Slashdot Mirror

Some experts like Peter Palese of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York said the H5N1 viruses are a false alarm. He notes that studies of serum collected in 1992 from people in rural China indicated that millions there had antibodies to the H5N1 strain. That means they had been infected with an H5N1 bird virus and recovered, apparently without incident.

Yes. France does not recognize minorities at all and there is nothing that prevents racial discrimination there because racial minorities do not officially exist in France. Have you been watching the coverage of the riots? non-whites are treated like shit over there and officially they do not exist. In Iraq, at least the non-arab kurds are recognized now.

If you don't want to support the 767-buying, patent-filing search engine, you could switch to ...

... the search engine that snitches on dissidents to the secret police of totalitarian China!

... the search engine run by a bullying monopoly that has run afoul of anti-trust laws.

... the search engine of another company looking to exploit the patent system.

Suddenly I'm wishing at least one university had held on to its search engine (Stanford had Google and Berkeley Inktomi) before spinning it out to make bucks.

You know, you really might want to start getting your hard news from some other place.

Web sites devoted to screeching, psychotic hippie conspiracy theories might be entertaining, but they often lead to looking like a dumbass in the long run.

Not that this will stop you from repeating the Big Lie from now until the end of time, of course.

Although your idea is technically correct, this is a hydrogen fuel cell car. There is no combustion; they bond hydrogen to OH and make water plus electricity. The electricity runs an electric motor and thusly the car goes.

Maybe you should read the article:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/11/02/business/hy drogen.t.php

or even some info on the car itself:
http://automobiles.honda.com/info/news/article.asp ?ArticleID=2003100837086

The "international community"? Like the UN? The same UN that does this sort of thing?

Clinton did blow it (excuse the pun) when it came to Rwanda.

FEMA did well in Florida because Florida was prepared to handle things. Local and State government. In Louisana, they failed, and blamed it on the feds. That's the real difference.

Yep, good thing americans weren't involved in that, um like this guy or maybe ...
this guy ,and don't forget about the guy who pardoned him.
And last, but not least, his lawyer

-k

I think you're underestimating Apple's capacity to generate demand, if not entire markets.

The iPod is a low-profit offering from Apple designed to drive its online music sales (which, I might add, are actually not available in many parts of the world where iPods are available and popular, such as Australia). Do you think that Apple has changed their business model for the video iPod? I very much doubt it.

You will find Apple offering the requisite free video content to end users, such as movie previews - which film distributors will pay them for. You will find music videos available in the iTunes store, as well as Apple signing contracts with likely content providers - say, the comedy channel, nickelodeon, etc, probably several news services, things like that. My guess is that rather than a 99c per newscast, you will pay an $8 yearly (or $1.50 monthly) subscription for a video podcast that iTunes will soon be able to automatically download from the music store and upload to your video iPod.

Or how about watching this weeks episode of The Simpsons ONLY on your iPod, two days before it's broadcast around the world? Worth a $10 yearly subscription to you? With Apple's substantial DRM control, I'm sure they would convince content providers that a model like that would be reasonable, since the episode would expire after one week or being watched twice, whichever came first.

The question of why the iPod beat out PDAs has been quite well answered. A far more interesting question is "why does the iPod, a wholly proprietary, closed system, with minimal fexibility, unusable without the proprietary iTUnes software which runs on a limited number of OSes, and with, frankly, a neat, simple, but highly limited interface (which Apple probably doesn't even own the IP for) so completely dominate a market full of highly competetive, far better priced offerings from excellent, well-established and trusted companies?"

On Slashdot, of all places, why is there such unquestioning acceptance of such a closed, proprietary, tightly-controlled system?

(I'm presuming that "this group" is the Tamil Tigers)

That is simply not true; even when you combine Islamic Jihad and Hamas, that is more than the Tamil Tigers. This is not including Islamic fantics in Indonesia, Chechnya and Phillipines. http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/05/18/opinion/edp ape.php

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/10/20/business/dv d.php

From 1980-2003, the Tamil Tigers committed 76 suicide bombings, while Hamas did only 54. Even among Muslims, secular groups like the Kurdistan Workers' Party, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades account for more than a third of suicide attacks. (NYTimes)Therefore, you can't blame the religion if secular-minded groups do it.

An interesting article that argues for radical reform of copyright (do not let the words "intellectual property" spring from your mouth) can be found (in an unusual place I think) here. Maybe the tide is slackening and will begin to turn soon.

