Slashdot Mirror

Domain forwarding problems: Try History surrounding the U.S. war with Iraq: Four short stories.

Okay, trying again. The other link is slashdotted?

There's so much material about conflict of interest in the Bush administration that it's difficult to make even a summary: Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government.

Three movies and 34 recently published books should be news.

The small adapter you in the photo to which you link has no electronics inside. It is only a connector adapter. Some mice have PS/2 connectors with extra pins that are needed with USB. When you use the provided adapter, those USB pins are connected. Only the mice with the extra USB arrangement work with the little adapters, not all PS/2 mice.

It's a fact that the more complicated PS2 to USB adapters do not always work reliably in Windows XP.

We redefine the Caps Lock key to be a Control key. All the adapters work well with this configuration with desktop computers. They work only sometimes with Toshiba laptops. Literally, sometimes Control-C will be Control-C, and sometimes Control-C will just type the letter C. This keeps switching back and forth as long as you type into a DOS editor. There is some order to it, but I haven't taken the time to discover what the order is. There is no problem with Windows programs.

How is this possible? Keyboard re-definition (Remapkey.exe in the Windows Resource Kit Tools) is supposed to work at a very low level. How can it work sometimes, and not others?

I discussed this issue with Microsoft tech support, and the representative said that he found a PS2 to USB adapter that did work reliably. However, he said it had no markings on it, and he didn't know where he got it. To him, that resolved the issue. To me, it seemed like he was lying.

I know many Slashdot readers will be deeply, deeply shocked when I say this, but that is not the only quirky behavior in Windows XP. I just finished with a conference call with three Microsoft tech support people that lasted an hour and 26 minutes. In preparation for that call I wrote this article: Windows XP problems: Port Re-direction.

As a result of the discussion, I discovered a theory. All four of us agreed during the call that Windows XP is constantly reorganizing itself. The intermittent failures discussed in the article occur because sometimes the port redirection command is executed before the system has loaded the code that gives access to the ports, and sometimes it loads it after.

There's no real connection between the psychology of Slashdot and the management of VA Linux. The managers wisely decided to leave Slashdot as it was before they bought it. Slashdot is the same, with all its strengths and warts. (Except there is very little talk now about Signal11 and Natalie Portman.)

I've been employed, and very busy, the entire time I have read Slashdot.

Slashdot is very helpful. I have no better way to learn all that I need to learn about what's happening in the computer industry. I became friends with a woman who worked for a well-known computer industry magazine. She had very little technical knowledge and very little caring about technical issues. She owned a Mac, but she wrote about PCs. The quality of computer magazines is very low, and is influenced by advertisers.

In contrast, I am informed every day by Slashdot about the industry by people who are actually doing the work. It's true that I have to wade through a lot of comments that are of no interest to me, but I have found no better way.

Slashdot is very important in my thinking and in the thinking of other people who are and will be the leaders of the computer industry.

There is a bug in the SlashCode that sometimes prevents users from seeing all the comments. Nothing has been done about that serious bug for YEARS.

I tried to write an article about the shortcomings of Windows XP: Windows XP Shows the Direction Microsoft is Going. I found that, even if I worked all day every day, I could not clearly document all the problems with Microsoft's adversarial, un-idealistic approach to business management. This is not an exaggeration.

It's not true that non-technical people don't have opinions about Microsoft. In fact, many well-educated, well-informed people who don't work in the computer industry are very negative toward Microsoft. They've read the newspaper coverage. They thought Bill Gates lied to the court during the anti-trust trial; they don't like it when big companies try to corrupt the government.

You see a lot of teenage attitudes represented on Slashdot. Some of the teenagers are in their twenties. That's life. Just ignore it. Slashdot is not the only place where there are opinions that don't seem well informed. Don't forget, the evangelicals and born-again Christians, 40% of U.S. voters, voted 87% for George W. Bush, and strongly support the violence in Iraq.

"GNU" is not the fault of Slashdot. "GNU/Linux" is a trademark designed by a very intelligent man who benefited the entire computer industry with his socially advanced ideas, but who is very backward in marketing. I bow down to him with respect even though I think GNU is a very poor trademark, and the drawing of the Gnu even worse.

From the parent comment: "Slashdot professes to be some sort of golden defender of consumer copyright law." Slashdot is a group of maybe 100,000 people who have many very varied opinions.

• Absence of deep or analytical thinking (If anyone has any information about George W. Bush showing evidence of analytical or sophisticated thinking, please write to me.)
• Polarized thinking. Mr. Bush's statement, "you are either with us or against us" is an example. Another example is his statement, "Look my job isn't to try to nuance. I think moral clarity is important... this is evil versus good."
• Rigid thinking. A praising April 2, 2003 article about Bush in USA Today newspaper says, "He has a special epithet fo

• Absence of deep or analytical thinking (If anyone has any information about George W. Bush showing evidence of analytical or sophisticated thinking, please write to me.)
• Polarized thinking. Mr. Bush's statement, "you are either with us or against us" is an example. Another example is his statement, "Look my job isn't to try to nuance. I think moral clarity is important... this is evil versus good."
• Rigid thinking. A praising April 2, 2003 article about Bush in USA Today newspaper says, "He has a special epithet fo

• Absence of deep or analytical thinking (If anyone has any information about George W. Bush showing evidence of analytical or sophisticated thinking, please write to me.)
• Polarized thinking. Mr. Bush's statement, "you are either with us or against us" is an example. Another example is his statement, "Look my job isn't to try to nuance. I think moral clarity is important... this is evil versus good."
• Rigid thinking. A praising April 2, 2003 article about Bush in USA Today newspaper says, "He has a special epithet fo

