Slashdot Mirror

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"Yes, yes. I quoted a classical comment on economy. You understood what I meant."
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No I didn't. I can't read your thoughts--only your words and even then communication often becomes convoluted. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction

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"If you want to discuss irrelevant theories of world politics, do it with someone else."
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Free country. Surely a comment of an open mind that is being level headed. btw--what comment do you feel was inaccurate? I can dig up resources if you wish.

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"You started a humongously long rah-rah speech because you didn't have answers"
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Because I didn't have the answers? Ho ho ho. YOUR the one that mentioned Canada first. I just coincidentally happened to live there so I thought I would mention the "little" bit I know about it. This topic is something that incidentally you yourself brought up first. "a Sweden that works". I agree with you... it does. The rest of the world should be so lucky.

Trust me when I say I'm no nationalistic flag waving idiot (perhaps another kind though:). Brings nothing but wars. I have no allegencies with anything other than my family, and the human species in general. I'm not an anthem singing bigot. If I thought Sweden was much safer for them or the US for that matter--I would try and move there. When I describe Canada--I'm describing what is. I'm not saying it is utopia or a "better" people-- just a system that seems to be sustainable at the moment and I give plenty of very specific current examples of why I believe so instead of just saying "rah rah numero uno".

You who are so informed---what first world nation has a great GDP/capita, no deficit for 8 years and running, free speech, multiculturism, good international standing, great education, affordable cost of living, low crime, a booming economy, AND plenty of social services--? (Let's not forget Alberta...(http://ca.today.reuters.com/news/newsAr ticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2005-10-11T21 3243Z_01_DIT177504_RTRIDST_0_CANADA-ENERGY-ALBERTA -REBATES-COL.XML)

There are plenty of great places to live besides Canada but I don't imagine that list is very long. I wish more nations had our problems.

I spend my time to give you a solid reply. You can change your mind now and need not agree with me about the current merits of the Canadian system (tomorrow Canada may suck)-- but your hot headed slashing and burning of my commments does a disservice to me-- and yourself.

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"Do you really claim that Ford was big enough to be more than 10% of GDP? Never mind"
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Sixteen years ago GM was ranked around 20th in the world as viewed as an economy (somewhere around the COUNTRY of Saudi Arabia). I don't know the exact figure (you can look it up if you wish) but I do know that Ford in its time had much larger relative output.

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"I'll give examples re Sweden and what doesn't seem to work."
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Fire away. Perhaps my picture of Sweden is skewed because of my experiences in Canada and the rest of Europe (which I haven't been to in ten years). Whatever the case I do know it is VERY possible to be fiscally responsible and yet have decent social services. The US which has a far more powerful economy (due to the sheer size) still has a massive deficit and yet a poor distribution of wealth. The reason for this is that half of Americans look at taxation as evil. It's not that I love paying taxes. If you can prove to me a system that allows the maximum number of people in a society to be comfortable and is right wing--I'll become a card member.

However far right or left d

That's why AOL/Time Warner is trying to buy into them and regain control of journalism.

Tier 1 ISPs own huge swaths of networks-- literally miles and miles of cable, and sometimes radio and other links. They route the traffic across these lines.

More precisely, Level3 seem to own 23,000 miles of optic fiber. :-)

The rumor is that the company is in financial trouble.

Yeah, not so much of a rumor anymore either -- Level 3 loss widens.

Cingular Wireless spokesman Mark Siegel said the injunction does not apply to the "vast majority" of Cingular's prepaid wireless customers, who use a different type of network technology.

Granted, it was only a matter of time, but someone had to go first, and it is apparently ABC.

    The reason ABC went first is they're owned by Disney, and Disney is dying for a new deal with Steve Job's Pixar.

http://today.reuters.com/investing/financeArticle. aspx?type=hotStocksNews&storyID=URI:urn:newsml:reu ters.com:20051012:MTFH94947_2005-10-12_22-32-00_N1 2587305:1

    Whatever the reason, hopefully the other networks will follow suit, and not just exclusively with Apple. I would be more likely to buy a TV show for $1.99 than a single song for $0.99.

Once the bucket runs dry Google will just materialize some more shares out of thin air and raise another $4.11 billion.

Reuters article

At roughly the same time this gets posted on /., it gets debunked.

You might have a point if NTP's patents are valid. But that is in question.

Sept. 29, 2005 - U.S. patent office issued an initial ruling rejecting all claims in the final of eight NTP patents it is re-examining, as it has with the seven other patents.

