just me.
The effects of the taser are a bit more practical than just "pissing somebody off".
I don't know what is your experience with firearms but it is not as easy to hit the right target with a handgun (particularly one that has enough stopping power to be effective against your "rampaging heroin addict" as it seems.
In summary, in order to be effective with a firearm (and not a threat to your surroundings) you have to train regularly and the safety procedures must become your second nature, and unfortunately (or, IMHO, fortunately) that means that your weapon is not constantly ready to go off in half a second.
However, most people either don't realize that or cannot invest the required time and effort.
Unfortunately I cannot present any. My comment was based solely on my personal observations as a small person with both martial arts training and weapon experience.
> Awareness is the first step to survival
No argument from me here.
> if this woman was caught off-guard, armed or un-armed, she is already in trouble. You gotta do something: kick, scream, bite, poke, pinch, grab, twist, gouge, scratch, shoot, head-butt, or pull hair, whatever it takes, because once the attacker pulls you into his car your chances of survival starts dropping really fast.
Again, no argument except to note that, in such situations, "kick, scream, bite, poke, pinch, grab, twist, gouge, scratch, shoot, head-butt, or pull hair, whatever it takes" will usually work much better than trying to pull out and operate a gun.
As an aside, I feel much safer when "petite women" (or any other people) around me are not carying loaded guns with chambered bullets and cocked hammers (a.k.a "a walking accident waiting to happen"). A pepper spray, taser or other non-lethal weapon can fend off an assailant just as effectively.
> What could be more evil than empowering a petit woman to fend off a burly rapist?
Unless the petite woman has had extensive training, she will not get a chance to draw that gun, much less use it at close quarters against a man twice her size and strength.
The most likely scenario is that said burly rapist will take the gun from her and use it to intimidate his next victim into submission.
> This question will be settled by force, not law.
And it it entirely possible that a bunch of green bug-eyed critters will kick us and our funny "claims" all the way back to Earth with no Sigourney Weaver to save our sorry asses.
Paragraphs 15 & 17: Loading of the code into RAM is an infringing copying. "Thus RAM containing a copy of Sony's copyright work is a reproduction in material form".
Paragraph 18: "reproduction of the unlicensed or parallel-imported copy of the game, or the copyright artistic works within it, onto the screen of the television to which the PS2 console is connected also creates an infringing copy".
Paragraph 30: "One of the advantages of CDs and DVDs is that they are robust and cannot be wiped clean. There is no necessity [...] to make back ups.". and "Since there is no necessity to make a back up, there is no justification for having one. Playing such a disc is unauthorised and the resultant creation of transitory copies of the program (or other data) in RAM is unauthorised."
> Given the emotional nature of the issue I took it for granted before posting that I would be modded down into flamebait hell.
If your goal is to be "modded down into flamebait hell", I'd say that you are doing a pretty shoddy job.
That said, the difference between insightful and flamebait is smaller than you'd think.
> S'alright. I am content with the quality of my "enemies."
Your "enemies" are less likely to see your comments and subsequently mod you down.
On the other hand, I believe that the moderation system is about visibility. I will mod up comments that, IMO, deserve to be seen by a broad audience and mod down those that I believe are better go unnoticed. To maximize the effectiveness of my "vote", I usually don't mod up comments that already reached the score of 3 or above and, since I often forget that the score is influenced by "friend" status, the chance of me modding you up is low...
> 64 bits should show improvements over 32 bits in two areas: high precision math, and large address spaces.
While I agree regarding the large address spaces, high precision math is done using vector units (AltiVec, SSE/SSE2, etc.) instead of the CPU's general purpose registers nowadays.
> You're talking about 64-bit integers, which are extremely rarely used in mainstream apps; I've probably used them less than a dozen times in 20 years of programming. Rendering and mathematical apps usually use floating point for any number where dynamic range would be an issue.
Actually, fixed point arithmetic is much faster and is accurate enough for these applications.
> The main reason that AMDs chips are faster on desktop apps are more registers, faster memory controller, and cache architecture. None of those features has anything to do with 64-bitness.
The "more registers" are not accessible by 32-bit applications.
The Senate Judiciary Committee, led by everybody's favorite senator, Orrin Hatch, is moving to outlaw knives entirely by making it illegal to produce such instruments. Hatch says such firms 'think that they can legally profit by inducing children to kill. Some think they can legally lure children into breaking the law with false promises of "free stabbing."'
