As-if the federal gov't didn't already have personal information about all of it's citizens and most non-citizens. I mean come on guys - let's not spin another scare tactic. Social Security numbers - the fed has access to your criminal records, financial records, work records, purchase records, etc. This has been the case for many many years - way before the Internet.
This is an extremely naive and narrow-minded argument. As a former Federal employee and clearance holder, I can guarantee you that I can't even *think* about committing a crime without getting caught. While the parent poster is correct in asserting that the gov't already has quite a dossier on every one of us, he/she ignores the fact that, to the gov't, this is simply not enough information to determine one's proclivities. A number is just a number, nothing more. But if it's posssible to link a number to on-line excursions to porn/neo-Nazi/black power/tree hugging/libertarian/<name your Republican poison here> websites/blog entries/social bookmarks, then the picture is now complete. This data can now be mined for whatever strikes some government lackey's fancy, at any time.
The Internet never forgets. Whatever piece of information you've put out there, regardless of how anonymous you thought you were, can eventually be traced back to you given enough time and resources. The gov't knows this, and will do everything in its power to use this as part of its domestic surveillance program. This goes far beyond the convenient "terrorist/child molester" rationale that the gov't is so fond of using. Think Stasi, KGB, CSIS, SRI...all intelligence organizations that have been implicated in gross moral and civil violations of citizens in their respective countries. It's really not so far of a stretch to add the CIA/NSA to that list.
For example, the bridge (the name of which I can't remember) from the early part of the 20th century that bent and twisted under high wind until it finally just fell apart. Loss of life? I don't believe so, but it was a spectacular destruction.
You're probably thinking of the Tacoma Narrows bridge collapse in Washington state. A very spectacular (if I may borrow your term) example of harmonics hard at work...
I'm surprised the St. Francis dam made the list, but not the dambreak that killed 2,200 in Johnstown, PA. Prior to the dambreak, the dam had been rebuilt not in an effort to control floodwaters, but to provide a lake for a resort area.
I must be missing something here...I entered "The Cure", and came up with a list of just about every popular '80s mainstream band, from Led Zeppelin to the Stones to David Bowie (even the Doors made an appearance). What's so innovative here?
After seeing this, I no longer feel so anal about running old floppies through the shredder, old CD-ROMs in the microwave, and dissassembling old hard drives and smashing the platters.
Bloomberg is an idiot whose sense of self-importance, arrogance, and self-righteousness knows no bounds. His "investigation" of out-of-state gun dealers is clearly indicative of Bloomberg's cluelessness when it comes to individual and states rights. My prediction is that he will be outed as the idiot he is, and this lame-brained idea of a DNA database will find its rightful place in the annals of history as the pipedream of a seriously-whacked mind.
If I were a citizen of NYC, I'd be hanging my head in embarrassment just about now.
I wonder if this scenario will hasten a return to the "old" days of low-bandwidth, text-only delivery of information, such as (dare I say the Protocol-Which-Shall-Not-Be-Named) gopher? Especially if we start moving towards a model of tiered bandwidth costs, who in their right mind will want to wait 10-15 seconds for a webpage to load when they can simply bring up a gopherized version with the same information but at a fraction of the size and cost?
I grew disinterested with this article very quickly when I came across this non-sensical:
This fits the perspective of those who prefer non-copleft licenses, namely the Open Source camp.
What? Since when does the "Open Source camp" prefer non-copyleft licenses? What kind of drivel is this?
And why is no one screaming and pulling their hair over the fact that Dell ships their RH Enterprise-equipped machines with closed-source nVidia drivers?
I teach my Open Source Technology students that OS is a continuum, and that everyone falls somewhere along that continuum. ESR embraces the business side of OSS, while RMS (firmly!) embraces the libre side...everyone involved in OSS has some philosophical bent. If PJ has a problem with Linspire, she has every right to rant about it. But since she doesn't speak for the OSS movement, we have every right to ignore her (or pick up the pieces we agree with and discard the rest).
The beauty of OSS is that there's room for everyone. Don't like what Linspire is doing? No worries, come up with your own distro that ships with OSS versions of whatever it is about Linspire that rubs you the wrong way.
One heinous crime committed by Wal-Mart that I can't excuse, though, is property theft. Going by the euphemistic "eminent domain", Wal-Mart frequently colludes with corrupt city administrations to seize land from its legitimate owners and give it to Wal-Mart for stores and parking lots.
