I don't think the site was Slash-dotted to 403 status, when the slash-dotting started I think they saw that a big "theft" was about to occur and they had to put a stop to it by cutting off access before they went bankrupt from so much "theft" occurring taking dollars out of their pockets! Hopefully they stay offline, whoever is running the site seems insane!

I apologize for the harsh answer, my original post was a bit confusing as you explained. The first part of my post was talking about castle doctrine and why I like it and don't want the yahoo I was responding to moving to Arizona and donating to politicians who would try and increase gun control. I ended the first paragraph with a sentence backing up why I hold the position I do.

My second paragraph just went into more details as to why I like having access to firearms due to the dangers where I live, I have seen video on the news caught on security cameras of home invasions where multiple mexican's are storming a house with AR-15's, I wouldn't want to be stuck with calling the police as my only option in that situation, I would want a firearm in hand. I did not intend to try and prove the crime rate is lower in AZ due to having less gun restrictions but if we enacted restrictions similar to Chicago (or IL in general, you are required to have a firearm owner ID card to buy 22 bullets and other BS in that corrupt state) or Washington DC I wouldn't be suprised to see crime increase even more.

I don't know why your criminal rates are lower in France, but I highly doubt they are lower due to stricter gun control. Of course gun crimes may be lower due to stricter gun control but I would definitely love to see some proof that stricter gun control has lowered all crime across the board. I am basing that stance on the stats I have seen in the US for locations that have increased gun control, the crime rate seems to always go up, I have even seen this be the case with locations outside the US. Also, to me it just makes sense that if a criminal knows the person he wants to commit a crime against has the chance of being armed with a firearm they would less likely choose to commit the crime compared to if they know nearly 100% that the person does not have a firearm, just the chance of having a firearm would be a deterant to me personally. Whatever floats your boat though, I like my gun rights and you seem to like your gun restrictions, to each their own.

One more thing and that is I think a large part of the crime in AZ is due to illegal immigrants, it is a fact drug cartels recruit them for crimes such as the kidnappings and human/drug smuggling and suprisingly after the US started enforcing some stricter illegal immigrant rules and also jobs were less available the illegal immigrant populations fell by nearly a third in Arizona and crime rates fell drastically AND quickly too. In fact, in the first few months after the illegal immigrant populations fell crime was down 25% in Phoenix and 19% in Mesa which I found very interesting and also why I am for more policies to lower the illegal immigrant population. I have no problem with immigrants, in fact I welcome anyone to the USA who wants to come here peacefully, just do it legally of course. Here is a link to an article in the Phoenix Business Journal talking about the crime decreases:

http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/stories/2009/07/27/daily89.html

You don't understand because you either failed to read the article I linked to or you failed reading comprehension of the article. As I said in a previous post to another person like you, there is a MASSIVE turf war going on between Mexican drug cartels and the violence from it is spilling over into the US border states, especially Arizona. I also said places with low gun control USUALLY have lower rates of crime, not always, so once again you failed reading comprehension with my original post material. I did say that places in the US that have high gun control ALWAYS have higher rates of crime compared to before they had gun control, that is a fact. You people trying to be clever keep end up making yourself look very unclever...

Well if they came here LEGALLY then maybe they wouldn't be treated as 2nd class citizens. If I entered any country on Earth illegally then I sure wouldn't expect to get the best treatment either, people have to play by the rules like most other people on Earth do. Also, illegal immigrants are a HUGE drain on society in the US, I won't get into it here but from the facts I have seen we would be much better off without them (many business owners may miss the cheap labor but screw them too). Follow the rules is all I ask.

I should have said "a gun will make them think twice about continuing into the house" and you better believe they will be afraid when someone has the drop on them and they hear the pump of a shotgun pointed at their head. But I'm not going to have some stupid arguement over my word choice, in the end all I really care about is that an intruder is no longer a threat to me and my family, if they don't make the smart and my preferred decision and exit my house after a warning then I am fully prepared to bring things to the next level and shoot them dead, it is 100% the intruders decision. A firearm is the most powerful weapon I could have in that situation and since I always think "worst case scenario" I figure any intruder would have a firearm so I want to have the biggest advantage I can being having a firearm myself. What is wrong with that?

