Slashdot Mirror

Save yourself $7.65 by buying the book here: IPv6 Essentials. And if you use the "secret" A9.com discount, you can save an extra 1.57%!

The review links to B & N, but I see that Amazon has it cheaper through their third-party sellers. One wonders why Slashdot keeps linking to B & N if it's always more expensive than other options.

funny that I see your username for the first time... while I'm search for travel information for my first visit to the Czech Republic in another browser tab

Are you Czech? / Jsi ech? ;)

That's like saying Mark Foley's unusual interest in pages, and his party's subsequent coverup of it, hasn't a place in a rational discussion about the current state of US politics.

...That is all the WTO and GATT do. That is it. End of story.

In fact, what you're talking about is a totally different thing. I don't even know what to call it. Foreign investment? Political manipulation? Wealth imbalance? In any case, it is a separate problem that has no place in a rational discussion about free trade.

I like your numbers, I'll take your word at them (can't really check at work right now)

A few variables can be factored in though: Just as not all military personel are evil, many americans would rather put faith in their government than risk being part of a revolution. Some out of fear, some out of faith. Government is big, government is scary. How many would break that thought come revolution?

Further, we are all sworn to uphold and defend the constitution from enemies foreign and abroad. But who strikes first? Constitutionalists? In this age where terrorism is an enemy (brown people who blow shit up), not a description (instilling fear in a populace), what do you think the chances are of a militarized revolution successfully taking place? It seems far more likely that with the first strike, the spin machine will start (whether it even needs to or not), and people will automatically just chock Constitutionalists up as being "nutjobs," "extremists," or "terrorists." Like on September 12, people will rush to fork over more rights and more money to fight this new breed of localized terrorsts.

I wouldn't count on many planes, bombs, bombers, choppers, or whathaveyou coming over from the defecting military personel. Remember, this stuff is property of the US Gov't, not the pilots, so short of theft (which could quickly not only be thwarted, but also tracked using GPS), getting this stuff in Constitutionalist hands would be tough work. They'd probably have better luck building it themselves (and by "better luck" i mean "never gonna happen either" considering the price of one jet).

Numbers are great- but when one non-nuke can wipe out an entire platoon, that playing field gets levelled right quick. And remember, the military has been training for precisely this kind of combat for the past 5 years.

In reality, the only thing that would help constitutionalists win is the fact that if the U.S. gov't ever launched an attack on its own people, foreign countries would quickly put an end to it. The big things to worry about are A) Will it ever be seen as a revolution and not acts of terrorism? and B) What happens in the years following a successful revolution? That second question is exactly why people would end up siding with the gov't. A few PSAs showing a nation of anarchy, and people will come running back to suck on Bush's (or whoever's president at the time) teet.

Of course all of this is moot if we get the exact opposite of the current administration: all three branches filled with libertarians. A lot less bloodshed, a functioning government after the coupe, and an overall change in policy. But that's asking the government to make sense, so it'll never happen.

Basically though, what I was trying to say is that the second ammendment only has value when the playing field is equal. When it was created, civilians had the right to carry the same weapons the military had access to. Today, we can carry only a small fraction of what the military has at its disposal. And by all rights it's better that way. I don't feel totally comfortable with Joe Sixpack keeping a small nuclear arsenal in his basement. I do, however, think everyone should have a Badonkadonk.

In fact I can get this for my home phone system. It still requires a computer running and the management of that.

I've also seen some 802.11 Skype handsets, which is cool. Although I don't want anymore phone systems (work line in home office, home phone system and mobile phone are already too much).

I will consider what you suggest when Skype is as reliable, feature complete (including 911 service) and easy to use (plug in and go with existing phones, no hassles with credits like they have, and not require a computer) as Vonage.

Right now it's a good tool, but no replacement for what I have. If I was on a tight budget, then I might consider it for exclusive usage, but I'm not/

"Does anyone know of a good existing proposal out there?"