Carl Bildt, former Prime Minister of Sweden criticizes what they're doing in an International Herald Tribune article entitled Keep the Internet Free. Here's a quote:

This is not where Europe should be on these issues. The Internet is vital to our future, and we Europeans should be as keen as anyone to preserve the essence of a system that has worked amazingly well. If that entails leaving some ultimate safeguard powers in the hands of the United States, that's certainly better than having theocrats or autocrats around the world getting their hands on the levers of control.

Repressive regimes like China, Iran, North Korea, and Vietnam certainly could take themselves off the Internet. But along with all the Internet's free speech, they'd lose the considerable economic benefits of being wired to the world. So the answer isn't to follow what is undoubtedly yet another example of spineless European appeasement--letting nasty countries censor and punish blogging disidents in order to keep them online so they can look at (and prehaps buy) overpriced French wine and German cars.

Maybe that adage could be modernized to: "Eurocrats are like chickens, only more so."

--Mike Perry, Seattle, Untangling Tolkien

I also suspect that it treads very close to being unconstitutional. If we can't be accused of some crime before 12 jurors by an elected prosecutor without having a chance to face our accusers, then what right has an unelected and highly unrepresentative group of vigilanties (aka journalists) have to accuse us of that same crime before millions of people, while refusing to divulge their source. Jury trials can end in acquittal. Media accusations, however dubious, never go away. And given prior media behavior, i.e. Rathergate, their motive is rather obvious. Dubious and doubtful sources have to be concealed lest we discover how weak they are.

By the way, if you're following the debate over who manages the Internet, the US or the UN/EU/China/Iran, the former Swedish Prime Minister, Carl Bildt, has an article supporting the US position, "Keep the Internet Free." The EU, it seems, is running with some very nasty company.

Here's a quote:

On the one side is the United States, which wants to retain supervision of the Internet and has managed to get the reluctant support of most of the global Internet community, which sees America as the least bad of the possible ultimate guardians of the system.

On the other side is a collection of states keen on getting as much as control as possible in order to curtail the Internet's power to undermine their regimes. With the theocracy of Iran as the standard-bearer, this group brings together Saudi Arabia, China, Cuba and Venezuela. North Korea is probably keen to join in as well.

The European Union seems to be in the middle, wavering back and forth - and in its wavering it has recently come down with a position that has brought it enthusiastic applause from Tehran, Beijing and Havana.

Despite the dearth of official links (MS still doesn't 'get' the whole Internet thing, do they?!), we do now have some more authoritative sources coming online.

The reveal was in Munich today, which is part of the reason you might see less if you're only trolling around on American sites (on the U.S. dominated and controlled Web).

As for TFA, Paul Bryan is not even a Real Microsoft Executive, but Mike Nash sure is, and you can catch a couple quotes from him via some trustworthy sources.

From The New York Times, Reuters, Bloomberg News, and the International Herald Tribune: "Nash said he had seen a culture change since Bill Gates said three years ago security would be a top priority. 'I used to be begging people to pay attention to security. Now they get it. Security is part of everyone's job.'"

BG

No. Why do I say that? Because even countries like China, as bad as its rights record is, is seen as more popular and less of a threat to world peace than America. (especially check out that second poll - it really drives home what the world thinks of uss)

We all like to think of ourselves as the good guys. Most of the rest of the world doesn't see it that way.

How would the government prevent a person like Jerry Yang (CEO of Yahoo! and snitch who helped the Chinese government to imprison a reporter for 10 years) from driving by a house and using his WIFI to piggyback onto the wireless broadband connection?

Commercial involvment (willing or not) with spying for nation states is alive and well. I know nothing on the topic, but would be very surprised if Microsoft hasn't at least talked to someone from a TLA.

"Because the Republicans would never stifle free-speech."

It is interesting that you point that out in light of today's news (9/15/5). President Bush has made a public statement declaring 'strong' support for Prime Minister Blairs new anti-terrorist bill that is tantamount to a sedition bill. It should be clear to all that President Bush wants the same thing here in this country, as he states that all American's 'strongly' support this. Perhaps he forgot to take a poll first. Thankfully, these types of acts/bills here in the US have been drafted and passed and long since deemed unconstitutional, (i.e. Sedition Act of 1798). Leave it to Bush to forget our own history, or perhaps he remembers it and is simply trying to sell our own failed attempts to quell the opposition to other countries now.

