Thank God for ASUS laptops. They come with a magic disc that works wonders for changing Vista into XP. Pop it in, boot, and insert a driver CD about twenty minutes later. The whole process takes about an hour and a half. Not every laptop they sell comes with the easy XP downgrade, but the ones that do are incredibly easy to come by.
As for all those vendors who are doing their best to kill off XP before Microsoft stops support, screw 'em. Desktop downgrades aren't too hard, because of parts standardization. Laptops today are almost impossible--the last one I had to driver hunt for took almost three days of downloading and forcing to get a fully-functional and stable XP install. The look on the customers' face when the machine was at least twice as fast (perception-wise) was worth it, though....
But, couldn't a properly designed gearbox extend the driving range of the battery pack by lowering, on average, the RPM at which the electric motor turns? Unless I am mistaken, lower RPM means less energy draw from the battery.
I understand that designing a multi-ratio gearbox specifically for an electric motor would be more expensive and technically difficult than including a direct drive box, but I also believe that whichever company designs a good multi-ratio box will own the electric car market--doubly so if that company can develop a good charging system.
And that opening sequence was the weakest part of the game; fortunately, you only need to go through it once.
The minigames and collection goals, for the most part, do advance the story. There's the obvious "I can't continue until I do this" part of it, but the minigames and collection goals also serve to make the world of Okami more complete. I've played the game through five times now, and each time, I notice a little bit more how the gameplay is inseparable from the mythology of the story.
There are exceptions: finding all one hundred stray beads is a mindless quest that rewards looking up strategy guides on the internet. But, searching the country for the Satomi Warriors fills out the story and makes beating Crimson Helm more important than just "here's a boss to fight." If that doesn't qualify as story-entwined gameplay, then what does?
with out sharing we may as well fall back into the stone age, as everything else will stop. Funny, but I'm pretty sure that this:
but all barter systems and such boil down to currencies and neutral exchange mechanisms... although not technically accurate, is what allowed civilization to come into existence. Bartering allowed the stone age to come about, as it meant that our ancient ancestors no longer had to do everything for themselves. The could divide up the tasks necessary to survive and barter/trade/share amongst each other to be more prosperous (in stone-age terms) than they would have been otherwise.
Things that can be only used by one person at a time cannot be shared. Even in cases where true sharing is possible (as with an umbrella in the rain), there is almost always an implicit trade between the sharer and the person he shares with.
That's exactly why a patent should be only for an incredibly specific, demonstrated execution of an idea. Overly broad and unjustified application and granting of patents reduces innovation--everyone* knows that. Overly broad and unjustified application and granting of patents leads to crap products existing at the expense of better execution of the same idea--everyone* knows that, too. Everyone* suffers when mere ideas, and not the execution of those ideas, are somehow made equivalent to physical constructs--but everyone* knows that as well.
Ideas should never be treated as physical property. Only the physical constructs emerging from those ideas are actual property. Bring an idea to a working prototype, then get your patent. If you can do that, then you're a player in the game. If you can do that, then you get your construction, and not some mythical, not possible for twenty years construction, protected for a period of time. That's how the system should work. Then, and only then, does everyone benefit.
Consider this as a concrete example: If I steal an iPod, I should expect to be treated as a criminal. If I buy an iPod and rebuild it into a prototype of something newer and better, i.e. not just repainting it or giving it more storage capacity, I should be treated as an innovator, not a criminal. But, should I do that, I should be prepared for someone else to do the same to me.
*Does not apply to those who are have no intention of actually doing good with their patents.
It has been argued that P2P helps increase music sales--both new and used--by introducing downloaders to bands they would not otherwise have the opportunity to listen to. I wonder if there's a similar situation for old video games, that the availability of good emulators for all the platforms of yesteryear will eventually create more demand for the original media and manuals. Obviously, emulator game images do not come with all the extra goodies that are packaged into a retail box. Buying the genuine article would not only provide the missing support materials, but would could, in theory, resolve any copyright issues presented by having a back-up image with no original.
The quality of emulators today presents a far superior option to using original media on original systems. That, too, could have an effect on the value of old media; mint or near mint becomes less rare if the media doesn't have to be used to get the game experience.
Unfortunately, the idea of reasonable accommodation is different for the person asking for that accommodation than it is for the people around him. If you have a (perceived) allergy to wi-fi, it makes sense to you that it should be banned. It may seem selfish, but that's how people are.