Sigh... Why does the gov have to be parents for everyone?

News today says that someone is starting a recall effort to get Schwartzenegger out of office. I still can't believe they voted "the groper" into office. California is supposed to be so liberal and progressive, yet they put him in power.

Yeah, I hate this world where there are one or two mega players with enough clout to define the market. Apparently Universal was part of the Vivendi idiocy and was recently sold to NBC (a Division of GE now called NBC Uni).

Anyway, I decided to look up Universal Studios to see if they had a beefier press release. Here is a slightly longer article on Reuters. It sounds like NBCUni and Microsoft are siting in a back room brewing up some sort of concoction that the rest of the world will regret. This efforts appears to be part of something called BASCAP (Business Action to Stop Counterfeiting and Piracy).

I wish these people would just realize that the way to beat piracy is simply to establish channels for distributing the movies that are neither too costly nor too burdensome to the public. Instead, we have monopolies working in backrooms with monopolies making something that is both expensive and restrictive to the point that piracy will continue to prevail.

Scandal? I can't think of anything more scandalous than last year's presidential elections.

Well, maybe this year's announcement by Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan [Sober To A Fault]Greenspan to France's Finance Minister Thierry Breton that the American budet deficit has spun out of control.

http://today.reuters.com/investing/financeArticle. aspx?type=bondsNews&storyID=2005-09-25T005906Z_01_ N24701644_RTRIDST_0_GROUP-FRANCE-GREENSPAN-UPDATE- 1.XML

Can anyone spell "d-e-p-r-e-s-s-i-o-n"?

In a separate action to that brought by EMI et al, a Beijing court has just ordered Baidu.com to pay RMB68,000 to Shanghai Busheng Music Cultural Media Company. Busheng had accused Baidu of allowing Internet users to use the Baidu search engine to find and download copyright-protected music. The court has also ordered Baidu to stop providing the download services to online users. Baidu says it plans to appeal the decision. See http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticleSearch.as px?storyID=221757+19-Sep-2005+RTRS&srch=baidu.

So perhaps the copyright laws will be enforced more strictly when it's locally-generated content that is being pirated.

Correction. Reuters filed this news under their "Oddly Enough" news section on their website.

One can check out their original article here http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?typ e=oddlyEnoughNews&storyID=2005-09-14T165039Z_01_DI T460670_RTRIDST_0_ODD-GERMANY-CATS-DC.XML&archived =False which debunks the sensationlist "car runs on dead cats" rubbish.

Not only was he "misquoted", he never even made any statements to the effect. The quote was entirely fictious. Here's the Reuters story: Inventor: I never used dead cats for fuel

How about verifying facts before citing?

Update your information please.

"Ontario has reversed course on plans to let Muslims use Islamic sharia law to settle family disputes, and will now ban religious-based arbitration altogether, provincial officials said on Monday."

http://ca.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx? type=domesticNews&storyID=2005-09-12T201222Z_01_EI C259280_RTRIDST_0_CANADA-RELIGION-CANADA-SHARIA-CO L.XML

"EBay plans initially to pay $1.3 billion in cash and $1.3 billion in stock and to make a further payout of up to $1.5 billion by 2008 or 2009 if financial targets are met, giving the deal a total value of up to $4.1 billion, the source said."

Here, check this out:
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?typ e=technologyNews&summit=&storyid=2005-09-12T081656 Z_01_HO227963_RTRIDST_0_TECH-SKYPE-EBAY-DC.XML

I don't have a tv, nor do I want one, but every now and then I want to flake out to some non-interactive entertainment. Here are the sites I've found for free tv and video on the web (that I can remember at 1:48 a.m.)

http://edition.cnn.com/ -News fix

http://www.homestarrunner.com/toons.html -Not tv or video per se, but strongbad email flash animations are a hoot and close enough

http://tv.yahoo.com/feature/supernatural.html -The show Supernatural online, although I haven't watched it yet. Featured on /.

http://www.atomfilms.com/ -Everybody knows this one; marginally good

http://video.freevideoblog.com/ -Alot of crap, the odd good video

http://video.google.com/ -Random

http://www.ifilm.com/ -See also atomfilms

http://www.newgrounds.com/ -Way cool, homepage worthy!

http://tv.reuters.com/ - more news video than cnn

http://www.rocketboom.com/vlog - ???, Profit! Actually, I don't know what to say

http://portal.omroep.nl/uitzendinggemist/ -Dutch TV up the wazoo

http://mediahopper.com/portal.htm -1041 tv stations from all over the world listed and ready to watch (as far as I can tell)

http://video.search.yahoo.com/ -Stuff n' things

http://www.youtube.com/ -People upload and share their videos online... you've been warned!

