You are absolutely correct that persecution of Christians in America does not rise to the level of that in India, Africa, or Indonesia. Very few, if any, Christians are murdered in the U.s. merely because of their faith.
But what persecutiuon there is in the U.S. is sometimes subtle, and no less intentional.
For instance, tolerance and promotion of anti-Christian policies, denigration of Christian holidays while offering admiration for other relgious observances, just in general, but... If this is all the persecution we will suffer, I am blessed indeed. Two weeks ago I listened to a pastor from India name his friends and fellow pastors that had been killed for their faith. Persecution in America is relatively inconsequential. Real, but nothing to fear for my life over.
But it is persecution. And it is intentional, and intended to do harm. Fortunately, we are not in fear of our lives nor loss of our property.
Not that Christians are any bastion of morality. We are, of course, as flawed as anyone else. But we are forgiven. And admonished to do better.
It's interesting that such posts as DaveV1.0's get modded 'troll'. It was a genuine question, and the attitude that Chrtistians are trying to codify their religion in law is actually dead on. Our Constituion is largely a Christ-based document. And as such, it is intended to protect all persons, and include all. John 3:16, 'that none should perish'. A Christian nation should welcome all, without condition. As an insight into evangalism, if you try to exclude nonbelievers, you are missing opportunities for conversion and salvation. As an insight into true freedom, you must guarantee the freedom of your opposition, or you will be denied yours when they take advantage of your laws.
Second: "Second, do you advocate Christians persecuting others by trying to have their religion codified into law, having their religion taught in public schools, and their desire to disallow homosexuals to marry even if such a marriage is allowed in the homosexuals' religion?"
This is a more difficult and substantive challenge, thank you.
ALL legislation is someone's morality. When gay marriage is being proposed, it is someone's morality being presented for inclusion and acceptance. In the particular issue of marriage, I don't think opposition to gay marraige is exclusive to Christians, or even Judeo-Christian faith. Even Islam opposes this.
By 'homosexuals' religion', I assume you mean mostly those Christian denominations that perform same-sex marriages. Without getting into the theology and disputes, legalizing same-sex marriage is not, for me, limited to marriages peformed by religious institutions. Any legal marriage would be expected to be covered. Where the ceremony is performed and by whom is irrelevant.
I do NOT support changing the marriage laws to permit same-sex marriage, but I have three points to make here;
1. I believe this position is consistent with Scripture and with Christianity. God is entirely plain about His attitude towards homosexuality. You know the references as well as I do.
2. Despite that, I cannot condemn homosexuals merely for being homosexual. And in fact, they are welcome in my church if they are not practicing sex. Same goes for unmarried heterosexuals. Actually, they are welcome anyways, but will not be invited to hold leadership positions, etc. As far as I know, a church member who divorces their spouse for reasons other than infidelity is also subject to that limitation. And yes, I know at least some of our leaders are secretly sinning, as we all are. We at least acknowledge the obvious or admitted sin.
3. While I vote against same-sex marriage, I am also not concerned that our culture will further devolve into an even more depreaved state if it passes, nor am I concerned that it will cause the ruination of our country. That's going to happen no matter. I have an opinion, I vote that way, but I do not make it a cause of mine to oppose it. If I believe God is who He says He is, then I know this is in His plan, and I must still have faith.
And one last thing. If same-sex couples want to act married, live together, adopt children, etc., I am not overly concerned about that. I have a sister-in-law who lives with a woman, has a child she adopted, and in every way they act married save for the legal recognition and, of course, the legal benefits inherited by marriage. They have living wills, powers-of-attorney, and specific HIPAA releases to handle the legal issues that may arise. My wife and I would not consider interfering in those agreements even if it were possible - they have made their choice well known. The argument that same-sex couples are just as loving and able as any other couple to make a family is a good one. You'll want to make that argument for clemency for murderers, extortionists, and thieves who are also kind and loving husbands and wives.
That last comment is harsh, and might leave the impression that I equate homosexuality with murder and other cirmes. Not true. But claiming that a loving husband or wife is proof that a particular behavior is acceptable or without harm is specious. don't make that argument. It doesn't work.
I am much more sympathetic to the simple argument that civil rights should be granted to persons regardless of their race, sex, creed,
"Always good to see uneducated crazies are all over the world.
Yes, uneducated, but not in the way you are thinking of.
Christians are persecuted all over the world. In India, there are some fanatical groups of Hindus and Muslims that are especially violent towards Christians, with murders and burning whole villages not uncommon. Lesser persecution occurs all over the world, however, and is to be expected. In fact, this is probably not exclusive to Christians, though some religions tend to suffer less. I suspect because they fight back. Christians are not called to do so, but to love their persecutors and put their faith in God. Seeking persecution is not necessary - it will seek you as a Christian.
I'm currently studying Revelation, and have been getting very different insights into the imagery and visions depicted there. The 'mark of the Beast' need not be a literal mark, but it could be just as apparent. If, as a Christian, you spend your time watching celebrity news shows and, as Don Imus says, 'revelling in the agony of others', you are participating in the less-Christian aspects of our culture. This is more the domain of the Beast (Satan) than it is of God. You are marked by this. If you spend your time talking about things of the world, you are marked as one more interested in the world. Am I guilty of this? Yup. We can change, though.
