My most sincere apologies if this gets even a little political. I am going to attempt to walk a very fine line of talking about where the visionaries are today, why they are not in politics and compare them to politicians. I am attempting to make a point that isn't really politicaly biased, but I will talk about subjects I know about. Please try to look beyond my conservative slant for the points I am going to try to make.
You asked a really good question. Why is it that the only people that run for high office are not really worth a shit, but the people that are worth a shit wouldn't think of running for high office? First do not discount the people that run at the local and state levels. If you really want to see the visionaries that are politicians, try looking there first. Those people have a much greater effect on your life then you probably give them credit for anyways.
Lets start with people that do have a political slant. Let's say Rush Limbaugh. Love him or hate him you simply cannot deny his popularity. I have been a loyal listner for a few years now. Every once in a while someone will call in asking why Rush of all people won't run for President. I have heard him give 2 answers. One is kind of a joke, he would have to take a pay cut. The President of the US doesn't even clear a milliion a year. I think it is in the 200 or 300 thousand range. A pittience when you put him against CEO's of major corporations. His serious answer does cut to the heart of it. The job is entirely too demanding and it would require a compromise of his beliefs. Look how the conservatives treated Clinton, look how the liberals are treating Bush. It is a wonder that either one of those men got anything accomplished at all. It seems a rare day when someone isn't gunning for them. When the house and the senate are split pretty near the middle it is very hard for a President to take a polarizing hard stance in line with there political beliefs. If every single democrat is bound and determined to vote against you, wether you are right or wrong, then you got to be damned sure that every single republican will vote for you. If two or even one republican let you down you have problems. That is the current situation, GWB has no real choice but to allow some liberal slant to his beliefs. Rush has stated that this being the case someone like him is more comfortable having a venue where he can take a hard conservative approach and not have to compromise his beliefs. I am really not certain that I would consider Rush a 'visionary' so much. I kind of think of him more like someone that is very good at sorting through the junk and showing people what lies beneath it. In some respects a conservative like him cannot be a visionary, a visionary implies that he has new ideas, a conservative by definition says that if it was working in the past then why are we screwing with it?
Let's look at someone with a far, far more liberal slant then Rush. Technically a registered Republican, I think of him as a liberal, Arnold S. of the California debacle fame. On the surface we have someone whom we don't entirely understand. The image he is portraying is that his intentions are good. He obviously has a very strong belief system and he is saying that he wants to pay the US back for the opportunities we gave him. That is all well and good - but it is going to take a hell of a lot more then good intentions to fix Californias mess. You can't tell me that Arnold is the brightest bulb on the tree. If you insist on digging on GWB then you can't ignore Arnold, or you are a hypocrite. Arnold is niether a visionary, or especially smart. But Arnold is something that GW is not. The boy is an actor. He can read a mean script. Seriously, that might be all it takes. What if Arnold's heart is in the right place? What if Arnold knows exactly what his weaknesses is? What if Arnold surrounds himself with smart advisors that he agrees with and listens too? Here is a place in the Califor
But it still won't work. You will still be called. Maybe you are not dumb enough to fill out a kiosk card. But if a company figures out a way to hide ALL of there telemarketing as a survey then they don't have to bother with the 'do not call' registry at all. You get called.
Then there is the out that allows telemarketing in the name of politicians. If that isn't a self serving thing I don't know what is. Well I got a question for you, what is a politician? I mean a legal definition? If your Senator looses the next election and has to enter the private sector is he still a politician? If I lost the race for dog catcher in my small town, am I legally a politician? Can I then go to a company and sell my name to that company? As long as they mention my name then it sounds to me like it meets that requirement.
I don't know what the solution is. I am saying that everytime I check out the 'do not call' registry I realize that people that sign up to it and expect the phone to stop ringing at dinner are fools.
Wanna know why I am not running from the tiger? Cause I happen to know that there is a group of 5 of them, and they are in the direction you are running.
It won't. It doesn't stand a chance. I was an evil one. I used to call you during dinner. 3 days later you had a dude at your house selling you windows, and it costed you $850 a window.
Our business was on the up and up. We didn't break any laws. We confirmed all of our appoitments and kicked old single people off our schedules.
But what always impressed me about the company was there resiliancy.
I see at least two tools they can use to get out from under this.
The first is the polling hole. If politicians are serious about this thing they need to close that hole. They won't do it, cause politicians can't make up there mind without a poll, but the only way to make it work is to close that hole.
'Hello Mr. Smith I am calling on behalf of Windows company. We are conducting a poll. Does your house have windows? How many?'
---end of polling portion of call----
See how easy that hole is to exploit?
There is another hole. I can't really think of a way to close this one. But if the consumer is careful they don't have to worry about it.
That one has to do with the customer contacting the business first. If the business can show that the customer contacted them then it really isn't the kind of telemarketing call that this 'do not call' registry covers.