An easier link is thru the International Herald Tribune article of the same story (registration not required for this one).

The US benefitted from an immigrant brain source once (Einstein, Von Braun, Tesla) - it could easily flow the other way if conditions here become too hostile or the grass looks greener elsewhere.

One of main problems is getting a visa to enter the US, even for a conference. It is not only about high profile cases http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/08/17/business/cr ypto.php, but simply PhD students. What do you do when the time to get a visa for entering the US is longer than the time between acceptance and the actual conference?

Also would you go to the US if you were either arab, muslim, or have some family connection in an arab country?

No no, haven't you heard? It's now the GSAT.

"People" do not want underpowered small and annoying hybrid cars.

Hybrid cars enter the fast lane
By Holly Hubbard Preston International Herald Tribune
SATURDAY, AUGUST 13, 2005

Mark Cappellano, a vintner in the Napa Valley of northern California, waited eight months for his new car, a 2004 Toyota Prius. After he took delivery of the car, which runs on a hybrid system incorporating a gas engine and an electric motor, Cappellano drove it to Los Angeles and back - a round trip of more than 800 miles, or 1,280 kilometers.

Gas Prices Soar; Drivers Look For Alternatives
Hybrid Cars Are Not Only Solution

...
The Prius still has a waiting list, and the newest Toyota hybrid, the Highlander SUV, is catching on, too.

...
Even though the hybrids are getting a lot of press, drivers are getting more interested in conventional cars that get good gas mileage.

Toyota plans 10 new hybrid vehicles; sets long-term 1 mln-unit sales target
TRAVERSE CITY, Michigan (AFX) - Toyota Motor Co said it is developing on 10 new hybrid vehicles, after the segment saw strong sales in the US market.

Two years after it was introduced, Toyota's hugely successful Prius still has a waiting list and some buyers are waiting more than six months for delivery.

These are just some of the results I got when I news googled hybrids sales "waiting list". There are people lining up to have their names added to waiting lists for hybrids. While not every one is looking at hybrid some are also looking at convential cars that get good mileage.

What is this "war on terror" that you speak of? Ahhh... I bet you mean the "struggle against violent extremism"...

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/07/26/news/terror .php

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/07/27/opinion/ smith/main712317.shtml

What the hell? Although calling Israel a US state is insulting, every point the guy said is true. And he didn't even start on the Palestinian conflict.

From the American Forces Press Service:
The increased competition brought about by EU arms sales to China could also lead Russia and Israel -- currently the largest suppliers of arms and military technology to China -- to relax their existing limits on such sales.

From the International Herald Tribune:
For many years, Israel has received the largest sum of U.S. aid. Washington provided $2.3 billion in military aid and more than $500 million in economic assistance last year, according to the U.S. Embassy in Israel.

And in case you're wondering if he was being too anti-Israeli: 51st state on Wikipedia:
While sometimes used in a serious political context, it is often used colloquially or humorously to refer to associates which act based on American influences, such as Australia, Canada or the United Kingdom.

Worse Than Death

http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/10/29/news/toll.h tml

It is different - slightly.

In Russia, information is manufactured so that their kangaroo courts can convict slightly shady characters like Mikhail Khodorkovsky on different artificial trumped-up charges.

In the USA, Choicepoint is contracted to manufacture a suspiciously faulty system and a trumped up list of "felons" to be barred from voting in a critically contested election in a critically contested state.

But you are right: in both countries information is used to manufacture artificial felons for political and monetary gain.

is at http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/07/06/business/pa tents.php if you want to read the International Herald Tribune's take on the decision.

I did RTFA... I've also read this separate blurb on the lawsuit yesterday that had information on a portion of the case that delt with the information the engineers had been privy to during the NDA period. That's what I was referring to.

is at International Herald Tribune EU software patent article.

The question about this study is whether or not it has any inherent bias. There have been many studies that have either been exaggerated or not entirely empirical. Here's a good example of a study done by the CDC which has been exaggerated almost to the point of those KFC ads (which claimed that chicken would help one lose weight): http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/04/20/news/fat.ph p

Right Here

Find a non-registration version at the Herald Tribune

The United States does a pretty good job of encouraging foreign investment without hurting its domestic enterprises (not as good as it could be, but the best by default). You advocate protectionism, which the long-term effects can be disastrous. Again, please take a look at the economic performance of Europe. High unemployment and low growth are rampant. Show me an example of where protectionism has helped, and I'll give you a cookie.