The quote about 'buying or selling' is indeed, however, looking more literal than figurative. This is more interesting. But of course, if you wish to buy or sell that which is being offered by the prevailing culture, well, yes, avoiding the mark of the Beast will distance you from that culture. In TFA, it seems India is instituting the UID system to better identify individuals. I think, as a Christian, I could tolerate having a UID as a means to entirely acceptable ends, ie property ownership.
I think these Mizoramans are misguided, but they are also under constant threat. Who knows.
Hopefully some of the pastors I know of in India will reach out to them and give them some useful insights. You have to fight the real fight, not be distracted by the enemy.
ps- I do not advocate Christians isolating themselves from the world. We are called to be in the world, but not of it. If you don't understand this, try to evaluate your investment in current events. Are you tossed to and fro by the latest political debate, or do you take it as an event, and keep your focus on the issues and real progress?
"those have been slowly removed over the years as states worry about 'the gays' sneeky getting benefits through them"
I'm pretty certain that recent efforts in some states have been to make benefits MORE available. Redefining marriage is not being used to minimize benefits, but to prevent expanding the definition of marriage itself. Now, we see some backlash as benefits are turning out to be expensive, and some states/communities are rethinking the whole partners benefits thing. But that's economic, not merely moral. I have never worked for an employer that even offered the benefit.
But my question stands. If you don't believe in marriage, why are you looking for the benefits of it? Is that fair? Logical? Sounds like having your cake and eating it too.
And this is related to the discussion how? How about people who just don't believe in health insurance? Shall we give them a break on hospital charges 'cause they are disadvantaged by paying full price for a hospital visit? People who don't believe in auto insurance should not have to pay for damages if they cause an accident? People who don't believe in passwords should just be given their money back when their bank account is cleaned out?
Well, I'm being a little extreme, but the argument continues to be illogical. If you don't believe in marriage, why do you expect the benefits of marriage? Does it matter how those benefits are acquired?
If staffers are reqiured to have a second or separate cell phone to do personal and political business, then they will get iPhones or some other smartphone. Email access is built-in.
Can't stop that with hardware. Even policy will fail. And today, you can't tell them with a straight face that they can't have email so their wife can ask them to pick up takeout on the way home. Or their best bud wants to invite them over for another showing of Gladiator, whichever social stereotype you prefer.
Don't even bother to tell me about the firewall. It is meaningless. Make it a condition of employment that, due to the sensitive nature of their position, any emails sent during working hours, personal or not, are subject to disclosure.
Rotsa ruck with that. These people ultimately don't tolerate oversight very well. If they did, they would have taken a job somewhere else.
And my point is that Flash doesn't work well on non-mobile devices either.
There is a working flash for iOS, but Apple has denied it by claiming it is too buggy. Are there a few apps for iOS that are also a little buggy? Yep, lots. They don't happen to both be made by Adobe, and offer a way to play a fun game outside of a paid app.
Not just Apple, but the whole iOS economy thrives on a controlled, limited system. Flash games would harm that.
This would work just fine for an FOSS player, because it's not the player, but the server, that has to comply with DMCA.
And players need only support DRM if they want to patronize DRM-ed services. Yes, a little disingenuous, but if free services existed, then free players would work.
The reality is that players need to support the content. So maybe FOSS players are going to have to go it alone?
"No, it's just an explanation of why the whole flash argument (particularly Adobe's constant whining) was so silly. We're just now starting to see usable Flash on any mobile devices. If Flash is so useful on a mobile phone, why hasn't Adobe shown us?"
Actually, they have, since 2008. And more coming, real soon now. As in 'maybe'. But Adobe is trying.
The value argument for Flash on mobiel devices is the same one for desktop devices. Web pages that use Flash are not useful on mobile devices, and the iPad is a mobile device offering a similar, if not indistinguishable, Web experience like desktop devices. Apple just wants to keep Flash off until it plays nice with iOS, to improve the reputation of iOS.
"While Apple has presented a number of different reasons why they don't want flash on iOS, one of their main examples is that flash would be a buggy, CPU and battery hog."
Describes Flash on my notebook and desktop perfectly, save that my desktop doesn't have a battery. But we tolerate it on those devices, because they have the horsepower and resources to run Flash tolerably.
"if flash is as important and useful as Adobe says, then eventually consumers will demand it, and Apple will adapt or lose out."
Consumers ARE demanding it. So far, it's not a show-stopper for Apple or Android users. Blackberry I dunno.
My HTC Dream has 2 differnet antennas, in the upper right corner and over the top facing the display. I can wrap my hands around these and see minimal impact on performance. Of course there is the battery cover between my hand and the antennas, but that's like 1-1.5mm thick. And the antennas themselves seem to be coated.
Arperture antennas are fascinating to me. I first saw them on some 2Wire routers, and of course they are the standard for WiFi antennas on everything. The Dream has GPS, WiFi, and GSM, so they make two antennas do the work of three or four.