I know what you are thinking. And you are wrong. There is nothing new about this hole, or the exploit. All you have to do is offer a 'free' drawing. When will people learn that only 'nothing' is free? We used to set up kiosk stands in malls, fairs, home shows and just about anywhere else we could find to put them. We would put up a couple samples of windows and offer a free drawing for windows. It was on the up and up we did give away free windows just like we said. But once you fill out that card, guess what you have done? You got it. You have now made a contact with our business. You have given us permission to call you. Even if I am wrong on this, I am not very wrong. All these cards have small print (think EULA) on the back. All that really needs to be done is add a sentence that says 'by filling out this card homeowner gives permission to window company to make farther contact and phone calls to the homeowner.'.
I will be quite honest with you. I don't do that anymore. Now I am a computer operator. I make good money, I enjoy my job, I could do without the night work though. I don't really regret the 5 years I spent in that industry. On the contrary, I learned some very valuable lessons. Hell I don't think I would be doing what I am doing today without them.
But I am probably more annoyed with telemarketing calls then the average person. I work nights, 6pm-6am. Know what 11am phone calls do to me?
That being said I have pity for the honest people in the industry. There are a lot of people that are honest, hard working and intelligent. There are retired people that need extra income. I would hate to see the industry shut down and these people all be out of work. With that attitude I kind of look at telemarketing calls as my problem. When I get one I tell them to take me off the list. That is a legal thing by the way, there is more byte to that phrase then you would think. If they get too annoying I unplug the phone until I wake up.
I agree with you that I shouldn't have to do that. I understand everyones point as well. That is why I am not saying that the 'do not call registry' is evil.
I read the article, MS said that the affect in the US would be only chat to paid subcribers of MSN so they can track the billing information. How many more steps does Micro$oft have to take before they can make the claim that if you have a family you should subscribe to them because they are family safe? In that respect it sounds like a marketing gimmick.
On the other hand there are the usual band of idiots making claims of free speech and such. Good shit people, freedom of speech doesn't really apply here, MSN is a business and in the same way that Wal-Mart cannot (and should not) be forced to carry Hustler MSN cannot be forced to provide chat features at all. For the simple sake of capitalism I support Micro$oft in there choices here. If the free speech zealots think they can force Microsoft to carry chat channels then I want to force libraries to carry Barley Legal.
Finally there is the side of simple competition. If Micro$oft doesn't use this as a marketing tool then they are leaving themselves wide open. The 14 year old market is very demanding about chat tools. It is entirely possible they may start a chant of 'I want my AOL'.
Maybe his first flight was superior. The literature that I have come across is pretty straight forward in saying that people don't know a whole lot about the guy, his airplane or what he did. A tremendous amount of the information about him is heresay and speculation.
But modern aviation is a direct evolution of the Wright Flyer and not some New Zelanders hobby. The Wright Brothers spent several years refinning there design and pushing for a more stable aircraft and better design. These other people, it was just a hobby to them. They never refined there designs. They never took the aircraft to the next logical step.
These people that are putting down the Wright Brothers work, these are all basicaly people that get annoyed that the US is what it is. That we achieved in 200 years what Europe was unable to do in 2000 years. The truth is that it all comes down to Capitlism. It was the business model that provided the motivation to the Wright Brothers to do what they did. You may not like it, you may be happier in a State owned society, or a society where people have convinced themselves that the government makes life worth living. But Capitalism works and the Wright Brothers are an excellent example of this.
Bottom line is this. All modern aviation has evolved from the Wright Brothers Flyer. The Wright Brothers evolved there flyer from known glider designs and experimentation they did on lift, drag, weight and thrust. They created a lot of the mathmatical models that are still used in aviation today.
While the case can be made that a couple of people (an Englishman and an Austrialian I believe) could have achieved controled powered flight before the Wright Brothers, the case CANNOT be made that modern aviation evolved from those people.
What's more in the case of the people that produced working aircraft before the Wright Brothers none of them followed through with better models. It took the wright Brothers only a couple of years to get to the point that they were flying there Flyer well enough to make a case of it's usefullness to the military.
As far as the head wind controversy, please. One of the innovations that the Wright Brothers had to come up with was a modern aluminum lightweight internal combustion engine. They had to build one from scratch, none of the engines at that time that were available were light enough and powerful enough to meet the Brothers needs. In modern aviation head winds are still critical. You always take off and land into the wind (well whenever that is an option anyways). It is possible to use a shorter runway and load up your plane with a bit more weight if you have a headwind. One of the reasons that passenger jets fly so high is to use the high speed winds aloft to there advantage, they get places quicker and use less fuel in the process.
The ARE the extended versions. It is a promotional gimmick. They are rereleasing the first two movies on celluloid a couple weeks before the premier of ROTK. The rerelease is the extended version from the DVD's.
However Peter Jackson has been upfront about this thing. He says it is purely promotional and they are only doing like 100 theaters with it.
So you are gonna have to be lucky if you want to see it.
I will back you up on the SCO topic on Slashdot. That would be nice.
But the Internet Death Penalty has a critical flaw in it. If you are going to impose it, then how can you follow it?
People on the internet are chat happy anyways. Best that the IDP could possibly achieve is a bunch of people talking about why imposing the IDP against SCO was such a good thing. And why soandso violating the IDP against SCO was a bad thing. By the time you are done a lot of people have spent a lot of time talking about SCO and why the IDP against them was good.
See the IDP doesn't solve anything.