As has the Dallas Cowboys franchise, with a new stadium that will be built almost entirely on residential land seized through eminent domain...but which certainly won't stop the uneducated from sitting on their asses glued to the TV to watch "America's Team" play in the stadium that was literally built upon the backs of long-time Arlington residents.
So, why is it that when Wal*Mart does this, it's "heinous," but when an NFL franchise does it, the country looks the other way?
Even stranger: Whenever I complete a transaction on my PayPal account, I can count on receiving at least one PayPal phishing spam within minutes of receiving a valid PayPal confirmation. I suspect some entity upstream is monitoring for valid PayPal e-mails and automatically generating phony notices.
Would you be so kind as to point us to where you found this endorsement by the SIAA? I've not seen any such endorsement on the SIAA site. I'm not accusing you of spreading FUD, but I am extremely interested in verifying for myself that Red Hat, Sun, etc. are actively supporting this bill.
The best job I ever had (air traffic controller) didn't even break the top 50...the worst job(s) I've ever had were as a software engineer (or programmer, whatever the hell you want to call it).
I realize this is/. humor, but some might be interested in a 50-year longitudinal study called the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth (SMPY), hosted currently by Vanderbilt U. It is the longest-term study of its kind, designed to track boys and girs through a 50-year period, and is now in its third decade. The study has spawned over 300 research articles, and is considered by many to be the best collection of data in existence concerning intelligence differences betweens males and females.
Of course, I might be biased since I was a participant in one of the first cohorts, but it's certainly worth a look if you're interested in this kind of thing.
There is NO WAY IN HELL NeoOffice/J or OpenOffice replace the MS office suite. No matter what people claim, they still break plenty of office docs that get emailed to me, and forget about replacing powerpoint.
That's interesting...I've been MS Office-free over the past year in a workplace which literally thrives on MS Office. NeoOffice/J has, in fact, replaced MS Office, so generalities obviously aren't valid here.
BTW, what exactly do you need in PP that isn't supported by OpenOffice? Maybe a quick review of the evils of PP are in order (if not for you, then the morons who believe PP is their own personal playground).
The average customer can live with extended ping times. How many "interactive" websites are really worth your time anyway? Obviously, if you're into on-line gaming, the delays will be noticeable. But this would certainly be acceptable for normal browsing, VoIP, etc. For some reason, I doubt those living in remote areas will be whining about "ping times" when they will just be glad to be connected to the rest of the world.
You would never have gotten away with that at Fry's. The Fry's stores here in Texas practically treat you as if you've already ripped them off. Everything is meticulously disassembled and de-packaged, and the Fry's laborers are not above putting on an accusatory tone when interrogating you about your return. In fact, you're accosted as soon as you enter the store, funneled off to the side and watched very carefully lest you actually have the cajones to walk onto the retail floor with a previously-purchased item.
Strange thing is, Fry's is doing this all backwards: They should be frisking, searching, tracking, and interrogating their employees given that losses due to employee theft are five times greater than losses due to shoplifting.
Ha...for a moment there I thought you were actually serious, that we would all be forced to bow before the GNOME gods...now I realize you must be joking.
This should actually have been modded as "misinformed" (don't we wish...)
R134a A/C systems have evolved over the years. Granted, the early systems left a lot to be desired, but the output of the recent systems rival that of old R12 systems. R134a systems are very pressure-dependent, far more than R12, and must be precisely charged for maximum effectiveness.
It's hot here in Texas, at or above 100F in the summer, and both of my Chevy trucks (an '02 and an '03) blow frigid air.
Here in Texas, in many cities you can ask for "deferred adjudication," which is nothing more than converting your fine into an "administrative fee" and then letting you off the hook after some period of time with no violations (usually 90 days).
So while the speeding ticket might be expensive, there's usually no need to worry about increased insurance premiums, since the insurance company won't ever find out.
Which just goes to prove that most cities aren't concerned about deterring speeding, and would just rather have your money.
Hmm...what am I supposed to be seeing? Nothing happens on the iBook I'm currently using. I think the functionality you're talking about doesn't quite work when using the trackpad's "click and drag" feature.
I'll concede your point that there are still areas of the world where the communications infrastructure is way behind the times (or even non-existant). But given a modern communications infrastructure, I seriously question the value ham radio plays in disaster efforts, especially when Nextel is able to set up a secure and reliable communications station, with encryption, and can provide phones to rescue personnel without the need for special licensing provisions, training, etc.
