I believe it is the law (i.e. state law, but similar in most states) that gas stations post prices.
We have an unusual situation here in that we have a commodity product--despite advertising efforts to the contrary, few motorists truly believe that it matters whether they buy Shell or Exxon--whose price is very easily compared.
Interestingly enough, it is by law that the total price per gallon (including all taxes) is posted. The cost per gallon of gas is, at least in Illinois, only about three-quarters what the signs post. I believe a part of this is that while gas companies might be greedy (and probably are), the government is greedy beyond a doubt. Imagine the riots that would spring up if the a hundred million drivers suddenly found out who was really ripping them off. Compared to the, in some places, a dollar that the various governments slip into the price of gas, the pennies that Shell or BP might steal from us amount to nothing.
I believe it is the law (i.e. state law, but similar in most states) that gas stations post prices.
We have an unusual situation here in that we have a commodity product--despite advertising efforts to the contrary, few motorists truly believe that it matters whether they buy Shell or Exxon--whose price is very easily compared.
might be greedy (and probably are), the government is greedy beyond a doubt. Imagine the riots that would spring up if the a hundred million drivers suddenly found out who was really ripping them off. Compared to the, in some places, a dollar that the various governments slip into the price of gas, the pennies that Shell or BP might steal from us amount to nothing.
Actually, they would be. If I release something under CC, then I have decided how I want people to discover my talents. No one else has any right to render my choice wrong, and the entity doing so in this case would not be the one Zune owner in Illinois visiting his one Zune owner friend in Wisconsin; neither of those people said "Let's put this DRM on this song." Microsoft, on the other hand, is the true source of the anti-CC DRM. So yes, it is MS who would get whacked in a lawsuit over any CC violations carried out by their Zune players.
And don't forget the extreme violence in this game, what with the crushing of people and the wrecking of buildings and the giant sticky-ball-induced carnage. Quick, someone inform Jack Thompson!!!
It's a video game. It doesn't need to have any hidden social contexts or vast theologies or anything else of the sort behind it. If the creator said that he wanted to make it because he thought it would be insane amounts of fun to do exactly what is done in his game, that's enough of an explanation for me. If he sais that he thinks video games are too complex and wanted to make something that could truly be enjoyed, then why can't it be left at that? If you truly want to know why Katamari, ask the man who created it and take what he says as an answer. Otherwise, all you'd be doing is putting words in someone else's mouth, and last I checked, people don't take too kindly to that.
This is why science kicks ass. I've seen posts about how people who have lost/never had limbs adapt to the necessities of lacking a certain functionality, and they should be lauded for not giving up when life kicks them in the nuts. And while it is true that if they never had that functionality, they can't miss it, it's harder to adjust to not having it if it is a new way of life as opposed to the only one ever known.
What this means is that someone in a similar situation has a choice. Instead of being "condemned" to feeling imperfect, cheated on by life, unwhole or whatever else comes with the territory, it's possible to keep up a positive attitude knowing that one can, if he chooses to, keep some of his previous abilities. It'd be interesting to research the onsets of depression that come with losing a limb. I imagine that after the initial euphoria of not losing one's life wears off, seeing that empty space where there used to be an arm or a leg takes its toll. The human mind and body are incredible organic machines with amazing flexibility and adaptability, but physical adaptations are easier than psychological ones by an order of many magnitudes. The benefits of having a semi-lifelike arm like this extend well beyond just being physically able to hug one's grandchildren. The psychological boost of being able to hug someone may be difficult to measure in quantitative terms, but that doesn't mean it is insignificant.
"(Because) if I hit somebody with a nonlethal weapon and they claim that it injured them in a way that was not intended, I think that I would be vilified in the world press."
Just by considering turning the U.S. military on the very people it's supposed to protect, you're going to be vilified in the press both abroad and at home. No matter what pretty words you try to dress this truth up with, that is exactly what you are proposing. That your unproven weapons would only be "tested" in crowd control situations makes no difference. The citizens of the country are not your guinea pigs. They shouldn't be expected to sit back and let you "test" your weapons on them. You made the damn things, you should have the balls to "test" them on yourselves.
I put the quotes around test because I don't think the focus is on testing the weapons at all. I think it's just a way for them to flex some muscle and show that they've got the biggest slingshots, and tough shit if you don't like it, because there's nothing that you can do about it That they bring up crowd control shows an awful lot about their motives. Even if there were some legitimate tests that needed to be done that had to be done on real people, doing it this way only serves to scare the citizens into compliance with whatever the politico-gods want us to do.
Those who realize how foolish it is aren't in any position to do anything about it. This adversarial tactic does no one any good. Target gets heat if they actually point out how many blind people use their website (I'm guessing less than a small fraction of 1%). The blind people get heat when they complain about an inherently visual medium not being accessable enough. And, of course, no matter the outcome, laywers get heat for participating in this stupidity.