I understand your frustration, I feel it too. I don't know Linux from Linus. I find the implications of the SCO thing far reaching enough that it is worth my time. But it doesn't really interest me.
Not all but most people that buy 'new' cars have every intention of selling them at some point in time and little intention of taking them to the junk yard.
While that warranty may present you with a good deal it sounds to me like I would have to be smoking crack to buy the damn thing from you. I would have none of those benefits you listed. And all of my current resources would laugh at me.
For what it is worth, when I was talking about hazardous materials and batteries and such I wasn't going for an environmental angle. I was just trying to say that if you take a car to a junkyard today the dude that buys it from you knows it has 1 standard battery in it and doesn't bat an eye. I was speculating that that same dude might tell you to go hump a cow if you brought him an electric car a few years ago. I am just saying that there might be environmental laws that might make junking a car like that a real hassle.
This will never get read. Too many comments already.
The only input I have is this. My car breaks down I have a lot of options. I have a friend whose Father and 2 brothers are great mechanics. I have a mechanic about 10 miles away that is honest and cheap. Oil changes can be done almost anywhere.
When the day comes that I want to junk it I can take it to a junk yard and not have to concern myself with disposing of hazardous materials. I could be wrong, but don't those vehicles have lots of batteries and such?
If your vehicle never breaks down then you are in good shape.
The beutiful thing about cops writing tickets is that at the end of the day you have a human being that must make the decision to write a ticket or not.
Red light traps are another pure revenue making device. You have an intersection that is dangerous because there are lots of accidents there, what is the best solution?
It is to extend the length of time for the yellow lights. Think about it. It makes sense. And it doesn't cost anyone any additional money.
Ever see an intersection where the yellow is like a second long? That crap causes accidents. People like me see a red light and slam on the breaks. Someone is following too close behind me....
Want to make some money? Put an automated ticket thing at that intersection and don't fix the yellow.
Consider this for just a second....
In Pennsylvania where I live they don't have automated tickets yet. I treat yellows like they are supposed to be treated. The law says that if you have enough distance to stop safely for a yellow you must stop, otherwise pass through it.
In Maryland they have those things. If I don't know for a fact that an intersection in Maryland doesn't have a camera I slam on my breaks just like I would do for a red light. I am a rear ending waiting to happen. The irony of course is it wouldn't be my fault.
Oh so I can just swear off crashes now? It is really that easy huh?
I think the anti-suv nuts have it all backwards. Generally these nutcases are the same people that scream for helmet laws, they scream for safety belt laws, they scream for air bag laws, they scream for kids to have cords taken out of there hoods, they scream for Dimple to be removed, they scream for safety things that they don't properly understand the repurcussions of.
Most of the time (and not for Dimple thank god) they get what they want.
So we have 2 different types of cars. The fuel effiecent econo-box sorta car, these cars have traded weight for safety. They don't weigh much, they get better fuel mileage and they really are not safe. And the SUV's. SUV's typically go above and beyond with safety. The weight of one plays a large part in how safe they are.
Am I the only person that thinks it would be more logical for the anti-SUV crowd to be, well not anti-suv?
Something else to consider is at the end of the day this is all personal choice. I don't give a rats ass what other people choose to drive. Some people get there rocks off driving fuel effiecent vehicles. Me, I drive a Tracker. I will be buying a Jeep in a year. Thing about me though. The Tracker and the Jeep thing is about my current lifestyle. Sooner or later I will have a kid. I don't have any kids now so I can drive cars like that. Trackers (mine is a soft top) and Jeeps are by definition more dangerous vehicles. When I am blessed with a kid I will either get rid of that car or get a second car. A child has no place in a car like that.
It is a lifestyle choice.
I will never understand why it is that I am expected to respect other people's choices, but other people can choose to tell me I am wrong.
Well it is time now, time to be modded a troll. God forbid I make you think.
Nothing irks me more then automated ticketing machines, wether it be red light traps or speed traps they are bad, bad, bad, bad and bad.
But if the governement has enough information to say that I did $32 worth of traveling last month then they also have the information they need to mail me speeding tickets.
Evil.
It isn't speeding tickets I am against. On the contrary, a smart and well run police department does an enormous public safety service by running traps.
You post a cop car on a busy and fast stretch of road and you make a point. People like me slow down and do a reality check. Others get written tickets. It slows traffic to a reasonable level.
But automated speed traps, what public safety mechanism do they serve? I have never gotten one of those tickets. But I can only imagine what it is like. How long does it take for them to issue it to you? Do you even remember the stretch of road where it occured? Does the automated speed trap actually affect the speed of the traffic?
While I am for using police and governemnt to enforce laws I am against using the police as a pure revenue mechanism.
Anyone that allows a GPS tolled road is not very far away from automated GPS ticketing.
Another thread already beat me to the punch with this, SUV's already pay higher taxes - they suck down more fuel.
Personally I think that owners of smaller cars should have to pay larger insurance premiums. People in small cars are more seriously injured in accidents. Someone in an SUV, a vehicle that is already more expensive to own and operate, enjoy the advantage of being less at risk. And they are less of a risk as well. SUV's are better built vehicles. Taxes are reflected in gas prices, safety in insurance. It all works out in the end.