• Absence of deep or analytical thinking (If anyone has any information about George W. Bush showing evidence of analytical or sophisticated thinking, please write to me.)
• Polarized thinking. Mr. Bush's statement, "you are either with us or against us" is an example. Another example is his statement, "Look my job isn't to try to nuance. I think moral clarity is important... this is evil versus good."
• Rigid thinking. A praising April 2, 2003 article about Bush in USA Today newspaper says, "He has a special epithet fo

Sorry, forgot to preview. (I'm supposed to be fixing bugs and delivering a new build today, so I rushed to post my comment.) The link to the first arrest record of each man was incorrect in my comment above:

George W. Bush DUI, 1st record of arrest
George W. Bush DUI, 2nd record of arrest
Dick Cheney DUI, 1st DUI arrest record
Dick Cheney DUI, 2nd DUI arrest record

Sorry, forgot to preview. (I'm supposed to be fixing bugs and delivering a new build today, so I rushed to post my comment.) The link to the first arrest record of each man was incorrect in my comment above:

George W. Bush DUI, 1st record of arrest
George W. Bush DUI, 2nd record of arrest
Dick Cheney DUI, 1st DUI arrest record
Dick Cheney DUI, 2nd DUI arrest record

Sorry, forgot to preview. (I'm supposed to be fixing bugs and delivering a new build today, so I rushed to post my comment.) The link to the first arrest record of each man was incorrect in my comment above:

George W. Bush DUI, 1st record of arrest
George W. Bush DUI, 2nd record of arrest
Dick Cheney DUI, 1st DUI arrest record
Dick Cheney DUI, 2nd DUI arrest record

Sorry, forgot to preview. (I'm supposed to be fixing bugs and delivering a new build today, so I rushed to post my comment.) The link to the first arrest record of each man was incorrect in my comment above:

George W. Bush DUI, 1st record of arrest
George W. Bush DUI, 2nd record of arrest
Dick Cheney DUI, 1st DUI arrest record
Dick Cheney DUI, 2nd DUI arrest record

The problems with family in the U.S. are much, much worse than you are saying. Even when there is no divorce, a high percentage of families are disfunctional. For example, both U.S. President George W. Bush and U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney are alcoholics. Dick Cheney has two DUIs and George W. Bush one:

Bush DUI, 1st record of arrest
Bush DUI, 2nd record of arrest
Cheney DUI, 1st DUI arrest record
Cheney DUI, 2nd DUI arrest record

Most people have little experience with alcoholics. If you know one, ask him or her about this. Alcoholics say that it requires "4 to 6 years" of driving drunk before they get a DUI. (DUI means "Driving Under the Influence of an intoxicating drug.) They will tell you that "once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic".

While you are talking to a (recovered) alcoholic, ask them about the other characteristics of alcoholics, such as the black-and-white thinking ("You are either with us or against us") of George W. Bush. Alcoholics are often very socially engaging and likable. At other times, alcoholics are often very angry and violent, for example, consider the war in Iraq that even hawks agree serves no purpose. It's easy to find alcoholics and recovered alcoholics in the United States. Anyone can go to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. In the small city of Portland, Oregon, USA, there are 27 AA meetings each week, three each day.

Former U.S. president Bill Clinton's parents were violent alcoholics. You can read the book. Bill Clinton's misuse of sexuality is typical of alcoholism-influenced families.

Family life is so stressful in the U.S. that children turn to drugs to try to cope:

"The daughter of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush was arrested... ... while allegedly trying to buy the anti-anxiety drug Xanax." (Jeb Bush is George W. Bush's brother.) Why was she willing to break the law to buy a drug to become less anxious? Because living in her family is very anxiety-producing?

George W. Bush's daughters seem to be imitating their alcoholic father: "Barbara and Jenna Bush were both charged ". Ask yourself, why do these teenage women feel they need a drug like alcohol so badly that they are willing to break the law?

Don't try to talk about this with most Americans, however. They have been told many times that the U.S. is a "Superpower" and that "The U.S. is the best country in the world". (My father says that, for example.) Most of them are unwilling to look at the problems and therefore don't truly love the United States. There is so much pain in the life of many Americans that looking at one more problem would be an overload beyond their ability.

The disfunctionality of families in the U.S. has created a social breakdown that affects everything in U.S. life. For example, consider breakdowns of large companies such as the Enron fraud and the WorldCom fraud and the Tyco fraud.

The disfunctionality of families in the U.S. has created corruption in the U.S. federal, state, and local governments:

Those who want corruption in the U.S. federal and state governments arrange that there is not enough money to do the work. This is happening throughout the United States. Here is a quote from an article written by the president of the Oregon State Bar Association:

"The c

The problems with family in the U.S. are much, much worse than you are saying. Even when there is no divorce, a high percentage of families are disfunctional. For example, both U.S. President George W. Bush and U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney are alcoholics. Dick Cheney has two DUIs and George W. Bush one:

Bush DUI, 1st record of arrest
Bush DUI, 2nd record of arrest
Cheney DUI, 1st DUI arrest record
Cheney DUI, 2nd DUI arrest record

Most people have little experience with alcoholics. If you know one, ask him or her about this. Alcoholics say that it requires "4 to 6 years" of driving drunk before they get a DUI. (DUI means "Driving Under the Influence of an intoxicating drug.) They will tell you that "once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic".