The same applies to the concept of significant detriments. If you have a handicapped sticker, you may not consider it significant for an able-bodied person to have to walk an additional twenty feet to get to his car. But, look at how many people risk the not-small fine to save those few extra steps. Again, people are selfish.
The way I see it, reasonable accommodations do two things: they allow people who would otherwise be locked out of a society to contribute to the society around them, and they do not prevent the general public from making the same contributions. Banning wi-fi in public buildings because of a (perceived) allergy does neither.
By law, three wheels is still a motorcycle. You still need a motorcycle operator's license, though (at least in Illinois) a special designation limits your motorcycle endorsement to three-wheeled vehicles until you pass the licensing exams on two wheels.
Trikes do have some advantages over traditional motorcycles. Cornering ability is not one of them, but straight-line stability and traction are. Plus, you never have to lay down a trike. I know that there are those who say that you should never have to lay down a bike, but theory and practice are two different things.
I'd hate to see what happens when you lay this thing down.
It looks like my guesstimates weren't that far off, really. I only did the math for one car; given that most families have two (or even three) cars, your numbers and mine line up rather well.
Thank you much for providing some (more) concrete numbers.
fuel isn't 1% of your budget? I'm impressed. If you have to fill up your tank once a week, then you're spending at least $40. This is a weekly income of $4K, or over $200K/annually.
I consider myself a conservative driver. I hate cars and I hate traffic, but between my wife & I, fuel costs are far above 1% and even approaching 5%. I only wish I had the money to where less than one percent was for gas. In my case, it's almost ten percent, and that's with a car that gets better than 30 mpg city (a '96 Saturn--1.9L I-4 w/5 a speed gearbox). Granted, I don't make much money, but unless you get obscene gas mileage, you'd have to pull down six digits to spend less than one percent of that on gas.
I'd guess that the vast majority of households are at least 5 percent of income to fuel. Figure that based on average yearly fuel costs on the following minimums: two fill-ups per month at 50 dollars (12 gallons E to F) to 70 dollars a visit (17 gallons E to F), plus an extra two visits because there are four weeks extra spread over twelve months, for a yearly total of 1300 to 1800 dollars at current prices. That's just for one typical (Accord, Camry, etc) car, and before taxes are taken out. If taxes suck away a third of your income before you see it, then that almost doubles your percentage of income for fuel.
Thank the piss-poor US dollar, inflation, needless war in Iraq, greedy oil execs, or whatever else suits your fancy. The 1920's will look like a cakewalk compared to what awaits us on our current course, and those of us who still have money will wish they could only spend a handful of percent of it on gas.
So, you've had to dodge steel-belted at 60+, too? That is some scary-ass shit, regardless of what you're driving.
The strange thing is that most truck tread carcasses I see appear to have plenty of tread on them. My guess is that, since rubber ages, it's the underlying rubber, and not the tread, that's unsafe. Putting a new tread on a degraded tire is like using masking tape to hold on an outisde mirror.
I'm sure that they'd be rather quick to change their behaviors quite quickly if they had to pay for repairing the damage they've done. I've suggested this at my shop more than a few times, and parents tend to smile when they hear it, especially when their kids realize they don't have the money to pay for the next visit.
After all, if social engineering can be used to screw up a machine, why can't it be used to keep it clean?
Slander and libel are a direct attack on another person; it is not the words that are dangerous, it is how they are used. My baseball bat poses no danger to a person until I swing it at his face. Slander or libel only occur if what I say or print is untrue. If it is untrue, I am the aggressor. If it is not untrue, then what I say or print is a pro-active sort of self-defense against the dishonesty or aggression initiated byt the person that I am calling out.
False advertising is not a first amendment issue. It is a fraud issue. Companies that recklessly advertise what they cannot or will not deliver commit fraud. Advertising is only false advertising at the point in which what is promised is not delivered. Up until then, there is no problem, and the punishment comes after the fraud, not the advertising.
Incitement is generally not protected because of the immediate danger it poses to a very specific individual or group of individuals that are in close proximity to the person trying to start the violence. As the danger becomes less immediate and the target becomes less defined, the less likely (in theory) an incitement is to occur. For an example, compare death threats (jail time) and advocating deportation for illegal immigrants (scorn and ridicule); the likely-hood of me being able to kill one person is much greater than that of me being able to kick ten or so million somewhat random people out of the United States.
The biggest problem with deciding where unpopular ends and genuinely, immediately dangerous begins is hard to pin down. In all but the most painfully obvious cases, it's better to over-protect than over-prosecute.