Please people stop with the pointless responses trying to look clever with the "snip snip" stuff, add something useful to this conversation please.

I don't understand: if the law is so great in Arizona, why are there so many kidnappings there?

I was waiting for someone to respond in that manner, I really hope you are just ignorant to the situation but I highly doubt that. Anyway, in case you are not aware the Mexican drug cartels are in the middle of some huge turf wars and it is spilling over into the border states such as ARIZONA. Drug cartel members are not afraid of law enforcement with fully automatic weapons so of course they are even less afraid of US citizens who are mostly only allowed to possess semi-auto firearms. Do you see my point of why I want firepower and to be able to use it without worrying about being sued now? I don't think these drug cartel members will run the other way if I try and spray them with pepperspray or hit them with a bat, a gun will make them think twice though.

Please stay away from Arizona. I like the law here a lot, why do you want to protect the intruder? If you don't belong in a house then don't enter it, how hard is that to follow? Whenever places pass laws against Castle Doctrine there are always asshole criminals who break into someones house, get shot up but not killed, and then end up suing the poor homeowners. Also look at gun control stats and you will find that anywhere in the US that has increased gun control there is an increase in criminal behavior and places with less gun control usually have much lower rates of crime.

While you may feel safe calling the police and waiting for them to arrive when an intruder breaks into your home I prefer to actually be able to protect myself and if the intruder does not respond and run the other way after my warning then they will be having a close conversation with a bullet not long after. Many home invasions in Arizona result in the homeowner and others seriously injured or dead and many are also kidnapped (Phoenix is number 2 in the WORLD for kidnappings, Mexico City is the only other city in the world with more), I won't be messing around with any intruders that is for sure. Here is a link to an article about how Phoenix is the kidnapping capital of the USA:

http://articles.courant.com/2010-03-17/news/hc-freshperez-mexico-drug-carte.artmar17_1_drug-cartels-ciudad-juarez-border-town

Yes, actually they have solved the problem of optical media degradation, there are now optical discs that record data in a rock like layer which does not degrade as organic dye does with other optical media. The company, named Millenniata, makes the discs and the drives to burn the discs, the great thing is they can be read in any optical drive compatible with the type of media (CD or DVD). Here is a link to the company:

http://www.millenniata.com/

Not to nitpick, but I'm going to nitpick...

Parity bits don't allow you to correct an error, only check that an error is present.

Next time nitpick in an area you know a lot about which is definitely NOT error correction or detection since you messed up the basic acronyms (not a big deal) but to say parity cannot be used for correction is flat out WRONG. The whole point of parity is to use it for error CORRECTION, here is a simple example:

Data byte 1: 0xF
Data byte 2: 0xA
Data byte 3: 0x3

Generate parity data by simply XORing each byte: 0xF XOR 0xA XOR 0x3 = 0x6

Now, if byte 2 is lost/corrupted then it can be regenerated by XORing the remaining bytes including the parity byte 0x6:

Data byte 2 = 0xF XOR 0x3 XOR 0x6 = 0xA

Viola! Data byte 2 has been 100% fully corrected using parity, so your nitpicking quote "Parity bits don't allow you to correct an error" is 100% wrong.

It is standard to pay the gas bill when you KNOW there is gas hooked up. In my case I asked the property manager to list all utilities I was responsible for on the lease and they did not list gas. Since I did not have access to the water heater and my stove/oven was electric and the heat was powered by steam I had no hints gas was hooked up.

Horizon Management was getting gas bills all year though and since they messed up and did not want a mad tenant to deal with all year they decided to not do anything until the last month I was in town in which case they signed me up for a gas account without my knowledge. I have no clue why the gas company never shut my gas off for non-payment but it may have been because the building was extremely old. I would have not been as mad if Horizon Management would have just told me the minute they realized they screwed up, or AT LEAST called me when they signed me up for the gas account. Instead I received a $300 gas bill in the mail which I had no budget for since I worked a $7/hr campus job to finish off my college career.

All I ask for is for businesses I deal with to be civil and make mistakes right. This company did neither and instead acted shadily, I guess taking advantage of young adults who have no money and are trying to better their lives by getting an education is an OK policy with Horizon Management, fits in with their "sue first, ask questions later" attitude.

