Slashdot Mirror

You obviously think everyone is an idiot.

Some people don't have time to read 8 hours of fucking news every day to meet your standards.

One should take in all sources of news and make up their own minds.

Whoops ; Here are the examples I meant to include in my previous post.

Venezuela[1], Brazil[2], Extremadura and other regions of Spain[3], New Zealand[6], Bulgaria & Madeconia[4], and China[5], India. Development is often a worldwide effort, much like academic research.

For example, while I have only done a little FLOSS development, I've never met any of my collaborators in person.
    Thailand Cities: Vienna, Munich, Geneva, Bergen[7]. Peru, Paris:almost.

[1] http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2002-08 -30-011-26-NW-LL-PB
[2] http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=26006
[3] http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8485 - Good Read.
[4] http://www.foss.bg/news.php?id=2
[5] http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB20031117S0015
[6]
[7] http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/10/13/t13_2.php

Yes India is doing smashingly well feeding its ppl .

http://www.ipsnews.net/fao_magazine/indian.shtml

Ex-MislTech

The official message of many nuke-tenants is "nuke will solve the greenhouse-gas problem". This is pure BS, as a lab shows it right now. The lab name is 'France', where approximatively 80% of the electrical (grid power) is produced by nuclear plants.
Guess what? France missed by far the Kyoto objectives of greenhouse gas (and among them CO2) reduction, and those objectives were not ambitious (Details).

Moreover we discover, in another "lab" (England), that, in addition to all the known problems (waste, disaster...), any nuke plant dismantling produces a huge amount of very 'hot' (radioactive) crap, as revealed by the corresponding costs (always rising) and planning (delay: 100 years, and counting).

But all this information is not propagated as well as the usual pro-nuke BS.

Nuclear-vendors propagate the usual "nuclear power if safe, pigs can fly" crap ("nuke is the solution for greenhouse gas reduction", "production of clean energy producers cost most energy thant they will produce", "the Chernobyl disaster killed 4000 persons"...). One can understand that. But I wonder why some theoritically neutral (are they?) people relay it!?

The Japanese have a reputation for being prejudiced.

I think this is want the last comment is referring too, Japans xenophobia.

Gee, I hope the UN proves better at managing domains than they are at peacekeeping in Haiti.

http://www.ipsnews.net/new_nota.asp?idnews=29506

Seriously though... I'm honestly not sure which entity(ies) I would trust to manage things like domains.

I hate to say it, but I'm not sure I trust my own government to do a good job of this for the rest of the world, but at the same time, am not sure that the UN would do a good job of managing these vital services for the internet either.

I'm thinking the internet needs it's own "UN" in a way... an impartial group that represents the best interests of everyone, and whose goal is to make the internet work... not decide who uses it, how much it should cost, who gets to sneak peeks into other people's stuff, etc.

Catholicism is a tiny minority in Africa.

NEW DELHI, Jan 27 (IPS/TerraViva) - Anyone who doubts the power of Linux needs only to get hold of a nifty, hand-held device that the Indian army plans to issue to soldiers in its million strong army.

http://www.ipsnews.net/new_nota.asp?idnews=27191

...some Argentinian doctors are working on a diabetes treatment using adult stem cells (from the same patient) injected in the pancreas. Apparently a test patient pancreas' subjected to the procedure, which is said to be fairly simple, started to produce insulin again.

I submitted this twice and for some reason it wasn't accepted. Not that i'm holding a grudge, but i have diabetic friends and this is major news for me, and perhaps could change some people minds' about stem cell research (not embryonic stem cell research though, which is a more delicate subject).

Now, although I disagree with banning the swastika, I can see the reasoning behind it. However, some Europeans refuse to stop there. http://ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=22096 Not trying to say americans aren't stupid about some things, just trying to say our neighbors across the ocean can be just as stupid.

You might like to read this:

http://www.ipsnews.net/new_nota.asp?idnews=27041

Quoting that article:

"In the well-known case of Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser, pollen from a neighbour's GE canola fields and seeds that blew off trucks on their way to a processing plant ended up contaminating his fields with Monsanto's genetics.

The trial court ruled that no matter how the GE plants got there, Schmeiser had infringed on Monsanto's legal rights when he harvested and sold his crop. After a six-year legal battle, Canada's Supreme Court ruled that while Schmeiser had technically infringed on Monsanto's patent, he did not have to pay any penalties."

Sure, in the end he didn't have to pay any penalties, but he still had to endure a 6 year legal battle.

I'm an engineer and I make 2x what my ex, a special ed teacher makes. She has more degrees as well.

At my high school, most of the teachers drove older, more beat up cars than the students.

But I think that is beside the point. "Poor resources" does not mean salaries, it means that the teachers need to buy school supplies out of their own pockets. And now, at least in my state, they are trying to make these expenses non-tax-deductable. It would sort of be like my boss giving me a project and expecting me to come up with all the hardware and tools out of my own pocket. "Poor resources" also ties into things like class sizes, up to date textbooks, and building facilities such as AC.

My son is now in third grade, and several times every year teachers send home "wish lists" of supplies they would like for projects. Generally these requests are met. I certainly see the results in the types of projects my son gets to be involved in. But, I wonder what happens in places where the teachers are afraid or ashamed to ask, or the parents are not in the position to meet the requests.

Most teachers I know are not poor. But do you think they should be? You consider salaries which do not leave teachers in poverty "wasteful"? Why shouldn't teachers make more than engineers? In general, they require more education than engineers. And I think that on average, their work is probably more important in terms impact on society than most engineering jobs. And probably, you will find that most teachers value education, and therefore will work really hard to live in the suburbs in order to keep their kids out of inner city schools, because they'll never be able to afford private schools on what they make.