I figure that the answer to all this is simple--Occam's Razor and all that stuff--and why people try to make it more complex than it is is beyond me. I see three simple points of analysis here, and all three are based on this one fact: spammers don't use their own equipment; they subvert the machines of others to do their will.
1. If someone who is not me sends out mail from my computers, they are indirectly stealing from me through the extra costs involved in having and disinfecting a subverted machine: electrical use, phone useage (if dial-up), excessive bandwidth charges, repair costs, and the devaluation of MY time. It's not as obvious as having someone reach into my wallet, but I still end up losing my wealth because of his selfishness. In most other circumstances, where there are physical things being stolen, that's theft.
2. If that same someone sends out mail from my computers, using my email address, that person is pretending that he, and his communications, are me and mine, respectively. There is a simple, two word term for these types of actions--identity theft. Though there is no direct gain from pretending to be me and no direct loss to my reputation and character, that doesn't matter. The potential for heavy damage exists, and just because no one's life has been ruined (that we know of) because his machine was subverted, it's not a given that such a thing won't ever happen.
3. If that same someone sends out enough junk e-mails to cause people to block my address and prevent me from communicating with people that I need/desire to communicate, wouldn't that constitute a DoS attack? I'd think it would, especially if the e-mail address that I am (or am not) paying for gets shut down because of the actions of someone else. If I directly and maliciously compromise (say, through hacking the server) a website's ability to have its message reach the desired audience, I'd be in a lot of trouble--much like if I physically vandalized a store. I know it's not a great analogy, but it's all I have right now.
Spamming as it is done today is not a free-speech issue. It is an issue of aggression and theft. It is an issue of someone else forcing me to pay for him, in directly and indirectly incurred costs, to steal from and attack me and others. That is why spamming is different from junk mails that end up in my postal mailbox and are paid for by the sender. Postal junk mails may be annoying, but they are at least an honest attempt to serve my needs. Spam is not.
That Johns Hopkins would be involved in censorship activities of this sort doesn't surprise me. This private university has a nice history of this type of behavior. Read this and see for yourself: http://www.thefire.org/index.php/schools/2493. I don't know if the Popline database and the school itself have any common administrators, but the university is not big enough to be suffering from "right hand not knowing what the left is doing" disease. Withholding funds because of speech the administration doesn't like is just an end run around the first amendment, and given the affinity Johns Hopkins has for violating that ammendment, I feel sorry for them in no way, shape or form.
Personally, I don't think that abortion falls under "family planning;" family planning connotes a conscious plan to limit or eliminate the possibility of pregnancy. And yes, I do think it's wrong, but I would never physically prevent someone from undergoing the procedure or attempt to negate its existence. The kind of attitude that attempts to censor something into nonexistence is more appropriate for a three-year-old dealing with monsters under his bed than the leader of the world's (for now) most powerful country and supposed bastion of freedom. I like to think that we, as individuals and as a country, have grown beyond that. Sadly, it appears we have not.
In an IT shop, why wouldn't you want the employees managing their own computers? At the very least, it helps to keep them in practice. At the best, it helps them to be more productive. IT people tend to be much pickier about how they have their machines set up and have the ability to get to that point.
As for everyone else, the percentage of people in an office setting that are competent enough to be trusted is much, much lower. Also, given that corporate environments have a heavy emphasis on conformation and uniformity, that's the last place you'd want people making that decision.
The general rule that I've seen is that the larger the set of computers that needs to be managed, the less control you want the individual users to have over management of their machines. They can take it personally all they want, but, as much as I dislike saying this (I really do), no (large) corporation should ever let its employees use their own machines for business work or give its employees any more control over their work machines than pushing the power switch to turn it on.
Wait, so putting something untrustworthy under the okay button isn't a violation of trust but is, in fact, education?
In a way, it is education. The most permanent way to learn that stove are hot is to get burned by one. The most permanent way to know not to blindly click on stuff is to have to shell out good money to have your screw-ups fixed. Yes, it is a violation of trust. Yes, it is a shame that people are schmucks and feel the need to violate trust at every turn. But, that's a fact of life, plain and simple. If you were to look at it from this angle, having Safari installed from blind clicking is a far easier consequence to deal with than is getting nailed by spyware. It's the same lesson in mistrust ("Hey, I don't want this!"), if you chose to take it to heart, but without the worst pain--it's like getting a first-degree burn instead of a fourth-degree.
All said, though, this behaviour is inexcusable regardless of whomever is behind it.
