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Damn those Google copycats: Native Client: A Technology for Running Native Code on the Web.

In fact, there are many examples of unvaccinated kids developing autistic symptoms around the time that the would have received their vaccines. A survey by Generation Rescue, an antivaccine advocacy group that was trying to prove that vaccines were harmful, actually found the opposite--unvaccinated kids were significantly more likely to have autism.

Captcha is really security by obscurity. Readily identifiable information is obscured in such a way as the computers (supposedly) can't find it.

Real security requires a secret. It's as simple as that. So long as the secret can be identified without knowing the secret, your security system is a joke.

Computers are getting better, faster, smarter, cheaper. Moore's wall gets higher every single year, and soon, it will be routine for computers to match or exceed human intelligence. (It can be argued that they already do, particularly in the case of a certain US President)

Therefore, anything that relies on human intelligence to "weed out" machine intelligence will eventually fail. Captcha is the testing ground for the passing of the Turing Test!

Hi Ray, Reading through this thread, the number of comments made by morally retarded idiots is depressing. I just wanted to say once again, as far as most of us here are concerned, you are a superhero complete with a big flappy cape. We luv ya. Keep fighting the good fight.

Thanks, jeko. Don't worry. With these kids joining the fight, nothing will stop me until we win.

We've been vaccinating people against disease for what? Forty years?

The Jenner smallpox vaccine was over 200 years ago. So we've been vaccinating people for a long time. The basic idea is a win. But...

I doubt vaccinations will be laughed at in a hundred years, because they have a proven track record.

Vaccination itself, no. But I hope that the idea of putting thimerisol (a mercury compound) into vaccines will be laughed out of practice, indeed I think this is already occurring.

We may - or may not - find that other additives currently used in vaccines ought to go.

We may - or may not - find that a different scheduling is easier on the immune system and causes fewer complications. (We usually don't catch three or four major diseases at once, after all.)

We may - or may not - find that some of the vaccines for minor diseases aren't worth the hassle. (For example, for a generally healthy person like me, without a lot of exposure and in a normal flu season, I don't think that the risk of complications from a flu shot is worth the benefit of being immunized against a strain that might not even be current. And it turns out it may not be useful in the elderly after all. Instead I'm watching my vitamin D.)

Some posts accuse me of 'bias' against the RIAA. I don't really understand. Yes I detest them and their lawyers and other running dogs, but this isn't based on some preconception, or general mistrust or malevolence, or something I read in the papers. It is based on their deeds.

If you want me to pretend to be objective and dispassionate about a gang of bullies and extortionists, who on a daily basis lie about the facts and try to twist the law... tough.

Anyone who knows me knows exactly where I stand on this issue, and where I am coming from, so no one is misled by my bias.

On my blog on a daily basis, sometimes many times a day, I present the actual underlying litigation documents, from both sides, so people can make up their own minds about how they feel, or about whether I'm making this stuff up.

As for me, I know how I feel. I am in favor of the rule of law. And I am against bullies.

it'd probably cut back on all those unfortunate chippers who accidentally OD because they didn't know how strong their new batch of heroin was

This is a very important point. There are only two ways to unintentionally die of a heroin overdose: 1) you underestimate the purity, or 2) your dealer has cut the heroin with benzodiazepines. Both of these are direct results of the war on drugs, and deaths from these two causes would be reduced almost to nothing if heroin were legalized, as its purity and dosage would be properly labeled, and impurities would not exist (either because of government regulation or market competition, depending on where you stand in the statist-libertarian ideological spectrum). There is a third cause - mixing with alcohol - but most heroin addicts only turn to alcohol when they don't the money for heroin (or, as much heroin as they'd like), and if heroin were legal, it would be very cheap, and there'd be no reason for anyone to substitute alcohol (a substance much more dangerous and debilitating than heroin) for heroin.

(source)

1. No we're not "in the same boat". I have a lot more experience seeing the pain in the eyes, and hearing the pain in the voices, of the victims of this terror campaign. And apparently I don't have your cold and dispassionate way of looking at it.