"Ok, what exactly ARE the great long term benefits?"

Hey! I'm glad you asked! Here they are: Increased specialization. Better economic growth. Better standard of living. Sunshine. Lollipops.

"You are quite right, no one is entitled to anything.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that you aren't entitled to your unalienable rights. It is fantastic that we can have this sort of engaging debate, don't you agree?

"That being said, however, why do people see to get indignant about people born in affluent country bitching and fighting to STAY an affluent country? You expect people living with great standards to NOT want to stay on top, and keep that level of lifestyle?"

I believe they will and they should try to do so in a way that improves their ability to compete. Not to shield them from competition.

"Exaggerate? Hardly...I've seen very talented people go unemployed for years at a time...some have to take much lower paying jobs...hell, some have to face the demeaning task of training those who are taking their jobs from them!!

The situation would be much worse if the United States began advocating a model of guaranteed employment.

We can plainly see (Slashdot article yesterday) that due to lack of incentive to enter the computer/tech industry...fewer of our students are enrolling in these degree programs. Why go into a field you can't make a decent living at in ratio to the $$ of school and difficulty of study? And...with a dropping rate of computer/tech people in/from the US...there goes our intellectual edge we've had in the past. No one will be here to create the new inventions.

If the US is losing its advantage, it is due to both the improving education standards of some developing nations and lack of improvements in the American education system. The United States has never had a problem with an 'intellectual edge', since it by far represents the best opportunity for advancement and social mobility. The foreign geniuses want to come here.

Hell...keep that trend up, and it becomes somewhat of a Nat'l security hazard. An extreme point grant it...but, not totally unrealistic.

I don't know, the American defense budget is humongous, dwarfing all others.

Again...please list a number of tangible direct benefits we can see from this. I've easily listed many of the detrimental effects...where are the easily listed benefits to the US with globalization?

A larger market. Cheaper consumer goods. More specialized labor. Better Economic Growth. There are detriments, namely the loss of jobs you mentioned. But the alternative is stagnation.

I think the article you are talking about his this one from the International Herald Tribune, White House Letter: 'Boomer rock' keeps Bush's heart in tune

No, "our" objective is no-bid contracts for Halliburton. The amount of federal money that's simply gone missing in Iraq is mindboggling. $69 million in missing oil (http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/05/24/news/oil.p hp). $9 billion unaccounted for (http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/01/30/ira q.audit/). Go on believing that we're there to bring the light of democracy to these poor heathens. Meanwhile, Bush, Cheney and the rest of the ol' boy gang will go on shoveling money out of the Treasury.

Maybe someday, you'll wake up and realize that you and your conservative friends are little more than tools in furthering the selfish agenda of the most corrupt administration in U.S. history. Unless the Rapture comes first.

umm .. 100,000 deaths. ... basically the despots around the world hate us but want our money ...

umm, sorry, but no. the rest of the world wants to do away with using the US Dollar as the monetary standard, and convert to Euro's and Yen .. its the US that wants all currencies tied to the Almighty Dollar, buddy, not the other way around..

Americans live in a bubble from which they launch death.

John Snow (the U.S. Treasury Secretary) fired a warning shot [iht.com] at China's currency fixing policies. Intellectual properties concerns, and trade issues like the one cited in TFA are also commonly voiced from the adminstration.

But with the trade deficit with China and budget deficit being funded by China, China is the one who holds the best cards in the coming tradewar that recent headlines hint at.

If China stops buying US bonds, or floods the market with what they already own, the US economy is screwed.

I think it is kinda funny that John Snow is making demands to China after getting so many loans from the Bank of China.

If I am going to bring legal action against someone, I am not going to go borrow money from them first - especially if I can't pay it back.

Required? Hardly. In case you didn't see it, there's a sidebar on the left that lets you change the article display style. Font size adjustment, toggle of 'columns' format and even a link to the print version of the article with minimal formatting.

It even saves your settings so it gets applied to all other articles on the website.

GENOCIDE -- DARFUR ACCOUNTABILITY ACT STRIPPED FROM BILL:

Last month, both the House and Senate unanimously passed amendments to the war-time supplemental bill that called on the Bush administration to ratchet up its diplomatic efforts to help end the crisis in Darfur. Yet today, on Holocaust Remembrance Day, the House is expected to pass the supplemental bill, and surprise, surprise, those Darfur provisions won't be included. What happened? After pressure from the White House (including a letter from administration officials to House Appropriations Chairman Jerry Lewis), the Darfur Accountability provisions were stripped from the bill.