Don't forget the zero-tolerance mania that has destroyed the futures of countless children and young adults. Most days, it seems, I can turn my laptop on and, within two minutes, be reading an article on some heavy-handed school administration suspending or expelling a student for total bullshit reasons--and that includes the time for Windows to boot.
And yes, this and zero-tolerance go hand in hand. Both are ways for people to appear to be "tough on crime" or some jargon like that without actually devoting the tiniest fraction of a thought to their jobs. Neither program will make any iota of difference in crime rates whatever else it is they think they're battling. Imagine, though, if this system came to pass, and someone with "criminal DNA" did something stupid in high school; what would have been "only" an suspension/expulsion turns to something far uglier. Amongst other things, it becomes justification for further expansion of programs like this. It becomes rationalization for the "all your DNA are belong to us" attitude that certain people who are in power, but shouldn't be, have.
Bottom line is that all this is good for is removing people from society in a way that intentionally-duped people will support, and, as others have pointed out, this is a very self-fulfilling prophecy. If Orwell was ahead of his time, what does that make Rene "I think, therefore, I am" Desartes?
Most people don't know that Lenovo has (almost) always built ThinkPads. IBM probably paid a huge chunk of money to make sure that the laptops built under their brand were good machines. All that happened to have ThinkPads sold under the Lenovo brand was that the rights to use the name were sold to the company that had (almost) always built the machines that wore that name. Therefore, yes, Lenovo ThinkPads do carry the same expectations by those who know as did the IBM ThinkPads. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the quality improved because Lenovo can't hide behind someone else's brand now.
I've seen a lot of dismissal of cultural differences here, and each and every one of them misses the point. Everything from the way they use their kitchen utensils to the efficiency of their mass transit to the way their government works flows from the culture of the people. Despite sixty years of Western influence (and yes, I do know about Commodore Perry in the mid 1800's), Japan's culture is still based on the same principles that it was two hundred years ago--among them being honor, respect, selflessness/sacrifice, and knowing one's place in society.
What we call democracy today fits in quite well with the partially collectivist Japanese society. For their government to run smoothly, all those principles of their culture cannot be left at the doors to their Diet building. And yes, while there will be screw-ups in every government, they are more likely to be admitted to and rectified when the people who run the country hold themselves to a higher standard because of how they were raised, whether that is instilled by parental or cultural pressures. It follows, reasonably, that their national ID system is just an extension of their cultural belief in "knowing one's place." For good or bad, that's from my perspective as a U.S. citizen, but it seems that unlike some people here, though, I'm willing to try look at things through the eyes of another--even if I can never fully appreciate the view.
Proper disclaimers apply, of course. IANAJP, (if anyone can read that), and the like, but I enjoy studying both the language and the culture (parts of which I deeply admire) because both are so wildly different from what I've spent my whole life dealing with.
"This guy" complains about FOSS (competition) destroying big business by providing alternatives to overpriced, commercial crapware. Of course, the big boys don't mind having to pay gigundous amounts of money to stay in business. After all, they have the kind of capital to subsidize someone else's unfit product.
Obviously, that's a bunch of crap. FOSS benefits (almost) all businesses; large businesses can afford to put more capital into investment if they're spending less on closed source software. Small businesses can actually stay in business without fear of being bankrupted by upgrade costs or lawsuits. Let us also not forget that small businesses still employ more people in this country (the U.S.) than do mega-corps and still drive the economy more than do mega-corps. Either way, FOSS benefits the users more than the vendors, and it benefits the end customers even more. While closed source does have a place in this world, a complete reliance on it is good for no one other than the companies who hold a pseudo-monopoly on the types of software they develop.
Personally, I think the ideal mix is closed source for the underlying essentials (for interoperability purposes) or where otherwise absolutely necessary and FOSS for everything else. Our "hero" here just sounds bitter because FOSS shines light on the truth that highly-paid, closed source programmers are no better, as a whole, than programmers who write code with no financial compensation. And now, I think I'll go play an open source Tetris clone, just to irritate this clown even more.
Seven Samurai is such a depressing movie, but it's so perfectly shot, pulls all the right emotional strings, etc. From what Japanese I've learned so far, even the subtitles are quite well done. I wish more movies like that were readily accessible to American audiences. I suppose you could call this another of those circumstances where someone else perfected what we invented, but that's really what it seems to be. I don't think that we have no creativity here, but rather that we don't demand it from people who get paid rather handsomely to come up with something new every now and then.