While I'm against government waste was much as anybody, if the DOE only lost $450 million over 8 years, they are doing a much better job than the DOD. It is a tiny fraction of what has been lost in Iraq in a much shorter period of time. Heck, it is even less than half of what we pay corporations EACH YEAR to make "synthetic fuel" by spraying deisel fuel or latex on coal. If you are upset about government waste, education is small potatos.

And, in my view, what is making it harder for the average person to make it is not taxes (these rates have generally not gone up that much if at all in a long time). The main reasons are executive compensation and health care costs. The superintendant of my son's district makes $1 million+, on top of perks such as 24/7 security and transportation. The argument being that CEOs running comprably sized companies make that much. And I work at a corporation where the average employee raise for the last 5 years has been 2%, while executives come and go getting seven figure salaries and bonuses. If you want to understand why things are changing, look at what is changing. I think you will find that both executive compensation and health care costs are both increasing far faster than your tax burden, and have been for some time.

I haven't seen the $200 billion figure coming from anywhere other than from Kerry. Most other sources say the war's cost far is a negligible $120-140 billion. (http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=253) Although apparently some say he meant the $200 billion figure to mean the eventual cost, he implies that we've already spent that much. We haven't, but we have somehow misplaced $8.8 billion. (http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/interna.asp?idnews= 25168)

They should try talking to the arab states which produce 60% of the worlds desalinated water . They are even considering injecting the desalinated water into the ground to raise the groundwater level.

The US goverment sprays columbian drug fields Don't mark me troll if you disagree, please respond. I think it would be great for the drug cartels if they could apply this technology towards their drug crops as a deterrent to congress for taking money from schools to pull shit like this.

Knowing congress though, they would probably send some funds to research some new "Super-Herbacide" that gives the fish a third eye.

Harriman, Scotts' chief research scientist, counters that numerous studies by the company indicate the grass is unlikely to spread.

Hmmmm... sort of like those Monsanto studies that wrongly claimed their corn couldn't spread?

Don't trust corporately-funded "science"

"I find it very difficult to have respect for governments who think they need to control the information their populous sees."

That's priceless coming from an American. Read this

WASHINGTON, Oct 2 (IPS) - The more commercial television news you watch, the more wrong you are likely to be about key elements of the Iraq War and its aftermath, according to a major new study released here Thursday.

And the more you watch the Rupert Murdoch-owned Fox News channel, in particular, the more likely it is that your perceptions about the war are wrong, adds the report by the University of Maryland's Programme on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA).

...

But news sources also accounted for major differences in misperceptions, according to PIPA, which asked more than 3,300 respondents since May where they ''tended to get most of (their) news''. Eighty percent identified broadcast media, while 19 percent cited print media.

Among those who said broadcast media, 30 percent said two or more networks; 18 percent, Fox News; 16 percent, CNN; 24 percent, the three big networks -- NBC (14 percent), ABC (11 percent), CBS (9 percent); and three percent, the two public networks, National Public Radio (NPR) and Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).

For each of the three misperceptions, the study found enormous differences between the viewers of Fox, who held the most misperceptions, and NPR/PBS, who held the fewest by far.

Eighty percent of Fox viewers were found to hold at least one misperception, compared to 23 percent of NPR/PBS consumers. All the other media fell in between.

Ah yes, but this time the American medias been bought, see here

WASHINGTON, Oct 2 (IPS) - The more commercial television news you watch, the more wrong you are likely to be about key elements of the Iraq War and its aftermath, according to a major new study released here Thursday.

And the more you watch the Rupert Murdoch-owned Fox News channel, in particular, the more likely it is that your perceptions about the war are wrong, adds the report by the University of Maryland's Programme on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA). ...

But news sources also accounted for major differences in misperceptions, according to PIPA, which asked more than 3,300 respondents since May where they ''tended to get most of (their) news''. Eighty percent identified broadcast media, while 19 percent cited print media.

Among those who said broadcast media, 30 percent said two or more networks; 18 percent, Fox News; 16 percent, CNN; 24 percent, the three big networks -- NBC (14 percent), ABC (11 percent), CBS (9 percent); and three percent, the two public networks, National Public Radio (NPR) and Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).

For each of the three misperceptions, the study found enormous differences between the viewers of Fox, who held the most misperceptions, and NPR/PBS, who held the fewest by far.

Eighty percent of Fox viewers were found to hold at least one misperception, compared to 23 percent of NPR/PBS consumers. All the other media fell in between.

You said "It seems rather simple for an intelligent person to be against Microsoft, yes." I would say you're wrong.

Let's do a little roleplaying, shall we?

You're an intelligent centeral African woman, who was raped whilst a teen, and resultingly now has AIDS. You also have a child, and no full time job, and as such live pretty much a destitute life. The UNAIDS organisation provides some, if not enough, medication which helps with your condition. Without said medication, you'd almost certainly be dead, which would leave your child an orphan. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation gave $100,000,000 to help with AIDS relief in Africa[1]; a donation which they could not have afforded had Microsoft not performed monopolistic practices. Also, you don't really care about neither comparatively rich western nerds, nor ex m/BeOS|Netscape|Dr.Dos|Borland/ employees. Do you hate Microsoft?

In such a situation, I very much doubt that I would hate Microsoft. But I guess that makes me stupid.

tlhf
xxx
1. Shaan Online: With a Billion in Pledges, AIDS Fund Still Falls Short