I for one despise the general idea of 'pay as you go driving'. I am sure that the same kooks that think it is only fair the US pay $5/gallon for gas because Europe does will also think we should pick this up.
Will you nincompoops Please just follow Johnny Depp to France? I hear the place is really wonderful. Really.
Got that off my chest.
Now my real question.
These roads will be using the GPS put in place by the taxpayers of the US.
I know I am coming off like a knowitall, but I swear to you I am not. I don't have an inkling of an idea of who pays for GPS.
So I ask, is the US going to get anything from this? When someone buys a GPS transponder is there some sort of royalty in the price or a licensing fee that gets kicked back to the US government?
I don't think that US citizens should have to pay such a fee, after all our tax dollars bought the damn things. I don't think I have any qualm with the US looking the other way when friendly nations military (say Britian) uses GPS. I got no gripes with that.
But private industry run by foriegners, some people here forget but we are a capitalist nation, why shouldn't those foriegners be paying for the use of those satelites?
And this goes doubly, triply hell dozenly so for governments trying to collect taxes for road use.
I am concerned that there is a very real possibility that the US could abandon manned space flight.
Can you imagine what would come out of us loosing another shuttle? Here is a nightmare, imagine it happening within two years after the next launch.
The geeky part of me is deeply dissapointed that the next manned space vehicle will not be a leaner and meaner 22nd century version of the shuttle. The practical side of me points out that X-prize contestants are doing a wonderful job of fulfilling that requirement. Hell I think they may slap NASA around like the bitch it is.
A leaner and meaner space shuttle is simply too far away to ever be constructed. An expensive project like that would need to survive at least two more administrations to ever take flight, and if you look at the history of NASA projects over the last 20 years you will see that is a very big problem.
While this Apollo era design idea isn't sexy, it is practical. I see a definite safety improvement in a design such as this. I wonder what the cost difference per launch would be compared to the 'reusable' space shuttle.
If you could build a new capsule, sit it on a booster and put it in orbit for less then the cost of 1 flight of the space shuttle, well what does that tell you about the reusability of the space shuttle?
If NASA and contractors get to work on this now we just might be able to survive another shuttle loss.
Not that I want another shuttle loss mind you. I just have this gut feeling like NASA isn't willing to do what needs to be done to run the shuttles.
That is a good idea. But why use an easily blocked radio signal between the two cars when they are sharing a conductive metal track....
In all honesty your idea doesn't sound that expensive.
I do see one problem though. The point car would have to travel so far ahead of the train, easily a mile, that at intersections in the road car traffic would be tempted to dart between the point car and the locomotive.
We could resolve that problem with laser targeting and autonomous semi-automatic weapons.
The company I work for practices disaster recovery once a year on all our major systems.
In the article the writer was talking about how much work it was to migrate the T1 connections, and how they hadn't forseen that. That is exactly the sort of thing that a practice disaster recovery uncovers.
If you want the model from the place I work it is simple enough:
1. Run the disaster recovery during a 24 hour period 2. Pat yourself on the back for what worked. 3. Ignore what doesn't work. 4. Repeat next year.
Of course next year gets a new step: 3.5 Act surprised that stuff didn't work.
I was infatuated with one of my first girlfriends. Thing was, I had no idea how to be a boyfriend. I knew how to be a friend. I knew how to have sex. But I didn't know much more.
I didn't buy her any flowers, or enough gifts or whatever.
So one day she told me to go screw myself.
I got a clue, bought a dozen roses and wrote a long ass note.
Her reply? Too little, too late.
I deplore similies and metaphors on Slashdot, but I read about Universal's new price strategy and it made me feel a lot like my old ex-girlfriend.
On that note I am willing to give Universal a perscription for buying my love back. I promise you it will be tough medicine.
1. Dissavow, Distance and cut any ties you have with the RIAA. Do it publicly.
2. Take the public position that you do not sue your patrons. Don't just use this position as a front either, if you have any such actions in the works then simply stop them. Don't take up any new actions.
3. Give up on right protected CD's. Trust me, trust slashdot, trust your patrons, it is a dead-end street.
4. Take digital media distribution DEAD SERIOUS. I'll throw in a couple clues for no charge here. For one, if you are careful and elegant (look at iTunes) you can do protected music files without pissing anyone off. And for two, and once again don't get all sloppy and greedy here, you don't need to take a huge price cut on the music. Take what you charge record stores, subtract fancy packaging, manufacturing and physical distribution from the cost and divide that number by seconds. I bet whatever number that gives you is pretty reasonable.
Unlike my ex-girlfriend there is still a way to buy back my love.
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My most sincere apologies if this gets even a little political. I am going to attempt to walk a very fine line of talking about where the visionaries are today, why they are not in politics and compare them to politicians.
I am attempting to make a point that isn't really politicaly biased, but I will talk about subjects I know about. Please try to look beyond my conservative slant for the points I am going to try to make.
You asked a really good question. Why is it that the only people that run for high office are not really worth a shit, but the people that are worth a shit wouldn't think of running for high office?
First do not discount the people that run at the local and state levels. If you really want to see the visionaries that are politicians, try looking there first. Those people have a much greater effect on your life then you probably give them credit for anyways.