Yes, you have more experience in this. But even I feel bad when a student or university employee gets hit with a "Settle for $4000 (if you are lucky) or go to court!". Unfortunately, that is the law right now.
As part of a _solution_, I think the $750 statutory damages should be revisited and settlement amount be made more flexible. But that is just me being "cold and dispassionate" again.

2. I have a simple "solution". The judges should apply the law, like this one

The underlined statement in the summary talks about the RIAA possibly using threat of lawsuit to force settlements. Yes, forcing settlement through threat of lawsuit is bad for defendants. Also bad is preventing valid lawsuits to protect copyrights. An individual, independent artist has the same right to file a suit to collect $750/infringement or settle as the RIAA does so I don't think it is entirely fair to pick on the RIAA for using the law as it stands.
    As far as solutions go, I want to see the RIAA be more reasonable and flexible in the amount the sue for and the amount they will settle for.

and this one

This case talked about the invalidity of the 'Making Available' argument. Yes, I disagree with 'Making Available' also. The hard part is this, to prove that someone actually distributed copyright-protected digital content, you have to listen to all the network traffic going into or out of their computer and watch for your work to go across. This is a serious invasion of privacy. There needs to be some way to gather an amount of information that lends credible belief that a copyrighted work was distributed yet without being such an invasion of privacy. I'll admit, even with a graduate degree in IT and years of experience as a programmer and sys admin, I haven't been able to come up with any good ideas on this one, yet :-)

and this one.

Ah yes, failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. I fired up Westlaw and read the RIAA's amended complaint. I saw that this case was cited in the Elektra case you mentioned above. What did the court have to say about this case(Interscope)?
"Defendant notes that in a recent case, Interscope Records v. Rodriguez, No. 06-CV-2485, 2007 WL 2408484 (S.D.Cal. Aug. 17, 2007), a federal district court applied the Twombly pleading standard and held that a complaint similar to the one in this case did not sufficiently state a claim upon which relief could be granted. See id. at *1. Respectfully, the Court is unpersuaded that Twombly demands such a restrictive interpretation of the Rule 8(a) pleading standard."
So the 'law' here is not settled.

Open to discussion,
Eric B

1. No we're not "in the same boat". I have a lot more experience seeing the pain in the eyes, and hearing the pain in the voices, of the victims of this terror campaign. And apparently I don't have your cold and dispassionate way of looking at it.

Yes, you have more experience in this. But even I feel bad when a student or university employee gets hit with a "Settle for $4000 (if you are lucky) or go to court!". Unfortunately, that is the law right now.
As part of a _solution_, I think the $750 statutory damages should be revisited and settlement amount be made more flexible. But that is just me being "cold and dispassionate" again.

2. I have a simple "solution". The judges should apply the law, like this one

The underlined statement in the summary talks about the RIAA possibly using threat of lawsuit to force settlements. Yes, forcing settlement through threat of lawsuit is bad for defendants. Also bad is preventing valid lawsuits to protect copyrights. An individual, independent artist has the same right to file a suit to collect $750/infringement or settle as the RIAA does so I don't think it is entirely fair to pick on the RIAA for using the law as it stands.
    As far as solutions go, I want to see the RIAA be more reasonable and flexible in the amount the sue for and the amount they will settle for.

and this one

This case talked about the invalidity of the 'Making Available' argument. Yes, I disagree with 'Making Available' also. The hard part is this, to prove that someone actually distributed copyright-protected digital content, you have to listen to all the network traffic going into or out of their computer and watch for your work to go across. This is a serious invasion of privacy. There needs to be some way to gather an amount of information that lends credible belief that a copyrighted work was distributed yet without being such an invasion of privacy. I'll admit, even with a graduate degree in IT and years of experience as a programmer and sys admin, I haven't been able to come up with any good ideas on this one, yet :-)

and this one.

