Posts by Serenity 25 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Feb 2008
The "Show and Display" law was passed and in 1999/2000 and allowed some non-street legal vehicles to be registered on a limited basis. Bill Gates had more than a little bit to do with passing this law and he did take delivery of his 959, it was just 13 years after he ordered it. I have no idea if he still owns it (although a Porsche 959 is work a GREAT deal more than $80,000 these days).
My PC is wired into my home theater and I use it heavily for gaming and multimedia. My logitech MX5500 has been absolutely fantastic and the keyboard and mouse or both responsive. The mouse goes 5 days between recharges and the keyboard goes 4-6 months without new batteries (so I have to disagree with the claim that bluetooth uses too much battery).
I switched from a corded G15 and G7 gaming mouse setup when I started using my system from the couch and I have to say, the MX5500 setup isn't quite as good for gaming, but it's still very very good.
I forget the specifics, but there was a longish legal battle that kept Nokia from selling their more advanced phones in the United States (patent dispute I think). As such they haven't had much market penetration for years and walking into any cellular store in the US you might see one or two Nokia models, and they're typically not the top of the line. So the data is, apparently, accurate for the United States, but quite obviously is not representative of the global market. Someone else probably remembers the specifics better than I....
I'm on the other side of the pond, so I don't know about the practicalities and likely response, but it seems to me that a flash mob approach could be an entertaining way to deal with the police seizing cameras issue.
Arrange for 20-30 people to show up around a cop or police car, take their picture and then immediately disperse in different directions. Do it enough times, don't hang around longer than necessary to take the shot and pick isolated cops and you ought to make your point pretty fast.
"There are some customers which we chose not to serve. We don't know how to make a $500 computer that's not a piece of junk, and our DNA will not let us ship that."
Whether you like Apple or not, I'm not really impressed with the sentiment there. I absolutely love my Asus 1008HA, I know what it can and can't do (though it frequently surprises me on the can). In specs to price (and design) it's not a piece of junk, it does the job well, reliably, and aethetically. If the Koreans can make a $500 computer that's not a piece of junk and the Cupertino crew that Steve Jobs has put together can't, then I really have to wonder exactly what happened to their creativity.
(Don't have anything in particular against Apple hardware and software, I just thought that it was a particularly arrogant and silly statement).
"Come to think of it, that last restriction could have prevented those sexting Pennsylvania teens from landing in a heap of trouble."
IIRC the iPhone does not yet have MMS capability, so really, just having an iPhone would have prevented the secting teens from landing in a heap of trouble.
(yeah, yeah, still has e-mail)
1. Actually it is unlikely that he has harmed his chances at being a police officer later in life. In the U.S. your juvenile record is sealed when you turn 18.
2. He wouldn't have a gun because the vast majority of American police departments issue service weapons permanently, only special weapons are checked in and checked out. Without going through the system properly he couldn't be issued a firearm (granted, I'm starting to question whether that is really true, or just policy).
"This actually fits in perfectly, especially to the up and coming administration. The majority of those in government are failures in their personal lives, can't do anything on their own, can't run a business, only know how to work for someone. It only makes sense to reel in failed corporate executives to come in and work with the rest of the failure so they can all fail together and at the end of the day it's only tax money that's being flushed down the toliet.
Do you really know anyone that went through school saying I want to work for the government? Ha."
What a complete and utter load of nonsense.
For an 84 year old man I'll agree with you that Steven's explanation isn't entirely terrible, even if it is muddled. And you get muddled form an 84 year old Alaskan.
As to the rest of your points, there's no problem with a politician having a few perks, but there are huge problems with people buying your support through financial advantage and then going a step further and actively hiding that said money, goods, or services were provided.
What you can and cannot accept and what you must and must not disclose as a United States Senator is clearly established, not only did Stevens accept what amounted to gifts from an oil lobbyist (friend or not) he went on to hide the fact that he accepted him (the illegal part, which he was convicted for). Are other politicians guilty of similar things? Unfortunately, it's not only likely I'm sure it's common place, but Stevens got caught, so he gets beaten up on.
Sorry, he doesn't get a "aww you should have done better." He was put in a position of trust by the people, and longest serving Senator or not, he's the most recent to publicly fail.
The actual issue is much deeper than reported. The RFID chip is the tech angle, but the document requirements for obtaining a Real ID are much stricter and it could be very difficult for many Americans to obtain all of the validating documents required. I did a briefing document for my organization on Real ID last year. Between new systems, new document issues, and new document issues the NEW costs from implementation (not including fees and budgets already charged or allocated) to states, local governments, and citizens is estimated at $22 Billion. Add in that this standard was created not as its own act, but as a rider on a Iraq War Funding and Hurricane Katrina Relief Bill (already an ugly combination before you include the hidden parts like Real ID).
To date the Federal Gov't has made approximately $50 million in new funding available.
Actually I don't hate affluence at all, in fact having attained a point in my life where I would consider myself to be affluent, I quite enjoy it.
Rather, you missed my point. That people who are affluent typically have fewer children is granted, and much appreciated. However, my point was very much that both extreme sides attribute massive and complicated effects to singular variables. I assert that both being "affluent" and the progression of technology are made up of many components that often have countervening elements. The argument has been oversimplified to the point of being incorrect, and worse, meaningless.
While I do enjoy being flamed, please do me a favor and have a point next time.
We've got the Malthusians on one side and Cornucopians on the other. One screaming eternal doom and gloom and the other singing about happiness and frolicking puppies. Both using stupid equations that bear no relation to demonstrable mathematic principles.
P= population, yes, margaret, there are indeed a whole effing lot of us.
A= affluence, yes affluence has trended towards an increasing utilization of resources by fewer, but as observed, also fundamentally impacts the way we make decisions, including how many children we have.
T= technology, if you're a neo-malthusian luddite than, in fact, technology is the root of all evil giving us the ability to destroy and consume more with less effort. If you're an equally broken set of worthless radical, it's the path to a brilliant tomorrow that will, to paraphrase another commenter, release us from the bonds of any problem created by our remarkable ability as a race to ignore any responsibility for the world in which we live.
The claim that technology, or for that matter affluence and any number of other variables, sustains or limits population to X is ludcirous in that it is not conclusively supportable by any scientific, or even rational, information in the present human era. At the least the relationship of the variables is far more subtle and complex than those presently participating on either extreme can justify.
Our human society and our world is in a constant state of flux caused by innumerable causes, many likely outside of our ken (and kin for that matter). The best we can do is adapt through whatever means we are best capable of achieving while deluding ourselves with the vision that we are in absolute control. Personally I prefer to believe that we are in an age of instability, radicalism, and blatant stupidity that is acting as the precursor to a golden age.
I have great faith, but dismally little hope.
While the article is longer than the attention span of some, I'd like to commend El Reg for actually publishing a long, well researched and specifically targeted article. Journalism served as a check against authorities for a good long while. It's fallen in its effectiveness recently, particularly in that much of it has become poorly researched content free drivel.
Certainly Wikipedia is neither entirely the good it portrays itself as or the evil that it's frequently portrayed as on this site. However, any entity that believes internal regulation alone can create a perpetuated honesty is, to put it very simply, moronic.
Someone outside of an organization (even if it purports to be open to all) that identifies contradictions and failures in its structure and execution can only have a positive effect on the overall quality of that entity. Assuming of course the hive-mind in question is open to criticism. I knew my logic had a critical fault in it somewhere...
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