That's why I don't watch television, aside from House or MXC, much anymore. Flipping through the channels, it seems that I've already seen everything that's on, even if they're all "new" episodes. Despite what some people who know me say, I do have better things to do with my time than watch recycled crap and/or re-runs.
In theory, said belief is coupled with the belief that life is a gift, not just some random circumstance. That gift is supposed to be so precious that people respect and nurture both their own lives and the lives of those around them.
In practice, religious people follow a man-made construct on how they think a god wants them to behave. Whatever the chosen god/construct/rules, there tends to be a blind obedience, and a blind obedience to anything, as has been said before, can't turn out well. Be it through the laws of Deuteronomy or of Sharia, the point of religion, ultimately, is control. Watching services from the back, seeing the stand-up/sit-down/chant in unison nature of "worship" looks a lot like a cult gathering. In many ways, it is, especially with those groups who have such a loyalty to their leader, they'll conveniently ignore when he goes against what he's supposed to believe in.
It's a shame that more people don't understand that religion is but a crutch used by people who are afraid that the universe is so magnificent and complex that they are too afraid to truly get in touch with it. To surpass religion and gain true spirituality is probably the most difficult, and at the same time, freeing thing that one can do in life. Look at people along the lines of Mother Theresa or the Mohatma Ghandi; they don't let their, or any one else's, religion interfere with their spirituality. They were of kind, gentle, and free heart and mind, and they couldn't have done what they did without going beyond religion.
Athiests can be spiritual; religious people can be morally bankrupt. Strange that both extreme ends of the spectrum could be found in the same part of the world....
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Thank God for ASUS laptops. They come with a magic disc that works wonders for changing Vista into XP. Pop it in, boot, and insert a driver CD about twenty minutes later. The whole process takes about an hour and a half. Not every laptop they sell comes with the easy XP downgrade, but the ones that do are incredibly easy to come by.
As for all those vendors who are doing their best to kill off XP before Microsoft stops support, screw 'em. Desktop downgrades aren't too hard, because of parts standardization. Laptops today are almost impossible--the last one I had to driver hunt for took almost three days of downloading and forcing to get a fully-functional and stable XP install. The look on the customers' face when the machine was at least twice as fast (perception-wise) was worth it, though....
But, couldn't a properly designed gearbox extend the driving range of the battery pack by lowering, on average, the RPM at which the electric motor turns? Unless I am mistaken, lower RPM means less energy draw from the battery.
I understand that designing a multi-ratio gearbox specifically for an electric motor would be more expensive and technically difficult than including a direct drive box, but I also believe that whichever company designs a good multi-ratio box will own the electric car market--doubly so if that company can develop a good charging system.
And that opening sequence was the weakest part of the game; fortunately, you only need to go through it once.
The minigames and collection goals, for the most part, do advance the story. There's the obvious "I can't continue until I do this" part of it, but the minigames and collection goals also serve to make the world of Okami more complete. I've played the game through five times now, and each time, I notice a little bit more how the gameplay is inseparable from the mythology of the story.
There are exceptions: finding all one hundred stray beads is a mindless quest that rewards looking up strategy guides on the internet. But, searching the country for the Satomi Warriors fills out the story and makes beating Crimson Helm more important than just "here's a boss to fight." If that doesn't qualify as story-entwined gameplay, then what does?
Things that can be only used by one person at a time cannot be shared. Even in cases where true sharing is possible (as with an umbrella in the rain), there is almost always an implicit trade between the sharer and the person he shares with.
That's exactly why a patent should be only for an incredibly specific, demonstrated execution of an idea. Overly broad and unjustified application and granting of patents reduces innovation--everyone* knows that. Overly broad and unjustified application and granting of patents leads to crap products existing at the expense of better execution of the same idea--everyone* knows that, too. Everyone* suffers when mere ideas, and not the execution of those ideas, are somehow made equivalent to physical constructs--but everyone* knows that as well.
Ideas should never be treated as physical property. Only the physical constructs emerging from those ideas are actual property. Bring an idea to a working prototype, then get your patent. If you can do that, then you're a player in the game. If you can do that, then you get your construction, and not some mythical, not possible for twenty years construction, protected for a period of time. That's how the system should work. Then, and only then, does everyone benefit.
Consider this as a concrete example: If I steal an iPod, I should expect to be treated as a criminal. If I buy an iPod and rebuild it into a prototype of something newer and better, i.e. not just repainting it or giving it more storage capacity, I should be treated as an innovator, not a criminal. But, should I do that, I should be prepared for someone else to do the same to me.