This is a pet project of mine, as the Bluetooth performance on this phone is annoying me. My stereo headset of choice, a Backbeat 903, has terrible reception when I'm more than a 5 feet away from a reflective surface and the phone is in a pocket or belt-high case even on the same side as the headset antenna. I have Motorola S705 that is hotter than a $2 pistol, excellent reception even 30 feet away through a masonry wall. Irritating. I've been looking into how a passive radiator might help, and it looks like no go. The BackBeat sounds pretty good, but when they finally crap out from sweat, I'll be back looking for a decent sounding BT headset. Most are just inadequate. The S705 doesn't sound so good with my old buds which are great when plugged in directly. It's just that most BT stereo headsets don't provide fidelity. All I want...
"The point is that it's *OPEN* and not under the control of any nasty for-profit corporation. And that makes it superior. Who *cares* if it doesn't work worth a damn in actual practice?"
This is why the Red Sox won't let me walk on and play right field. Free that doesn't work doesn't, well, doesn't work.
I'm waiting for the FOSS community to develop HTML5 addins that will work. Just remember, if such a thing happens, expect outfits like YouTube to capitalize on that and make money off the efforts of the free.
And yes, I would not mind a bit if the Red Sox kept charging wht they do for tickets if they let me play right field for free. No, I would not play for the Yankees. Or the Diamondbacks. Not worth it.
Well, go over to badcaps.net and have a taste of the pain and vitriol from back then.
I did a lot of Dell field work back then, and it was very busy. We were describign the bad boards over the phone to engineers, and they knew fairly early that it was failing caps. The problem was no one knew the root cause (caps not meeting specs, test and QA faked by manufacturer) and so were both shipping bad boards from inventory and ordering more new boards with bad caps. Not good, but it did get sorted out.
The only manufactuter I don't recall being hit by this was Acer, but I think AOpen may have been. Otherwise, everyone got it. Seems you can buy caps a little tiny bit cheaper when they are not actually manufactured correctly. Who knew.
Anyways, this incident is the source of many myths concerning poor QA by motherboard manufacturers who got badly burnt by the caps, and exposed the problems with supply chain management. Dell should have stopped selling *and* fixing systems for about six weeks to get thing right. But that would have been devastating. So they did the only thing they could do. Fake it till them fixed it. Not pretty.
This is really a settled issue, save for the apparent lawsuits. Lawyers and roaches, the things that come out after the lights are turned out.
Now, can we talk about hard drives and bricks in the boxes?
They say a Scavvy is the best partner, and evil would, of course, be the way to go. All for naught however unless I can find a RoTP and get down there in a hurry. We'll see how it works out.
I don't think of stability as one of IE's problems, so if you're trying to make the point that IE is no more or less stable than Chrome or Opera, you've lost me.
On the other hand, Chrome and Opera development are both pretty dynamic, lots of changes, trying to match features of, of all things, IE. Firefox seems to like to break addons, but at least much core functionality seems to survive intact.
Come to think of it, IE6->IE7 was uncomfortable, but IE7->IE8 is a major pain, even for ASP sites. IE6->IE8 is genuinely painful. If your site is IE6-centric, you're facing bigger challenges. Why this is continues to escape me. I know it's because of compatibility problems, but how that lingers is unfortunate. Shouldn't be.
The SM carried consumables like oxygen, propellant, fuel cells, which allowed Apollo to carry other consumables such as food, and of course return payload like lunar rocks, film, etc... These are not needed as much for a ferry to the ISS, so a slightly-larger-than-Apollo capsule could carry quite a few passengers. Mess around with the seating arrangements, and you could fit 7 into a similar capsule. Of course it would be a double-decker, probably, but that works.
"It's men who are dumb enough to tolerate the types, the sneering arrogant IT guys, the mailing lists full of flaming personal attacks leveled by closet bullies empowered by semi-anonymity, the phallic-compensating gadget consumerists, constantly "helpful" types who manage to insult while trying to rescue, and the sexually inept who use pinup wallpaper and leer at any woman in eyeshot. Membership in (or at least tolerance of) a repellant boys' club is an almost-mandatory feature of our industry."
This adequately describes Corporate America. Nothing unusual here. Really, It is not the least unusual nor exceptional. Mediocrity, juvenile behavior, incompetence, tolerance of the most offensive behavior for those who *seem* to deliver results, and lording it over the lesser types is pretty common in the office. Working for a Fortune 100 company has been an interesting experience. Dealing with incompetent developers, management that won't hold them accountable, failing systems that are too big to fix, unrealistic expectations, sometimes ytou just want to show up and stay out of trouble. The bright spots are the people that really care and give it all they have, and my team that is in the unique position of having both a consultancy role and significant multi-process access to go in and solve problems. We are rarely found to be wrong, and more teams are calling us in either to solve problems or advise on process or design. I can't imagine working on a dev team that spends 3 months on evaluation and design and in 24 hours the internal 'client' shows them that they got it entirely, 100% wrong.
IT is not exceptional. It is proof of IT's maturity and inclusion in Corporate America that IT has all the complaints and shortcomings of all the rest of the corporate world...
"Secret ballot is how we impose our morals upon others anonymously."
ALL legislation is someone's morality.
Let me repeat that, more clearly:
ALL legislation, despite the arguments to the contrary, is SOMEONE'S morality. Legislation is either an imposiiton on someone, or a grant of permission, and will always have an implied of not explicit moral judgmenet associated with it.