> Glad I'm canadian, we'll probably invade you when you are back to sticks and stones...:-)
Be afraid instead.
The next step will be to use the full political, economical and, if necessary, military might of "the land of the free" to bring other countries "in line".
> Even more, it could ewen make learning how to build them illegal, > effectively banning education in electrical engineering, the knowledge of > which could, of course, be exploited to create digital copies of a work.
Knowledge is a dangerous thing.
Intelligent and well-informed people are harder to control.
Education should only be available to the members of the ruling class.
> And it wasn't BTG that "patented" hyperlinks, it was BT, Britain's > monopolist telephone company. A phone company that makes you pay by the > second for local calls.
Almost every phone company outside of North America makes you pay by the second for local calls, and most of them are monopolists.
Slashdot Mirror
> We get our drinking water from Lake Ontario. All of the GTA (Greater Toronto Area),
> including the City of Toronto, York Region, Durham, Peel etc, use water pumped from the lake.
> Our sewage is sent back down to Toronto, where it is treated before being dumped back into the lake.
<Catch 22> So why don't you eliminate the middleman? </Catch 22>
> PC's are just toys
Tell that to Google.
What 900 MHz phones have better range and reception, the analog or the digital?
> Now, I am not a libertarian, I am a liberal (and btw, we liberals have
> nothing against big business, just big business that breaks the law, ie.
> Microsoft or Enron).
>
> [...]
>
> But what business does, as long as they're not breaking any laws, is business.
What happens when "big business" gets to write the law?
Why argue when you have this?
> Hmmm, strange indeed, I feel much safer knowing that when the shit hits the fan there will be some firepower around to neutralize the situation properly.
Before I came to Canada, I lived in a place where quite a few people had permits to carry "concealed" guns for the stated purpose of self defence. I had a 9mm S&W myself but I rarely carried it.
Anyway, accidents and near-accidents were too common.
A particular case that I rememberer was when several vigilant citizens shot a guy that was trying to plant an explosive device in a shopping district. A policeman later said on a TV interview that 5 or 6 bullets hit the terrorist while DOZENS more struck random targets, some OVER TEN METERS from where he stood. That policeman went on to say that it happened early in the morning when all the shops were closed and there were almost no people around to be hit by those stray bullets.
> The last thing I need is some wacko 'tazing' a rampaging heroin addict and accomplishing nothing more than pissing him off. But that's just me.
The effects of the taser are a bit more practical than just "pissing somebody off".
I don't know what is your experience with firearms but it is not as easy to hit the right target with a handgun (particularly one that has enough stopping power to be effective against your "rampaging heroin addict" as it seems.
In summary, in order to be effective with a firearm (and not a threat to your surroundings) you have to train regularly and the safety procedures must become your second nature, and unfortunately (or, IMHO, fortunately) that means that your weapon is not constantly ready to go off in half a second.
However, most people either don't realize that or cannot invest the required time and effort.
> References please.......
Unfortunately I cannot present any. My comment was based solely on my personal observations as a small person with both martial arts training and weapon experience.
> Awareness is the first step to survival
No argument from me here.
> if this woman was caught off-guard, armed or un-armed, she is already in trouble. You gotta do something: kick, scream, bite, poke, pinch, grab, twist, gouge, scratch, shoot, head-butt, or pull hair, whatever it takes, because once the attacker pulls you into his car your chances of survival starts dropping really fast.
Again, no argument except to note that, in such situations, "kick, scream, bite, poke, pinch, grab, twist, gouge, scratch, shoot, head-butt, or pull hair, whatever it takes" will usually work much better than trying to pull out and operate a gun.
As an aside, I feel much safer when "petite women" (or any other people) around me are not carying loaded guns with chambered bullets and cocked hammers (a.k.a "a walking accident waiting to happen"). A pepper spray, taser or other non-lethal weapon can fend off an assailant just as effectively.
> What could be more evil than empowering a petit woman to fend off a burly rapist?
Unless the petite woman has had extensive training, she will not get a chance to draw that gun, much less use it at close quarters against a man twice her size and strength.
The most likely scenario is that said burly rapist will take the gun from her and use it to intimidate his next victim into submission.
> This question will be settled by force, not law.
