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Domain: blancmange.net

Stories and comments across the archive that link to blancmange.net.

Comments · 10

  1. Re:Common Policy by danharan · · Score: 1 · on iPod: Your Portable Corporate Hellraiser
    Is this overkill? Perhaps. But sometimes such heavyhanded policies make sense, especially when it comes to making war.
    Overkill... war... yup :)

    If you start with the premise that organized violence and mass killing is the way to solve social conflicts, you can expect many more absurdities to flow from that. That a strategy requires heavyhanded policies that are near impossible to perfect is a sign that it needs rethinking. With the technology we have, information is more and more difficult to contain, so this problem is not going away any time soon.

    There are methods of defence that are actually made more effective by making your plans public. When data about a system would compromise it, it's too brittle. Information about where your wind generators are placed and how they work is not going to make them more of a target- compare with nuclear or other centralized facilities. Civilian-based defense takes that to a whole new level.

    Similarly, going open-source means your business model is a lot less vulnerable than a closed-source one, because the value you add is not tied to something that is near impossible to control.
  2. Re:Who is Cringley these days anyway? by Sargent1 · · Score: 3, Informative · on Cringley on E-voting

    The PBS Cringely was the third InfoWorld Robert X. Cringely writer. There wasn't really anything to "sell out" about, as he wasn't the first (or last) Cringely, merely the one who kept using the pseudonym after he and InfoWorld parted ways.

  3. Re:Duesberg's lecture by ahknight · · Score: 1 · on Smallpox Vaccine Could Prevent AIDS

    But anti-retrovial therapy for HIV clearly works better than doing nothing at all

    Really? Name someone doing "nothing at all" for an "HIV" infection who is worse for it? One. Just one. Any studies? Anything that's something other than you talking out of your ass?

    I have one. The late tennis pro Arthur Ashe. He started the path to turning from AZT but never did. His wife and child both had HIV, but never received treatment. They live today, happy, healthy, and HIV+. Arthur Ashe remained on "treatment" until his death, but prevented their treatment until symptoms showed. They never did.

    Natural immunity? Hardly. Their counts of HIV antibodies far exceeded his even when he first started treatment (measuring HIV antibodies is the only known HIV test). Yet, though their bodies were obviously picking a fight, they remained healthy.

    HIV is a harmless retrovirus. It's been around for ages, much longer than 20 years. Poppers have not been in use as a daily recreational drug for more than twenty years. Look into it rather than spewing off the party statement. It's quite awakening.

  4. Re:Because he probably does like people by Jim+Efaw · · Score: 2, Interesting · on Dave Barry Answers Alert Slashdot Readers' Questions
    Hey. That particular Robert X. Cringely was me.
    Never mind. I made that up.
    What makes you think it wasn't any other random whatever person?

    That's easy: The real Robert X. Cringely will show you his Stanford diploma.

  5. Re:As mentioned in this weeks Cringely by BdosError · · Score: 2 · on Could Eolas End Microsoft's Browser Dominance?

    Actually the Robert X. Cringely that writes on pbs.org is only 1 person. He was one of the team who wrote the Cringely articles for Info World, but split off on his own, and after a lawsuit, won the right to use the name, but not exclusive of info world using it.

    Early part of the story is here and here (same story, different site).

  6. Re:What about last years predictions? by zsazsa · · Score: 5, Interesting · on Cringley Asking for 12 Month Predictions

    here's his 2002 [infoworld.com] predictions.

    These are the InfoWorld Robert X. Cringely's predictions, who isn't the same Cringely that does things for PBS. That Cringely is actually Mark C. Stephens, who took the pen name with him when he left InfoWorld in 1995. There have been other Cringelys both before and after Stephens writing the column for InfoWorld.

    InfoWorld/IDG has taken legal action in the past to prevent him from using the name, but Mr. Stephens continues to use Cringely.

  7. Re:Your papers, please! by jazman_777 · · Score: 1 · on Feds Undertaking Massive Passenger Profiling Plan
    I hope this isn't the start of what could turn into an internal visa that will apply to all forms of mass transit.


    By way of example, it's not (or used not to be up until recently) an FAA regulation that you need to show your license (our de facto "National ID Card") to fly. This info used to be on the FAA website. In fact, it's something the airlines did so you wouldn't try to resell the ticket (so airlines can make more money--effectively making tickets non-transferable; what is up with that?). But who complains or raises a stink? You must be a freakin' terrorist if you want to sell your ticket! Are they doing background checks on each passenger before the flight?...


    It's just how a sheep-like populace behaves, and gets fleeced. And we are being fleeced, sheared, herded to the tune of the Globalist Corporatist State. Read The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude for some interesting thoughts.

  8. Re:Hmm.... by Mr.+Slippery · · Score: 1 · on Dirty Dozen- The Most Dangerous Toys of 2001
    humans don't need firearms to brutalize one another. They got along quite well for the millenia before the invention of gunpowder.

    For millenia, the strong brutalized the weak. But as the technology of "democratic" weapons (to use Orwell's term) improved - the longbow, the crossbow, the musket, and finally the revolver - the weak were given more equal power.

    As one wag in the Old West put it, "God created man, but it was Sam Colt who made them equal."

  9. More Media lies by dickDragon · · Score: 1 · on "Big Brother" And The Web

    ...and what about these.

  10. Hrmmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4 · on Ask Robert X. Cringely
    According to this article:

    The host of the three-hour documentary, "Triumph of the Nerds," is really Mark C. Stephens, one of several authors of a popular gossip column in InfoWorld magazine written under the Cringely pseudonym. Mr. Stephens, 43 years old, penned the column between 1987 and last December, when InfoWorld cut him loose. But in a case with enough twists to give anybody an identity crisis, the magazine and its parent, International Data Group Inc., sued Mr. Stephens in March for trademark infringement to block his continued use of the Cringely name.

    So, Robert, are you still Mr. Stephens, or are you someone else now?