KLB

It just proves that the more things change the more they stay the same.

Oh I agree that it isn't an intention political conspiracy, but the idea that it could be a conspiracy just adds some fun to it. The Left wing could argue that it is a right wing conspiracy to cover up dissenting voices and the right wing could claim it is a left wing conspiracy to discredit Bush. "Bush hid the facts" is just more interesting than "this app can break". I couldn't figure out whether it really fit under computers or politics but decided it was really a computer bug so this was the best place for it. Sometimes it is fun to find and discuss stupid Microsoft bugs. I mean we might as well find some joy in them when we can because there are more than enough of them that have caused us real heartache. I know I've had more than my share of Word documents destroyed by stupid bugs over the years. But as I mentioned earlier, the strange thing is that not all 4,3,3,5 combinations trip up this bug, only some do. To the best of my knowledge no, but that could really suck if it did. Correct once you open and resave the document the problem goes away even if the text hasn't been changed. It has something to do with ANSI vs. Unicode text according to the blog I linked to.

You know what they say about an infinite number of monkeys and an infinite number of typewriters. Given, however, that not all phrases of the correct word length combinations work, it is pretty funny that the two phrases I've posted do work.

Sorry I fixed the link. It works for some other phrases. It might work for phrases with the following pattern: a four letter word followed by two three letter words followed by a five letter word. It does not work for all phrases that follow this pattern. For instance it did not work for me when I tried "Bush hid the truth". It does work for "this app can break". Of course the method I posted above is funnier.

Okay this is really weird and could one could get some really good political conspiracy theory mileage out of it. If you are a user of Microsoft Windows open Notepad and type the following without the quotes, without adding a return character and without punctuation: "Bush hid the facts". Now save the file somewhere like to your desktop. Close notepad and then open the file you just saved in Notepad. If you want extra fun, make sure notepad is using the font "Arial Unicode". If you followed the directions correctly and exactly, then when you reopen the text file in Notepad it won't be stating what you typed in. But the file will be just fine in any other text editor. For anyone who speaks Chinese and uses Arial Unicode in Notepad I'd love to know if the message has any meaning or if it is just gibberish. Is this a bug or a political conspiracy? Is this a secret message from China? What is scarier, the idea that Microsoft can't keep bugs out of a program as simple as Notepad or that the China might have coopted software that is on 90% of computers? Will we see conspiracy buffs shifting into over drive? Hmmm, me thinks if it was spun correctly it could get considerable mileage regardless of one's political leaning. Oh you can get more information about this and a little more disclosure at: http://blog.wired.com/27BStroke6/index.blog?entry_id=1502576

Simply put it is the best way to target the annoyance towards loiterers. Any method used should be as targeted as possible towards the offenders to avoid inconveniencing one's real customers.

Actually a business might not be always able to refuse to do business with anyone they wish (just ask Denny's). If, however, if they are loitering, they are not buying, which means they aren't customers. So it would not be unreasonable make loitering less desirable. The key is to do so in a way that does not offend real customers or at least no harm one's business. In the case we are discussing. Using annoying sound that adults don't typically hear, probably wouldn't harm business nor would it annoy the vast majority of paying customers.

Everyone here knows exactly what I was writing about and my position in general. You were trying to twist the meaning of what I have been writing about as a whole using a disingenuous straw man argument. You can try to justify yourself anyway you want but any reasonable reader of this thread will see your argument for what it was a BS straw man post that was trying to stir things up by twisting things in a false manner.

No you turned my argument using a straw man which had nothing to do with my argument. Your argument is a false comparison to what I have been writing about, and you know it. My posting that you quoted was about discouraging unlawful loitering by youths. The moment a "no loitering" sign is posted outside of a store the act of loitering becomes unlawful trespass. At this point in time it is perfectly reasonable for the store owner to take actions (that are within the bounds of law) to make their property less attractive to loiterers. In this case the use of annoying high pitched sounds is what is being used to make a property less attractive to loiter about. Your argument was based on lawful customers shopping, this is a totally different thing, thus this is a straw man argument.