And it it entirely possible that a bunch of green bug-eyed critters will kick us and our funny "claims" all the way back to Earth with no Sigourney Weaver to save our sorry asses.
Does the settlement apply to international cusomers as well?
Look at the decision. What do we have?
Paragraphs 15 & 17: Loading of the code into RAM is an infringing copying. "Thus RAM containing a copy of Sony's copyright work is a reproduction in material form".
Paragraph 18: "reproduction of the unlicensed or parallel-imported copy of the game, or the copyright artistic works within it, onto the screen of the television to which the PS2 console is connected also creates an infringing copy".
Paragraph 30: "One of the advantages of CDs and DVDs is that they are robust and cannot be wiped clean. There is no necessity [...] to make back ups.".
and "Since there is no necessity to make a back up, there is no justification for having one. Playing such a disc is unauthorised and the resultant creation of transitory copies of the program (or other data) in RAM is unauthorised."
> Given the emotional nature of the issue I took it for granted before posting that I would be modded down into flamebait hell.
If your goal is to be "modded down into flamebait hell", I'd say that you are doing a pretty shoddy job.
That said, the difference between insightful and flamebait is smaller than you'd think.
> S'alright. I am content with the quality of my "enemies."
Your "enemies" are less likely to see your comments and subsequently mod you down.
On the other hand, I believe that the moderation system is about visibility. I will mod up comments that, IMO, deserve to be seen by a broad audience and mod down those that I believe are better go unnoticed. To maximize the effectiveness of my "vote", I usually don't mod up comments that already reached the score of 3 or above and, since I often forget that the score is influenced by "friend" status, the chance of me modding you up is low...
> It's not "informative" (IMO of course) to just call something a dupe without checking.
Metamoderate them to oblivion if you're concenrned.
> What to do without WindowsUpdate? Why AutoPatcher of course.
Or BigFix.
> 64 bits should show improvements over 32 bits in two areas: high precision math, and large address spaces.
While I agree regarding the large address spaces, high precision math is done using vector units (AltiVec, SSE/SSE2, etc.) instead of the CPU's general purpose registers nowadays.
> You're talking about 64-bit integers, which are extremely rarely used in mainstream apps; I've probably used them less than a dozen times in 20 years of programming. Rendering and mathematical apps usually use floating point for any number where dynamic range would be an issue.
Actually, fixed point arithmetic is much faster and is accurate enough for these applications.
> The main reason that AMDs chips are faster on desktop apps are more registers, faster memory controller, and cache architecture. None of those features has anything to do with 64-bitness.
The "more registers" are not accessible by 32-bit applications.
> see lots of replies to several-month old posts in the groups I frequent.
Did it occur to you that they were done with a normal usenet client?
Is an add-on that allows one to rewrite URLs on the fly.
That would allow, for example, to automatically go to "printable" versions of web pages.
Your "rough scale" illustrates my points exactly.
1. It is inherently subjective (how religios a person considers himself) and thus unsuitable for any comparison.
2. It is built to fit a specific religion.
Saying "I am more religious than you" is meaningless.
> I'd say I'm as religious as FroMan, possibly more
Interesting. How do you compare or, for that matter, measure religiousness?
The Senate Judiciary Committee, led by everybody's favorite senator, Orrin Hatch, is moving to outlaw knives entirely by making it illegal to produce such instruments. Hatch says such firms 'think that they can legally profit by inducing children to kill. Some think they can legally lure children into breaking the law with false promises of "free stabbing."'
> There is Dreamcast emulator just released called Chankast so you can now
> enjoy the dc-homebrew scene even without Dreamcast.
Does it run commercial games (e.g., Shenmue)?
> Glad I'm canadian, we'll probably invade you when you are back to sticks and stones...
Be afraid instead.
The next step will be to use the full political, economical and, if necessary, military might of "the land of the free" to bring other countries "in line".
> Even more, it could ewen make learning how to build them illegal,
> effectively banning education in electrical engineering, the knowledge of
> which could, of course, be exploited to create digital copies of a work.
Knowledge is a dangerous thing.
Intelligent and well-informed people are harder to control.
Education should only be available to the members of the ruling class.
> And it wasn't BTG that "patented" hyperlinks, it was BT, Britain's
> monopolist telephone company. A phone company that makes you pay by the
> second for local calls.
Almost every phone company outside of North America makes you pay by the second for local calls, and most of them are monopolists.