Laws against murder, kidnapping, assault, battery, etc. all have a morality associated with them. Laws about what seem to be less clear issues, such as truth in lending or perhaps auto loans, may seem to be less about morality, but don't be decieved. If you think it's morally wrong to permit the unscrupulous to take advantage of less sophisticated buyers and charge them higher interest rates or excessive fees, you are judging what is higher or escessive. Even supposedly simple little things like Federal subsidies for agriculture or higher education carry moral judgements. Gay rights would be the epitome of legislating morality, but it is neither exclusive nor exceptional.
And the idea that you can sign a petition to present such legislation for approval and remain anonymous is to me ludicrous. Secret ballots DECIDE these matters, but if you with to PROPOSE them, at the least you ought to be identifiable. If for no other reason than to permit the voters to consider the motives and intent of both the proposal and its backers. SCOTUS got it right, you do not have the right to anonymous 'speech' in these matters. As noted before in this thread, at the least you should be able to determine if the petition signers were legally qualified to sign.
Anyways, the facts are the first thing to go in these discussions, so good luck.
Seriously, you're willing to let your customers use the device when it's riddled with malware or whatever, but you want a simple and easy way to to clean them when you get one for service?
Why bother? If you're not interested in preventing the problem, it will come back.
And as some have recommended, you should work with the suits to either get a more appropriate and robust version of Windows to do what you do, or move to an OS that can be secured. I know this is not just a technical decision, so good luck with that.
"Add a simple 50 millisecond quote expiration rule: a quote must remain active until it is executed or 50ms elapses. If the quote is part of the NBBO, it may be improved (higher bid or lower offer price) at any time without waiting for the expiration period. "
Um, 50ms is not a humanly realistic decision span. It takes longer than that to recognize the color of the arrow pointing in the direction your stock price is going.
HFT is the epitome of arbitrage, and competed directly with human (or flesh-and-bones) trading. They should play by common rules that are at least realistic for both. This means that quote expirations should be measured in full SECONDS, not milliseconds.
This will, of course, destroy the obvious and worst advantage HFT has, that is the millisecond response to arbitrage opportunities. But it will allow at least the dedicated human trader an opportunity to participate in a market they are now just being beaten to by a machine.
We wouldn't allow a professional baseball team to use a mechanical pitching machine instead of a real-life pitcher. Dialing the speed up to 150MPH wouldn't enhance the game, and would instead overwhelm human batters with little hope of success no matter their skills. the game is INTENDED to be played between humans, as a test of skill and determination.
Stock trading should, in my humble and entirely uneducated opinion, be a game played among relative equals. HFT is breaking this in a way that is not useful to the market, does not add value to the capital stocks being traded nor the companies and shareholders represented, and defeats even the most concerted efforts by human traders to participate on even a marginally equal footing. No amount of analysis or even reaction by a real life trader can survive head-to-head with an HFT system.
If the purpose of the Stock Market is to offer opportunities to profit from purely technical conditions, even to allow profit from malfunctions, then HFT fits right in. But if the Stock Market is intended to provide opportunity to raise capital, develop value, and gain profit for those with good decision-making skills and insight, then HFT is an 'unfair' advantage to machines at the expense of all other players.
It is also, clearly, dangerous, and can cause significant disruption as well as loss to other players, in circumstances that are not related to actual market or economic conditions. A 'simple' delay of a few milliseconds in system response can result in the feedback loop observed in this case, and that is not useful to the markets. Quote stuffing is pure fraud. In fact, much HFT activity borders on fraud, as it is intended to deceive other players. Yes, it is. Looking for the arbitrage opportunity on a millisecond scale is nothing but machines battling machines. The only realist hope is to catch one in a moment (a definitely short moment) when something is not working right, and score.
Yes, HFT programs work to catch opportunities, and generally do with no great risk to the overall market. But in my naive opinion, this is not really useful to the market, nor the national economy as a whole.
Perhaps I should be asking the other question - does the Stock Market now serve the economy in a beneficial way, or is it now the province of software and arbitrage, primarily serving those who seek to take advantage of even momentary mismatches of pricing? And should it be permitted to continue down this road to the point where it is no longer feasible for a human trader to participate in short-term trading?
My investments are in mutual funds that exercise restraint and hold stocks for longer periods. If I were buying single issues, I would be planning on holding them for years in most cases. And I would feel genuinely cheated if I happened to choose to sell a stock at the same time as the market suffered a purely technological dip, and I was faced with a 30% drop in value for no reason other than the NYSE was queueing quotes for 20ms longer than normal.
Clearly, I have a naive view of the market. I think it should serve some purpose other than it seems to now. I know.
Slashdot Mirror
You are absolutely correct that persecution of Christians in America does not rise to the level of that in India, Africa, or Indonesia. Very few, if any, Christians are murdered in the U.s. merely because of their faith.
But what persecutiuon there is in the U.S. is sometimes subtle, and no less intentional.
For instance, tolerance and promotion of anti-Christian policies, denigration of Christian holidays while offering admiration for other relgious observances, just in general, but... If this is all the persecution we will suffer, I am blessed indeed. Two weeks ago I listened to a pastor from India name his friends and fellow pastors that had been killed for their faith. Persecution in America is relatively inconsequential. Real, but nothing to fear for my life over.