I think people take the worry about discrimination to an extreme and this is another example of this. If I am a store owner and I have problems with teens loitering in front of my store, which is in turn driving away paying customers, I would want to take measures that drive the loitering teens away without annoying my paying customers. These high frequency sounds would do just this. It isn't discrimination, it is exercising my property right not allow loitering in the most cost effective manner possible. If most of the people loitering outside my store were adults and not teens then maybe this wouldn't be the best solution to my problem. Then again if my loiterers are adults then I probably have problems that would need to be addressed by the police anyways.

Indeed. I suspect that these will only get implemented by businesses that are desperate to put an end to youth loitering and will only be used after other methods reducing loitering failed. It is unlikely that they will become a really popular solution. I personally think, however, that from a taxpayer perspective that driving away youth loiters via annoying noises is preferable to calling police to disperse loiters. In regards to the noise causing problems for neighbors, this is obviously a situation where stores will need to take care to keep the volume to a level that doesn't bother their neighbors beyond their own store fronts. Simply being smart about speaker placement can address this issue. I suspect neighbors would be very happy to have fewer loiters hanging out in their corner store and in turn reducing problems for the entire neighborhood (grafitti, vanalisim, fights, crime, etc.).

No you should be ashamed for trying to claim an injustice that does not exist. There are many, many, things in life that are a much bigger risk of eventually infringing upon one's civil rights that we all ignore on a daily basis. In fact I would argue that by trying to ban these annoying sounds you are infringing upon the civil rights of others, in particularly their rights under the First Amendment of our constitution. In our society you do not have the right to be free from annoyances nor should you have that right otherwise everything would become illegal because almost everything annoys someone in our society. Some people are extremely annoyed by the choice of "music" that young people listen to. Should this be banned on public beaches or public places? Again remember a store is on private property and as long as one doesn't violate civil rights laws one is given much greater latitude on private property. If you are annoyed by the sounds a store uses then exercise your rights to boycott that store and if it hurts their profitability maybe they will stop using the noise.

Don't go and think that you are the only one who has had ancestors who had atrocities committed against them. Again even trying to say that this annoyance has the potential to lead to something more insidious is disgraceful. You should be ashamed of your self for even trying to make a comparison. IF, and it is a very big if, a large mall pumped such sounds throughout their entire complex such that you couldn't go through the mall then maybe there could be concerns raised about that mall. There is, however, no cause for concern if the corner convenience store pumps some annoying sound through the speakers in their parking lot to simply discourage loitering. Face facts, the only time the use of these sounds become annoying is if one is breaking the law by loitering, as such there is nothing wrong with these sounds even if only kids can hear them. If we are going to ban annoying sounds, I think they should ban the speakers on the ice cream trucks that drive by my window three or four times a day and often times stop outside my window for five or ten minutes while kids buy ice cream. I can't even hear my own bloody music without shutting my window when they are stopped outside. Some annoying sounds are designed to attract kids some are designed to drive kids away. They both have their place in our society.

AzurePhenoix, you and several others have blown this thing way out of proportion and are trying to compare the annoying sounds to something much more insidious to which there is no comparison. Maybe if you studied your history lessons a little better you would realize just how shameful your comparing this annoying noise to racism and discrimination is. It is obvious that some of the younger folks here don't really know what racism and discrimination are. All the annoying sounds do is discourage young people from loitering in front of the stores which as has been pointed out they aren't supposed to be doing to begin with. Since adults apparently aren't the ones using these store parking lots as their personal hangouts it makes perfect sense to use a noise that only young people can hear since it happens to exist. This is a lot less intrusive means of handling the loitering than calling the police in on a regular basis to chase kids away. Loitering does not equal paying customers and in fact can drive away driving customers due to parking spots being consumed and/or an unfriendly/potentially unsafe situation. I know I'd not stop at a store in a city that had a parking lot full of kids loitering about especially if it were in a not so nice of a neighborhood. Young people seem to forget that stores are private property and if the store owner does not want you loitering in their parking lot then they are fully within their rights to use non-violent means to discouraging loitering. These sounds don't cause physical injury, and if one is simply going from a parked car into the store then these sounds would be hardly annoying. They are only annoying when listened to for an extended period like when one is loitering, which is illegal if the store owner doesn't want it to happen.

