I wonder if the issue here is more about sensitivity to cops using their guns, or losing a dog.
I'd hate like hell to lose my dog. I love her dearly, and she acts like she loves me, but I suspect it has more to do with her survival interests.
One thing I do know is if an animal is coming after me, no matter its size, and I have a gun, chances are pretty good I'm winning that fight before I take any damage at all.
I'm not a cop, but I've known a few and they're as human as the rest of us. They react the same way to threats as any animal would - you look preserve your well-being using the most effective methods at your disposal. Of course, that doesn't mean you have to kill your attacker, but the option should never be off the table.
I don't know if it's a "fabrication"; it's more likely he's a product of the public school system. Most police departments only require a high school diploma to apply, and we all know what those are worth these days. Most kids graduate unable to make change for a dollar without a full graphic display on the cash register. To ask that they can write a coherent report on anything they can't cut and paste from Wikipedia is perhaps asking a bit much.
Actually, bats very rarely carry rabies. Not sure where that idea ever came from. The animals you have to worry about for rabies are raccoons, and then primarily only in the Appalachian Mountain areas. Rabies is pretty well controlled any more. It's not quite wiped out, but much of the fear of contracting it is unfounded.
That doesn't mean you shouldn't vaccinate your pets against it - it's like Measles/Mumps/Rubella - prevention is a large part of preventing its re-emergence and spread.
As much as I hate to defend such behavior, I can't help but point out that dogs cannot be reasoned with, nor do they recognize any authority other than instinct when it comes to defending their pack (family, owners, whatever you wanna call them).
I used to be a paperboy back when there was such a thing, and even after long experience/exposure some of the customer's dogs never caught on that I was not a marauding invader out to destroy their families and annex their territory as my own. I was just an ongoing, continuing threat that some day, they were going to deal with in a manner such an interloper deserved: grisly, bloody, painful death, starting with whatever body part they could get their teeth into first.
I'm sure mail carriers and other delivery people have the same stories. Of course, most of us didn't carry guns, nor would we have been justified in using them on dogs if we did. You can always just stay away.
But, the police don't have that option. They're sorta like the dogs, in that they only recognize their duty to protect and serve. Unfortunately for any dogs that get in the way of that mission, they're the bigger dogs.
I sincerely doubt the market prices the talent's work at "free", especially considering how many artists are making a living at what they do. But, it's entirely possible some of them can't afford the high cost of professional recording services if they have trouble marketing their wares, which would impact your business. I suspect that's what you're seeing in your specialty.
Low-cost high-end digital electronics for recording and the internet for distribution have made promotion the last bastion of stardom. So, if you want to make money at music and you're not an artist, that's the service I'd concentrate my efforts on. The music itself has become a commodity with infinite supply, so trying to sell that is an exercise in futility.
Of course, there will always be those who can't afford or understand the technical side of things, so studios and engineers will always be necessary, but it's not going to be the big-dollar specialty is has been in the past.
With this rant by Mr. Mellencamp, I'm strongly reminded of being in a bar near closing time, where conversations turn to the surreal. Simultaneously wistful, full of regret, non-sensical, emotional and angry at the wrong target with little or no justification whatsoever. Does anybody know if he has a drinking problem?
If I saw cameras on my fields that I didn't install, I'd take the little rascals down and sell 'em on eBay. I mean, they're probably low-light capable, high-resolution units with wifi capability. Gotta be worth more than a few bucks.
"Worthless" is probably too strong a word, but "less useful" isn't far off. You need to know how things have been done historically, and judge for yourself which methodologies make sense and are worth pursuing, and which have caused difficulties in the past, regardless of popularity.
ATI makes some good hardware, but their software is for the birds. It's odd, considering how dependent video cards are on the stuff. They're OK in specific situations with and renditions of Windows, but I suspect MS writes a great deal of the foundational stuff for their drivers. But, even then their parts are hit and miss. Always have been. I wouldn't use one of their cards even if they were giving them away.