Hey, I'm all for ham radio making a comeback. But the only (and arguably weak) justification I see for the continued existence of ham radio is that of disaster/emergency communications. Let's be realistic about this: The ability of amateur radio special response teams to quickly mobilize and provide communications in disaster areas has been usurped by commercial interests with far more resources than the ham radio community. While the cause is noble, I don't believe amateur radio can continue to justify its existence on such a tenuous platform.
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This is an extremely naive and narrow-minded argument. As a former Federal employee and clearance holder, I can guarantee you that I can't even *think* about committing a crime without getting caught. While the parent poster is correct in asserting that the gov't already has quite a dossier on every one of us, he/she ignores the fact that, to the gov't, this is simply not enough information to determine one's proclivities. A number is just a number, nothing more. But if it's posssible to link a number to on-line excursions to porn/neo-Nazi/black power/tree hugging/libertarian/<name your Republican poison here> websites/blog entries/social bookmarks, then the picture is now complete. This data can now be mined for whatever strikes some government lackey's fancy, at any time.
The Internet never forgets. Whatever piece of information you've put out there, regardless of how anonymous you thought you were, can eventually be traced back to you given enough time and resources. The gov't knows this, and will do everything in its power to use this as part of its domestic surveillance program. This goes far beyond the convenient "terrorist/child molester" rationale that the gov't is so fond of using. Think Stasi, KGB, CSIS, SRI...all intelligence organizations that have been implicated in gross moral and civil violations of citizens in their respective countries. It's really not so far of a stretch to add the CIA/NSA to that list.
You're probably thinking of the Tacoma Narrows bridge collapse in Washington state. A very spectacular (if I may borrow your term) example of harmonics hard at work...
I'm surprised the St. Francis dam made the list, but not the dambreak that killed 2,200 in Johnstown, PA. Prior to the dambreak, the dam had been rebuilt not in an effort to control floodwaters, but to provide a lake for a resort area.
I must be missing something here...I entered "The Cure", and came up with a list of just about every popular '80s mainstream band, from Led Zeppelin to the Stones to David Bowie (even the Doors made an appearance). What's so innovative here?
Six seconds pretty much destroys the media without melting the plastic. Don't go longer than that, though, or you'll make a stinky mess.
After seeing this, I no longer feel so anal about running old floppies through the shredder, old CD-ROMs in the microwave, and dissassembling old hard drives and smashing the platters.
Bloomberg is an idiot whose sense of self-importance, arrogance, and self-righteousness knows no bounds. His "investigation" of out-of-state gun dealers is clearly indicative of Bloomberg's cluelessness when it comes to individual and states rights. My prediction is that he will be outed as the idiot he is, and this lame-brained idea of a DNA database will find its rightful place in the annals of history as the pipedream of a seriously-whacked mind.
If I were a citizen of NYC, I'd be hanging my head in embarrassment just about now.
I wonder if this scenario will hasten a return to the "old" days of low-bandwidth, text-only delivery of information, such as (dare I say the Protocol-Which-Shall-Not-Be-Named) gopher? Especially if we start moving towards a model of tiered bandwidth costs, who in their right mind will want to wait 10-15 seconds for a webpage to load when they can simply bring up a gopherized version with the same information but at a fraction of the size and cost?
What? Since when does the "Open Source camp" prefer non-copyleft licenses? What kind of drivel is this?
And why is no one screaming and pulling their hair over the fact that Dell ships their RH Enterprise-equipped machines with closed-source nVidia drivers?
I teach my Open Source Technology students that OS is a continuum, and that everyone falls somewhere along that continuum. ESR embraces the business side of OSS, while RMS (firmly!) embraces the libre side...everyone involved in OSS has some philosophical bent. If PJ has a problem with Linspire, she has every right to rant about it. But since she doesn't speak for the OSS movement, we have every right to ignore her (or pick up the pieces we agree with and discard the rest).
The beauty of OSS is that there's room for everyone. Don't like what Linspire is doing? No worries, come up with your own distro that ships with OSS versions of whatever it is about Linspire that rubs you the wrong way.
As has the Dallas Cowboys franchise, with a new stadium that will be built almost entirely on residential land seized through eminent domain...but which certainly won't stop the uneducated from sitting on their asses glued to the TV to watch "America's Team" play in the stadium that was literally built upon the backs of long-time Arlington residents.
So, why is it that when Wal*Mart does this, it's "heinous," but when an NFL franchise does it, the country looks the other way?
Even stranger: Whenever I complete a transaction on my PayPal account, I can count on receiving at least one PayPal phishing spam within minutes of receiving a valid PayPal confirmation. I suspect some entity upstream is monitoring for valid PayPal e-mails and automatically generating phony notices.