Agreed. If being annoying was illegal the most of the teens these sounds are intended to annoy would be in prision and this wouldn't be an issue.

I don't know about couriosity killing the cat, but I do know about one cat that has a mighty high opinion of its own abilities to deal with intruders: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060611/ap_on_fe_st/cat_scares_bear;_ylt=Aq370dnWtD2LEvcjOIUwDm.s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3NW1oMDRpBHNlYwM3NTc-

Except that Cox hasn't presured Authentumn to make fixing this glitch a priortiy. It shouldn't be that hard to "flip the switch" on this zero byte behavior.

That has taken over six months to fix. In light of Cox Cable's conflict of interest because of their competing service, the length of time it has taken to fix this "glitch" is suspicious at best.

That is a very interesting theory. Why would Craig's list be sending out a zero length packet and why would Cox's security suite be responding in such a fashion to the zero length packet? Neither one make sense (if this is true)?

Okay if the problem comes about from opening 3 or 4 pages at once, why? For me your solution is a non-starter because I have several tabs in Firefox set to start to different sites (this one included).

I've been seeing similar problems with one of my computers. About 20% of the time it times out trying to resolve domain names with the domain name servers. The thing is it isn't a problem with my other computer that uses the same Internet connection and is configured to connect to the Internet in the same way. It drives me nuts. I tried telling WinXP Pro to cache the domain names for 8 hours in hopes of reducing the problem but it seems to want to always query DNS every time regardless.

Actually it could have a lot to do with blocking content/services. Take a look at the examples of this happening on http://SaveTheInternet.com. There are examples competing services being blocked/sabotaged. Cox cable has been screwing with "Craig's List" for around six months now claiming it is a technical problem with their security software yet Cox Cable runs a competing service.

Actually I did look through recent threads in this forum before posting and didn't see an active thread. I see no harm in starting a new thread when the old one is a few weeks old or older. In fact some forums I participate in don't want older threads dug up. Its not like there are two active threads on one topic. Also a new thread can attract participation from people a running thread wouldn't attract attention from. I know I personally often don't post to threads once they have grown past a few pages as they are typically a running dialog from just a few people and new posters to those threads get ignored.

In this case it is an American issue because our Congress is debating this issue. The reality is that it is a universial issue, but each country is going to have to address this issue independantly.

What single cause could bring groups as diverse as the Common Cause, Christian Coalition of America, American Civil Liberties Union, Gun Owners of America, MoveOn.Org, Feminist Majority, Consumers Union and hundreds of other wildly diverse groups together in one coalition? You know anything that could bring some of these groups into agreement would have to be a very important issue and it is. That issue is Network Neutrality. Simply put it is the concept that the Internet service providers consumers use to connect to the Internet (e.g. AT&T, Verison, Comcast, TimeWarner, etc.) should not have the ability to control what websites consumers can access or what Internet services they can use. Right now under the guise of grass roots consumer oriented political action groups the big telecommunications providers are spending tens of millions of dollars lobbying Congress to defeat or eliminate any network neutrality legislation that would prevent Internet service providers from controlling what website/web services consumers can access. The only way American consumers can defend open access to the Internet is to lobby Congress to implement real Net Neutrality legislation that prohibits Internet service providers from playing favorites or controlling what websites consumers can access and how fast. To learn more go to http://www.SaveTheInternet.com (the coalition that brought all those opposing groups mentioned above together).