Because of the closed/proprietary nature of their (Microsoft's) code and their unwillingness to document their interface, any third party drivers have to be reverse engineered. That's why the stuff rarely works well with Linux. That it works at all is a minor miracle. So, as has been pointed out, a bit of research on compatibility goes a long way. If you're running Linux, you simply don't use ATI video cards if you can possibly avoid it because you're almost guaranteed to have problems.
One of the reasons Apple has suffered substantially fewer exploits is because of their essentially closed system. Microsoft is envious, I'm sure, as their reputation for security is pitiful at best. While they're not without sin, the vast majority of the exploits Windows suffers from are directly attributable to the applications that run on it. Historically, the majority of apps wouldn't even run if they didn't have admin permission, which left the OS swinging in the breeze for any script kiddie that came along to take a swing at. I mean, far be it from me to defend MS - I am not a fan - but I recognize where the holes were. Poorly written apps by developer wannabes writing in VB left caused a great deal of the instability of previous versions.
I think it's telling that companies with more money than God don't buy up some of these major labels. I mean, think about it. Google/Apple/Microsoft could buy the likes of EMI with front pocket money, and they have the wherewithal to make a going concern of the business with little or no trouble. Yet, they don't. Why is that? Could it be that the whole concept of selling disks has run its course?
I will just make it a point to not watch or buy anything associated with the Olympic games. I mean, they're already tiring to the point of punishment to begin with, so why encourage abusive behavior? Maybe if enough people said "to hell with them", they might get a clue. What if they held a stadium-scale game, and nobody came? And when asked, people could just say "I don't like what's happened to the spirit of the Olympics, so I'm not going to waste any time/money on them." Do you suppose they'd get the message?
One thing that doesn't seem to come up much, if at all, is that IP and the results of it are some of the very few things that we actually export any more, and there's a lot of money in it.
I'm not an economist, but I know the money's gotta come home. You can't run a trade deficit forever or you'll run out of money unless you just print it, and if you do that, it loses value really fast.
So, I suspect what nobody who knows the real score wants to say out loud is that we dearly need to keep our IP close to the vest, or we've got very little to offer any trading partners. Once that happens, we're in deep, meaningful sheep dip.
So, ACTA? You betcha. It's not just the RIAA and MPAA - everybody wants to keep from killing the Golden Goose.
Some people leave their wifi open, which is fine, but we've already seen that the behavior can be problematic. Look at Jamie Thomas. I don't now that those songs were shared via wifi, but Thomas is definitely on the hook for the activity.
What if somebody parks outside your house and proceeds to download a mountain of kiddie porn? Even if you successfully defend yourself against such a thing, the stink is still on you, and the chances of successfully defending yourself aren't very good.
From that point of view, this whole thing could be considered something of a public service, kinda like telling someone they left their headlights on or their dog's on the loose.
I cannot see the value in aggregating Craigslist content, and would anticipate a great deal of hardship on the buyers/sellers/Craigslist in allowing it.
The whole point of Craigslist is not that it's a "free" service, it's that it's local. It's for people who want to buy/sell things and be done with it, without all sorts of backwash about not getting what you thought you were, not getting paid properly, not having to deal with packaging (which can be a pain in the shorts sometimes) and shipping (a very real abuse on some services, and fraught with peril in any event).
It's a way to say "I got this thing for sale, if you're interested, come see it, and it it's the right thing, buy it." You're all done. Take your money and go shopping or take your new toy and go play. There's no backlash possible. Everyone agrees they're happy at dealtime or they don't do business. Why would anyone want to know there's a [insert coveted item here] for sale in Atlanta if they live in Detroit? It blows the whole thing up.
Not to mention the scammers. As it is, they're like ants at a picnic. They don't seem to understand the underlying principle of the system as it is. I list an item on there, and get no less than 10 scammers latch onto me like leeches. No, I don't ship. Yes, cash means cash, on and on. Can you imagine if it was a country-wide or worldwide listing? Your email inbox would look like the victim of a coordinated DOS attack, and there's no practical way to filter it lest you miss the real prospects.