The reasonable tactic would have been to approach Target and offer to work with them to find a solution. Not only would it be cheaper for all sides in the short and long terms, but the positive light it would cast all parties in would bring everyone more money--more than enough to offset the costs of at least a partial site rebuild. In this case, the cheaper solution is the one that lets everyone win. Sadly, this fight is not about what's best for everyone. It's about sticking it to Target. That is how I think most people will see it.
Incidentally, the people who this is most dangerous for are the ones bringing the complaint. The opinion that people with disabilities want a free ride is not a small one, though almost always, it is wrong. Many, many people will remember this as Target being attacked, not as a last resort, but as an immediate and unwarranted response to a problem that is virtually non-existent. It will be incredibly difficult for this to be spun positively, and I fully expect that this particular disabilities advocacy group will see much smaller donations as a direct result of this lawsuit. Unfortunately, this train of thought doesn't even stop in the minds of the people responsible for the lawsuit. They have no idea how much damage they are really doing to their cause.
So while I love the UI of OS X, the consistency of it is not there yet. I want the latest AND the greatest. And whether people like it or not, when Vista comes out, it will be both.
I think you misspelled something there. It should be "the latest AND the grate-est." As in, I hope Vista is declared D.O.A. once it ships because all the crap MS decided to load into it is so damn annoying. Neither Vista nor XP does anything that my tried and true Win2000+SP4 doesn't do, other than impose silly restrictions, of course.
You miss the point. PreacherTom correctly recognizes that members of the media must have the same privacy rights that non-media citizens have (though whether or not the non-media citizens still have them is up for debate). They don't, or more exactly, shouldn't need more or less potection from having their lives imitated/stolen/ruined from above (below) than the rest of us. Once subpoenaed by a court, the situation changes. But, so does it change for the non-media citizen in the same situation. HP does not have the power of subpoena, obviously, so there was no reason for the company to condone and/or encourage this behavior.
As an side note, I wonder if these hired guns that HP sicced on the reporters as well as its own people can be charged with identity theft. It seems to me that pretexting is, on a very small scale, stealing another person's identity. Imitation is one thing, but this is not imitation. Instead, it is an attempt by the hired guns to illegaly obtain what they had no right to by pretending to be someone else. Small scale, though it may be, it is the same thing criminals do when they wish to become another person to get what only that person is legally entitled to.
Universities aren't about education anymore. It's all about putting asses in the seats--not classroom seats, but football stadium seats. If it really were about the education, universities wouldn't constantly bend the rules for star athletes. If the average student who needs 5,000 dollars a semester in student loans just to stay enrolled tried any number of the stunts that athletes pull, he'd be out the door almost immediately.
Even so, there are still students who actually want to learn and improve themselves, and are willing to shell out big dollars for the opportunity to do so. A university education is expensive, and that student who will end up with five-digit debt upon graduation needs all the tools he can get. Podcasts don't replace the classroom, both for better and for worse, but they can be a valuable asset when used properly. Students who wish to succeed will use all their tools to do so. Students who don't care are just wasting their time and their (or their parents') money.
Just make the podcasts freely available. Good students will use them to their advantage. Students who shouldn't be there will use them as an excuse to slack off even more. Making them freely available helps to separate the two classes of students and will probably make the lectures more interesting. And, though I haven't seen anyone mention it, it also allows students to do a little thing called independent research. Time and money are limited, and freely available podcasts provide another way for students to satisfy their intellectual curiosities without compromising their schedules or their finances. Of all the advantages, this last one is probably the most compelling reason to not restrict access.
Not I. Regardless of the argument of "Is it theft or piracy," these employees showed a complete disregard for the rules. Granted, letting salespeople play with the new product probably makes them better able to sell it, but there's legal ways to familiarize oneself with what one would be selling. Breaking a reasonable policy to do so isn't worth the consequences of getting caught.
"While I am sounding cautionary notes about new legislation, let me make clear that if broadband providers engage in anticompetitive conduct, we will not hesitate to act using our existing authority," she (Chairwoman Majoras) said. "But I have to say, thus far, proponents of Net neutrality regulation have not come to us to explain where the market is failing or what anticompetitive conduct we should challenge."
I suppose something can't fail if it doesn't exist. "The market" only exists if there's a real choice of options, and when it comes to the U.S. version of broadband internet, "the market" has never existed on a meaningful scale. The choice is between either DSL from the bell-affiliated telco (which itself is most likely a monopoly) or cable from the likes of Comcast (or some other similar monopolistic cable TV company) or no higher speed access at all, with some places not even having both DSL or cable to choose from. That is not "the market" in the sense that Chairwoman Majoras would like to seem to be talking about.