Ah yes, failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. I fired up Westlaw and read the RIAA's amended complaint. I saw that this case was cited in the Elektra case you mentioned above. What did the court have to say about this case(Interscope)?
"Defendant notes that in a recent case, Interscope Records v. Rodriguez, No. 06-CV-2485, 2007 WL 2408484 (S.D.Cal. Aug. 17, 2007), a federal district court applied the Twombly pleading standard and held that a complaint similar to the one in this case did not sufficiently state a claim upon which relief could be granted. See id. at *1. Respectfully, the Court is unpersuaded that Twombly demands such a restrictive interpretation of the Rule 8(a) pleading standard."
So the 'law' here is not settled.

Open to discussion,
Eric B

1. No we're not "in the same boat". I have a lot more experience seeing the pain in the eyes, and hearing the pain in the voices, of the victims of this terror campaign. And apparently I don't have your cold and dispassionate way of looking at it.

Yes, you have more experience in this. But even I feel bad when a student or university employee gets hit with a "Settle for $4000 (if you are lucky) or go to court!". Unfortunately, that is the law right now.
As part of a _solution_, I think the $750 statutory damages should be revisited and settlement amount be made more flexible. But that is just me being "cold and dispassionate" again.

2. I have a simple "solution". The judges should apply the law, like this one

The underlined statement in the summary talks about the RIAA possibly using threat of lawsuit to force settlements. Yes, forcing settlement through threat of lawsuit is bad for defendants. Also bad is preventing valid lawsuits to protect copyrights. An individual, independent artist has the same right to file a suit to collect $750/infringement or settle as the RIAA does so I don't think it is entirely fair to pick on the RIAA for using the law as it stands.
    As far as solutions go, I want to see the RIAA be more reasonable and flexible in the amount the sue for and the amount they will settle for.

and this one

This case talked about the invalidity of the 'Making Available' argument. Yes, I disagree with 'Making Available' also. The hard part is this, to prove that someone actually distributed copyright-protected digital content, you have to listen to all the network traffic going into or out of their computer and watch for your work to go across. This is a serious invasion of privacy. There needs to be some way to gather an amount of information that lends credible belief that a copyrighted work was distributed yet without being such an invasion of privacy. I'll admit, even with a graduate degree in IT and years of experience as a programmer and sys admin, I haven't been able to come up with any good ideas on this one, yet :-)

and this one.

Ah yes, failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. I fired up Westlaw and read the RIAA's amended complaint. I saw that this case was cited in the Elektra case you mentioned above. What did the court have to say about this case(Interscope)?
"Defendant notes that in a recent case, Interscope Records v. Rodriguez, No. 06-CV-2485, 2007 WL 2408484 (S.D.Cal. Aug. 17, 2007), a federal district court applied the Twombly pleading standard and held that a complaint similar to the one in this case did not sufficiently state a claim upon which relief could be granted. See id. at *1. Respectfully, the Court is unpersuaded that Twombly demands such a restrictive interpretation of the Rule 8(a) pleading standard."
So the 'law' here is not settled.

Open to discussion,
Eric B

Yes: http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/

1. No we're not "in the same boat". I have a lot more experience seeing the pain in the eyes, and hearing the pain in the voices, of the victims of this terror campaign. And apparently I don't have your cold and dispassionate way of looking at it.

2. I have a simple "solution". The judges should apply the law, like this one and this one and this one. And if all federal judges just applied the law, this RIAA litigation plague would be over.

1. No we're not "in the same boat". I have a lot more experience seeing the pain in the eyes, and hearing the pain in the voices, of the victims of this terror campaign. And apparently I don't have your cold and dispassionate way of looking at it.

2. I have a simple "solution". The judges should apply the law, like this one and this one and this one. And if all federal judges just applied the law, this RIAA litigation plague would be over.

1. No we're not "in the same boat". I have a lot more experience seeing the pain in the eyes, and hearing the pain in the voices, of the victims of this terror campaign. And apparently I don't have your cold and dispassionate way of looking at it.

2. I have a simple "solution". The judges should apply the law, like this one and this one and this one. And if all federal judges just applied the law, this RIAA litigation plague would be over.