While you are talking to a (recovered) alcoholic, ask them about the other characteristics of alcoholics, such as the black-and-white thinking ("You are either with us or against us") of George W. Bush. Alcoholics are often very socially engaging and likable. At other times, alcoholics are often very angry and violent, for example, consider the war in Iraq that even hawks agree serves no purpose. It's easy to find alcoholics and recovered alcoholics in the United States. Anyone can go to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. In the small city of Portland, Oregon, USA, there are 27 AA meetings each week, three each day.

Former U.S. president Bill Clinton's parents were violent alcoholics. You can read the book. Bill Clinton's misuse of sexuality is typical of alcoholism-influenced families.

Family life is so stressful in the U.S. that children turn to drugs to try to cope:

"The daughter of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush was arrested... ... while allegedly trying to buy the anti-anxiety drug Xanax." (Jeb Bush is George W. Bush's brother.) Why was she willing to break the law to buy a drug to become less anxious? Because living in her family is very anxiety-producing?

George W. Bush's daughters seem to be imitating their alcoholic father: "Barbara and Jenna Bush were both charged ". Ask yourself, why do these teenage women feel they need a drug like alcohol so badly that they are willing to break the law?

Don't try to talk about this with most Americans, however. They have been told many times that the U.S. is a "Superpower" and that "The U.S. is the best country in the world". (My father says that, for example.) Most of them are unwilling to look at the problems and therefore don't truly love the United States. There is so much pain in the life of many Americans that looking at one more problem would be an overload beyond their ability.

The disfunctionality of families in the U.S. has created a social breakdown that affects everything in U.S. life. For example, consider breakdowns of large companies such as the Enron fraud and the WorldCom fraud and the Tyco fraud.

The disfunctionality of families in the U.S. has created corruption in the U.S. federal, state, and local governments:

Those who want corruption in the U.S. federal and state governments arrange that there is not enough money to do the work. This is happening throughout the United States. Here is a quote from an article written by the president of the Oregon State Bar Association:

"The c

The problems with family in the U.S. are much, much worse than you are saying. Even when there is no divorce, a high percentage of families are disfunctional. For example, both U.S. President George W. Bush and U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney are alcoholics. Dick Cheney has two DUIs and George W. Bush one:

Bush DUI, 1st record of arrest
Bush DUI, 2nd record of arrest
Cheney DUI, 1st DUI arrest record
Cheney DUI, 2nd DUI arrest record

Most people have little experience with alcoholics. If you know one, ask him or her about this. Alcoholics say that it requires "4 to 6 years" of driving drunk before they get a DUI. (DUI means "Driving Under the Influence of an intoxicating drug.) They will tell you that "once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic".

While you are talking to a (recovered) alcoholic, ask them about the other characteristics of alcoholics, such as the black-and-white thinking ("You are either with us or against us") of George W. Bush. Alcoholics are often very socially engaging and likable. At other times, alcoholics are often very angry and violent, for example, consider the war in Iraq that even hawks agree serves no purpose. It's easy to find alcoholics and recovered alcoholics in the United States. Anyone can go to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. In the small city of Portland, Oregon, USA, there are 27 AA meetings each week, three each day.

Former U.S. president Bill Clinton's parents were violent alcoholics. You can read the book. Bill Clinton's misuse of sexuality is typical of alcoholism-influenced families.

Family life is so stressful in the U.S. that children turn to drugs to try to cope:

"The daughter of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush was arrested... ... while allegedly trying to buy the anti-anxiety drug Xanax." (Jeb Bush is George W. Bush's brother.) Why was she willing to break the law to buy a drug to become less anxious? Because living in her family is very anxiety-producing?

George W. Bush's daughters seem to be imitating their alcoholic father: "Barbara and Jenna Bush were both charged ". Ask yourself, why do these teenage women feel they need a drug like alcohol so badly that they are willing to break the law?

Don't try to talk about this with most Americans, however. They have been told many times that the U.S. is a "Superpower" and that "The U.S. is the best country in the world". (My father says that, for example.) Most of them are unwilling to look at the problems and therefore don't truly love the United States. There is so much pain in the life of many Americans that looking at one more problem would be an overload beyond their ability.

The disfunctionality of families in the U.S. has created a social breakdown that affects everything in U.S. life. For example, consider breakdowns of large companies such as the Enron fraud and the WorldCom fraud and the Tyco fraud.

The disfunctionality of families in the U.S. has created corruption in the U.S. federal, state, and local governments:

Those who want corruption in the U.S. federal and state governments arrange that there is not enough money to do the work. This is happening throughout the United States. Here is a quote from an article written by the president of the Oregon State Bar Association:

"The c

The problems with family in the U.S. are much, much worse than you are saying. Even when there is no divorce, a high percentage of families are disfunctional. For example, both U.S. President George W. Bush and U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney are alcoholics. Dick Cheney has two DUIs and George W. Bush one:

Bush DUI, 1st record of arrest
Bush DUI, 2nd record of arrest
Cheney DUI, 1st DUI arrest record
Cheney DUI, 2nd DUI arrest record

Most people have little experience with alcoholics. If you know one, ask him or her about this. Alcoholics say that it requires "4 to 6 years" of driving drunk before they get a DUI. (DUI means "Driving Under the Influence of an intoxicating drug.) They will tell you that "once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic".

While you are talking to a (recovered) alcoholic, ask them about the other characteristics of alcoholics, such as the black-and-white thinking ("You are either with us or against us") of George W. Bush. Alcoholics are often very socially engaging and likable. At other times, alcoholics are often very angry and violent, for example, consider the war in Iraq that even hawks agree serves no purpose. It's easy to find alcoholics and recovered alcoholics in the United States. Anyone can go to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. In the small city of Portland, Oregon, USA, there are 27 AA meetings each week, three each day.