*Does not apply to those who are have no intention of actually doing good with their patents.
It has been argued that P2P helps increase music sales--both new and used--by introducing downloaders to bands they would not otherwise have the opportunity to listen to. I wonder if there's a similar situation for old video games, that the availability of good emulators for all the platforms of yesteryear will eventually create more demand for the original media and manuals. Obviously, emulator game images do not come with all the extra goodies that are packaged into a retail box. Buying the genuine article would not only provide the missing support materials, but would could, in theory, resolve any copyright issues presented by having a back-up image with no original.
The quality of emulators today presents a far superior option to using original media on original systems. That, too, could have an effect on the value of old media; mint or near mint becomes less rare if the media doesn't have to be used to get the game experience.
Unfortunately, the idea of reasonable accommodation is different for the person asking for that accommodation than it is for the people around him. If you have a (perceived) allergy to wi-fi, it makes sense to you that it should be banned. It may seem selfish, but that's how people are.
The same applies to the concept of significant detriments. If you have a handicapped sticker, you may not consider it significant for an able-bodied person to have to walk an additional twenty feet to get to his car. But, look at how many people risk the not-small fine to save those few extra steps. Again, people are selfish.
The way I see it, reasonable accommodations do two things: they allow people who would otherwise be locked out of a society to contribute to the society around them, and they do not prevent the general public from making the same contributions. Banning wi-fi in public buildings because of a (perceived) allergy does neither.
By law, three wheels is still a motorcycle. You still need a motorcycle operator's license, though (at least in Illinois) a special designation limits your motorcycle endorsement to three-wheeled vehicles until you pass the licensing exams on two wheels.
Trikes do have some advantages over traditional motorcycles. Cornering ability is not one of them, but straight-line stability and traction are. Plus, you never have to lay down a trike. I know that there are those who say that you should never have to lay down a bike, but theory and practice are two different things.
I'd hate to see what happens when you lay this thing down.
It looks like my guesstimates weren't that far off, really. I only did the math for one car; given that most families have two (or even three) cars, your numbers and mine line up rather well.
Thank you much for providing some (more) concrete numbers.
I consider myself a conservative driver. I hate cars and I hate traffic, but between my wife & I, fuel costs are far above 1% and even approaching 5%. I only wish I had the money to where less than one percent was for gas. In my case, it's almost ten percent, and that's with a car that gets better than 30 mpg city (a '96 Saturn--1.9L I-4 w/5 a speed gearbox). Granted, I don't make much money, but unless you get obscene gas mileage, you'd have to pull down six digits to spend less than one percent of that on gas.
I'd guess that the vast majority of households are at least 5 percent of income to fuel. Figure that based on average yearly fuel costs on the following minimums: two fill-ups per month at 50 dollars (12 gallons E to F) to 70 dollars a visit (17 gallons E to F), plus an extra two visits because there are four weeks extra spread over twelve months, for a yearly total of 1300 to 1800 dollars at current prices. That's just for one typical (Accord, Camry, etc) car, and before taxes are taken out. If taxes suck away a third of your income before you see it, then that almost doubles your percentage of income for fuel.
Thank the piss-poor US dollar, inflation, needless war in Iraq, greedy oil execs, or whatever else suits your fancy. The 1920's will look like a cakewalk compared to what awaits us on our current course, and those of us who still have money will wish they could only spend a handful of percent of it on gas.
So, you've had to dodge steel-belted at 60+, too? That is some scary-ass shit, regardless of what you're driving.
The strange thing is that most truck tread carcasses I see appear to have plenty of tread on them. My guess is that, since rubber ages, it's the underlying rubber, and not the tread, that's unsafe. Putting a new tread on a degraded tire is like using masking tape to hold on an outisde mirror.
Not a tech tip, but one that seems to work:
I'm sure that they'd be rather quick to change their behaviors quite quickly if they had to pay for repairing the damage they've done. I've suggested this at my shop more than a few times, and parents tend to smile when they hear it, especially when their kids realize they don't have the money to pay for the next visit.
After all, if social engineering can be used to screw up a machine, why can't it be used to keep it clean?
False advertising is not a first amendment issue. It is a fraud issue. Companies that recklessly advertise what they cannot or will not deliver commit fraud. Advertising is only false advertising at the point in which what is promised is not delivered. Up until then, there is no problem, and the punishment comes after the fraud, not the advertising.