If the comments of Chariwoman Majoras are to be believed, we should soon see the government investigating behavior itself has allowed. That would be rather interesting, and I'd tune in to see the feds stumble over their tongues trying to legitimately explain why having so few real choices in paid TV service/broadband service/land line phone service benefits me. I'd like to see why the companies that provide these services are so damn sacred that their acts can't even be challenged. I want to know why it is that government-funded and supported companies are allowed to even think that they have the right to tell me what sources of information I can and cannot seek. That, more than anything, is how I view the debate.
I see a big gaping hole: the people involved. At best, people are careless and forgetful with these kinds of things. At worst, they'll find a way to steal the info that's shown to them. No system can ever be 100% secure so long as people are involved, and since computers don't spontaneously appear programmed and ready to go, even a fully automated system will have that weakness.
With the potential privacy concerns, obvious expenses, and lack of ostensible improvement over older cars, I don't understand why anyone is buying new.
Don't forget that when buying a suitably used car, it's often possible to avoid taking out a loan, meaning the car is fully and outright owned immediately. The kind of jury-rigging it takes to disable air-bags, ABS, and now ECR boxes certainly isn't looked kindly upon by lending institutions or dealers, both of which have an interest in maintaining the vehicle's "intact" condition, as this leads to more money at auction/resale time.
By the 1970's, all pinball machines had flippers and drop targets and the like. Flippers were introduced as far back as 1947 http://www.pinballhistory.com/lpins.html and were standard fare by the 50's, even though the flippers didn't always flip the same way. At the time when the lobbying to have pinball de-classified as a game of chance was going on, it had evolved into a game of skill. Granted, there is still an amount of luck involved, but very few things are truly independent of chance.
Let us forget the whole "Bush lied; people died" mantra. Please do remember that Saddam Hussein made a habit of thumbing his nose at the United Nations, and that instead of following up on all its condemnations of his actions, the UN just laughed at his antics. Also remember that the 15 UN resolutions against Hussein carried the threat of force if he violated the terms of appeasement, and that is what they were. The removal of that man from power was necessary. President Bush just played the hand that he knew would win, and whether or not it was the right hand to play is somewhat debatable. Personally, I think he should have pointed to those resolutions and let the chips fall from there.
As the list of impeachment motivations moves closer and closer to the present day, the picture becomes less blurry. As Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, all actions eventaully come back to him. It is the ultimate extention of unit commanders being responsible for the actions of the men under their charge, and anything less than the President coming down full on the asses of those who committed war crimes is unacceptable. Even if he didn't sanction these actions, allowing them to happen implies tacit approval. That is no less grounds for impeachment than if he gave verbal or written authorization for such actions.
Even so, the U.S. Constitution says nothing about the treatment of foreign nationals or enemy combatants. The protections in the Constitution only extend to legal residents of the country. The wiretapping fiasco, above all else, shows the President's willingness to ride roughshod over one of the most important parts of his own oath of office--to uphold the Constitution of the United States. In a sense, he has declared war on the citizens of his own country by violating the laws he is supposed to hold sacred. Such acts are more than borderline treasonous, and if anything, they should be first and foremost in any impeachment hearings. They represent the exact kind of behavior that impeachment is supposed to neutralize and remove from power.
It appears that the author or VirtualDub might not be in trouble at all. According to the comments about his blog entry, the letters are worthless if they aren't from a lawyer--and sometimes even if they are. It also seems that since his program has documented existence that predates the word mark "registration," such a registration would be invalid.
No less troubling, though, are those who can't do a damn thing in life trying to legally steal from those who actually produce something of value. I can't think of any better word to describe the actions of people who create nothing, not even ideas, and sue when someone comes up with a device that loosely resembles their mystery ideas.
So, you're telling me that the biggest reason to buy the player--to watch the movies on discs that offer something supposedly better than the DVD experience--doesn't even apply??? Hold on one second...
The truth is that there is a group of people out there who only want to kill. You are no more an individual target of their aspirations as you are no more the direct target of restrictions of what you are allowed to take on a plane with you. These people don't care. The fact that they are willing to die to kill others means that we going to suffer some extraordinary restrictions just to make sure they don't get the chance. You want to blame someone, blame them. I know, its far easier to blame our government and Bush (in fact its popular among some segments) but the truth is that they didn't create this enemy. Its been around a long time. Time and technology have given them a means to hit people other than in their home areas.
Though I may be reviled for saying so, this paragraph contains quite a bit of truth to it. In fact, I would take it one step further. Killing is not only the purpose of the individuals of this group, it forms the entire basis of the group's existence as a whole. They don't care who they kill, or when they kill, or even why they kill. Just look at the plethora of excuses they offer for their continued insistance on waging war against everyone else. It doesn't matter what we do; no matter how many times we give in, they'll just resort to another excuse. Granted, some of their "reasoning" has legitimate roots, but they've taken those roots and distorted them to suit their purposes--namely indiscriminate killing.