Former U.S. president Bill Clinton's parents were violent alcoholics. You can read the book. Bill Clinton's misuse of sexuality is typical of alcoholism-influenced families.

Family life is so stressful in the U.S. that children turn to drugs to try to cope:

"The daughter of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush was arrested... ... while allegedly trying to buy the anti-anxiety drug Xanax." (Jeb Bush is George W. Bush's brother.) Why was she willing to break the law to buy a drug to become less anxious? Because living in her family is very anxiety-producing?

George W. Bush's daughters seem to be imitating their alcoholic father: "Barbara and Jenna Bush were both charged ". Ask yourself, why do these teenage women feel they need a drug like alcohol so badly that they are willing to break the law?

Don't try to talk about this with most Americans, however. They have been told many times that the U.S. is a "Superpower" and that "The U.S. is the best country in the world". (My father says that, for example.) Most of them are unwilling to look at the problems and therefore don't truly love the United States. There is so much pain in the life of many Americans that looking at one more problem would be an overload beyond their ability.

The disfunctionality of families in the U.S. has created a social breakdown that affects everything in U.S. life. For example, consider breakdowns of large companies such as the Enron fraud and the WorldCom fraud and the Tyco fraud.

The disfunctionality of families in the U.S. has created corruption in the U.S. federal, state, and local governments:

Those who want corruption in the U.S. federal and state governments arrange that there is not enough money to do the work. This is happening throughout the United States. Here is a quote from an article written by the president of the Oregon State Bar Association:

"The c

If you truly understand yourself, you will stop liking to view violence. Those who like violent games are only seeing the game as a symbol for their own anger. If they work on their anger directly, they will not need the game.

Read The Primal Scream: Primal Therapy: The Cure for Neurosis
by Arthur Janov.

Also read Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality
by Frederick S. (Fritz) Perls, Ralph Hefferline, PaulGoodman.

I don't profit from book sales. Those are Amazon's codes for the books exclusively.

Here is an article I wrote for a friend about other books I would recommend: Read the Recent Great Books.

This is VERY difficult, but it works: To be more intelligent, work on resolving your inner conflict.

Read this book: The Primal Scream: Primal Therapy: The Cure for Neurosis.

Other books I've found useful for personal growth: Read the Recent Great Books.

MOD PARENT UP!

I notice that, too. Also, Windows XP machines newly added to a Windows 98 peer-to-peer network have trouble seeing the Win 98 machines. Posting to official Microsoft newsgroups provides no answers to this quirky behavior. Of course, that may be because Chang, Li, Wu, Zhang and others have been told not to discuss it.

I put some of the fixes for quirkiness together so that I could ask Microsoft if there was anything I am missing: Possible Solutions to Slow Network Browsing or Inability to Connect. Some of the problems mentioned are obviously not the fault of Windows XP directly, but the fact that they often occur seems sometimes to be the fault of underlying sloppiness in Windows OS code.

Acronis TrueImage is a Linux-based Windows XP backup utility that never has any problem seeing all machines on a Windows peer-to-peer network.

I've also never had problems with Linux itself.

What!!! Iran 1953, Chile 1973. Do a Google search for God's sakes. Here's one link. They were all covet operations supported by the CIA. For overt operations, see Vietnam, while they had initially agreed to joint democratic election for both North and South Vietnam, US knew it would have lost the elections, so they made up intelligence (Gulf of Tonkin) as a pretext for invasion. Vietnam is still suffering to this day from Agent Orange, ammos etc just as Iraq will suffer from cluster bomblets and depleted uranium.

Absolutely. This is the same France that just a few years ago had massive "Down with the Jews" protests.

I'd love more details. Was this a majority opinion or a minority opinion? Was this anti-Israeli-administration or anti-Jews? Want to provide more details?

Anyway, the people's will should be respected unless you have a good counter-argument. The burden of proof is upon the government, not the people. I'm not sure what you mean by "Down With Jews", but there's a very good humanitarian argument against genocide.

With Iraq, none of the governments presented a credible case as we then suspected and now know.Trust us, we're from the government isn't good enough when people's lifes are at stake.

Many of the problems in the U.S. are caused by the U.S. government's secret violence to preserve the profits of big companies: History surrounding the U.S. war with Iraq: Four short stories.

Well, when you consider the number of ways in which XP expects to (and in many cases, i'm sure, does) connect to Microsoft servers, you may come to think that this may just be some crass attempt to do something it's users have said they don't want to have to install/configure themselves. They already have any number of ways in which they could, if they wished, piggyback data between XP and their servers via legitimate connections. But you can trust Microsoft, right?

The idea of XML-based interface definition has been around well before XAML. There are a ton of XML user interface languages around: http://xul.sourceforge.net/. Hell, Mozilla is built around it: http://www.hevanet.com/acorbin/xul/top.xul

• Crater over-predicted penetration of tile coating significantly
  • Initial penetration to described by normal velocity
    -- Varies with volume/mass of projectile(e.g., 200ft/sec for3cu. In)
  • Significant energy is required for the softer SOFI particle to penetrate the relatively hard tile coating
    -- Test results do show that it is possible at sufficient mass and velocity
  • Conversely, once tile is penetrated SOFI can cause significant damage
    -- Minor variations in total energy (above penetration level) can cause significant tile damage

Flight condition is significantly outside of test database
-- Volume of ramp is 1920cu in vs 3 cu in for test

It's not hate-filled to say that George Bush does not seem intelligent. Watch David Letterman. (For those of you not in the U.S., he is a talk show host who is on TV every weekday night.) Letterman has been regularly showing video clips, taken from that day's news, of our President, George Bush, doing something stupid.