I wish I could go back after them now, you are right, what they did was fraud. I had just graduated university however and was leaving town so being I had no money to pay a lawyer anyway I decided to just pay the gas bill to avoid having my credit score get killed and to just put it all behind me. This was over 5 years ago so I did not really even know much about identity theft, but it sure was that regarding signing me up for a gas account without my knowledge or consent. Thinking back I really wish I would have checked to see if the university had any programs setup to help students who have problems with landlords, I have heard about that being available at some schools. I only had enough money to get home and start looking for a job though so I ended up getting the shaft big time.

Gotta love companies like Horizon Management that prey on those with less financial and legal weight as them. Their deceitfulness ended up costing me over 1/4 of my months pay that month, all because they didn't even have a clue what utilities were actually at a property they were renting out. I paid my rent on time all nine months that school year, you would think they would have paid the bill themselves since it was their screwup or at least split the bill with me or something but nope all they care about is making their money, screw the customers.

Grumble Grumble...

Horizon Realty is a piece of shit company who sues everyone without thinking and has moldy apartments.

I hope Horizon goes out of business. I used to rent an apartment from them and when I moved in I had them clearly state in the lease what utilities I was responsible for (I mainly just wanted to know exactly what util companies I was going to need to contact and setup accounts for but also wanted to have it in writing) they wrote in pen "tenant is only responsible for electricity, cable tv, and water utilities" right on the lease. Well then at move out time I get a bill sent to me from the gas company saying I owe a whole years worth of gas bills, I was like WHAT???

Apparently the water heater was the only gas appliance in the whole apartment and since I did not have access to it and also because I had an electric stove/oven and steam heat I did not have any idea there was a gas appliance at all. Also, the gas bill sent to me was in MY NAME and I NEVER was notified any account was setup in the first place, the only way the gas company could have gotten that information was by contacting Horizon Management (and I am pretty sure setting a utility account up in someones name without them knowing is illegal but I don't know for sure).

Anyway, I contacted the manager and was told since the fine print says tenant is responsible for all individually metered utils that it was my problem, they didnt care they had written clearly I was only responsible for the 3 utils I mentioned above. It was obvious they screwed up and then when they started getting the gas bills instead of notifying me they waited until the end of the year and THEN signed me up for a gas account, this way they wouldn't have to deal with a pissed off/annoyed renter all year long and I am sure they also figured since most students leave town at the end of the year that I wouldn't have time to deal with it. The bill was only about $300 or something but I still was curious what my legal standing was so I called a friend who was a lawyer and after explaining everything he said I would probably win in court if I took it there but that would cost more than just paying the damn gas bill.

I was so pissed that a company would treat customers, especially poor college students, like that, having to pay a $300 bill out of the blue was pretty hard since my campus job only paid $7/hour. They should have just been civil and HONEST with me and after they recieved the first gas bill from the company (yes, they were getting the bills the whole year) they should have notified me that they screwed up and I would have been annoyed but it would not have been a huge deal and then I could have budgeted to pay the bill monthly. Instead I got stuck with a suprise $300 at the end of the year.

So thanks Horizon, I hope your shady business practices and sue first, ask questions later policy results in you going out of business for good. EVERYONE IN THE CHICAGO AREA STAY AWAY FROM HORIZON MANAGEMENT PROPERTIES OR YOU MAY EXPERIENCE SOMETHING SIMILAR TO WHAT I DID!

Everything I stated is true, so just try and sue me for libel you bastards.

Also you're better off looking at 1TB if you want best price per GB on the drive.

Okay, I just did that and the price dropped to about 7.5 cents per GB for the cheapest 1TB drive available on newegg.com:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145233

Yeah you write bogus comparisons and believe marketing nonsense with zero evidence and I'm the one that's the jackass. If you believe that there's nothing I can do or say thats worse than what you're doing to yourself.

You really aren't worth the time refuting. None of your arguments hold up.