But it is persecution. And it is intentional, and intended to do harm. Fortunately, we are not in fear of our lives nor loss of our property.
Not that Christians are any bastion of morality. We are, of course, as flawed as anyone else. But we are forgiven. And admonished to do better.
It's interesting that such posts as DaveV1.0's get modded 'troll'. It was a genuine question, and the attitude that Chrtistians are trying to codify their religion in law is actually dead on. Our Constituion is largely a Christ-based document. And as such, it is intended to protect all persons, and include all. John 3:16, 'that none should perish'. A Christian nation should welcome all, without condition. As an insight into evangalism, if you try to exclude nonbelievers, you are missing opportunities for conversion and salvation. As an insight into true freedom, you must guarantee the freedom of your opposition, or you will be denied yours when they take advantage of your laws.
Hmmm. And of course, your beliefs are just fine.
I thought so. It's not you. It's me.
First off, incidents in India, Bangladesh, and another report (disturbing graphic warning).
Second: "Second, do you advocate Christians persecuting others by trying to have their religion codified into law, having their religion taught in public schools, and their desire to disallow homosexuals to marry even if such a marriage is allowed in the homosexuals' religion?"
This is a more difficult and substantive challenge, thank you.
ALL legislation is someone's morality. When gay marriage is being proposed, it is someone's morality being presented for inclusion and acceptance. In the particular issue of marriage, I don't think opposition to gay marraige is exclusive to Christians, or even Judeo-Christian faith. Even Islam opposes this.
By 'homosexuals' religion', I assume you mean mostly those Christian denominations that perform same-sex marriages. Without getting into the theology and disputes, legalizing same-sex marriage is not, for me, limited to marriages peformed by religious institutions. Any legal marriage would be expected to be covered. Where the ceremony is performed and by whom is irrelevant.
I do NOT support changing the marriage laws to permit same-sex marriage, but I have three points to make here;
1. I believe this position is consistent with Scripture and with Christianity. God is entirely plain about His attitude towards homosexuality. You know the references as well as I do.
2. Despite that, I cannot condemn homosexuals merely for being homosexual. And in fact, they are welcome in my church if they are not practicing sex. Same goes for unmarried heterosexuals. Actually, they are welcome anyways, but will not be invited to hold leadership positions, etc. As far as I know, a church member who divorces their spouse for reasons other than infidelity is also subject to that limitation. And yes, I know at least some of our leaders are secretly sinning, as we all are. We at least acknowledge the obvious or admitted sin.
3. While I vote against same-sex marriage, I am also not concerned that our culture will further devolve into an even more depreaved state if it passes, nor am I concerned that it will cause the ruination of our country. That's going to happen no matter. I have an opinion, I vote that way, but I do not make it a cause of mine to oppose it. If I believe God is who He says He is, then I know this is in His plan, and I must still have faith.
And one last thing. If same-sex couples want to act married, live together, adopt children, etc., I am not overly concerned about that. I have a sister-in-law who lives with a woman, has a child she adopted, and in every way they act married save for the legal recognition and, of course, the legal benefits inherited by marriage. They have living wills, powers-of-attorney, and specific HIPAA releases to handle the legal issues that may arise. My wife and I would not consider interfering in those agreements even if it were possible - they have made their choice well known. The argument that same-sex couples are just as loving and able as any other couple to make a family is a good one. You'll want to make that argument for clemency for murderers, extortionists, and thieves who are also kind and loving husbands and wives.
That last comment is harsh, and might leave the impression that I equate homosexuality with murder and other cirmes. Not true. But claiming that a loving husband or wife is proof that a particular behavior is acceptable or without harm is specious. don't make that argument. It doesn't work.
I am much more sympathetic to the simple argument that civil rights should be granted to persons regardless of their race, sex, creed,
I caught this quote from the first post:
"Always good to see uneducated crazies are all over the world.
Yes, uneducated, but not in the way you are thinking of.
Christians are persecuted all over the world. In India, there are some fanatical groups of Hindus and Muslims that are especially violent towards Christians, with murders and burning whole villages not uncommon. Lesser persecution occurs all over the world, however, and is to be expected. In fact, this is probably not exclusive to Christians, though some religions tend to suffer less. I suspect because they fight back. Christians are not called to do so, but to love their persecutors and put their faith in God. Seeking persecution is not necessary - it will seek you as a Christian.
I'm currently studying Revelation, and have been getting very different insights into the imagery and visions depicted there. The 'mark of the Beast' need not be a literal mark, but it could be just as apparent. If, as a Christian, you spend your time watching celebrity news shows and, as Don Imus says, 'revelling in the agony of others', you are participating in the less-Christian aspects of our culture. This is more the domain of the Beast (Satan) than it is of God. You are marked by this. If you spend your time talking about things of the world, you are marked as one more interested in the world. Am I guilty of this? Yup. We can change, though.
The quote about 'buying or selling' is indeed, however, looking more literal than figurative. This is more interesting. But of course, if you wish to buy or sell that which is being offered by the prevailing culture, well, yes, avoiding the mark of the Beast will distance you from that culture. In TFA, it seems India is instituting the UID system to better identify individuals. I think, as a Christian, I could tolerate having a UID as a means to entirely acceptable ends, ie property ownership.