And in response to Null357's complaint about having to alter his habits, allow me to point out that nowhere is the right to listen to music on a trans-atlantic flight guaranteed. It is an inconvenience to have to sit in silence, not a tragedy. It is an inconvenience to not be able to use a phone or a laptop or a GameBoy in flight, not a tragedy. While it is true that banning such items is reactionary and may never foil another attempt at creating massive death and destruction, it is even more audacious and ignorant and selfish to just assume that the niceties and pvileges you want are important. Heck, your complaint wouldn't even exist if airlines never allowed such items in the first place, and they have never had any compulsion to do so.
What would you have the government do? The media has already handcuffed them with the help of paticular interest groups from doing what is truly effective, profiling.
Profiling, like any other tool, can me misused to the point of ineffectiveness. Having said that, right now it does make sense--not as an ends but as a means to find out who poses the biggest threat. It's a starting point that does wonders for narrowing the scope of an investigation. Eventually, though, its usefulness will fade as those who wish to kill change their tactics. The question is whether the investigators will be able to keep up.
Lastly, inconveniences do not mean that liberties get trampled. As details come out over time, we'll learn how this plot was uncovered. I can say with almost 100% certainty, however, that it wasn't the result of some massive, see-all surveillance program that netted thousands of false positives before stumbling on one slip-up by the would-be attackers. It was foiled through the use of old-fashioned intelligence (of the real sort) and uncountable hours of back-breaking analysis. I'm not a cheerleader for the government, but if they did their job on this one the right way, kudos to them. If they did their job on this one the right way, I hope that they'll realize that true intelligence takes work and that there are no short-cuts. Unfortunately, I see whatever success comes from this incident being used to further programs that are not only ineffective, but also truly damage this country and its citizens in ways that those who would kill can only have wet dreams about.
If I were going to stab anyone, it'd be the game developers. They'll look at this and decide that everyone needs to see every pore on the face of every NPC in every game on the market just because a credit-card melting video setup allows them to program that. In a few years, this kind of setup will be less than bare minimum for whatever the big franchise title is while the gameplay will be below that of the worst Atari 2600 games. No one needs QuadSLI set-ups for playing video games, save for the fact that by buying them just to have them, they encourage game developers to try to use up every bit of all the pixel pipelines. For those of us who don't have the resources to make such a rig, a whole boatload of games will be either unplayable or a completely different experience than intended. Whether or not this is bad is left to debate once those games come out.
On the other hand, if you professionally need such hardware, you'd want to encourage this type of irresponsible spending. For home video enthusiasts, it's just one more step towards being able to leave the world of cut-and-paste video editing behind for good. If you're into graphic arts, it puts (previously) mega-corporation graphics proccessing power on your desk at home. In the professional world, there's nothing but good times ahead.
Re:Why you're better off with a higher sallary:
on
Places Rated, Skeptically
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Given:
Job A: $50,000/year, $10,000 annual rent.
Job B: $100,000/year, $40,000 annual rent.
So, Product X, where X is a car, xbox360, etc., costs the same in both locations. In Job A, you have to work longer to be able to buy X, despite things like rent.
Also, despite rent, you net 60K a year from Job B vs 40K a year from Job A.
Although this simplistic analysis is true, one must keep in mind that in Job A, your extra money goes a lot further than with Job B. When other variable expenses, such as food, electricity, gasoline, etc are thrown in, the scenario changes. It could be that Job A leaves you with an extra 30,000 a year while Job B leaves you with only an extra 40,000 a year. Given that money goes a lot further with Job A, it seems to me that having to buy a Toyota Camry instead of a Hummer H2 is more than enough a price to pay to have, in the end, more discretionary income.
For example, one of the biggest variables outside of rent/mortgage is auto insurance. It's really easy to see the difference between Los Angeles and your pick of small town. Granted, the following numbers are just quick and dirty rate quotes, but the point is clear. I am a 26-year-old single male with a clean driving record. For me to insure a 2006 Chevy Cobalt 4-door base model with AllState, the 6-month premium in L.A. is almost 1600 dollars. In Arlington, Virginia, comprable insurance would be one third of what it is in L.A. (500 dollars for six months).
Personally, I'd rather live in a small city than in Los Angeles. The air quality is so low, I wouldn't dare go outside without at least a hospital mask. The traffic would give me nightmares that I'd have to pass on to my kids because there wouldn't be enough nights in my life to have them all. It's a dirty, unsafe, overly crowded city, in my opinion. I'd much rather have the laid back life that can never be found in a city like Los Angeles. There's a lot more to the quality of life than how much money one makes or what the cost of living is compared to salary.