Professor Chomsky was busy documenting American war crimes while writing books glossing over the butchery of two million cambodian civilians: http://www.amazon.com/After-Cataclysm-Indo-China-N oam-Chomsky/dp/0896081001

Professor Chomsky used the following argument to discount testimony by refugees that a slaughter was in progress, saying we should be wary of "the extreme unreliability of refugee reports": "Refugees are frightened and defenseless, at the mercy of alien forces. They naturally tend to report what they believe their interlocutors wish to hear. While these reports must be considered seriously, care and caution are necessary. Specifically, refugees questioned by Westerners or Thais have a vested interest in reporting atrocities on the part of Cambodian revolutionaries, an obvious fact that no serious reporter will fail to take into account"

He has never apologised for his stance on Cambodia.

Is it me or anyone else see the US turning into a freedomless, controlled society under the excuse of terrorism?
By the way, historically the US has been the principal sponsor of state supported terrorism see:
http://www.amazon.com/Noam-Chomsky-Distorted-Moral ity-Americas/dp/B00008AOW1/sr=8-1/qid=1159740557/r ef=sr_1_1/104-5810932-4490360?ie=UTF8&s=dvd
Time to move somewhere in the EU.

Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil by Michael C. Ruppert (Author)

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins. It tries to show how the US (and others) reign in sovereign countries via economic power rather than brute force through use of things like the world bank. Chilling subject, but I think that Overthrow is better written and makes for a better read.

I think that the monroe doctrine is tied in, as it basically says .. "Europe. Stay away from what belongs to us", even though the things involved were other soverign nations.

As for the countries the book lists (in no order):
  Hawaii
  Cuba
  Puerto Rico
  Phillipines
  Nicaragua
  Honduras
  South Vietnam
  Guatemala
  Chile
  Iran
  Grenada
  Panama
  Afghanistan

The book is Overthrow - Americas Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq by Stephen Kinzer.

Checking places like Circuit City, Best Buy, EB Games, GoGamer, Amazon.com, etc... they are all selling the game for ~ $19.99

If you have not been addicted to it like the rest of us, the first fix is 20 bucks and the next expansion is 40 or so.

If I want nostalgia, I can fire up an emulator and play thousands of easily obtainable C64 (or Spectrum, ST, Amiga, Amstrad, BBC, Atari, Gameboy, N64, PS, SNES) games. Or I buy something like this and do the same.

many web developers don't like to drop support for those browsers until it's necessary.

Yet these same "developers" won't support newer browsers like Konqueror. Anyone notice what happens when you go to http://www.amazon.com/ with Konqueror? It redirects you to a junk doubleclick.com page. It's almost like web "developers" deliberately refuse to test their shit.

Read DVD Demystified.

I have had Dragons Lair http://www.amazon.com/Dragons-Lair-Don-Bluth/dp/B0 0000INHR and a few other of the "laserdisc games" on DVD for years now. You can play if on your PC or on your DVD player using your remote control (mine uses the up/down/left/right arrows). Wouldn't this be considered interactive? I mean, if I don't push any buttons, it just sits there.
Plus, the latest Final Destination DVD http://www.amazon.com/Final-Destination-Widescreen -Two-Disc-Special/dp/B000FC2HS6/ref=imdbpov_dvd_2/ 102-6203978-4790560?ie=UTF8 has the ability to let the viewer select from multiple choices throught the movie that actually change the outcome. For example, if you choose for the characters not not get on the roller coaster in the first place, the movie is less than 20 minutes long. Thats probably a good thing as the movie sucks.

I have had Dragons Lair http://www.amazon.com/Dragons-Lair-Don-Bluth/dp/B0 0000INHR and a few other of the "laserdisc games" on DVD for years now. You can play if on your PC or on your DVD player using your remote control (mine uses the up/down/left/right arrows). Wouldn't this be considered interactive? I mean, if I don't push any buttons, it just sits there.
Plus, the latest Final Destination DVD http://www.amazon.com/Final-Destination-Widescreen -Two-Disc-Special/dp/B000FC2HS6/ref=imdbpov_dvd_2/ 102-6203978-4790560?ie=UTF8 has the ability to let the viewer select from multiple choices throught the movie that actually change the outcome. For example, if you choose for the characters not not get on the roller coaster in the first place, the movie is less than 20 minutes long. Thats probably a good thing as the movie sucks.