Lets start with people that do have a political slant. Let's say Rush Limbaugh. Love him or hate him you simply cannot deny his popularity. I have been a loyal listner for a few years now. Every once in a while someone will call in asking why Rush of all people won't run for President.
I have heard him give 2 answers.
One is kind of a joke, he would have to take a pay cut.
The President of the US doesn't even clear a milliion a year. I think it is in the 200 or 300 thousand range. A pittience when you put him against CEO's of major corporations.
His serious answer does cut to the heart of it. The job is entirely too demanding and it would require a compromise of his beliefs.
Look how the conservatives treated Clinton, look how the liberals are treating Bush. It is a wonder that either one of those men got anything accomplished at all. It seems a rare day when someone isn't gunning for them.
When the house and the senate are split pretty near the middle it is very hard for a President to take a polarizing hard stance in line with there political beliefs. If every single democrat is bound and determined to vote against you, wether you are right or wrong, then you got to be damned sure that every single republican will vote for you. If two or even one republican let you down you have problems. That is the current situation, GWB has no real choice but to allow some liberal slant to his beliefs.
Rush has stated that this being the case someone like him is more comfortable having a venue where he can take a hard conservative approach and not have to compromise his beliefs.
I am really not certain that I would consider Rush a 'visionary' so much. I kind of think of him more like someone that is very good at sorting through the junk and showing people what lies beneath it. In some respects a conservative like him cannot be a visionary, a visionary implies that he has new ideas, a conservative by definition says that if it was working in the past then why are we screwing with it?
Let's look at someone with a far, far more liberal slant then Rush.
Technically a registered Republican, I think of him as a liberal, Arnold S. of the California debacle fame.
On the surface we have someone whom we don't entirely understand. The image he is portraying is that his intentions are good. He obviously has a very strong belief system and he is saying that he wants to pay the US back for the opportunities we gave him.
That is all well and good - but it is going to take a hell of a lot more then good intentions to fix Californias mess.
You can't tell me that Arnold is the brightest bulb on the tree. If you insist on digging on GWB then you can't ignore Arnold, or you are a hypocrite.
Arnold is niether a visionary, or especially smart. But Arnold is something that GW is not. The boy is an actor. He can read a mean script. Seriously, that might be all it takes.
What if Arnold's heart is in the right place? What if Arnold knows exactly what his weaknesses is? What if Arnold surrounds himself with smart advisors that he agrees with and listens too?
Here is a place in the Califor
All things considered I think there behavior was criminal.
You think a multi-billion dollar industry is just going to roll over and die?
But it still won't work. You will still be called.
Maybe you are not dumb enough to fill out a kiosk card.
But if a company figures out a way to hide ALL of there telemarketing as a survey then they don't have to bother with the 'do not call' registry at all.
You get called.
Then there is the out that allows telemarketing in the name of politicians.
If that isn't a self serving thing I don't know what is.
Well I got a question for you, what is a politician? I mean a legal definition?
If your Senator looses the next election and has to enter the private sector is he still a politician?
If I lost the race for dog catcher in my small town, am I legally a politician?
Can I then go to a company and sell my name to that company? As long as they mention my name then it sounds to me like it meets that requirement.
I don't know what the solution is. I am saying that everytime I check out the 'do not call' registry I realize that people that sign up to it and expect the phone to stop ringing at dinner are fools.
Wanna know why I am not running from the tiger?
Cause I happen to know that there is a group of 5 of them, and they are in the direction you are running.
It won't. It doesn't stand a chance.
I was an evil one. I used to call you during dinner.
3 days later you had a dude at your house selling you windows, and it costed you $850 a window.
Our business was on the up and up. We didn't break any laws. We confirmed all of our appoitments and kicked old single people off our schedules.
But what always impressed me about the company was there resiliancy.
I see at least two tools they can use to get out from under this.
The first is the polling hole. If politicians are serious about this thing they need to close that hole. They won't do it, cause politicians can't make up there mind without a poll, but the only way to make it work is to close that hole.
'Hello Mr. Smith I am calling on behalf of Windows company.
We are conducting a poll. Does your house have windows?
How many?'
---end of polling portion of call----
See how easy that hole is to exploit?
There is another hole. I can't really think of a way to close this one. But if the consumer is careful they don't have to worry about it.
That one has to do with the customer contacting the business first. If the business can show that the customer contacted them then it really isn't the kind of telemarketing call that this 'do not call' registry covers.
I know what you are thinking.
And you are wrong.
There is nothing new about this hole, or the exploit.
All you have to do is offer a 'free' drawing.
When will people learn that only 'nothing' is free?
We used to set up kiosk stands in malls, fairs, home shows and just about anywhere else we could find to put them. We would put up a couple samples of windows and offer a free drawing for windows.
It was on the up and up we did give away free windows just like we said.
But once you fill out that card, guess what you have done?
You got it. You have now made a contact with our business. You have given us permission to call you.
Even if I am wrong on this, I am not very wrong. All these cards have small print (think EULA) on the back. All that really needs to be done is add a sentence that says 'by filling out this card homeowner gives permission to window company to make farther contact and phone calls to the homeowner.'.