For example, in one David Letterman clip George Bush read a speech and when he was finished gave a cough and a jerky movement that David Letterman characterized as, "That was boring. Now I'm out of here."

I'm tired of having a president that other foreign leaders characterize as an "idiot". That reference is just one example.

There is a part of the Republican party composed of people who will do anything to sell the U.S. government to those, mostly their friends, who have money. They are truly not a political party; they can rightly be characterized as criminals. George Bush is their figurehead. For example, look at this CNN article, "Vice President Cheney has a financial interest in Halliburton." Quoting David Letterman, "When you write the check for your part of the $83 billion to rebuild Iraq, remember that there are two Ls in Halliburton."

According to someone I know who was in Vice President Dick Cheney's social circle while he was at Halliburton, Cheney was (is) an alcoholic with a history of boozing and womanizing. This was not different from George Bush, of course.

I'm not the only person who is looking for an alternative to President Bush. I think that maybe Howard Dean is the best alternative.

Also, note that this post is on-topic. We are talking about the politics of the U.S. government spending billions of money it doesn't have to send people to the moon. Others have characterized this as intended to be a distraction from the serious problems the present U.S. government administration has caused.

It's not hate-filled to say that George Bush does not seem intelligent. Watch David Letterman. (For those of you not in the U.S., he is a talk show host who is on TV every weekday night.) Letterman has been regularly showing video clips, taken from that day's news, of our President, George Bush, doing something stupid.

For example, in one David Letterman clip George Bush read a speech and when he was finished gave a cough and a jerky movement that David Letterman characterized as, "That was boring. Now I'm out of here."

I'm tired of having a president that other foreign leaders characterize as an "idiot". That reference is just one example.

There is a part of the Republican party composed of people who will do anything to sell the U.S. government to those, mostly their friends, who have money. They are truly not a political party; they can rightly be characterized as criminals. George Bush is their figurehead. For example, look at this CNN article, "Vice President Cheney has a financial interest in Halliburton." Quoting David Letterman, "When you write the check for your part of the $83 billion to rebuild Iraq, remember that there are two Ls in Halliburton."

According to someone I know who was in Vice President Dick Cheney's social circle while he was at Halliburton, Cheney was (is) an alcoholic with a history of boozing and womanizing. This was not different from George Bush, of course.

I'm not the only person who is looking for an alternative to President Bush. I think that maybe Howard Dean is the best alternative.

Also, note that this post is on-topic. We are talking about the politics of the U.S. government spending billions of money it doesn't have to send people to the moon. Others have characterized this as intended to be a distraction from the serious problems the present U.S. government administration has caused.

It's not hate-filled to say that George Bush does not seem intelligent. Watch David Letterman. (For those of you not in the U.S., he is a talk show host who is on TV every weekday night.) Letterman has been regularly showing video clips, taken from that day's news, of our President, George Bush, doing something stupid.

For example, in one David Letterman clip George Bush read a speech and when he was finished gave a cough and a jerky movement that David Letterman characterized as, "That was boring. Now I'm out of here."

I'm tired of having a president that other foreign leaders characterize as an "idiot". That reference is just one example.

There is a part of the Republican party composed of people who will do anything to sell the U.S. government to those, mostly their friends, who have money. They are truly not a political party; they can rightly be characterized as criminals. George Bush is their figurehead. For example, look at this CNN article, "Vice President Cheney has a financial interest in Halliburton." Quoting David Letterman, "When you write the check for your part of the $83 billion to rebuild Iraq, remember that there are two Ls in Halliburton."

According to someone I know who was in Vice President Dick Cheney's social circle while he was at Halliburton, Cheney was (is) an alcoholic with a history of boozing and womanizing. This was not different from George Bush, of course.

I'm not the only person who is looking for an alternative to President Bush. I think that maybe Howard Dean is the best alternative.

Also, note that this post is on-topic. We are talking about the politics of the U.S. government spending billions of money it doesn't have to send people to the moon. Others have characterized this as intended to be a distraction from the serious problems the present U.S. government administration has caused.

It's not hate-filled to say that George Bush does not seem intelligent. Watch David Letterman. (For those of you not in the U.S., he is a talk show host who is on TV every weekday night.) Letterman has been regularly showing video clips, taken from that day's news, of our President, George Bush, doing something stupid.

For example, in one David Letterman clip George Bush read a speech and when he was finished gave a cough and a jerky movement that David Letterman characterized as, "That was boring. Now I'm out of here."

I'm tired of having a president that other foreign leaders characterize as an "idiot". That reference is just one example.

There is a part of the Republican party composed of people who will do anything to sell the U.S. government to those, mostly their friends, who have money. They are truly not a political party; they can rightly be characterized as criminals. George Bush is their figurehead. For example, look at this CNN article, "Vice President Cheney has a financial interest in Halliburton." Quoting David Letterman, "When you write the check for your part of the $83 billion to rebuild Iraq, remember that there are two Ls in Halliburton."

According to someone I know who was in Vice President Dick Cheney's social circle while he was at Halliburton, Cheney was (is) an alcoholic with a history of boozing and womanizing. This was not different from George Bush, of course.

I'm not the only person who is looking for an alternative to President Bush. I think that maybe Howard Dean is the best alternative.

Also, note that this post is on-topic. We are talking about the politics of the U.S. government spending billions of money it doesn't have to send people to the moon. Others have characterized this as intended to be a distraction from the serious problems the present U.S. government administration has caused.