I think these Mizoramans are misguided, but they are also under constant threat. Who knows.
Hopefully some of the pastors I know of in India will reach out to them and give them some useful insights. You have to fight the real fight, not be distracted by the enemy.
ps- I do not advocate Christians isolating themselves from the world. We are called to be in the world, but not of it. If you don't understand this, try to evaluate your investment in current events. Are you tossed to and fro by the latest political debate, or do you take it as an event, and keep your focus on the issues and real progress?
"those have been slowly removed over the years as states worry about 'the gays' sneeky getting benefits through them"
I'm pretty certain that recent efforts in some states have been to make benefits MORE available. Redefining marriage is not being used to minimize benefits, but to prevent expanding the definition of marriage itself. Now, we see some backlash as benefits are turning out to be expensive, and some states/communities are rethinking the whole partners benefits thing. But that's economic, not merely moral. I have never worked for an employer that even offered the benefit.
But my question stands. If you don't believe in marriage, why are you looking for the benefits of it? Is that fair? Logical? Sounds like having your cake and eating it too.
"and people who just don't believe in marriage"
And this is related to the discussion how? How about people who just don't believe in health insurance? Shall we give them a break on hospital charges 'cause they are disadvantaged by paying full price for a hospital visit? People who don't believe in auto insurance should not have to pay for damages if they cause an accident? People who don't believe in passwords should just be given their money back when their bank account is cleaned out?
Well, I'm being a little extreme, but the argument continues to be illogical. If you don't believe in marriage, why do you expect the benefits of marriage? Does it matter how those benefits are acquired?
....crowds suffer from selection bias.
Think it over.
What's incorrect? That players have to support whatever the server sends to them?
If staffers are reqiured to have a second or separate cell phone to do personal and political business, then they will get iPhones or some other smartphone. Email access is built-in.
Can't stop that with hardware. Even policy will fail. And today, you can't tell them with a straight face that they can't have email so their wife can ask them to pick up takeout on the way home. Or their best bud wants to invite them over for another showing of Gladiator, whichever social stereotype you prefer.
Don't even bother to tell me about the firewall. It is meaningless. Make it a condition of employment that, due to the sensitive nature of their position, any emails sent during working hours, personal or not, are subject to disclosure.
Rotsa ruck with that. These people ultimately don't tolerate oversight very well. If they did, they would have taken a job somewhere else.
And my point is that Flash doesn't work well on non-mobile devices either.
There is a working flash for iOS, but Apple has denied it by claiming it is too buggy. Are there a few apps for iOS that are also a little buggy? Yep, lots. They don't happen to both be made by Adobe, and offer a way to play a fun game outside of a paid app.
Not just Apple, but the whole iOS economy thrives on a controlled, limited system. Flash games would harm that.
What sort of DRM does YouTube implement?
DMCA.
This would work just fine for an FOSS player, because it's not the player, but the server, that has to comply with DMCA.
And players need only support DRM if they want to patronize DRM-ed services. Yes, a little disingenuous, but if free services existed, then free players would work.
The reality is that players need to support the content. So maybe FOSS players are going to have to go it alone?
"No, it's just an explanation of why the whole flash argument (particularly Adobe's constant whining) was so silly. We're just now starting to see usable Flash on any mobile devices. If Flash is so useful on a mobile phone, why hasn't Adobe shown us?"
Actually, they have, since 2008. And more coming, real soon now. As in 'maybe'. But Adobe is trying.
The value argument for Flash on mobiel devices is the same one for desktop devices. Web pages that use Flash are not useful on mobile devices, and the iPad is a mobile device offering a similar, if not indistinguishable, Web experience like desktop devices. Apple just wants to keep Flash off until it plays nice with iOS, to improve the reputation of iOS.
"While Apple has presented a number of different reasons why they don't want flash on iOS, one of their main examples is that flash would be a buggy, CPU and battery hog."
Describes Flash on my notebook and desktop perfectly, save that my desktop doesn't have a battery. But we tolerate it on those devices, because they have the horsepower and resources to run Flash tolerably.
"if flash is as important and useful as Adobe says, then eventually consumers will demand it, and Apple will adapt or lose out."
Consumers ARE demanding it. So far, it's not a show-stopper for Apple or Android users. Blackberry I dunno.
A user comment:
"The lack of Flash will only really become a problem if Adobe gets it running perfectly and Apple continues to disallow it."
WTF? Not having Flash is only a problem if it would *work*?
Is this further proof of the unique inteligence of Apple fanbois, or just an iPad user's special relativity?
I'm sure I'm piling on here, but....
My HTC Dream has 2 differnet antennas, in the upper right corner and over the top facing the display. I can wrap my hands around these and see minimal impact on performance. Of course there is the battery cover between my hand and the antennas, but that's like 1-1.5mm thick. And the antennas themselves seem to be coated.
Arperture antennas are fascinating to me. I first saw them on some 2Wire routers, and of course they are the standard for WiFi antennas on everything. The Dream has GPS, WiFi, and GSM, so they make two antennas do the work of three or four.