I will be quite honest with you. I don't do that anymore. Now I am a computer operator. I make good money, I enjoy my job, I could do without the night work though. I don't really regret the 5 years I spent in that industry. On the contrary, I learned some very valuable lessons. Hell I don't think I would be doing what I am doing today without them.
But I am probably more annoyed with telemarketing calls then the average person. I work nights, 6pm-6am.
Know what 11am phone calls do to me?
That being said I have pity for the honest people in the industry. There are a lot of people that are honest, hard working and intelligent. There are retired people that need extra income. I would hate to see the industry shut down and these people all be out of work.
With that attitude I kind of look at telemarketing calls as my problem. When I get one I tell them to take me off the list. That is a legal thing by the way, there is more byte to that phrase then you would think. If they get too annoying I unplug the phone until I wake up.
I agree with you that I shouldn't have to do that. I understand everyones point as well. That is why I am not saying that the 'do not call registry' is evil.
It is not.
It just won't work.
I am not sure what to think about this.
I read the article, MS said that the affect in the US would be only chat to paid subcribers of MSN so they can track the billing information.
How many more steps does Micro$oft have to take before they can make the claim that if you have a family you should subscribe to them because they are family safe?
In that respect it sounds like a marketing gimmick.
On the other hand there are the usual band of idiots making claims of free speech and such. Good shit people, freedom of speech doesn't really apply here, MSN is a business and in the same way that Wal-Mart cannot (and should not) be forced to carry Hustler MSN cannot be forced to provide chat features at all.
For the simple sake of capitalism I support Micro$oft in there choices here. If the free speech zealots think they can force Microsoft to carry chat channels then I want to force libraries to carry Barley Legal.
Finally there is the side of simple competition. If Micro$oft doesn't use this as a marketing tool then they are leaving themselves wide open. The 14 year old market is very demanding about chat tools. It is entirely possible they may start a chant of 'I want my AOL'.
Maybe his first flight was superior.
The literature that I have come across is pretty straight forward in saying that people don't know a whole lot about the guy, his airplane or what he did.
A tremendous amount of the information about him is heresay and speculation.
But modern aviation is a direct evolution of the Wright Flyer and not some New Zelanders hobby.
The Wright Brothers spent several years refinning there design and pushing for a more stable aircraft and better design.
These other people, it was just a hobby to them. They never refined there designs. They never took the aircraft to the next logical step.
These people that are putting down the Wright Brothers work, these are all basicaly people that get annoyed that the US is what it is. That we achieved in 200 years what Europe was unable to do in 2000 years.
The truth is that it all comes down to Capitlism. It was the business model that provided the motivation to the Wright Brothers to do what they did.
You may not like it, you may be happier in a State owned society, or a society where people have convinced themselves that the government makes life worth living.
But Capitalism works and the Wright Brothers are an excellent example of this.
While you are at it don't forget to mention the catapault system they used, it involved weights and pullies.
Bottom line is this.
All modern aviation has evolved from the Wright Brothers Flyer.
The Wright Brothers evolved there flyer from known glider designs and experimentation they did on lift, drag, weight and thrust. They created a lot of the mathmatical models that are still used in aviation today.
While the case can be made that a couple of people (an Englishman and an Austrialian I believe) could have achieved controled powered flight before the Wright Brothers, the case CANNOT be made that modern aviation evolved from those people.
What's more in the case of the people that produced working aircraft before the Wright Brothers none of them followed through with better models.
It took the wright Brothers only a couple of years to get to the point that they were flying there Flyer well enough to make a case of it's usefullness to the military.
As far as the head wind controversy, please.
One of the innovations that the Wright Brothers had to come up with was a modern aluminum lightweight internal combustion engine. They had to build one from scratch, none of the engines at that time that were available were light enough and powerful enough to meet the Brothers needs.
In modern aviation head winds are still critical. You always take off and land into the wind (well whenever that is an option anyways). It is possible to use a shorter runway and load up your plane with a bit more weight if you have a headwind.
One of the reasons that passenger jets fly so high is to use the high speed winds aloft to there advantage, they get places quicker and use less fuel in the process.
The ARE the extended versions.
It is a promotional gimmick. They are rereleasing the first two movies on celluloid a couple weeks before the premier of ROTK. The rerelease is the extended version from the DVD's.
However Peter Jackson has been upfront about this thing. He says it is purely promotional and they are only doing like 100 theaters with it.
So you are gonna have to be lucky if you want to see it.
Actually I have a hard time having sympathy for you.
What sort of crap is that? You are stuck on a Celery 300a/450.
Look buddy, you aren't stuck anywhere. Chips and mobo's are dirt cheap nowadays.
Hell, Wal-Mart has those flamous Lindows PC's for like $200.
No I am not feeling sorry for you, I am laughing at you.
I will back you up on the SCO topic on Slashdot. That would be nice.
But the Internet Death Penalty has a critical flaw in it.
If you are going to impose it, then how can you follow it?
People on the internet are chat happy anyways. Best that the IDP could possibly achieve is a bunch of people talking about why imposing the IDP against SCO was such a good thing. And why soandso violating the IDP against SCO was a bad thing.
By the time you are done a lot of people have spent a lot of time talking about SCO and why the IDP against them was good.
See the IDP doesn't solve anything.