Check out FuturePower's website, in particular the "essay" Windows XP Shows the Direction Microsoft is Going. It's a mind-boggling barrage of computer science naivete, unqualified assertions and anecdotes, and flat-out lies. My personal favorite parts are his complaints that Windows is less responsive when virtual memory is entirely consumed, and a laundry list of OS-level apps that attempt to phone home to Microsoft. Or so he claims, based on the fact that they set off ZoneAlarm by daring to make an outgoing TCP connection. Hasn't this guy ever heard of a local area network? At least 2/3 of the "apps" (he doesn't cite .exe names) poll the local workgroup/domain, either for file/print shares, or computers the admin tool in question may be able to administer remotely with the proper credentials.

In fact, I think he composed this question by cut-n-pasting a section of that screed, and tacking on a "whaddya use?" at the end. (Scroll down to the subhead entitled "Backup Problems: Windows XP cannot copy some of its own files." Sound familiar?)

It's a shame such a steaming pile of FUD is available to the internet at large. It single-handedly sets open source evangelism back ten years.

From the parent post: "Look at your own country first."

Did that: History surrounding the U.S. war with Iraq: Four short stories. Here's a quote: "The least sophisticated way of relating to other people is killing them."

Also, I don't think it is a good practice to call someone an "idiot" because you disagree with them.

• June 18, 2002: 18 vulnerabilities
• August 8, 2002: 22 vulnerabilities
• September 9, 2002: 19 vulnerabilities
• November 19, 2002: 32 vulnerabilities
• December 9, 2002: 19 vulnerabilities. (Microsoft fixed 15 on Nov. 20, but two new ones were found.)

With only that statement to go on, I would guess that you may be new to Slashdot. Please visit and read the outrageous lies. More can be found here, here, and here.

You've confirmed for me that not many people actually looked at the code (around 500 lines) or even tried the demos that came with it before offering an opinion. The value of their opinions should be weighed with that in mind. After all, why voice an opinion on something you haven't tried? Why should someone believe that opinion? If you have a child, would you give that child the advice of following, and believing, in the opinion of others who haven't even experienced the subject firsthand, or know of actual cases where the subject warranted that opinion? Granted, a small minority of posters who didn't "think" the product could work at least prefaced their opinion with the fact that they didn't know the product at all.

did not convince that their product was useful for any real purpose

The idea that there isn't a place for this technology is proven false by the existance of products using some form of object prevalence. Simply go through the posts in this article and you'll run into a handful of people who bothered to post about their experiences and projects.

However, if you have no interest in using the product, there is nothing wrong with that. There may be a myriad of legitimate technical reasons why someone wouldn't use it (I know of very few). However, let's be clear here. To base a reason on packaging is nothing more than a simple matter of taste, not true objectivity. It has absolutely nothing to do with technical merits.

= 9J =

1. Violence is a good way to end violence.
2. Americans should kill Iraqis to make them more peaceful.
3. Before Saddam Hussein, there was no violence in Iraq. When Mr. Hussein is no longer in power, Iraq will become a peaceful place.
4. Killing Iraqis and destroying the infrastructure of that very poor country will have simple consequences. Killing people is an entirely clean social event, like on TV. Killing people has no effect on future relationships, or on the trust people put in those relationships.
5. Americans are superior people who should decide the way the world should be run.
6. Private oil companies should be allowed to take on unprofitable operations if U.S. taxpayers can be convinced to pay part of the cost so that the oil companies can make money.

Complicated reasons for Microsoft's problems are given in the CyberINsecurity report. However, it seems to me that the security vulnerabilities in Microsoft software may be due to Microsoft pressuring programmers to finish and go on to new projects before they have had enough time to clean up their code.

On 11 September 2003, there were 31 unpatched vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer. On December 9, 2002, there were 19 security vulnerabilities. So vulnerabilities are being found faster than they are being fixed.

Certainly this is embarrassing for Microsoft. Presumably Microsoft would fix these problems if it could. However, maybe IE is a mountain of sloppy code, and it is expensive to fix. Maybe Microsoft is no longer able to hire programmers who are skilled enough to find the bugs.

Who uses the vulnerabilities before they are fixed? Do the U.S. government's CIA and NSA and FBI departments use them to spy on foreign governments? Is that why there are allowed to be so many?

Whatever the reason for the vulnerabilities, it is remarkable that there are 31 known and publicly documented security risks in just one computer program, particularly when that program is the most widely used program to connect to the Internet.

The CyberINsecurity report is almost a Microsoft love fest, because it only talks about one kind of shortcoming. I think my paper, Windows XP Shows the Direction Microsoft is Going is a bit better balanced.

twitter, it is very interesting what you said above, about the design of the search engine making results more Microsoft-friendly.

That made me wonder what would happen if I put in my own name. The second result on the list is:

Windows XP Shows the Direction Microsoft is Going. ... Windows XP Shows the Direction Microsoft is Going. by Michael Jennings, Futurepower(R) Computer Systems ...
www.hevanet.com/peace/microsoft.htm

My article discusses how Windows XP has been designed in such a way that it is adversarial toward the interests of Microsoft's customers. Clearly, if the seach engine is skewing results, it makes mistakes. But, notice something: The source code for that link says my name is "span class='hit' ". [I changed the punctuation to make it readable.]

The 15th result, at the bottom of the first page, is the same article translated to Spanish:

Windows XP muestra la direccion que Microsoft esta tomando. Opiniones sobre Microsoft.
www.hevanet.com/peace/microsoft-es.htm

The HTML source code of this result says "span class='d' ". The result says "Opiniones sobre Microsoft", which, translated from Spanish, means, "Opinions about Microsoft".

So, apparently someone at Microsoft saw the article and classified it. Maybe the person who did the classifying did not have the technical knowledge necessary to realize that the article discusses abusive activities by Microsoft.