This is a pet project of mine, as the Bluetooth performance on this phone is annoying me. My stereo headset of choice, a Backbeat 903, has terrible reception when I'm more than a 5 feet away from a reflective surface and the phone is in a pocket or belt-high case even on the same side as the headset antenna. I have Motorola S705 that is hotter than a $2 pistol, excellent reception even 30 feet away through a masonry wall. Irritating. I've been looking into how a passive radiator might help, and it looks like no go. The BackBeat sounds pretty good, but when they finally crap out from sweat, I'll be back looking for a decent sounding BT headset. Most are just inadequate. The S705 doesn't sound so good with my old buds which are great when plugged in directly. It's just that most BT stereo headsets don't provide fidelity. All I want...
"The point is that it's *OPEN* and not under the control of any nasty for-profit corporation. And that makes it superior. Who *cares* if it doesn't work worth a damn in actual practice?"
This is why the Red Sox won't let me walk on and play right field. Free that doesn't work doesn't, well, doesn't work.
I'm waiting for the FOSS community to develop HTML5 addins that will work. Just remember, if such a thing happens, expect outfits like YouTube to capitalize on that and make money off the efforts of the free.
And yes, I would not mind a bit if the Red Sox kept charging wht they do for tickets if they let me play right field for free. No, I would not play for the Yankees. Or the Diamondbacks. Not worth it.
Well, go over to badcaps.net and have a taste of the pain and vitriol from back then.
I did a lot of Dell field work back then, and it was very busy. We were describign the bad boards over the phone to engineers, and they knew fairly early that it was failing caps. The problem was no one knew the root cause (caps not meeting specs, test and QA faked by manufacturer) and so were both shipping bad boards from inventory and ordering more new boards with bad caps. Not good, but it did get sorted out.
The only manufactuter I don't recall being hit by this was Acer, but I think AOpen may have been. Otherwise, everyone got it. Seems you can buy caps a little tiny bit cheaper when they are not actually manufactured correctly. Who knew.
Anyways, this incident is the source of many myths concerning poor QA by motherboard manufacturers who got badly burnt by the caps, and exposed the problems with supply chain management. Dell should have stopped selling *and* fixing systems for about six weeks to get thing right. But that would have been devastating. So they did the only thing they could do. Fake it till them fixed it. Not pretty.
This is really a settled issue, save for the apparent lawsuits. Lawyers and roaches, the things that come out after the lights are turned out.
Now, can we talk about hard drives and bricks in the boxes?
But my Ninja, of course, is Neutral.
They say a Scavvy is the best partner, and evil would, of course, be the way to go. All for naught however unless I can find a RoTP and get down there in a hurry. We'll see how it works out.
Funny how it's always the Ninja that cleans up.
WE'VE all known that, but we have to keep reminding those who would infringe these rights.
I don't think of stability as one of IE's problems, so if you're trying to make the point that IE is no more or less stable than Chrome or Opera, you've lost me.
On the other hand, Chrome and Opera development are both pretty dynamic, lots of changes, trying to match features of, of all things, IE. Firefox seems to like to break addons, but at least much core functionality seems to survive intact.
Come to think of it, IE6->IE7 was uncomfortable, but IE7->IE8 is a major pain, even for ASP sites. IE6->IE8 is genuinely painful. If your site is IE6-centric, you're facing bigger challenges. Why this is continues to escape me. I know it's because of compatibility problems, but how that lingers is unfortunate. Shouldn't be.
Ack. Now naive. I should go back to Lynx.
The SM carried consumables like oxygen, propellant, fuel cells, which allowed Apollo to carry other consumables such as food, and of course return payload like lunar rocks, film, etc... These are not needed as much for a ferry to the ISS, so a slightly-larger-than-Apollo capsule could carry quite a few passengers. Mess around with the seating arrangements, and you could fit 7 into a similar capsule. Of course it would be a double-decker, probably, but that works.
"It's men who are dumb enough to tolerate the types, the sneering arrogant IT guys, the mailing lists full of flaming personal attacks leveled by closet bullies empowered by semi-anonymity, the phallic-compensating gadget consumerists, constantly "helpful" types who manage to insult while trying to rescue, and the sexually inept who use pinup wallpaper and leer at any woman in eyeshot. Membership in (or at least tolerance of) a repellant boys' club is an almost-mandatory feature of our industry."
This adequately describes Corporate America. Nothing unusual here. Really, It is not the least unusual nor exceptional. Mediocrity, juvenile behavior, incompetence, tolerance of the most offensive behavior for those who *seem* to deliver results, and lording it over the lesser types is pretty common in the office. Working for a Fortune 100 company has been an interesting experience. Dealing with incompetent developers, management that won't hold them accountable, failing systems that are too big to fix, unrealistic expectations, sometimes ytou just want to show up and stay out of trouble. The bright spots are the people that really care and give it all they have, and my team that is in the unique position of having both a consultancy role and significant multi-process access to go in and solve problems. We are rarely found to be wrong, and more teams are calling us in either to solve problems or advise on process or design. I can't imagine working on a dev team that spends 3 months on evaluation and design and in 24 hours the internal 'client' shows them that they got it entirely, 100% wrong.