I should add everything here is "family friendly", as far as I'm aware: no porn, uberviolence or gratuitous advertising (if I've somehow overlooked something, I apologise).

Maybe this is also about cutting off communication ties in a town because the Chinese authorities have something to hide. Shenzhen (and other localities) saw a recent outbreak of a bizzare pig-related illness that killed people over the summer. Some speculate that this was, in fact, a nasty version of Bird Flu (that thankfully seems NOT to have gotten out of hand). Virtually no epidemiologist believes the official line that this was a bacterial outbreak. There have been lots of reports of government cover-ups much like the early days of the SARS outbreak. Maybe Skype is getting the boot to keep the lid on reporting/rumors of ongoing or possible future outbreaks? Here are links about it: http://in.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx? type=worldNews&storyID=2005-08-23T173823Z_01_NOOTR _RTRJONC_0_India-213550-3.xml http://www.recombinomics.com/News/08170503/Suzhou_ Swine.html http://crofsblogs.typepad.com/h5n1/2005/08/the_glo be_and_m.html

How about...
Bloomberg, ZDnet, Financial Times, BBC, Reuters, USAToday, or Washington Post?

As it happens, the mobile networks in New Orleans were completely knocked out by this. It wasn't until Saturday that Verizon and T-Mobile were able to get their services semi-operational. Sprint PCS is having problems, and Cingular didn't comment in the report I read on the subject (I know they're all doing what they can.) Landline service is spotty in the area, with many exchanges waterlogged.

Of course, this in some ways is beside the point. Nobody trying to contact FEMA for a Katrina claim is actually in New Orleans at the moment. That said, a large effort to keep Katrina refugees in contact with the outside world via Internet kiosks is underway, and this type of thing will directly hurt that.

Actually, the BBC was quoting a Reuters story which, in turn, was relaying the story as told by a witness. Please do not represent a piece as being "how the BBC is portraying it" when that's not even close to what it is. What agenda are you trying to advance by distorting how the situation in New Orleans is being portrayed in Europe?

Here's a link to another news story with a bit more info: Trolltech

The MSNBC article is based on the first version of the Reuters report, which misquotes the FSF on the provisions concerning software patents. Reuters has meanwhile updated the story. Here's a few links to the new and corrected version of the story:
Washington Post
eWeek
Reuters.com

MSNBC is not the actual source. They are just redistributing a Reuters article out of Amseterdam. Other sites reprinting the article here.

Accustomed to being a rich donor rather than on the receiving end of charity, the United States initially seemed reticent about accepting foreign aid, but later said it would take up any offers. The hurricane devastated New Orleans and other parts of the U.S. Gulf Coast, killing hundreds and possibly thousands.

"Anything that can be of help to alleviate the tragic situation of the area affected by Hurricane Katrina will be accepted," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.

"America should be heartened by the fact that the world is reaching out to America at a time of need," he added.

Earlier, President George W. Bush said in a television interview that the United States could take care of itself.

"I'm not expecting much from foreign nations because we hadn't asked for it. I do expect a lot of sympathy and perhaps some will send cash dollars. But this country's going to rise up and take care of it," Bush told ABC's "Good Morning America."

McCormack said there had not been a change of position over accepting foreign aid and White House spokesman Scott McClellan also said later the United States would take up offers of help.

The State Department said offers so far had come from Canada, Russia, Japan, France, Germany, Britain, China, Australia, Jamaica, Honduras, Greece, Venezuela, the Organization of American States, NATO, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Greece, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Mexico, South Korea, Israel and the United Arab Emirates.

Assistance ranged from medical teams, boats, aircraft, tents, blankets, generators and cash donations.

State Department officials said it was likely some of the offers would not materialize and, as a wealthy nation, the United States would be uncomfortable taking funds from poorer countries.

There were, but Bush was reluctant to accept.

The excerpt is taken from the bottom of this Reuters article from Sept. 2, 2005.

According to, and should expect.

Is there any evident, fact or basis for this story rather than conjecture? Yes, but this is a prime example of SITE WRAPPING which I see more and more of.

This story is FOUND HERE

and the engadget post is just a fucking traffic drive link wrap.

Do not read engadget, read a real news source. OK, so you could argue they 'quote small and expand' but I think not.

I am really at odds with engaydget and all the other shitty weblogsinc crap.