1. You're misusing the term "pirate". In copyright law parlance, a copyright pirate is someone who reproduces a large number of exact copies for resale and commercial gain. NONE of the RIAA cases against noncommercial users involve "piracy" or "pirates". See, e.g. US Dept of Justice brief (pdf) at page 4 and footnote 4 on page 5; see also decision of Judge Michael J. Davis at pp. 40-43.

2. These cases don't happen because there's something wrong with copyright law; they happen because the RIAA has been disregarding the law, and the judges have usually let them get away with it.

Stephen Conroy?

Is that you?

Actually, there are venues where the first family's sartorial choices are of great interest.

But, as you point out, this is news for nerds, so we're interested in the technology. And the kind of technolgy PEBO uses says a lot about who he is and what kind of president he's going to be. Take that famous Blackberry of his. Apparently he pretty much ran his campaign machine through the thing. Now he's probably going to have to give it up and fall back on a laptop. And any technerd worth the name wants to know what kind of laptop, what email and IM software he's going to use, etc., etc.

PEBO's choice of an MP3 player is more personal, but it's not totally irrelevant to our assessment of the guy. He's going to make decisions that affect how we use the Internet, what kind of computers we're able to buy, even what kind of software we use. So his choices of personal technology are of more than incidental interest. If he owned an iPod, I'd think it likely that he bought into the whole techncool meme that seems to surround Apple products. If he owned some more obscure brand, than I'd gues that he's somebody like me who spends a bit of time googling about features and downloading manuals before he makes a buy decision. The fact that he uses a Zune suggests to me that he just wanted something that would download his tune from his PC to his player without a lot of hassle.

Trivia? Sure. But it still says more about the guy than his brand of underwear.

This is the same company who had a monopoly on the US phone network, and only allowed AT&T phones to connect to it (for 'network stability' reasons), and only allowed AT&T answering machines.. make a buck on the line, and then make a buck selling the stuff that connects to it; Sounds like their still trying to play the same game :)

There's an awesome response on the googleblog which makes a good read:
http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2008/12/response-to-phone-companies-google.html

do you have anything specific in mind when you talk about a more competent technological investigation

I know people who do technological copyright infringement investigation, involving peer to peer file sharing, for a living. To them, the RIAA's methods are a cause for mirth and laughter. See, e.g., expert witness report of Prof. Johan Pouwelse and his Expert Witness Declaration in Foundation v. Nederland, which explain why.

do you have anything specific in mind when you talk about a more competent technological investigation

I know people who do technological copyright infringement investigation, involving peer to peer file sharing, for a living. To them, the RIAA's methods are a cause for mirth and laughter. See, e.g., expert witness report of Prof. Johan Pouwelse and his Expert Witness Declaration in Foundation v. Nederland, which explain why.

I agree with the others who want to support to your efforts. Don't worry so much about the advertising, but add a direct donation button, take Paypal and credit-cards, and I'll bet you'll be surprised how much support you get from Slashdot users alone. Me, I'd be first in line, since I subscribe to your RSS feed (thank you for that, by the way.) As a group, I'd say we're pretty cheap (after all, we spend so much time downloading (ahem!) "free" music) but what you offer on your blog is unique and relevant. And for all you nitpickers that don't feel Ray's site is quite up to your aesthetic standards, well. If I wanted pretty pictures and no content I'd head over to FOXNEWS.COM. Ray's site is exactly what the World Wide Web was intended to be by its inventors: fast, efficient and most of all informative. The Web has largely been conscripted as a marketing tool, with all the hype and overhead that goes along with that. Keep it simple, Ray, and those of us who really care about your content will keep coming back. I'd say that's especially important: so many modern Web sites leave dial-up and foreign users out in the cold with all the baggage they have to download.

Thanks, ScrewMaster. I've restored the PayPal payment button in the sidebar here. The last time someone suggested that, over $900 came in, which was very pleasant. (Thing is, what I like about the affiliate advertising is that it doesn't cost people anything. They're going to need to buy things anyway, so just by making sure they buy it through one of my links, they help me out, and it doesn't cost them anything.)