Thanks for the confirmation...suprisingly, nothing on the SIIA site about this (munged up the link earlier).
Would you be so kind as to point us to where you found this endorsement by the SIAA? I've not seen any such endorsement on the SIAA site. I'm not accusing you of spreading FUD, but I am extremely interested in verifying for myself that Red Hat, Sun, etc. are actively supporting this bill.
The best job I ever had (air traffic controller) didn't even break the top 50...the worst job(s) I've ever had were as a software engineer (or programmer, whatever the hell you want to call it).
Something's not right here...
I realize this is /. humor, but some might be interested in a 50-year longitudinal study called the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth (SMPY), hosted currently by Vanderbilt U. It is the longest-term study of its kind, designed to track boys and girs through a 50-year period, and is now in its third decade. The study has spawned over 300 research articles, and is considered by many to be the best collection of data in existence concerning intelligence differences betweens males and females.
Of course, I might be biased since I was a participant in one of the first cohorts, but it's certainly worth a look if you're interested in this kind of thing.
There is NO WAY IN HELL NeoOffice/J or OpenOffice replace the MS office suite. No matter what people claim, they still break plenty of office docs that get emailed to me, and forget about replacing powerpoint.
That's interesting...I've been MS Office-free over the past year in a workplace which literally thrives on MS Office. NeoOffice/J has, in fact, replaced MS Office, so generalities obviously aren't valid here.
BTW, what exactly do you need in PP that isn't supported by OpenOffice? Maybe a quick review of the evils of PP are in order (if not for you, then the morons who believe PP is their own personal playground).
The average customer can live with extended ping times. How many "interactive" websites are really worth your time anyway? Obviously, if you're into on-line gaming, the delays will be noticeable. But this would certainly be acceptable for normal browsing, VoIP, etc. For some reason, I doubt those living in remote areas will be whining about "ping times" when they will just be glad to be connected to the rest of the world.
We can be such spoiled brats sometimes...
You would never have gotten away with that at Fry's. The Fry's stores here in Texas practically treat you as if you've already ripped them off. Everything is meticulously disassembled and de-packaged, and the Fry's laborers are not above putting on an accusatory tone when interrogating you about your return. In fact, you're accosted as soon as you enter the store, funneled off to the side and watched very carefully lest you actually have the cajones to walk onto the retail floor with a previously-purchased item.
Strange thing is, Fry's is doing this all backwards: They should be frisking, searching, tracking, and interrogating their employees given that losses due to employee theft are five times greater than losses due to shoplifting.
Ha...for a moment there I thought you were actually serious, that we would all be forced to bow before the GNOME gods...now I realize you must be joking.
Right?
Does the Orgasmatron count too?
Here's the Google cache...
(Don't need karma points, so don't waste them here.)
This should actually have been modded as "misinformed" (don't we wish...)
R134a A/C systems have evolved over the years. Granted, the early systems left a lot to be desired, but the output of the recent systems rival that of old R12 systems. R134a systems are very pressure-dependent, far more than R12, and must be precisely charged for maximum effectiveness.
It's hot here in Texas, at or above 100F in the summer, and both of my Chevy trucks (an '02 and an '03) blow frigid air.
Here in Texas, in many cities you can ask for "deferred adjudication," which is nothing more than converting your fine into an "administrative fee" and then letting you off the hook after some period of time with no violations (usually 90 days).
So while the speeding ticket might be expensive, there's usually no need to worry about increased insurance premiums, since the insurance company won't ever find out.
Which just goes to prove that most cities aren't concerned about deterring speeding, and would just rather have your money.
Hmm...what am I supposed to be seeing? Nothing happens on the iBook I'm currently using. I think the functionality you're talking about doesn't quite work when using the trackpad's "click and drag" feature.
I'll concede your point that there are still areas of the world where the communications infrastructure is way behind the times (or even non-existant). But given a modern communications infrastructure, I seriously question the value ham radio plays in disaster efforts, especially when Nextel is able to set up a secure and reliable communications station, with encryption, and can provide phones to rescue personnel without the need for special licensing provisions, training, etc.
Hey, I'm all for ham radio making a comeback. But the only (and arguably weak) justification I see for the continued existence of ham radio is that of disaster/emergency communications. Let's be realistic about this: The ability of amateur radio special response teams to quickly mobilize and provide communications in disaster areas has been usurped by commercial interests with far more resources than the ham radio community. While the cause is noble, I don't believe amateur radio can continue to justify its existence on such a tenuous platform.