I can see the effects of a mini economy around Piracy.

The Hollywood leakers, plus the illegal dubbers in South America combined with the rouge servers provide an avenue for people with burners at home that can go and sell this pirated content in flea markets and feed their families. It happens with books, music and other stuff....

Is it illegal and bad? YES....

So is WAR... (and it seems to fuel economies too...)
Read: http://www.amazon.com/Political-Economy-Recent-Eco nomic-Thought/dp/0792383109/sr=8-2/qid=1159566373/ ref=sr_1_2/104-5959278-4596701?ie=UTF8&s=books

Oh well...

Think so? Do you know how many shooting guides there are out in the world?

The whole point is, there is no way to become an expert marksman without shooting a gun. Even that doesn't guarantee expert status. It's practice practice practice.

Read The Secret life of Plants. It will open your eyes.

There are numerous experiments described where the scientists hook up polygraphs to plants, get one person to just think about smashing the plant, burning leaves, that sort of thing, and the plant would go psycho. Other people who loved plants would be put into the same room and the plant would exhibit totally different behaviours.

One guy actually controlled his garage door by hooking up a philodendron to an amplifier, and he could open the door just by thinking "Love" at his plant.

Fantastic stuff!

Strange... Check out the pictures at the product description at the amazon page for Zune... The colors on this one (supposedly the white version) look quite different from the Zune in the middle of this one! What's up?

Strange... Check out the pictures at the product description at the amazon page for Zune... The colors on this one (supposedly the white version) look quite different from the Zune in the middle of this one! What's up?

Strange... Check out the pictures at the product description at the amazon page for Zune... The colors on this one (supposedly the white version) look quite different from the Zune in the middle of this one! What's up?

Amazon, of course :)

This is not really an indictment against Chris Anderson or his most excellent work on the Long Tail concept so much as it is a demonstration of Amazon's lack of infrastructure (or management) in their Amazon Advantage program.

I've heard from more than one person of their frustrations in dealing with this program which has lead me to delay efforts to publish a couple of items through them...

Everyone should have a battery powered radio receiver. Hurricanes, Earthquakes, Flooding, Volcanos (like Mt. St. Helens) happen, and you need a way to receive emergency information about which way to run.

No, everyone should own a hand-crank radio receiver that does AM/FM/Shortwave for a situation like that. $40 and it will last you a lifetime and be ready for any emergency, even a nation-wide one where the only reliable broadcasts are from out of the country, the stores are out of batteries and the electric grid is down.

I'd rather have 360 boxes of Jell-O X-Treme Watermelon flavor than either of those, to be honest.

Be sure to get some relaxed-fit pants, size 60 or so to fit the Archos in your back pocket. :)

I have one of these, of course the 512MB version is now the same price, which wasn't the case when I bought mine a year or so ago.

Still, it does the job, just with more limited storage. It even has an FM tuner that works pretty well.

I just don't understand the need to have several gigs of music copied to yet another device. I keep my music on my harddrive, and on semi-permanant backup CDs (soon to be DVDs), as I do most of my music enjoying from my computer. To me it seems pointless to have a complete copy of that to another device.

The convienence of not having to go to my computer every once in a while to change my music is not worth $200+ to me, sorry. I just don't see the need to always have access to all of my music 100% of the time. If the music gets old while I'm away from my computer, I just turn it off, and *gasp* think my own thoughts and reflect on myself. I really think that music has become a bit too pervasive in many peoples' lives in today's society. I mean, if noone has any time to hear themselves think over the sound of constant music, then how will people ever reflect on themselves and grow emotionally?

But, then again, everyone else has an iPod or some such, so I guess they must have good reason for shelling out such money. I can't think of any that would make me pay so much though...

Maybe I've missed something though. Thoughts?

I have one of these, of course the 512MB version is now the same price, which wasn't the case when I bought mine a year or so ago.

Still, it does the job, just with more limited storage. It even has an FM tuner that works pretty well.