From a professional standpoint, I believe that if I had a tech job, I could serve my clients much better in a small city than a large one. Again, it's a product of the different lifestyle. Instead of my clients being phone numbers, I could actually take the time to know them personally and professionally and better tailor my services to fit their needs. For me, that's much more rewarding than trying to take care of a dozen clients at once and not fully meeting the needs of a single one.
If there were no memory cards, the only games sold would be games that could be finished in a couple hours (as continue codes are a pain). Just as memory cards opened up a market for longer, more complex games that would not be made/bought otherwise, mod chips open up the market for people to buy games the would not be able to play without such a chip. How does offering more choices lead to fewer sales of games?
1. Media companies want DRM. Apple comes up with a (relatively) non-restrictive response, barely enough to get approval.
2. iTunes explodes in popularity, in part because most people don't want to/need to go beyond what they are allowed to do. This popularity is not about "DRM is right" v. "DRM is wrong." It's about the illusion of freedom (and it is an illusion); the limits of freedom are only known when they're reached, and most iTunes users don't reach them. Those that do, go around because it's easy to do so.
3. The popularity of iTunes makes media companies drool. They want more, but can't get it because they agreed to a certain business model. They can't change the model or get out of iTunes because they need the money that iTunes brings in.
Sometimes, the best way to defeat an enemy is to make him your friend. This is sort of what Apple has done to the media companies. Sure, the growth of iTunes exceeded reasonable expectations, but that was a risk the media companies took. Were iTunes not as big as it is, the situation would be reversed, but for now, Steve Jobs pretty much has the media companies doing his bidding. If that doesn't make them Apple's servants, then what would?
This fits in with the author's comments on the "attach rate"--accessories sold per console sold. The biggest problem with mod chips is that they void the warranty of the console. Allowing them as an add-on option (and possibly certifying XYZ, co. to manufacture the chips) means that the upgrade can be done without voiding the warranty, should console design permit this. A system that would never be purchased is now desirable because its usefulness is increased, and maybe MS sells more consoles. They would certainly sell more add-ons and they'd also sell more games. More sales means more money, and everyone goes home happy.
For those who say such a model can't work, look at the success of the factory-tuner divisions of major automakers. Mod chips for consoles are not too dissimilar.
This means that MS wants Windows machines to be sleek, stylish, overpriced and unreliable, just like Jaguars were (are?). The only difference is that you can change what's under the hood of a computer much easier than what's under the hood of a car.
All kidding aside, this isn't too bad a situation. It would be nice to get all the parts in one place instead of hunting down a nice case, a fast GPU, lotsa RAM, etc etc. Even barebones kits don't come with everything, and they tend to have dull cases. And yes, I know there are places where one can get outrageously styled (think Alienware) cases with hot-rod electronics, but that's not my thing. Give me a case that's attractive, yet semi-conservative and that would fit in at home or at the office and stuff it with the goods to perform wherever I need it. Give me good parts at a good price and I'll go the BYOOS (bring your own OS) route. Do that and make the case not an eye-sore, and I'll go that way faster. Do not, however, throw crap parts in an ugly--or worse yet, kindergarten-styled--case,throw in a P.O.S. operating system and charge me more than the stuff is worth.
Bottom line: attractive computers are nice, but only if they work right. Sadly, today's culture is fascinated with shiny things and doesn't care if those things are nothing more than sparkly paint on piles of crap.
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I screwed up, so here's what I wanted to say!
Interestingly enough, it is by law that the total price per gallon (including all taxes) is posted. The cost per gallon of gas is, at least in Illinois, only about three-quarters what the signs post. I believe a part of this is that while gas companies might be greedy (and probably are), the government is greedy beyond a doubt. Imagine the riots that would spring up if the a hundred million drivers suddenly found out who was really ripping them off. Compared to the, in some places, a dollar that the various governments slip into the price of gas, the pennies that Shell or BP might steal from us amount to nothing.
Actually, they would be. If I release something under CC, then I have decided how I want people to discover my talents. No one else has any right to render my choice wrong, and the entity doing so in this case would not be the one Zune owner in Illinois visiting his one Zune owner friend in Wisconsin; neither of those people said "Let's put this DRM on this song." Microsoft, on the other hand, is the true source of the anti-CC DRM. So yes, it is MS who would get whacked in a lawsuit over any CC violations carried out by their Zune players.
It's a video game. It doesn't need to have any hidden social contexts or vast theologies or anything else of the sort behind it. If the creator said that he wanted to make it because he thought it would be insane amounts of fun to do exactly what is done in his game, that's enough of an explanation for me. If he sais that he thinks video games are too complex and wanted to make something that could truly be enjoyed, then why can't it be left at that? If you truly want to know why Katamari, ask the man who created it and take what he says as an answer. Otherwise, all you'd be doing is putting words in someone else's mouth, and last I checked, people don't take too kindly to that.