Incitement is generally not protected because of the immediate danger it poses to a very specific individual or group of individuals that are in close proximity to the person trying to start the violence. As the danger becomes less immediate and the target becomes less defined, the less likely (in theory) an incitement is to occur. For an example, compare death threats (jail time) and advocating deportation for illegal immigrants (scorn and ridicule); the likely-hood of me being able to kill one person is much greater than that of me being able to kick ten or so million somewhat random people out of the United States.
The biggest problem with deciding where unpopular ends and genuinely, immediately dangerous begins is hard to pin down. In all but the most painfully obvious cases, it's better to over-protect than over-prosecute.
1. If someone who is not me sends out mail from my computers, they are indirectly stealing from me through the extra costs involved in having and disinfecting a subverted machine: electrical use, phone useage (if dial-up), excessive bandwidth charges, repair costs, and the devaluation of MY time. It's not as obvious as having someone reach into my wallet, but I still end up losing my wealth because of his selfishness. In most other circumstances, where there are physical things being stolen, that's theft.
2. If that same someone sends out mail from my computers, using my email address, that person is pretending that he, and his communications, are me and mine, respectively. There is a simple, two word term for these types of actions--identity theft. Though there is no direct gain from pretending to be me and no direct loss to my reputation and character, that doesn't matter. The potential for heavy damage exists, and just because no one's life has been ruined (that we know of) because his machine was subverted, it's not a given that such a thing won't ever happen.
3. If that same someone sends out enough junk e-mails to cause people to block my address and prevent me from communicating with people that I need/desire to communicate, wouldn't that constitute a DoS attack? I'd think it would, especially if the e-mail address that I am (or am not) paying for gets shut down because of the actions of someone else. If I directly and maliciously compromise (say, through hacking the server) a website's ability to have its message reach the desired audience, I'd be in a lot of trouble--much like if I physically vandalized a store. I know it's not a great analogy, but it's all I have right now.
Spamming as it is done today is not a free-speech issue. It is an issue of aggression and theft. It is an issue of someone else forcing me to pay for him, in directly and indirectly incurred costs, to steal from and attack me and others. That is why spamming is different from junk mails that end up in my postal mailbox and are paid for by the sender. Postal junk mails may be annoying, but they are at least an honest attempt to serve my needs. Spam is not.
only outlaws will have anonymity? (worst case scenario, I know, but one that far too many people are in favor of).
Personally, I don't think that abortion falls under "family planning;" family planning connotes a conscious plan to limit or eliminate the possibility of pregnancy. And yes, I do think it's wrong, but I would never physically prevent someone from undergoing the procedure or attempt to negate its existence. The kind of attitude that attempts to censor something into nonexistence is more appropriate for a three-year-old dealing with monsters under his bed than the leader of the world's (for now) most powerful country and supposed bastion of freedom. I like to think that we, as individuals and as a country, have grown beyond that. Sadly, it appears we have not.
As for everyone else, the percentage of people in an office setting that are competent enough to be trusted is much, much lower. Also, given that corporate environments have a heavy emphasis on conformation and uniformity, that's the last place you'd want people making that decision.
The general rule that I've seen is that the larger the set of computers that needs to be managed, the less control you want the individual users to have over management of their machines. They can take it personally all they want, but, as much as I dislike saying this (I really do), no (large) corporation should ever let its employees use their own machines for business work or give its employees any more control over their work machines than pushing the power switch to turn it on.
In a way, it is education. The most permanent way to learn that stove are hot is to get burned by one. The most permanent way to know not to blindly click on stuff is to have to shell out good money to have your screw-ups fixed. Yes, it is a violation of trust. Yes, it is a shame that people are schmucks and feel the need to violate trust at every turn. But, that's a fact of life, plain and simple. If you were to look at it from this angle, having Safari installed from blind clicking is a far easier consequence to deal with than is getting nailed by spyware. It's the same lesson in mistrust ("Hey, I don't want this!"), if you chose to take it to heart, but without the worst pain--it's like getting a first-degree burn instead of a fourth-degree.
All said, though, this behaviour is inexcusable regardless of whomever is behind it.
And yes, this and zero-tolerance go hand in hand. Both are ways for people to appear to be "tough on crime" or some jargon like that without actually devoting the tiniest fraction of a thought to their jobs. Neither program will make any iota of difference in crime rates whatever else it is they think they're battling. Imagine, though, if this system came to pass, and someone with "criminal DNA" did something stupid in high school; what would have been "only" an suspension/expulsion turns to something far uglier. Amongst other things, it becomes justification for further expansion of programs like this. It becomes rationalization for the "all your DNA are belong to us" attitude that certain people who are in power, but shouldn't be, have.