I just don't understand the need to have several gigs of music copied to yet another device. I keep my music on my harddrive, and on semi-permanant backup CDs (soon to be DVDs), as I do most of my music enjoying from my computer. To me it seems pointless to have a complete copy of that to another device.

The convienence of not having to go to my computer every once in a while to change my music is not worth $200+ to me, sorry. I just don't see the need to always have access to all of my music 100% of the time. If the music gets old while I'm away from my computer, I just turn it off, and *gasp* think my own thoughts and reflect on myself. I really think that music has become a bit too pervasive in many peoples' lives in today's society. I mean, if noone has any time to hear themselves think over the sound of constant music, then how will people ever reflect on themselves and grow emotionally?

But, then again, everyone else has an iPod or some such, so I guess they must have good reason for shelling out such money. I can't think of any that would make me pay so much though...

Maybe I've missed something though. Thoughts?

Just yesterday I ran across Brills Content, May 2001. page 123

"We tried out one portable MP3 player that lets you walk around with the equivalent of 150 CDs in your back pocket."

Sweet! I gotta get one of those!

Everyone should have a battery powered radio receiver

The $500 billion dollar annual defense budget is being spent somewhere. I would hope some of it was put into spy satellites that are awful easy to overlook.

Save yourself $5.59 by buying the book here: How to Cheat at Managing Information Security. And if you use the "secret" A9.com discount, you can save an extra 1.57%!

Save yourself $5.59 by buying the book here: How to Cheat at Managing Information Security. And if you use the "secret" A9.com discount, you can save an extra 1.57%!

OK, I TOALLY screwed up that link.

The Final Cut

I know that in our marketing-driven world it's hard to believe but I agree that strategically, firewalls aren't preferable. I cut my teeth in security at a major government-funded computing infrastructure site and the head of security there didn't believe in firewalls either. I was initially dubious but eventually was convinced. This book touches on it I think.

It's just as cheap through their 1st-party listing, Sir Spamalot.

The review links to B & N, but I notice that Amazon has it cheaper through their 3rd-party thing.

I think it is talked about far more than it should be considering it is little more than science fiction.

So was spaceflight, once. I even have some of the pulp magazines from back then. And that "little" is "potential for multiple order of magnitude decrease in marginal cost per kilo lifted to geosynchronous orbit". When Clarke and Sheffield were writing, that might have been fair; with the discovery of fullerene tubes that are may allow for the required strength-to-weight ratio, there's a lot less bolognium amd a lot more real engineering involved.

Prove to me it is the focus of substantial research and I will reconsider.

Will you settle for a quick couple hundred citations? I can't list all the indirect research from materials science and engineering, I've other work to get to.

I think it is talked about far more than it should be considering it is little more than science fiction.

So was spaceflight, once. I even have some of the pulp magazines from back then. And that "little" is "potential for multiple order of magnitude decrease in marginal cost per kilo lifted to geosynchronous orbit". When Clarke and Sheffield were writing, that might have been fair; with the discovery of fullerene tubes that are may allow for the required strength-to-weight ratio, there's a lot less bolognium amd a lot more real engineering involved.

Prove to me it is the focus of substantial research and I will reconsider.

Will you settle for a quick couple hundred citations? I can't list all the indirect research from materials science and engineering, I've other work to get to.

"writing a 200-400 page novel wouldn't dream of using anything but a high-powered text-editor."

http://www.amazon.com/Unix-Network-Programming-Vol -Networking/dp/0131411551/

W. Richard Stevens might not have been a novelist, but he wrote thousand page books with graphs and other illustrations using vi (not even vim).

"Swipe and rearrange multiple paragraphs"

This is a trivial task in vi. Really, an expert using vi is far more productive at tasks like this than someone using a GUI. The learning curve is steeper, but the end results is more impressive.

"alter mass indents and formatting"

Again, an expert can do this very easily and with much greater control using vi.

"See the results in real-time? Need that GUI."