What this means is that someone in a similar situation has a choice. Instead of being "condemned" to feeling imperfect, cheated on by life, unwhole or whatever else comes with the territory, it's possible to keep up a positive attitude knowing that one can, if he chooses to, keep some of his previous abilities. It'd be interesting to research the onsets of depression that come with losing a limb. I imagine that after the initial euphoria of not losing one's life wears off, seeing that empty space where there used to be an arm or a leg takes its toll. The human mind and body are incredible organic machines with amazing flexibility and adaptability, but physical adaptations are easier than psychological ones by an order of many magnitudes. The benefits of having a semi-lifelike arm like this extend well beyond just being physically able to hug one's grandchildren. The psychological boost of being able to hug someone may be difficult to measure in quantitative terms, but that doesn't mean it is insignificant.
I put the quotes around test because I don't think the focus is on testing the weapons at all. I think it's just a way for them to flex some muscle and show that they've got the biggest slingshots, and tough shit if you don't like it, because there's nothing that you can do about it That they bring up crowd control shows an awful lot about their motives. Even if there were some legitimate tests that needed to be done that had to be done on real people, doing it this way only serves to scare the citizens into compliance with whatever the politico-gods want us to do.
The reasonable tactic would have been to approach Target and offer to work with them to find a solution. Not only would it be cheaper for all sides in the short and long terms, but the positive light it would cast all parties in would bring everyone more money--more than enough to offset the costs of at least a partial site rebuild. In this case, the cheaper solution is the one that lets everyone win. Sadly, this fight is not about what's best for everyone. It's about sticking it to Target. That is how I think most people will see it.
Incidentally, the people who this is most dangerous for are the ones bringing the complaint. The opinion that people with disabilities want a free ride is not a small one, though almost always, it is wrong. Many, many people will remember this as Target being attacked, not as a last resort, but as an immediate and unwarranted response to a problem that is virtually non-existent. It will be incredibly difficult for this to be spun positively, and I fully expect that this particular disabilities advocacy group will see much smaller donations as a direct result of this lawsuit. Unfortunately, this train of thought doesn't even stop in the minds of the people responsible for the lawsuit. They have no idea how much damage they are really doing to their cause.
I think you misspelled something there. It should be "the latest AND the grate-est." As in, I hope Vista is declared D.O.A. once it ships because all the crap MS decided to load into it is so damn annoying. Neither Vista nor XP does anything that my tried and true Win2000+SP4 doesn't do, other than impose silly restrictions, of course.
As an side note, I wonder if these hired guns that HP sicced on the reporters as well as its own people can be charged with identity theft. It seems to me that pretexting is, on a very small scale, stealing another person's identity. Imitation is one thing, but this is not imitation. Instead, it is an attempt by the hired guns to illegaly obtain what they had no right to by pretending to be someone else. Small scale, though it may be, it is the same thing criminals do when they wish to become another person to get what only that person is legally entitled to.
Universities aren't about education anymore. It's all about putting asses in the seats--not classroom seats, but football stadium seats. If it really were about the education, universities wouldn't constantly bend the rules for star athletes. If the average student who needs 5,000 dollars a semester in student loans just to stay enrolled tried any number of the stunts that athletes pull, he'd be out the door almost immediately.
Even so, there are still students who actually want to learn and improve themselves, and are willing to shell out big dollars for the opportunity to do so. A university education is expensive, and that student who will end up with five-digit debt upon graduation needs all the tools he can get. Podcasts don't replace the classroom, both for better and for worse, but they can be a valuable asset when used properly. Students who wish to succeed will use all their tools to do so. Students who don't care are just wasting their time and their (or their parents') money.
Just make the podcasts freely available. Good students will use them to their advantage. Students who shouldn't be there will use them as an excuse to slack off even more. Making them freely available helps to separate the two classes of students and will probably make the lectures more interesting. And, though I haven't seen anyone mention it, it also allows students to do a little thing called independent research. Time and money are limited, and freely available podcasts provide another way for students to satisfy their intellectual curiosities without compromising their schedules or their finances. Of all the advantages, this last one is probably the most compelling reason to not restrict access.
Not I. Regardless of the argument of "Is it theft or piracy," these employees showed a complete disregard for the rules. Granted, letting salespeople play with the new product probably makes them better able to sell it, but there's legal ways to familiarize oneself with what one would be selling. Breaking a reasonable policy to do so isn't worth the consequences of getting caught.
I suppose something can't fail if it doesn't exist. "The market" only exists if there's a real choice of options, and when it comes to the U.S. version of broadband internet, "the market" has never existed on a meaningful scale. The choice is between either DSL from the bell-affiliated telco (which itself is most likely a monopoly) or cable from the likes of Comcast (or some other similar monopolistic cable TV company) or no higher speed access at all, with some places not even having both DSL or cable to choose from. That is not "the market" in the sense that Chairwoman Majoras would like to seem to be talking about.