I understand your frustration, I feel it too. I don't know Linux from Linus. I find the implications of the SCO thing far reaching enough that it is worth my time. But it doesn't really interest me.
A topic on Slashdot would be welcome.
Okay I'll byte.
That is a good deal for you.
Where do I end up if I buy it from you?
Not all but most people that buy 'new' cars have every intention of selling them at some point in time and little intention of taking them to the junk yard.
While that warranty may present you with a good deal it sounds to me like I would have to be smoking crack to buy the damn thing from you.
I would have none of those benefits you listed. And all of my current resources would laugh at me.
For what it is worth, when I was talking about hazardous materials and batteries and such I wasn't going for an environmental angle. I was just trying to say that if you take a car to a junkyard today the dude that buys it from you knows it has 1 standard battery in it and doesn't bat an eye.
I was speculating that that same dude might tell you to go hump a cow if you brought him an electric car a few years ago. I am just saying that there might be environmental laws that might make junking a car like that a real hassle.
This will never get read. Too many comments already.
The only input I have is this.
My car breaks down I have a lot of options. I have a friend whose Father and 2 brothers are great mechanics. I have a mechanic about 10 miles away that is honest and cheap.
Oil changes can be done almost anywhere.
When the day comes that I want to junk it I can take it to a junk yard and not have to concern myself with disposing of hazardous materials. I could be wrong, but don't those vehicles have lots of batteries and such?
If your vehicle never breaks down then you are in good shape.
Good luck.
Just wan't to point out that this looser doesn't have an original bone in his body.
These are the lines to a King's Missile song.
The site and the person who wrote up the slashdot intro are really, really liberal.
To add just a bit of balance I invite you to go here: http://www.mediaresearch.org/
Quick! Mod me a troll!
The beutiful thing about cops writing tickets is that at the end of the day you have a human being that must make the decision to write a ticket or not.
Red light traps are another pure revenue making device. You have an intersection that is dangerous because there are lots of accidents there, what is the best solution?
It is to extend the length of time for the yellow lights.
Think about it. It makes sense. And it doesn't cost anyone any additional money.
Ever see an intersection where the yellow is like a second long? That crap causes accidents. People like me see a red light and slam on the breaks. Someone is following too close behind me....
Want to make some money? Put an automated ticket thing at that intersection and don't fix the yellow.
Consider this for just a second....
In Pennsylvania where I live they don't have automated tickets yet.
I treat yellows like they are supposed to be treated. The law says that if you have enough distance to stop safely for a yellow you must stop, otherwise pass through it.
In Maryland they have those things.
If I don't know for a fact that an intersection in Maryland doesn't have a camera I slam on my breaks just like I would do for a red light.
I am a rear ending waiting to happen.
The irony of course is it wouldn't be my fault.
I don't own a gun.
Oh so I can just swear off crashes now? It is really that easy huh?
I think the anti-suv nuts have it all backwards. Generally these nutcases are the same people that scream for helmet laws, they scream for safety belt laws, they scream for air bag laws, they scream for kids to have cords taken out of there hoods, they scream for Dimple to be removed, they scream for safety things that they don't properly understand the repurcussions of.
Most of the time (and not for Dimple thank god) they get what they want.
So we have 2 different types of cars.
The fuel effiecent econo-box sorta car, these cars have traded weight for safety. They don't weigh much, they get better fuel mileage and they really are not safe.
And the SUV's. SUV's typically go above and beyond with safety. The weight of one plays a large part in how safe they are.
Am I the only person that thinks it would be more logical for the anti-SUV crowd to be, well not anti-suv?
Something else to consider is at the end of the day this is all personal choice. I don't give a rats ass what other people choose to drive.
Some people get there rocks off driving fuel effiecent vehicles.
Me, I drive a Tracker. I will be buying a Jeep in a year.
Thing about me though. The Tracker and the Jeep thing is about my current lifestyle.
Sooner or later I will have a kid. I don't have any kids now so I can drive cars like that. Trackers (mine is a soft top) and Jeeps are by definition more dangerous vehicles. When I am blessed with a kid I will either get rid of that car or get a second car. A child has no place in a car like that.
It is a lifestyle choice.
I will never understand why it is that I am expected to respect other people's choices, but other people can choose to tell me I am wrong.
Well it is time now, time to be modded a troll.
God forbid I make you think.
Nothing irks me more then automated ticketing machines, wether it be red light traps or speed traps they are bad, bad, bad, bad and bad.
But if the governement has enough information to say that I did $32 worth of traveling last month then they also have the information they need to mail me speeding tickets.
Evil.
It isn't speeding tickets I am against.
On the contrary, a smart and well run police department does an enormous public safety service by running traps.
You post a cop car on a busy and fast stretch of road and you make a point.
People like me slow down and do a reality check.
Others get written tickets.
It slows traffic to a reasonable level.
But automated speed traps, what public safety mechanism do they serve?
I have never gotten one of those tickets. But I can only imagine what it is like. How long does it take for them to issue it to you?
Do you even remember the stretch of road where it occured?
Does the automated speed trap actually affect the speed of the traffic?
While I am for using police and governemnt to enforce laws I am against using the police as a pure revenue mechanism.