Only in that you need to display the results as a picture. The GUI doesn't make this task any more real time. In fact, it actually makes this slower, *except* that it does it for you automatically and continually (I'm assuming that by GUI what you mean is actually WYSIWYG). Clearly, if the results are a picture, displaying them in a CLI is silly.

The thing is that a real expert does not need to continually display their results to see if they're correct. A real expert knows the effect of their formatting. The person who needs continual display is the lay person, who is unsure of the effects of what they just did or who is exploring to find out what effects various actions have. The tragedy of a GUI is that it never allows people to graduate from lay person to expert. Deleting a paragraph is just a few key strokes in vi. In a GUI, you have to

1. Stop typing.

2. Grab the mouse.

3. Select the beginning of the text.

4. Select the end of the text.

5. Either right click and navigate a menu or return to the keyboard (since most people mouse with the same hand as would hit the delete key).

With vi, this is something like ten keystrokes and does not require you to ever leave the keyboard.

I work with tech writers. The complaint that they give about their current tool is that it doesn't allow them to use keyboard shortcuts. Why? Because keyboard shortcuts work with typing and avoid the waste of time of switching to and from the mouse.

You may be right that no novelist would use anything other than a GUI tool. This is not because GUI tools make writing more productive. It's simply because they have always used a GUI tool. Actually, what they really need is a way to add vi key bindings to Word. Then, they could access the power of keyboard shortcuts that vi offers while still having the intuitiveness of a GUI based tool.

I'll add that to my list of open source tools to fund if I win the lottery.

All this is not to say that GUIs are useless. The point is that their strength is ease of presenting options and use of the full graphical capabilities for display. If you have a small set of oft repeated tasks that include typing free text, a text based interface allows for better optimization and workflow.

"Generally speaking, over the past twelve years or so, there has been a consumer expectation that disc based games are maybe $59 on the high end to $39 on the low end. So, what I can say now is, I think it would be a bit of a stretch to think that we could suddenly turn around and say 'PS3 games now $99.99'."

You mean like the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2)?

The A-bomb is a Z-bomb, and the arms race is a race between nuclear weapons and ourselves. It is them or us. What do nukes do? What are they for? Since when did we all want to kill each other? Nuclear weapons deter a nuclear holocaust by threatening a nuclear holocaust, and if things go wrong then that is what you get: a nuclear holocaust. If things don't go wrong, and continue not going wrong for the next millenium of millenia (the boasted forty years being no more than forty winks in cosmic time), you get... What do you get? What are we getting?

At the multiracial children's tea party the guests have, perhaps, behaved slightly better since the Keepers were introduced. Little Ivan has stopped pulling Fetnab's hair, though he is still kicking her leg under the table. Bobby has returned the slice of cake that rightfully belonged to tiny Conchita, though he has his eye on that sandwich and will probably make a lunge for it sooner or later. Out on the lawn the Keepers maintain a kind of order, but standards of behavior are pretty well as trogolodytic as they ever were. At best the children seem strangely subdued or off-color. Although they are aware of the Keepers, they don't want to look at them, they don't want to catch their eye. They don't want to think about them. For the Keepers are a thousand feet tall, and covered in gelignite and razor blades, toting flamethrowers and machine guns, cleavers and skewers, and fizzing with rabies, anthrax, plague. Curiously enough, they are not looking at the children at all. With bleeding hellhound eyes, mouthing foul threats and shaking their fists, they are looking at each other. They want to take on someone their own size...

If they only knew it -- no, if they only believed it -- the children could simply ask the Keepers to leave. But it doesn't seem possible, does it? It seems -- it seems unthinkable. A silence starts to fall across the lawn. The party has not been going on for very long and must last until the end of time. Already the children are weepy and feverish. They all feel sick and want to go home.

I strongly recommend that everyone here read State of Fear by Michael Crichton. Yes, it's fiction, but strewn throughout the novel are links to factual data about global warming. The story's protagonist is convinced that although the Earth is warming, it has nothing to do with humans.

The references prompted me to read more about the matter. I'll let you draw your own conclusions. Very interesting stuff.

My Logitech wireless Xbox controller does, and it works great. You can choose to turn the vibration off if you want to maximize the battery life.