Read the reuters article.

Side note: It's nice that the link in the /. article goes to yet another summary of the article. Here's the real article linked to from the summary. The bit about "punishing" the users is a small paragraph toward the end.

Since it pertains to this /. topic and it probably will not be accepted as a separate article, here is a story about the use of UAV's in looking for stranded victims in NO:

http://today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?typ e=technologyNews&storyID=2005-09-02T214938Z_01_MCC 278591_RTRIDST_0_TECH-WEATHER-KATRINA-DRONES-DC.XM L

People like these should be tracked down, flogged, and then prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law!

They're doing better than that...national guardsmen now have orders to shoot to kill. Pity we can't do the same to the scammmers.

who needs flood dams, when you can bomb iraq

• Iraq switched to Euros back in 2001
  In October 2002 US Congress passes "Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq".
  US invades Iraq in March 2003.
• Iran recently began valueing a good portion of its' oil reserves in Euros.
  Also recently, US policy towards Iran has hardened leading many to post the question Is Iran Next After Iraq?
• ...same with Venezuela (i.e. Venezuela switched oil reserves to Euros)
  ...and as if by magic : U.S. evangelist calls for assassination of [Venezuelan President] Chavez

For another write up on this, check Reuters - Sun Micro announces open-source DRM project. The write up has a little more info on the need/impact of DRM but about the same level of details as the submitters link.

As an option, a slightly longer read on this is availble at Reuters - Sun Spearheads Open DRM. Both essentially cover main points.

Let's take this a step further.

Scientists in Australia's tropical north are collecting blood from crocodiles in the hope of developing a powerful antibiotic for humans, after tests showed that the reptile's immune system kills the HIV virus.

Since antibiotics are agents that kill bacteria rather than viruses, this paragraph is a non sequitur.

The definition of 'antibiotic' (taken from Stedman's Concise Medical Dictionary for the Health Professions, Illustrated 4th ed. ) is as follows:

1. relating to antibiosis.
2. prejudicial to life.
3. a soluble substance derived from a mold or bacterium that inhibits the growth of other microorganisms.
4. relating to such an action

Antibiosis is further defined (also from Stedman's) as

1. an association of two organisms which is detrimental to one of them, in contrast to probiosis.
2. production of an antibiotic by bacteria or other organisms inhibitory to other living things, especially among soil microbes

The problem with the statement from the above post is twofold:

1. Antibiotics, strictly speaking, kill living organisms, not just bacteria. Antibacterials are what specifically kill bacteria.
2. A non sequitur is "1. an inference that does not follow from the premises; specifically : a fallacy resulting from a simple conversion of a universal affirmative proposition or from the transposition of a condition and its consequent; and 2. a statement (as a response) that does not follow logically from anything previously said." The post above is not correct in the use of that term, since the quotation is the first sentence of the article. The statement may be inaccurate, strictly speaking, but it is not a non sequitur.

Let's keep going...

Similarly, the phrase

However, the crocodile's immune system may be too powerful for humans makes no sense scientifically. What part of the immune system are we talking about? "too powerful" in what sense?

I must admit that I could not find much of a problem with that individual line from the Reuters article. Think about graft-versus-host (GVH) disease. One might imagine a similar event taking place. I must admit that I am speculating here, but on the surface it seems plausible. It depends on which components the researchers intend to use. If it were simply crocodilian antibodies, then maybe the scenario I mentioned is less likely (GVH requires more components of the immune system than just antibodies), and the greater problem would be serum sickness but I don't know. If anyone has specific knowledge of crocodilian (or reptilian, in general) immune function, sharing such knowledge would be appreciated.

I am a little surprised that, with all the fault found with the article, no comment was made on what (in my opinion) is the most inaccurate and misleading statement of the entire article:

Britton said the crocodile immune system worked differently from the human system by directly attacking bacteria immediately an infection occurred in the body.

Maybe the crocodile's immune system works differently from the human's immune system, but it cannot be simply by virtue of having a mechanism for raising immediate countermeasures after a successful infection. In humans, among others, that job is carried out by th

the article on Reuters explicitly says it will run existing software, so it's not not x86 http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?typ e=technologyNews&storyID=2005-08-12T065412Z_01_EIC 224763_RTRIDST_0_TECH-INTEL-DC.XML

But I very much like to see his measurements too, just in case. And if someone wants to enlighten me in which ways those measurements are wrong, or mis-interpreted, then please, please, please tell me just that: exactly which measurements calculations are wrong.