Bottom line is that all this is good for is removing people from society in a way that intentionally-duped people will support, and, as others have pointed out, this is a very self-fulfilling prophecy. If Orwell was ahead of his time, what does that make Rene "I think, therefore, I am" Desartes?
Most people don't know that Lenovo has (almost) always built ThinkPads. IBM probably paid a huge chunk of money to make sure that the laptops built under their brand were good machines. All that happened to have ThinkPads sold under the Lenovo brand was that the rights to use the name were sold to the company that had (almost) always built the machines that wore that name. Therefore, yes, Lenovo ThinkPads do carry the same expectations by those who know as did the IBM ThinkPads. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the quality improved because Lenovo can't hide behind someone else's brand now.
What we call democracy today fits in quite well with the partially collectivist Japanese society. For their government to run smoothly, all those principles of their culture cannot be left at the doors to their Diet building. And yes, while there will be screw-ups in every government, they are more likely to be admitted to and rectified when the people who run the country hold themselves to a higher standard because of how they were raised, whether that is instilled by parental or cultural pressures. It follows, reasonably, that their national ID system is just an extension of their cultural belief in "knowing one's place." For good or bad, that's from my perspective as a U.S. citizen, but it seems that unlike some people here, though, I'm willing to try look at things through the eyes of another--even if I can never fully appreciate the view.
Proper disclaimers apply, of course. IANAJP, (if anyone can read that), and the like, but I enjoy studying both the language and the culture (parts of which I deeply admire) because both are so wildly different from what I've spent my whole life dealing with.
"This guy" complains about FOSS (competition) destroying big business by providing alternatives to overpriced, commercial crapware. Of course, the big boys don't mind having to pay gigundous amounts of money to stay in business. After all, they have the kind of capital to subsidize someone else's unfit product.
Obviously, that's a bunch of crap. FOSS benefits (almost) all businesses; large businesses can afford to put more capital into investment if they're spending less on closed source software. Small businesses can actually stay in business without fear of being bankrupted by upgrade costs or lawsuits. Let us also not forget that small businesses still employ more people in this country (the U.S.) than do mega-corps and still drive the economy more than do mega-corps. Either way, FOSS benefits the users more than the vendors, and it benefits the end customers even more. While closed source does have a place in this world, a complete reliance on it is good for no one other than the companies who hold a pseudo-monopoly on the types of software they develop.
Personally, I think the ideal mix is closed source for the underlying essentials (for interoperability purposes) or where otherwise absolutely necessary and FOSS for everything else. Our "hero" here just sounds bitter because FOSS shines light on the truth that highly-paid, closed source programmers are no better, as a whole, than programmers who write code with no financial compensation. And now, I think I'll go play an open source Tetris clone, just to irritate this clown even more.
What if someone mounted a camera on the missile? Would that be less disappointing? (Maybe) Would that make it cooler to watch? (Hell, yeah!)
That's why I don't watch television, aside from House or MXC, much anymore. Flipping through the channels, it seems that I've already seen everything that's on, even if they're all "new" episodes. Despite what some people who know me say, I do have better things to do with my time than watch recycled crap and/or re-runs.
In practice, religious people follow a man-made construct on how they think a god wants them to behave. Whatever the chosen god/construct/rules, there tends to be a blind obedience, and a blind obedience to anything, as has been said before, can't turn out well. Be it through the laws of Deuteronomy or of Sharia, the point of religion, ultimately, is control. Watching services from the back, seeing the stand-up/sit-down/chant in unison nature of "worship" looks a lot like a cult gathering. In many ways, it is, especially with those groups who have such a loyalty to their leader, they'll conveniently ignore when he goes against what he's supposed to believe in.
It's a shame that more people don't understand that religion is but a crutch used by people who are afraid that the universe is so magnificent and complex that they are too afraid to truly get in touch with it. To surpass religion and gain true spirituality is probably the most difficult, and at the same time, freeing thing that one can do in life. Look at people along the lines of Mother Theresa or the Mohatma Ghandi; they don't let their, or any one else's, religion interfere with their spirituality. They were of kind, gentle, and free heart and mind, and they couldn't have done what they did without going beyond religion.
Athiests can be spiritual; religious people can be morally bankrupt. Strange that both extreme ends of the spectrum could be found in the same part of the world....