IT is not exceptional. It is proof of IT's maturity and inclusion in Corporate America that IT has all the complaints and shortcomings of all the rest of the corporate world...
"Secret ballot is how we impose our morals upon others anonymously."
ALL legislation is someone's morality.
Let me repeat that, more clearly:
ALL legislation, despite the arguments to the contrary, is SOMEONE'S morality. Legislation is either an imposiiton on someone, or a grant of permission, and will always have an implied of not explicit moral judgmenet associated with it.
Laws against murder, kidnapping, assault, battery, etc. all have a morality associated with them. Laws about what seem to be less clear issues, such as truth in lending or perhaps auto loans, may seem to be less about morality, but don't be decieved. If you think it's morally wrong to permit the unscrupulous to take advantage of less sophisticated buyers and charge them higher interest rates or excessive fees, you are judging what is higher or escessive. Even supposedly simple little things like Federal subsidies for agriculture or higher education carry moral judgements. Gay rights would be the epitome of legislating morality, but it is neither exclusive nor exceptional.
And the idea that you can sign a petition to present such legislation for approval and remain anonymous is to me ludicrous. Secret ballots DECIDE these matters, but if you with to PROPOSE them, at the least you ought to be identifiable. If for no other reason than to permit the voters to consider the motives and intent of both the proposal and its backers. SCOTUS got it right, you do not have the right to anonymous 'speech' in these matters. As noted before in this thread, at the least you should be able to determine if the petition signers were legally qualified to sign.
Anyways, the facts are the first thing to go in these discussions, so good luck.
Seriously, you're willing to let your customers use the device when it's riddled with malware or whatever, but you want a simple and easy way to to clean them when you get one for service?
Why bother? If you're not interested in preventing the problem, it will come back.
And as some have recommended, you should work with the suits to either get a more appropriate and robust version of Windows to do what you do, or move to an OS that can be secured. I know this is not just a technical decision, so good luck with that.
More fragmentation. Just what we needed.
Oh, wait. Fragmentation. The connotations are disturbing...
FTFA:
"Add a simple 50 millisecond quote expiration rule: a quote must remain active until it is executed or 50ms elapses. If the quote is part of the NBBO, it may be improved (higher bid or lower offer price) at any time without waiting for the expiration period. "
Um, 50ms is not a humanly realistic decision span. It takes longer than that to recognize the color of the arrow pointing in the direction your stock price is going.
HFT is the epitome of arbitrage, and competed directly with human (or flesh-and-bones) trading. They should play by common rules that are at least realistic for both. This means that quote expirations should be measured in full SECONDS, not milliseconds.
This will, of course, destroy the obvious and worst advantage HFT has, that is the millisecond response to arbitrage opportunities. But it will allow at least the dedicated human trader an opportunity to participate in a market they are now just being beaten to by a machine.
We wouldn't allow a professional baseball team to use a mechanical pitching machine instead of a real-life pitcher. Dialing the speed up to 150MPH wouldn't enhance the game, and would instead overwhelm human batters with little hope of success no matter their skills. the game is INTENDED to be played between humans, as a test of skill and determination.
Stock trading should, in my humble and entirely uneducated opinion, be a game played among relative equals. HFT is breaking this in a way that is not useful to the market, does not add value to the capital stocks being traded nor the companies and shareholders represented, and defeats even the most concerted efforts by human traders to participate on even a marginally equal footing. No amount of analysis or even reaction by a real life trader can survive head-to-head with an HFT system.
If the purpose of the Stock Market is to offer opportunities to profit from purely technical conditions, even to allow profit from malfunctions, then HFT fits right in. But if the Stock Market is intended to provide opportunity to raise capital, develop value, and gain profit for those with good decision-making skills and insight, then HFT is an 'unfair' advantage to machines at the expense of all other players.
It is also, clearly, dangerous, and can cause significant disruption as well as loss to other players, in circumstances that are not related to actual market or economic conditions. A 'simple' delay of a few milliseconds in system response can result in the feedback loop observed in this case, and that is not useful to the markets. Quote stuffing is pure fraud. In fact, much HFT activity borders on fraud, as it is intended to deceive other players. Yes, it is. Looking for the arbitrage opportunity on a millisecond scale is nothing but machines battling machines. The only realist hope is to catch one in a moment (a definitely short moment) when something is not working right, and score.
Yes, HFT programs work to catch opportunities, and generally do with no great risk to the overall market. But in my naive opinion, this is not really useful to the market, nor the national economy as a whole.
Perhaps I should be asking the other question - does the Stock Market now serve the economy in a beneficial way, or is it now the province of software and arbitrage, primarily serving those who seek to take advantage of even momentary mismatches of pricing? And should it be permitted to continue down this road to the point where it is no longer feasible for a human trader to participate in short-term trading?
My investments are in mutual funds that exercise restraint and hold stocks for longer periods. If I were buying single issues, I would be planning on holding them for years in most cases. And I would feel genuinely cheated if I happened to choose to sell a stock at the same time as the market suffered a purely technological dip, and I was faced with a 30% drop in value for no reason other than the NYSE was queueing quotes for 20ms longer than normal.
Clearly, I have a naive view of the market. I think it should serve some purpose other than it seems to now. I know.