But, I don't think any kind of lawsuit is the answer. All it really needs is for Craigslist to add a checkbox to the ad creation screen that allows somebody to say an ad is "local only". Then the scrapers could ignore those ads, and only aggregate the ones where people are willing to sell/ship to distant customers or scammers.
I'm not sure why, but this reminds me of the Jerry Taylor/Tuttle, AZ/CentOS debacle. That was an incident completely unrelated to this, but you saw the same sort of thing happen where a supposed professional thought he was the "injured" party and was so far off base you could see it unaided from outer space, but was so unaware of the fact that it became a widespread joke.
I suspect what happens is at some point the "injured" party becomes so invested in the fiction of their idea that there's simply no reasoning with them. In their mind, they have to hold their ground or risk being labelled a fool.
Sad part is, it's the Streisand Effect at full-tilt boogie. The more they fight, the more foolish they look and the more people are looking. It becomes a train-wreck spectacle you can't look away from.
Somehow, this reminds me of the desperate measures of Wile E. Coyote. I can just see a SCUD missile in a crate labelled "ACME" on the side waiting in the middle of the desert for Achmed to light the fuse on.
This is just yet another stab at perpetual motion. Unfortunately, there's no such thing as a free lunch. You can bet they'll patent the snot out of it, though, as many have in the past.
These are all clearly good arguments, but my fear is they're inadvertently writing the future amendments to copyright law in their presentation. Congress wrote a good law (for a change) and now the maximalists will have to have it amended to prevent all the defenses against their misguided actions. Here they are!
Ads have become so ubiquitous, I've developed severe ad blindness. In fact, the very existence of an ad exists tends to drive me away from a product or service and since they're wasting my time I take measures to reduce my exposure to them as much as possible.
But, assuming I'm forced to see and ad, nothing reduces its effectiveness more than a celebrity endorsement or aggravating presentation. Hollywood's denizens are fakers by design and intent. Sports players aren't the brightest pennies in the fountain, corporate lights have hidden agendas, and politicians are a combination of all the above. Getting George Clooney, Tiger Woods, Bill Gates or Nancy Pelosi to say something is a Good Thing only serves to take it off my list of choices should I need the type of product or service they're hawking.
(untitled comment)
I'd hate like hell to lose my dog. I love her dearly, and she acts like she loves me, but I suspect it has more to do with her survival interests.
One thing I do know is if an animal is coming after me, no matter its size, and I have a gun, chances are pretty good I'm winning that fight before I take any damage at all.
I'm not a cop, but I've known a few and they're as human as the rest of us. They react the same way to threats as any animal would - you look preserve your well-being using the most effective methods at your disposal. Of course, that doesn't mean you have to kill your attacker, but the option should never be off the table.
(untitled comment)
(untitled comment)
That doesn't mean you shouldn't vaccinate your pets against it - it's like Measles/Mumps/Rubella - prevention is a large part of preventing its re-emergence and spread.
(untitled comment)
I used to be a paperboy back when there was such a thing, and even after long experience/exposure some of the customer's dogs never caught on that I was not a marauding invader out to destroy their families and annex their territory as my own. I was just an ongoing, continuing threat that some day, they were going to deal with in a manner such an interloper deserved: grisly, bloody, painful death, starting with whatever body part they could get their teeth into first.
I'm sure mail carriers and other delivery people have the same stories. Of course, most of us didn't carry guns, nor would we have been justified in using them on dogs if we did. You can always just stay away.
But, the police don't have that option. They're sorta like the dogs, in that they only recognize their duty to protect and serve. Unfortunately for any dogs that get in the way of that mission, they're the bigger dogs.
(untitled comment)
Low-cost high-end digital electronics for recording and the internet for distribution have made promotion the last bastion of stardom. So, if you want to make money at music and you're not an artist, that's the service I'd concentrate my efforts on. The music itself has become a commodity with infinite supply, so trying to sell that is an exercise in futility.