Notice in the source code of that result that the link is a link to MSN, not a direct link to my article. So, apparently the search engine is tracking visits to the Spanish version of the article. It is not clear to me the meaning of this.

No chance of any competition in that model. Ever.

A big danger is DRM being added into the chain, then Microsoft would have 100% say over who makes files, who reads files, when and where they can read files, and who can make programs that read, write or modify files. And just to make the lock-in complete, 100% control over determining the life span of the file format. No more 100 year old archives.

If the EU starts down that path by using encumbered file formats, it steps on the rights of countries where access to government information is a constitutional right. Sweden and Finland are two such countries where information has been open by default as part of the constitution. There may be other countries, but even countries with weaker freedom of information need to use open formats.

I had a section on the shatter attack and the messaging vulnerabilities in my paper, Windows XP Shows the Direction Microsoft is Going, but I got so much hostile feedback on message boards from people who said it did not exist, or it was not the fault of Windows, that I took the section out.

The shatter attack is a local attack only, that allows a logged-on user to elevate to administrator. Microsoft has recently (July 9, 2003) documented one messaging exploit: Flaw in Windows Message Handling through Utility Manager Could Enable Privilege Elevation (822679). But what does Microsoft know, right?

Apparently only two or three exploits of Windows messaging have been published. However, it seems reasonable that there are others.

The whole question gets some people very upset. They say that it is the fault of whoever wrote a vulnerable application. But look at what's in Windows memory at any one time. There is a huge amount of stuff written by numerous people. It seems to me that it doesn't matter to the user how the vulnerability got there, a vulnerability is a vulnerability. If you use Windows, you are trusting numerous programmers to know how to pass messages because there is no authentication system.

Consider this post by Uller-RM. He says, "... he [the attacker] adjusts the size of a textbox using an outside program to 4GB. (Windows unfortunately allows this, since the message format doesn't include a "sender" field to check against the owner handle.)".

Yes, it is unfortunate. And fixing it requires a rewrite of Windows that breaks all present applications. Am I wrong about any of this?

I'm not saying I understand everything about this, but I don't have time to investigate it further. I have to go back to writing a letter to a customer.

First, your hostile behavior is completely unacceptable, even if you are technically correct in what you are saying.

Second, you are replying to a very long article which mentions many, many issues. Even if you were correct that the article is in error, it would be a mistake only in a small percentage of the article.

Third, it is you who is mistaken. My article, Windows XP Shows the Direction Microsoft is Going. clearly references a Microsoft article: Q314828 Microsoft Policy on Disk Duplication of Windows XP Installation. That Microsoft article references another article: Using Disk-Image Copying in Microsoft Windows Deployment. In the second article, Microsoft says: "Finally, you may use a process known as disk-image duplication to deploy additional corporate desktop systems. (This disk imaging/duplication process can be accomplished using third-party software or hardware created for this purpose. Microsoft does not offer such a utility.)"

The meaning of "Microsoft does not offer such a utility" is that there is no way to copy a fully installed version of Windows XP using Windows XP alone. The "third-party utilities" such as Norton Ghost and PowerQuest DriveImage and PowerDeploy boot to DOS and do sector-by-sector copies.

Volume Shadow Copy cannot make a working copy of a fully-installed disk containing Windows XP. Your post seems to indicate that you have not tried this yourself, but only seen others do it. I've tried it, and it doesn't work. I've asked Microsoft, and they agree. Who is correct, Microsoft and I, or you?

See this article for other reasons a government MUST use open source software: Windows XP Shows the Direction Microsoft is Going.

The subheadings in that article tell the story:

A government that uses proprietary software is not an independent government.

You cannot know now to what contract provisions you will be held in the future.

Microsoft Keeps Control: Microsoft has abandoned its earlier successful business model.

Microsoft restricts your software options.

Backup Problems: Windows XP cannot copy some of its own files.

I've been reading the posts to this story, and I can see that many people don't understand the underlying issues.

Here is a fact that is symbolic of why organizations switch to Linux: Microsoft Windows XP cannot copy all of its own files! Microsoft decided to treat all of its customers as though they were criminals just because some were making illegal copies. So, Microsoft crippled the Windows XP file system to prevent people from cloning their copies of Windows. This vastly increases the problems in using Windows XP, for everyone, because full hard disk backups become more difficult.

For more about Microsoft's anti-customer behavior, see Windows XP Shows the Direction Microsoft is Going.

Organizations have had enough of Microsoft's hostile behavior toward them. That's the underlying reason they are switching to Linux.

Also, governments cannot ensure independence if they use proprietary, closed-source software. Could the United States government's NSA or CIA or FBI demand that a hidden back door be put in Microsoft software so that it could investigate what another government is doing? Certainly. Obviously, an agency that is authorized to kill people and destroy their property will not feel morally limited when considering corruption of software.

It seems to me that the GPS idea is part of Oregon government corruption. The idea cannot work for the reasons mentioned at the end of this article: Airplanes are safe, but laws often crash. Why are they proposing something that cannot work? Probably someone is using the idea to make money.

For more about problems in the government of Oregon, see this: Complicated methods corrupt Oregon government. Basically, people who want to use government to make money have found the perfect way to prevent negative court judgements: The Judiciary in Oregon is not allowed enough money to do its job. Try calling the Oregon Court of Appeals in Oregon on any Friday and you will find that they are closed because they don't have enough money to stay open 5 days a week. With a limited Judiciary, those who want corruption can accomplish almost anything.

The corruption uses other methods, some of which are mentioned in the articles.