Trolling? I'll bite.

Free: http://pythonide.blogspot.com/search/label/spe
Free: http://die-offenbachs.de/eric/index.html
Free: http://docs.python.org/library/pdb.html#module-pdb (and included with Python)
Commercial, but excellent (my team uses it): http://www.wingware.com/
Commercial: http://www.activestate.com/Products/komodo_ide/index.mhtml

If you really love Visual Studio for some reason: http://www.activestate.com/Products/visual_python/index.plex
If you love Eclipse: http://pydev.sourceforge.net/

And for the lazy, "import pdb; pdb.set_trace()" has always been my favorite way to debug python software. Add that line anywhere; get a breakpoint. Make it conditional with an if statement.

Not to mention introspection right down to the bytecode at runtime (there is even a Python module that lets you edit the bytecode at runtime, if you are sufficiently crazy).

In short, you have not used Python for more than 10 minutes if you really think the debugging isn't good.

IHBT. HAND.

Engineers are not good marketers.

And all the proof you need is right here.

what was the name of teh RIAA before? mafia?

It should be.

They're certainly running a protection racket.

what was the name of teh RIAA before? mafia?

It should be.

They're certainly running a protection racket.

Don't underestimate him. He really is a smart guy and understands how little the best judge and juror understand about this stuff. I don't doubt they select venue and jurors for that lack of understanding if they can.

They seem to have done that here. They even managed to find some jurors who had never used the internet. Of course the judge recognized that the trial had been a farce and set the verdict aside.

Don't underestimate him. He really is a smart guy and understands how little the best judge and juror understand about this stuff. I don't doubt they select venue and jurors for that lack of understanding if they can.

They seem to have done that here. They even managed to find some jurors who had never used the internet. Of course the judge recognized that the trial had been a farce and set the verdict aside.

We are working on a 5G specification and it's plenty hard! http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com/

I'm speechless... the RIAA has the audacity to accuse a defense lawyer of inappropriate harassment because he brought legal precedents to the attention of his peers? They should be reprimanded for making such an outrageous request.

Agreed. Which is why I made a Rule 11 motion for sanctions against them. It appears that they find the truth to be "vexatious", too.

If you know anything about networking, network security and P2P, this deposition is hilarious. It's like a Monty Python skit. If you don't you can probably skip it. Thanks to NYCL for a good read.

My pleasure. Going into it, I didn't anticipate it would be as entertaining as it turned out to be. I was really shocked at how bad this guy was. On the other hand, he's laughing all the way to the bank, with the wheelbarrows of money he's getting from peddling his "Audible Magic" software to the LAN operators he's going around threatening. He's running a protection racket. When Ohio University coughed up $60,000, plus $16,000 a year, suddenly the letters stopped. So he may not be much of a technology expert, but he's a good strong arm man.

Pure functional programming removes all side effects.

Yes, at the expense of a copy-everything in sight, use zillions of message channels, kill your performance and spend billions of dollars to retrain millions of programmers to use a counterintuitive programming language. It ain't going to happen. Erlang and Lisp have been around for years. If FP was the answer, it would have happened already. The only reason it hasn't happened is because reality keeps kicking FP in the ass. As it should.

The bottom line is that FP is not the answer to the parallel programming crisis. FP is not just counterintuitive and hard to learn but it is also non-deterministic, meaning that it is not well-suited to mission critical systems. FP is a continuation of the same process/thread mentality that has gotten the industry into this mess in the first place.

I am really coming to the point where I seriously doubt that the academic community (and behemoths like Intel and Microsoft) can provide the type of leadership that is needed to get the industry around this difficult period in computer history. This is depressing. It is time for the baby boomer generation, who gave got us all enfatuated with Turing Machines and threads (both useless for true parallel programming), to step aside and let a new generation have a turn at the helm. You guys got us into this mess, no use in denying it. Now you have run out of ideas simply because you are too old and set in your ways.