Where are the bogus comparisons and explain how there is zero evidence for how the media I was referencing works? I works like using a chisel and hammer on a stone, if you cannot understand that then there is nothing I can do for you either. At least I give evidence for my claims, you make claims lacking any evidence to support them and then you disregard the evidence I have presented without explanation other than "you believe bogus marketing and write bogus comparisons and your arguments don't hold up", to argue successfully you need to support your claims by doing something like giving examples of how my claims are incorrect. Since you are uninformed and have no evidence to dispute my claims I can see why you have resorted to just saying it isn't worth your time refuting, in reality there isn't enough time for you to refute my claims since they have a lot of evidence supporting them.

Once again, since you are supposed to be so informed I would love to hear why you don't think their technology is possible and also dispute how even if it could only last 100 years how that would still make the technology less superior to long term archiving on hard drives which last 5-15 years instead. Remember this is data archiving which is writing the data to media and then storing that media somewhere for a long period of time, not incremental backups which you keep confusing with data archiving.

For your simple mind:

How is long term archiving to hard drives better than long term archiving to optical media and what part of the science of the new discs seems like fantasy? Notice I said what part of the science is faulty, not what marketing claims are faulty, there is a big difference.

That is a different situation to what most slashdotters will encounter. Most people reading slashdot will be much more interested in personal backups than computer forensics. Hard drives can work in a forensic situation too if the rules of evidence allow and if there is a well known and trusted way of transfering the data without tampering with it. Checksums on the files for example would work if stored on different media under the control of different people.

The article was regarding long term storage, so my comment regarding long term storage is relevant, talking about personal incremental backups which is usually done with hard drives is not relevant.

And yes, hard drives definitely can and are used for storing case evidence in forensic situations. But they do not work for long term archiving of data for the reasons I have already mentioned as well as for other reasons such as COST. If every legal case involving computer evidence was archived to separate hard drives the cost would be enormous relative to storing the same amount of data on optical media. You can just forget about archiving to a huge array of hard drives as well, the only way to have a true backup in that situation would be to have a 2nd huge array of drives which would further drive the cost up over an optical media solution. It also just does not make sense to pay to have the reading components attached to every media piece to put in the long term archive as well as have to deal with the problems associated when the reading components fail, this is a write once situation where files will not be edited and do not need to be accessible 24/7 so keep data and the reader SEPARATE. Here is a simple real world cost comparison:

1) The cheapest 100 pack of single layer DVD+R's from a decent brand I can find on newegg.com is:
RiData 4.7GB 16X DVD+R 100 pack is $17.99 / 470GB = 3.8 cents / GB

2) The cheapest 500GB hard drive I could find is:
Samsun HD502HI 500GB SATA 300 is $49.99 / 500GB = 9.9 cents / GB

The hard drive solution costs nearly 3 times more per GB which definitely is a significant price difference.

Also, long term archiving is not just something to be used in computer forensics, that is just one tiny usage for it. Medical, insurance, and other important records need to be stored long term as well and optical media fits the situation very nicely.

Yeah, there's the hallmark of a reliable storage medium. How often does your hard disk fail to write 10% of the data?

The point I was making was if it is known that write errors can and will occur then verification of the written data is a necessity. Once the data is written correctly then optical media can stand the test of time much better than optical media. I can take a CD made in the 80s and walk into Best Buy and play it on nearly any computer in the store. Most likely the CD/DVD drive in the computer in the store will have a SATA interface too, this is evidence that keeping the reading components separate from the media is beneficial to long term storage since the archiver does not need to worry about computer interfaces working in the future at all with optical media. What other 20+ year old media can you do the same with? That is right, none, so there is one more real world example as evidence optical media is superior for long term archival compared to hard drives.

I won't be taking your advice then. There's a conflict of interest. In any case you're just making the case AGAINST optical media.

If you want to remain ignorant and not take my advice then go for it, I won't lose any sleep. You are incorrect again though, I did not make a case against optical media, I made the case that if you are going to use optical media in a valid situation such as long term archival that you absolutely must verify the written data. Once the data is written correctly which is 99% of the time as long as good media is used then you can enjoy the benefits such as cheaper cost per GB, longer storage life, and less parts to fail compared to hard drives.

Optical media isn't without problems, I admit that, but if proper procedures are followed to combat the problems then there are many benefits to be had.

So what you're saying is that you need a reader that's no longer manufactured and is obsolete to get reliable reading? Am I suppose to be impressed? That's horrible. What happens in another 5 years when the number of working Plextors has dwindled?