Apparently, Gates says that he can't find suitable workers in the U.S.A.

So, all you American IT types looking for work, Gates just insulted you...

Seems he wants to scrounge the world for the best worker bees that he can pay minimum wage to work in a programming sweatshop...

Sample article here: here

From BoingBoing, but above is the link to the real article. It doesn't answer that buring question: Does Bush listen to the Dixie Chicks?

format to ensure the document appears how it should on all platforms

That's only true if the only "platform" you care about is paper.

you can make a PDF and make sure it appears correctly.

No, you can't! PDFs frequently do NOT display data correctly. For example, one of my PCs has a 240x320 screen. HTML files display perfectly fine, as do (most) Microsoft Word files, but PDFs are almost too painful to be useable.

For another example, an essay split into multiple columns on the same page is NEVER the correct way to view something onscreen. (Just ask yourself "How many HTML pages render in multiple columns?" Only this site, and there's a good reason no one else does)

The Internet is not made of paper. Stop treating online documents as if they were printouts, or as if printing is the only valid way to view it. Save a tree today!

Sorry to rain on your parade but the article is about an incident that took place in India. If that's not people other than myself talking about outsourcing to India then what is it?

That's why I used the phrase "particular discussion" - the discussion that these points arose in rather than the article itself. It is of course possible to have a discussion that covers wider issues than the article itself, even on slashdot :P

Again, as for my initial comment which you consider irrelevant, it was intended to point out to a poster who was concerned about justice being done that justice was being done, albeit by the relevant Indian authorities rather than their US counterparts.

I don't consider it irrelevant, sorry if I gave that impression. I was just making the point that, if we're throwing anecdotal evidence into the melting pot, mentioning China is just as valid as mentioning India - neither country was explicitly or implicitly mentioned in the question you were responding to.

By the way, the "[W]ho's talking about outsourcing to China?" in my previous post was a question asking for examples of companies who are currently outsourcing to China or even considering it.

Ah, mea culpa, I misinterpreted it as a derogatory "where the heck did China come into it?". China is apparently due to be the next big outsourcing location, so the many horror stories are definitely something to worry about. (The last link isn't strictly related to outsourcing, but the same problems apply)

As for xenophobia you'll notice that I qualified my remarks by saying "sorry, that's what it looks like from where I'm standing", which was my way of saying "hey, you may not have meant it this way, but that's what it's going to look like to some people" but in not so many words.

Ah, thanks for the warning. I hadn't really considered the possibility it might be taken that way. Seems that too long in a sufficiently multicultural society tends to desensitise you to people's sensitivity.

Thanks for a good debate :)

The reason I said make sure the money goes to something useful, was because of this editorial in the International Herald Tribune.

Still, I'll miss it, but am glad we have BG which is way more interesting.

The BBC seems to apologize a lot for their reporting, do a quick search and you will find many examples. Here is a few:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/newswatch/ifs/hi/newsid_4220 000/newsid_4222300/4222353.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/newswatch/ifs/hi/newsid_4270 000/newsid_4273300/4273385.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/newswatch/ifs/hi/newsid_4030 000/newsid_4032600/4032665.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_ra dio/1544897.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/1050290.s tm
http://www.vermontguardian.com/dailies/0904/0322.s html
http://cbsnews.cbs.com/stories/2003/03/21/iraq/mai n545215.shtml
http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/12/03/news/beeb.h tml
http://www.rediff.com/news/2004/jan/28bbc.htm

Some are serious, some are ridiculous. But in the end, apologies result from improper reporting, much different than a simple correction.

50 year plan:
Wait till you think nobody is looking and rewrite your history books

how often do planes have to break suddenly?

More often than we'd like!

Sue fan sites

Tried to use the DMCA to remove content from source forge

Promise upgrades but never follow through(ibook,performa)

Use DRM to lock product(itunes) to device(ipod) and threaten to use the DMCA to protect the lock in

Reciever of numerous customer lawsuits from selling used products as new, and to lie about about the battery life on ipods

For a company with only less than 3% market share, they sure seem to get sued a lot for shoddy products or unethical business behavior.

And this post will probably last 5 minutes before apple fanboys troll, or flamebait it even though i just posted facts.