If you're truly interested in solving this problem, as opposed to holding on to your job until you retire, read How to Solve the Parallel Programming Crisis for more info.

eBay needs help. They have alienated there sellers, gone to supporting "stores" more than hobby/small-time sellers, and they take almost 10% of sells.

Now they show they can't think through the obvious implications of a badly designed promotion (scam).

Really ebay would do much better to cut their fees and support the mom and pops in this economic environment. I think the time is ripe for competition in the on-line auction market. http://poorbenjamin.blogspot.com/2008/08/for-jerry-yang-to-ponder.html

Actually if you spend any time at all reading some of the Police blogs (I.e. Inspector Gadget or PC Bloggs), or their respective books, you'll find that the Police aren't nearly well enough staffed, funded or equiped to turn the Isle of Man into a Police state, let alone the entire UK.

Are you aware that the Police no longer even make the decision over whether to charge a suspect, or what the charge should be? They've been reduced to glorified office workers with stab vests. They don't even get proper batons any more!

methods exist to examine what the encoding of a string is

These methods can merely intelligently guess, and they can easily go wrong. See this well-known example.

You misunderstand.

In Ruby 1.8, a "string" stored just a sequence of bytes, generally used to represent text. The application was responsible for knowing what encoding a string was in and handling the contents appropriately.

In Ruby 1.9, the string object includes some extra data fields: one of these explicitly records the encoding of the string. Obviously, some piece of application code must be responsible for setting this field correctly - but once it's set, no one has to guess what the encoding of a string is.

The "method" rubycodez referred to is a "method" of the string class, called "encoding".

Obviously, to explicitly store the encoding for a string as part of the string object requires more storage space than just mandating that all strings will encode Unicode... But the result is that the string object is better suited to safely handling other character encodings that you might want to process natively (without cross-encoding) due to the sort of (usually minor) losses of information that can occur in such translations.

methods exist to examine what the encoding of a string is

These methods can merely intelligently guess, and they can easily go wrong. See this well-known example.

Just wanted to mention that although this version pops up pretty regularly, it appears that it was not written by "Maj. Caudill, USMC".

slashdot users need a bit more technical info:

http://rikkles.blogspot.com/2008/05/privacy-in-tel.html

Privacy is very simple yet very powerful:
Essentially you 1024-bit encrypt your phone number with your friend's public key and store it in a unique subdomain for your friend. So only your friend knows where to get the info, and only he's got the private key.

As mentioned in my blog, I think if politicians are so keen to 'clean up the internet', they should start closer to home, in their own PCs. How many times have we seen Australian politicians in various compromising positions ... 'chair-sniffing', kiddie-porn scandals, and of course Prime Minister Rudd can't even remember his night out in Vagas where he had lap dances etc paid for by the Aussie taxpayer.

Of course this is less Labor's fault than fucking Family First, that bunch of ultra-conservative freaks who openly admit they want to turn Australia into a fundamentalist hell-hole, dissolving the separation between religion and state, and enforce their own sexually perverted vision on 'the right way' down everyone else's throats. Their backers include the Assembly of God nut-cases, who are outright hostile to democracy, prevent their own members from reading any non-God-related material, force their children into slave labour for the church, spread vicious lies about progressive political candidates, and support terrorist attacks on abortion clinics. They're a real piece of work! But on the other hand, it's enlightening to see Labor - the so-called 'alternative' party ( inside the 2-party system of course ) backing this lunacy.

Do You Speak EEL?: Translating FAA Bobby Sturgell - PART III http://ejectsturgell.blogspot.com/2008/11/do-you-speak-eel-translating-faa-bobby_30.html Exiting FAA Acting Administrator Bobby Sturgell: "You will notice that I threw a lot of new runways, programs, and equipment at people and communities right before I got chucked out of office. That was on purpose. Those are called 'bribes'. They are intended to buy the silence and cooperation of those that receive them. The others, I'll tell "Safety Officer" Nick Sabatini to try to intimidate. Throwing money-items out to folks like so many Milkbones, provides me a lot of job security in the private sector for years to come".

pro-euthanasia and pro-anorexia sites will be included on the blacklist.