Please don't resort to arguments of your credibility because you happen to work in the field. For someone that does, you've said some extremely FOOLISH things.

I never said you needed a Plextor to get reliable reading, I said for discs that HAVE PROBLEMS such as being scratched, the dye deteriorating on cheap media, etc you would be amazed that the disc you tried in 100 modern CD/DVD drives and can't be read can magically be read in an old Plextor. If you take care of the discs and don't get cheapass media then the disc should be readable in ANY drive. You keep putting words in my mouth instead of comprehending what I write out.

Regarding your comment about me saying foolish things, you only think what I say is foolish because you are ignorant to optical medias benefits to long term archiving. How about instead of making up words to put in my mouth and attacking the known writing problems optical media has you focus on making an argument against my argument that optical media costs less be GB and is more reliable long term (as long as it was written and stored properly) compared to hard drives. I will love to hear your argument regarding how keeping the reading components connected to the data storage medium is an advantage in long term data archival situations.

No danger. I don't drink.

Seriously, you're willing to believe that a DVD or CD will last 1000 years based on marketing and pseudoscience and I'm the one that looks like an uninformed jackass? Please don't make me laugh.

I think I've wasted enough time talking to someone who believes in magical digital media that lasts 1000 years. You want to know what media lasts 1000 years? Stone tablets. Even that requires proper storage. (Paper and parchment will also last but it will degrade even if stored properly)

I don't drink either.

Anyway, what I said was even if the 1000 year claim is just marketing fluff and the real longevity was only 1% of that that would be 10 years which beats most hard drive longevity right off the bat. Now, after reading the article (did you even do that?) I learned that what they are doing is completely different than what is done to write data to current optical media. Current writable optical media has dye which the drive laser can shoot to create a phase change and since the dye ages and deteriorates this means at some point the data will just be gone.

This new technology actually etches the data on a disc, you know, like using a chisel and hammer on a stone tablet (funny you gave that as an example in your argument lacking any evidence against the companies claims since you probably didn't read the article at all). This type of storage has been proven to last a long time, go check out the hieroglyphics in Egypt if you want proof. The reason current discs deteriorate is because the dye is organic, so if there was a way to do the same thing organic dye does but with an inorganic material that never deteriorates...

"Lunt and Linford found that an inorganic material similar to obsidian, a glass-like igneous rock, could be permanently bound to a reflective metal, as O'Connell explained last year to Silicon Slopes, an online tech review. This hard surface could then be etched away to record binary data."

Is that process too complicated for you to understand and/or do you not think it is possible with current technology?

I think the process is braindead simple to understand (hold your two hands up in front of your face and in front of a window on a sunny day with the sun beating in and then remove one hand and that is basically what etching away the material in front of the reflector, your face, is like) and I have no reason to believe binding a material to polycarbonate or whatever is used would cause major problems.

Therefore I think this new technology might really turn out to be something useful. I don't base this on marketing and pseudoscience, I base it on taking the time to understand the technology involved. I need to see more evidence that what they claim to be doing is really possible but my guess is that if Philips ends up licensing the technology (which they are about to do) that that is all the proof I need that is really can be done.

Do I believe the claim of 1000 years? Not without more evidence, I want to know what adhesives could last that long and also how polycarbonate and other materials could last that long without deterioration. Even then I would have a hard time believing 1000 years. With current technology however and using an inorganic medium to put in front of the reflector to be etched away I could see at least 100+ years being a real possibility. I look forward to checking this new technology out, if it turns out to really not be all BS then it could have a huge impact on long term data archiving.

You look like an uninformed jackass because you are one. Do some research and then dispute my claims without putting words in my mouth or talk about unrelevant matters. All I am saying is that the technology seems feasible for the reasons I described earlier. As you have seen I did NOT base those claims solely on marketing or "pseudo-science" as you claim. Since you are supposed to be so informed I would love to hear why you don't think their technology is possible and also dispute how even if it could only last 100 years how that would still make the technology less superior to long term archiving on hard drives which last 5-15 years instead. Remember this is data archiving which is writing the data to media and then storing that media somewhere for a long period of time, not incremental backups which you keep confusing with data archiving.