Of course, there will always be those who can't afford or understand the technical side of things, so studios and engineers will always be necessary, but it's not going to be the big-dollar specialty is has been in the past.
Reality Distortion Field
These are MY cameras now
Re: Re: Re:
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Because of the closed/proprietary nature of their (Microsoft's) code and their unwillingness to document their interface, any third party drivers have to be reverse engineered. That's why the stuff rarely works well with Linux. That it works at all is a minor miracle. So, as has been pointed out, a bit of research on compatibility goes a long way. If you're running Linux, you simply don't use ATI video cards if you can possibly avoid it because you're almost guaranteed to have problems.
I'm not surprised
Who wants 'em? (as Cagey)
Let them eat cake
Balance of Trade
I'm not an economist, but I know the money's gotta come home. You can't run a trade deficit forever or you'll run out of money unless you just print it, and if you do that, it loses value really fast.
So, I suspect what nobody who knows the real score wants to say out loud is that we dearly need to keep our IP close to the vest, or we've got very little to offer any trading partners. Once that happens, we're in deep, meaningful sheep dip.
So, ACTA? You betcha. It's not just the RIAA and MPAA - everybody wants to keep from killing the Golden Goose.
It's not illegal, but some people don't understand their exposure
What if somebody parks outside your house and proceeds to download a mountain of kiddie porn? Even if you successfully defend yourself against such a thing, the stink is still on you, and the chances of successfully defending yourself aren't very good.
From that point of view, this whole thing could be considered something of a public service, kinda like telling someone they left their headlights on or their dog's on the loose.
The Key Word is "Community"
The whole point of Craigslist is not that it's a "free" service, it's that it's local. It's for people who want to buy/sell things and be done with it, without all sorts of backwash about not getting what you thought you were, not getting paid properly, not having to deal with packaging (which can be a pain in the shorts sometimes) and shipping (a very real abuse on some services, and fraught with peril in any event).
It's a way to say "I got this thing for sale, if you're interested, come see it, and it it's the right thing, buy it." You're all done. Take your money and go shopping or take your new toy and go play. There's no backlash possible. Everyone agrees they're happy at dealtime or they don't do business. Why would anyone want to know there's a [insert coveted item here] for sale in Atlanta if they live in Detroit? It blows the whole thing up.
Not to mention the scammers. As it is, they're like ants at a picnic. They don't seem to understand the underlying principle of the system as it is. I list an item on there, and get no less than 10 scammers latch onto me like leeches. No, I don't ship. Yes, cash means cash, on and on. Can you imagine if it was a country-wide or worldwide listing? Your email inbox would look like the victim of a coordinated DOS attack, and there's no practical way to filter it lest you miss the real prospects.
But, I don't think any kind of lawsuit is the answer. All it really needs is for Craigslist to add a checkbox to the ad creation screen that allows somebody to say an ad is "local only". Then the scrapers could ignore those ads, and only aggregate the ones where people are willing to sell/ship to distant customers or scammers.
Clueless people
I suspect what happens is at some point the "injured" party becomes so invested in the fiction of their idea that there's simply no reasoning with them. In their mind, they have to hold their ground or risk being labelled a fool.
Sad part is, it's the Streisand Effect at full-tilt boogie. The more they fight, the more foolish they look and the more people are looking. It becomes a train-wreck spectacle you can't look away from.
Meep! Meep!
Gimme a break! (as kgwagner)
YouTube is writing the new maximalist rules for lobbyists
Lack of authority
But, assuming I'm forced to see and ad, nothing reduces its effectiveness more than a celebrity endorsement or aggravating presentation. Hollywood's denizens are fakers by design and intent. Sports players aren't the brightest pennies in the fountain, corporate lights have hidden agendas, and politicians are a combination of all the above. Getting George Clooney, Tiger Woods, Bill Gates or Nancy Pelosi to say something is a Good Thing only serves to take it off my list of choices should I need the type of product or service they're hawking.
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