Bring it on, KRUDD! Stand between me and my blog will you?

I got through my boyfriend's firewall and I'll get through yours!

Yes they are, at least in KDE.
See here

by objective measures their systems leave a lot to be desired and often don't justify the TCO, or the inevitable lock in to the providers total solution suite.

While vendor lock-in is a common feature in products from established Western vendors, folks in the far East have been building their own custom solutions from a variety of providers for a long while now. Some newer, upstart Western vendors also eschew lock-in.

Of course, at some point in deciding whether the TCO is justified or not we need to ask just what is religion, anyway?

Uh, no.

Scientific discoveries have, in fact, validated the concept of race.

http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2008/11/european-population-structure-with-300k.html

Differences?

How about "The Bell Curve"? How about things like athletic ability, lactose tolerance, and ability to survive in areas with little (or alot) of sunlight?

Yeah, no differences!!

Shameless self promotion: This article at Ars Technica explains how peering and transit works. For some more info see my blog: Internet Thought.

>

Seriously.

If you practice fiscal responsibility (something the U.S. government seems unwilling to do, hence the current mess), work hard and consistently, keep your skills updated and always marketable, you'll stay out of trouble... or at least be nimble enough to make whatever moves are necessary to get out of trouble very quickly.

What if the government forcibly takes your money and spends it irresponsibly?

e.g. see this graph of countries' per-capita net worth. Here in the UK, the government is in debt to the tune of £125000 per person living here.

They can't raise that money from irresponsible people (by definition, since they have no money and are being supported financially by the government), so they will raise that money from responsible ethical prudent people, by taking peoples' savings, increasing rates on mortgages, and good old inflation

ObLink: this

No chickens were harmed during the writing of this post (or the linked-to article, I suppose), nor any turkeys.

Q: Specially designed oblong freight container for Santa's use on his desert travels?
A: A CamelCase

Is anyone else here tired of knee-jerk partisanship framing discussion in terms of false dichotomies? Government involvement can do a whole lot of good or a whole lot of bad. The devil is always in the details.

Good: regulate to prevent monopolization of last-mile utilities and reduce barriers to competition.

Bad: let lobbyists who supported your campaign write bills that hand out huge billion dollar tax breaks to carriers to build out the next generation "information superhighway" and sit idle while all of that money goes straight into the pockets of shareholders instead while countries like South Korea and Japani take the lead in broadband while America slowly turns into a broadband backwater.

Hopefully things will work out a little differently in the new administration.

This is a LIE! Vista is the best selling OS EVER! These people's numbers are all screwed up! http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com/

...all of which were overshadowed by Mobile Safari.

About time Mobile Safari started getting the respect it deserves...

The boards are fine (made by Foxconn I believe). They just don't have as many "offerings" as others. e.g. more ports, overclocking (remember Intel was the first to lock their FSB), etc. Also while Intel does CPUs great, chipsets aren't their strong point (same could be said for AMD).

I actually don't mind if the chipset doesn't have every bell and whistle, all I really care about is stability.

To intel's credit I've found their motherboards have stability that almost approaches some of the old SPARC, PA-RISC, Power & Alpha Boxen I still have in-play.

That said, we would all be in a much better position if there was still a viable alternative architecture in the market place (HPC and embedded aside). The intel guys have certainly pulled some clever tricks to take their Instruction Set Architecture, which is so badly designed you'd have to wonder if it wasn't a conscious choice, and make it perform so well.

I still wonder though what might have been if the process engineers at intel had been given a descent ISA design. Although the biggest problem isn't the performance, or indeed the power consumption (there have been plenty of posts pointing out that these obstacles have been reduced in their magnitude), but ultimately the x86 ISA is still a security nightmare, and is only getting worse due to some new features, as well as some crufty ones.