A recent example of wrong data (ignore the jornalistic filling).

I'd like to see the whole global warming stuff just for once discused based on the facts, and _only_ the facts.

Haven't had time to do that myself, but if interested you might want to sift through the papers on arxiv.org.

Not anymore.

Not anymore. Blockbuster is raising their fee to $17.99 as of August 19. Unless Netflix is raising their rates and I haven't heard about it, they are now the same price.

From a different FA:

  "As a result of the foam problem, NASA grounded the shuttle fleet, saying the spacecraft would not fly again until the insulation issue is fixed. Sept. 22 was tentatively set for shuttle Atlantis to take off on the next mission but NASA managers acknowledge that date is unrealistic."

It would certainly be a rather uncharacteristic or bold move by Cisco as far as their track record of corporate acquisitions go. I touched on this very briefly in my own rejected submission (which imho was slightly more informative than the one posted, however it was probably submitted later, so I'm not complaining).

I'll just post it here too, since it includes a few more links for those interested:

According to today's Sunday Business newspaper, Cisco Systems Inc. is thinking of buying the finnish mobile handset giant Nokia in the aftermath of CEO Jorma Ollila's retirement announcement. In the past Cisco has concentrated more on buying smaller, niche tech companies. But this time its chief is believed to be interested in merging with a wireless infrastructure company, and Nokia would fit this bill. The paper says the merger would help Cisco create "intelligent wireless applications". Convergence is the buzz word of the day and this move would certainly combine the fixed-line and wireless networking capabilities of the companies. Cisco is currently valued at about $123 billion (25.5 times earnings) and Nokia at $71 billion (18.8 times earnings). Neither company has yet commented on the rumour.

It would certainly be a rather uncharacteristic or bold move by Cisco as far as their track record of corporate acquisitions go. I touched on this very briefly in my own rejected submission (which imho was slightly more informative than the one posted, however it was probably submitted later, so I'm not complaining).

I'll just post it here too, since it includes a few more links for those interested:

According to today's Sunday Business newspaper, Cisco Systems Inc. is thinking of buying the finnish mobile handset giant Nokia in the aftermath of CEO Jorma Ollila's retirement announcement. In the past Cisco has concentrated more on buying smaller, niche tech companies. But this time its chief is believed to be interested in merging with a wireless infrastructure company, and Nokia would fit this bill. The paper says the merger would help Cisco create "intelligent wireless applications". Convergence is the buzz word of the day and this move would certainly combine the fixed-line and wireless networking capabilities of the companies. Cisco is currently valued at about $123 billion (25.5 times earnings) and Nokia at $71 billion (18.8 times earnings). Neither company has yet commented on the rumour.

It would certainly be a rather uncharacteristic or bold move by Cisco as far as their track record of corporate acquisitions go. I touched on this very briefly in my own rejected submission (which imho was slightly more informative than the one posted, however it was probably submitted later, so I'm not complaining).

I'll just post it here too, since it includes a few more links for those interested:

According to today's Sunday Business newspaper, Cisco Systems Inc. is thinking of buying the finnish mobile handset giant Nokia in the aftermath of CEO Jorma Ollila's retirement announcement. In the past Cisco has concentrated more on buying smaller, niche tech companies. But this time its chief is believed to be interested in merging with a wireless infrastructure company, and Nokia would fit this bill. The paper says the merger would help Cisco create "intelligent wireless applications". Convergence is the buzz word of the day and this move would certainly combine the fixed-line and wireless networking capabilities of the companies. Cisco is currently valued at about $123 billion (25.5 times earnings) and Nokia at $71 billion (18.8 times earnings). Neither company has yet commented on the rumour.

http://today.reuters.com/investing/financeArticle. aspx?type=hotStocksNews&storyID=URI:urn:newsml:reu ters.com:20050807:MTFH38221_2005-08-07_17-10-07_N0 7278847:1 You were saying?

No more considerations needed... It's already happened

US FCC eases regulations on DSL broadband

Sony recently was busted for promoting some of their films using reviews from fake film critics. So the pressure to present good reviews to the public is clearly not limited to Tech. It is funny how we as consumers can be so affected by the recommendations of people we have never met (and may not even exist-or worse, may be lying).

Somehow, the editors removed the Reuters link from the original story.

Also, for those who already have an account (so don't have to fork over their first-borne), from the New York Times.

China unpegged the Yuan a couple weeks back ... it has (of course) begun appreciating already ... eventually this should help rein in the deficit.