It seems to me that the GPS idea is part of Oregon government corruption. The idea cannot work for the reasons mentioned at the end of this article: Airplanes are safe, but laws often crash. Why are they proposing something that cannot work? Probably someone is using the idea to make money.

For more about problems in the government of Oregon, see this: Complicated methods corrupt Oregon government. Basically, people who want to use government to make money have found the perfect way to prevent negative court judgements: The Judiciary in Oregon is not allowed enough money to do its job. Try calling the Oregon Court of Appeals in Oregon on any Friday and you will find that they are closed because they don't have enough money to stay open 5 days a week. With a limited Judiciary, those who want corruption can accomplish almost anything.

The corruption uses other methods, some of which are mentioned in the articles.

• June 18, 2002: 18 vulnerabilities
• August 8, 2002: 22 vulnerabilities
• September 9, 2002: 19 vulnerabilities
• November 19, 2002: 32 vulnerabilities
• December 9, 2002: 19 vulnerabilities. (Microsoft fixed 15 on Nov. 20, but two new ones were found.)
• May 8, 2003: 14 vulnerabilities

Societies collapse partly because they have poor leaders:

President Bush and Vice President Cheney have been arrested a total of 5 times. Here are some records:

President of the U.S. George W. Bush DUI Arrest record #1. (President Bush's date of birth is 07/6/46. The date on the record is an error.)

President of the U.S. George W. Bush DUI Arrest record #2.

Vice President of the U.S. Dick Cheney DUI Arrest record #1.

Vice President of the U.S. Dick Cheney DUI Arrest record #2.

Societies collapse partly because they have poor leaders:

President Bush and Vice President Cheney have been arrested a total of 5 times. Here are some records:

President of the U.S. George W. Bush DUI Arrest record #1. (President Bush's date of birth is 07/6/46. The date on the record is an error.)

President of the U.S. George W. Bush DUI Arrest record #2.

Vice President of the U.S. Dick Cheney DUI Arrest record #1.

Vice President of the U.S. Dick Cheney DUI Arrest record #2.

Societies collapse partly because they have poor leaders:

President Bush and Vice President Cheney have been arrested a total of 5 times. Here are some records:

President of the U.S. George W. Bush DUI Arrest record #1. (President Bush's date of birth is 07/6/46. The date on the record is an error.)

President of the U.S. George W. Bush DUI Arrest record #2.

Vice President of the U.S. Dick Cheney DUI Arrest record #1.

Vice President of the U.S. Dick Cheney DUI Arrest record #2.

Societies collapse partly because they have poor leaders:

President Bush and Vice President Cheney have been arrested a total of 5 times. Here are some records:

President of the U.S. George W. Bush DUI Arrest record #1. (President Bush's date of birth is 07/6/46. The date on the record is an error.)

President of the U.S. George W. Bush DUI Arrest record #2.

Vice President of the U.S. Dick Cheney DUI Arrest record #1.

Vice President of the U.S. Dick Cheney DUI Arrest record #2.

The software DRM will soon be followed by a hardware implementation. With both the hardware and software DRM in place, non-military control of the Germans is possible if needed. If worse comes to worse, the White House can order Microsoft to use WPA to pull the plug on German computers. That will not be needed often because it will be possible to monitor general activities, and even the contents of specific documents, to effect smoother diplomatic solutions. In a tight spot, the desktop set's microphone activated to pick up conversations.

Audits by the Business Software Alliance can be used as a milder intermediate measure than pulling the plug and as a supliment to monitoring.

Lists of Microsoft Abuses:

Overall abuses: Reasons to Avoid Microsoft. (More than 200 in one year!)

Abuses in one product: Windows XP Shows the Direction Microsoft is Going.

Sometimes people confuse themselves by thinking of Microsoft as a software company that is abusive. It can be more clear to think of Microsoft as an abuse company that sells software.

Judging from some of the things I've seen, there must be executives at Microsoft who every day energetically think of more ways to put the customer's back against the wall.

I've spent more than 20 years studying things of this nature, and I think what's happening at Microsoft is a general social breakdown. Usually in situations of this sort, things get worse and worse until something breaks.

Other social breakdowns:

The U.S. government: History surrounding the U.S. war with Iraq: Four short stories

and What should be the Response to Violence?.

Law in the U.S. state of Oregon:

Complicated methods corrupt Oregon government.

and Airplanes are safe, but laws often crash.

Regardless of how awful the government there may be, that doesn't give us the justification to go in there and mandate how they will govern.

Of course it's much easier to justify a war with Iraq when it HAS an awful government, a history of war with neighboring countries, and vast amounts of weapons. Which is why The CIA made sure it was so.

"Hidden elements of the U.S. government overthrew a democratically elected president of Iran (Mossadegh) because he wanted to reduce the profits of U.S. and British oil companies doing business in Iran. The U.S. government supported a very weak man, the Shah of Iran, who became very violent toward his own citizens. Eventually, people in Iran overthrew the Shah. The U.S. government's actions de-stabilized the country and encouraged the violence that came after.

"People in Iran began supporting terrorism against the United States, in retaliation for hidden U.S. government interference with the Iranian government.

"To counteract Iranian support of violence against the U.S., the U.S. government began supporting and encouraging Iraq in a war against Iran. This was very profitable for U.S. weapons manufacturers. Weapons manufacturers in the U.S. were delivering weapons to Iraq under long-term contracts until the same month as the U.S. began war on Iraq the first time. (However, most Iraqi weapons come from Russia, apparently.)"

Yes, I'm well aware this is blatently offtopic. I don't give a shit about karma any more.. The people of America need to know what this war is really about, and you can bet your ass CNN isn't going to tell them.