If the comments of Chariwoman Majoras are to be believed, we should soon see the government investigating behavior itself has allowed. That would be rather interesting, and I'd tune in to see the feds stumble over their tongues trying to legitimately explain why having so few real choices in paid TV service/broadband service/land line phone service benefits me. I'd like to see why the companies that provide these services are so damn sacred that their acts can't even be challenged. I want to know why it is that government-funded and supported companies are allowed to even think that they have the right to tell me what sources of information I can and cannot seek. That, more than anything, is how I view the debate.
I see a big gaping hole: the people involved. At best, people are careless and forgetful with these kinds of things. At worst, they'll find a way to steal the info that's shown to them. No system can ever be 100% secure so long as people are involved, and since computers don't spontaneously appear programmed and ready to go, even a fully automated system will have that weakness.
Don't forget that when buying a suitably used car, it's often possible to avoid taking out a loan, meaning the car is fully and outright owned immediately. The kind of jury-rigging it takes to disable air-bags, ABS, and now ECR boxes certainly isn't looked kindly upon by lending institutions or dealers, both of which have an interest in maintaining the vehicle's "intact" condition, as this leads to more money at auction/resale time.
By the 1970's, all pinball machines had flippers and drop targets and the like. Flippers were introduced as far back as 1947 http://www.pinballhistory.com/lpins.html and were standard fare by the 50's, even though the flippers didn't always flip the same way. At the time when the lobbying to have pinball de-classified as a game of chance was going on, it had evolved into a game of skill. Granted, there is still an amount of luck involved, but very few things are truly independent of chance.
As the list of impeachment motivations moves closer and closer to the present day, the picture becomes less blurry. As Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, all actions eventaully come back to him. It is the ultimate extention of unit commanders being responsible for the actions of the men under their charge, and anything less than the President coming down full on the asses of those who committed war crimes is unacceptable. Even if he didn't sanction these actions, allowing them to happen implies tacit approval. That is no less grounds for impeachment than if he gave verbal or written authorization for such actions.
Even so, the U.S. Constitution says nothing about the treatment of foreign nationals or enemy combatants. The protections in the Constitution only extend to legal residents of the country. The wiretapping fiasco, above all else, shows the President's willingness to ride roughshod over one of the most important parts of his own oath of office--to uphold the Constitution of the United States. In a sense, he has declared war on the citizens of his own country by violating the laws he is supposed to hold sacred. Such acts are more than borderline treasonous, and if anything, they should be first and foremost in any impeachment hearings. They represent the exact kind of behavior that impeachment is supposed to neutralize and remove from power.
No less troubling, though, are those who can't do a damn thing in life trying to legally steal from those who actually produce something of value. I can't think of any better word to describe the actions of people who create nothing, not even ideas, and sue when someone comes up with a device that loosely resembles their mystery ideas.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
I couldn't make "stuff" up as unintentionally hilarious as this. Seriously....
Though I may be reviled for saying so, this paragraph contains quite a bit of truth to it. In fact, I would take it one step further. Killing is not only the purpose of the individuals of this group, it forms the entire basis of the group's existence as a whole. They don't care who they kill, or when they kill, or even why they kill. Just look at the plethora of excuses they offer for their continued insistance on waging war against everyone else. It doesn't matter what we do; no matter how many times we give in, they'll just resort to another excuse. Granted, some of their "reasoning" has legitimate roots, but they've taken those roots and distorted them to suit their purposes--namely indiscriminate killing.
And in response to Null357's complaint about having to alter his habits, allow me to point out that nowhere is the right to listen to music on a trans-atlantic flight guaranteed. It is an inconvenience to have to sit in silence, not a tragedy. It is an inconvenience to not be able to use a phone or a laptop or a GameBoy in flight, not a tragedy. While it is true that banning such items is reactionary and may never foil another attempt at creating massive death and destruction, it is even more audacious and ignorant and selfish to just assume that the niceties and pvileges you want are important. Heck, your complaint wouldn't even exist if airlines never allowed such items in the first place, and they have never had any compulsion to do so.
Profiling, like any other tool, can me misused to the point of ineffectiveness. Having said that, right now it does make sense--not as an ends but as a means to find out who poses the biggest threat. It's a starting point that does wonders for narrowing the scope of an investigation. Eventually, though, its usefulness will fade as those who wish to kill change their tactics. The question is whether the investigators will be able to keep up.