Anyone that allows a GPS tolled road is not very far away from automated GPS ticketing.
This isn't insightful.
This guys a maroon.
Another thread already beat me to the punch with this, SUV's already pay higher taxes - they suck down more fuel.
Personally I think that owners of smaller cars should have to pay larger insurance premiums. People in small cars are more seriously injured in accidents. Someone in an SUV, a vehicle that is already more expensive to own and operate, enjoy the advantage of being less at risk.
And they are less of a risk as well. SUV's are better built vehicles.
Taxes are reflected in gas prices, safety in insurance.
It all works out in the end.
I for one despise the general idea of 'pay as you go driving'. I am sure that the same kooks that think it is only fair the US pay $5/gallon for gas because Europe does will also think we should pick this up.
Will you nincompoops Please just follow Johnny Depp to France? I hear the place is really wonderful.
Really.
Got that off my chest.
Now my real question.
These roads will be using the GPS put in place by the taxpayers of the US.
I know I am coming off like a knowitall, but I swear to you I am not. I don't have an inkling of an idea of who pays for GPS.
So I ask, is the US going to get anything from this?
When someone buys a GPS transponder is there some sort of royalty in the price or a licensing fee that gets kicked back to the US government?
I don't think that US citizens should have to pay such a fee, after all our tax dollars bought the damn things.
I don't think I have any qualm with the US looking the other way when friendly nations military (say Britian) uses GPS. I got no gripes with that.
But private industry run by foriegners, some people here forget but we are a capitalist nation, why shouldn't those foriegners be paying for the use of those satelites?
And this goes doubly, triply hell dozenly so for governments trying to collect taxes for road use.
I am concerned that there is a very real possibility that the US could abandon manned space flight.
Can you imagine what would come out of us loosing another shuttle? Here is a nightmare, imagine it happening within two years after the next launch.
The geeky part of me is deeply dissapointed that the next manned space vehicle will not be a leaner and meaner 22nd century version of the shuttle.
The practical side of me points out that X-prize contestants are doing a wonderful job of fulfilling that requirement. Hell I think they may slap NASA around like the bitch it is.
A leaner and meaner space shuttle is simply too far away to ever be constructed. An expensive project like that would need to survive at least two more administrations to ever take flight, and if you look at the history of NASA projects over the last 20 years you will see that is a very big problem.
While this Apollo era design idea isn't sexy, it is practical. I see a definite safety improvement in a design such as this. I wonder what the cost difference per launch would be compared to the 'reusable' space shuttle.
If you could build a new capsule, sit it on a booster and put it in orbit for less then the cost of 1 flight of the space shuttle, well what does that tell you about the reusability of the space shuttle?
If NASA and contractors get to work on this now we just might be able to survive another shuttle loss.
Not that I want another shuttle loss mind you. I just have this gut feeling like NASA isn't willing to do what needs to be done to run the shuttles.
That is a good idea.
But why use an easily blocked radio signal between the two cars when they are sharing a conductive metal track....
In all honesty your idea doesn't sound that expensive.
I do see one problem though. The point car would have to travel so far ahead of the train, easily a mile, that at intersections in the road car traffic would be tempted to dart between the point car and the locomotive.
We could resolve that problem with laser targeting and autonomous semi-automatic weapons.
The company I work for practices disaster recovery once a year on all our major systems.
In the article the writer was talking about how much work it was to migrate the T1 connections, and how they hadn't forseen that. That is exactly the sort of thing that a practice disaster recovery uncovers.
If you want the model from the place I work it is simple enough:
1. Run the disaster recovery during a 24 hour period
2. Pat yourself on the back for what worked.
3. Ignore what doesn't work.
4. Repeat next year.
Of course next year gets a new step:
3.5 Act surprised that stuff didn't work.
I was infatuated with one of my first girlfriends. Thing was, I had no idea how to be a boyfriend. I knew how to be a friend. I knew how to have sex. But I didn't know much more.
I didn't buy her any flowers, or enough gifts or whatever.
So one day she told me to go screw myself.
I got a clue, bought a dozen roses and wrote a long ass note.
Her reply?
Too little, too late.
I deplore similies and metaphors on Slashdot, but I read about Universal's new price strategy and it made me feel a lot like my old ex-girlfriend.
On that note I am willing to give Universal a perscription for buying my love back. I promise you it will be tough medicine.
1. Dissavow, Distance and cut any ties you have with the RIAA. Do it publicly.
2. Take the public position that you do not sue your patrons. Don't just use this position as a front either, if you have any such actions in the works then simply stop them. Don't take up any new actions.
3. Give up on right protected CD's. Trust me, trust slashdot, trust your patrons, it is a dead-end street.
4. Take digital media distribution DEAD SERIOUS. I'll throw in a couple clues for no charge here. For one, if you are careful and elegant (look at iTunes) you can do protected music files without pissing anyone off. And for two, and once again don't get all sloppy and greedy here, you don't need to take a huge price cut on the music. Take what you charge record stores, subtract fancy packaging, manufacturing and physical distribution from the cost and divide that number by seconds. I bet whatever number that gives you is pretty reasonable.
Unlike my ex-girlfriend there is still a way to buy back my love.