Lastly, inconveniences do not mean that liberties get trampled. As details come out over time, we'll learn how this plot was uncovered. I can say with almost 100% certainty, however, that it wasn't the result of some massive, see-all surveillance program that netted thousands of false positives before stumbling on one slip-up by the would-be attackers. It was foiled through the use of old-fashioned intelligence (of the real sort) and uncountable hours of back-breaking analysis. I'm not a cheerleader for the government, but if they did their job on this one the right way, kudos to them. If they did their job on this one the right way, I hope that they'll realize that true intelligence takes work and that there are no short-cuts. Unfortunately, I see whatever success comes from this incident being used to further programs that are not only ineffective, but also truly damage this country and its citizens in ways that those who would kill can only have wet dreams about.
On the other hand, if you professionally need such hardware, you'd want to encourage this type of irresponsible spending. For home video enthusiasts, it's just one more step towards being able to leave the world of cut-and-paste video editing behind for good. If you're into graphic arts, it puts (previously) mega-corporation graphics proccessing power on your desk at home. In the professional world, there's nothing but good times ahead.
Although this simplistic analysis is true, one must keep in mind that in Job A, your extra money goes a lot further than with Job B. When other variable expenses, such as food, electricity, gasoline, etc are thrown in, the scenario changes. It could be that Job A leaves you with an extra 30,000 a year while Job B leaves you with only an extra 40,000 a year. Given that money goes a lot further with Job A, it seems to me that having to buy a Toyota Camry instead of a Hummer H2 is more than enough a price to pay to have, in the end, more discretionary income.
For example, one of the biggest variables outside of rent/mortgage is auto insurance. It's really easy to see the difference between Los Angeles and your pick of small town. Granted, the following numbers are just quick and dirty rate quotes, but the point is clear. I am a 26-year-old single male with a clean driving record. For me to insure a 2006 Chevy Cobalt 4-door base model with AllState, the 6-month premium in L.A. is almost 1600 dollars. In Arlington, Virginia, comprable insurance would be one third of what it is in L.A. (500 dollars for six months).
Personally, I'd rather live in a small city than in Los Angeles. The air quality is so low, I wouldn't dare go outside without at least a hospital mask. The traffic would give me nightmares that I'd have to pass on to my kids because there wouldn't be enough nights in my life to have them all. It's a dirty, unsafe, overly crowded city, in my opinion. I'd much rather have the laid back life that can never be found in a city like Los Angeles. There's a lot more to the quality of life than how much money one makes or what the cost of living is compared to salary.
From a professional standpoint, I believe that if I had a tech job, I could serve my clients much better in a small city than a large one. Again, it's a product of the different lifestyle. Instead of my clients being phone numbers, I could actually take the time to know them personally and professionally and better tailor my services to fit their needs. For me, that's much more rewarding than trying to take care of a dozen clients at once and not fully meeting the needs of a single one.
If there were no memory cards, the only games sold would be games that could be finished in a couple hours (as continue codes are a pain). Just as memory cards opened up a market for longer, more complex games that would not be made/bought otherwise, mod chips open up the market for people to buy games the would not be able to play without such a chip. How does offering more choices lead to fewer sales of games?
2. iTunes explodes in popularity, in part because most people don't want to/need to go beyond what they are allowed to do. This popularity is not about "DRM is right" v. "DRM is wrong." It's about the illusion of freedom (and it is an illusion); the limits of freedom are only known when they're reached, and most iTunes users don't reach them. Those that do, go around because it's easy to do so.
3. The popularity of iTunes makes media companies drool. They want more, but can't get it because they agreed to a certain business model. They can't change the model or get out of iTunes because they need the money that iTunes brings in.
Sometimes, the best way to defeat an enemy is to make him your friend. This is sort of what Apple has done to the media companies. Sure, the growth of iTunes exceeded reasonable expectations, but that was a risk the media companies took. Were iTunes not as big as it is, the situation would be reversed, but for now, Steve Jobs pretty much has the media companies doing his bidding. If that doesn't make them Apple's servants, then what would?
For those who say such a model can't work, look at the success of the factory-tuner divisions of major automakers. Mod chips for consoles are not too dissimilar.
All kidding aside, this isn't too bad a situation. It would be nice to get all the parts in one place instead of hunting down a nice case, a fast GPU, lotsa RAM, etc etc. Even barebones kits don't come with everything, and they tend to have dull cases. And yes, I know there are places where one can get outrageously styled (think Alienware) cases with hot-rod electronics, but that's not my thing. Give me a case that's attractive, yet semi-conservative and that would fit in at home or at the office and stuff it with the goods to perform wherever I need it. Give me good parts at a good price and I'll go the BYOOS (bring your own OS) route. Do that and make the case not an eye-sore, and I'll go that way faster. Do not, however, throw crap parts in an ugly--or worse yet, kindergarten-styled--case,throw in a P.O.S. operating system and charge me more than the stuff is worth.
Bottom line: attractive computers are nice, but only if they work right. Sadly, today's culture is fascinated with shiny things and doesn't care if those things are nothing more than sparkly paint on piles of crap.