Yeah, they look about as nice as that Apple mouse she's holding in one of the pictures. A little ironic considering Daikatana's single platform choice.
This requires you to inform your users they may be watched though.
Unfortunately, employers do not have to inform their employees that they may be monitored. It is the right thing to do tho' and makes for less trouble.
Think about this while you're finishing your paper route, MrSparkle. The fact that you think "most [musical] artists" make a lot of money shows how the Music Industry has distorted your view. The millionaire musicians are a small minority of all the artists signed to major labels, never mind the many, many more unsigned artists. I hope the Internet can help tear down the Industry so there is more choice for listeners, but also so there are more opportunities for talented musicians to be heard and make a living at their profession.
You don't want to call copying music stealing, fine, call it something else. It still leads to less money in the pocket of the people who created it just as much as if you reached in their jeans and pulled dollar bills out. The purpose of copyright law is to protect people's ability to make a profession out of creating easily duplicable content. Something being easily duplicable does not automatically make it worth less. If there was any chance your mind was going produce something someone else would want, you'd probably feel differently.
> Then why does a CD cost so much more than a tape? Same content, right?
It's NOT the same content. The CD sounds better than the tape, allows for random access, doesn't wear out with use and is overall a better medium than tape. Isn't that worth a few extra bucks?
I wouldn't be surprised if profit margins are better on CDs than tapes. So what? What something cost to make does not determine its worth. I thought high schools were teaching more economics than they used to.
Face it, Darwin is not an Open Source OS. It is simply the Open Source Mach kernel with the Open Source BSD code around it. The only thing Apple did was to not take advantage of the BSD license and released the code. Open Sourcing MacOS X is nothing. Nobody will use it in its current form, people will use MacOS X for the GUI apple chooses to keep closed.
So you're saying Darwin is not an "Open Source OS" because even tho' all it's components are open source it's, what, not new? Would you rather call Darwin a BSD distro? Whatever. Don't discount how much work Apple has put into Darwin, there's a lot in there that wasn't in BSD before. And they've made important contributions to other things you might have heard of, like gcc.
Darwin will run the open sourced QuickTime Streaming Server, that's a pretty good reason to run it. It's normal to dedicate a server to that task so choosing an OS (especially a free one) and hardware just for that is unremarkable. Maybe Apple's hardware isn't server-ish enough. Okay, how about an RS/6000?
I would agree that Quartz, the MacOS X GUI, is the most innovative part of MOSX. Considering they'd like to make some money, which they can only really do by selling hardware, I would understand not open sourcing it which would ultimately lead to Quartz on other platforms. The reality is that it probably probably can't be open sourced, not just by Apple anyway, because it depends upon licensed technology from Adobe. So John Carmack and others will get X Windows to the useable point on Darwin, is that so bad?
Once MOSX is out, what I would like to see is Apple letting others make true server hardware. I'm thinking of stuff like big cases, multiple processors, redundant power supplies, hot swappable RAID drives, various tape backup drives, all kinds of on-board monitoring, common stuff in the $4000+ range. They shouldn't do it themselves, they're not good enough at it, they've never taken it past the workgroup level, and it is too much of a distraction from they core markets. IBM already makes PPC systems and is an AIM partner so they would be a logical choice but I'd want to see at least one other as competition. The trick would be keeping them expensive enough and server oriented enough to keep the high-end graphics pros at bay. Even if Apple did lose some of that market, it wouldn't be a huge loss although the profit margins are much better. If MOSX stayed with just Apple hardware, Darwin could become the server OS anyway and graphics pros would never choose its GUI over MOSX's.
From the brief description, I assume this creates a big-ass file on an existing FAT partition which contains all the ext2 partitions you, like many emulation programs and the next (current?) version of BeOS.
What, if any, other distros offer this? Any experiences with it? This could be handy for a Wintel machine which is used as a secondary linux box.
to Apple and use USB for input devices. Putting PS/2 on Macs now would be a joke.
Doing tech support for a couple hundred secretaries and administrators, I see very little understanding or use of the right mouse button on their Win9x computers. I think Microsoft's implementation of context menus is pretty good (easy customization would be nice tho') but their utility is clearly beyond ordinary users conceptual sphere. Some just don't get it and others are too accustomed to going to the menus (they don't use keyboard shortcuts either, you see). The "power users" are those who know what many of the toolbar buttons do in Word.
Actually, where I work the scroll wheel has been adopted more than the 2nd mouse button, presumably because it is *not* contextual. The scroll wheel pretty much does the same thing in every app.
I love my Mac's Kensington USB two-button scroll mouse (I have one at work on my Win2K machine too) and think Apple should have it as a BTO option but
The College of Arts and Sciences at University of Rochester has been doing their student elections for at least two years online. Maybe it isn't cool enough tho' because they do it through the UNIX shell accounts every student is given. That takes care of the authentication well enough.
According to the article, Cat 6 is not even at the draft stage as a standard. Where do you think that puts Cat 7? Cat 6 is the last spec to use RJ-45 for cripes sake! Cat 5E was only ratified a few months ago. It's good enough to do Gigbit Ethernet as long as you follow the installation guidelines (it's more than just cable length). As for fibre to the desktop, I'd spend the money on conduit instead. It's unlikely that you'll have a use for fibre in the next 5 years for anything other than interconnecting network equipment. You're more likely to use Firewire first. Seriously.
Good point. The details I've read at one school (which actually hasn't banned anything, yet) was that the problems weren't at the uplink or the school backbone (if they have someithing like a FDDI ring) but particular subnets gettings swamped by individuals. Sometimes it's been so bad even telnet is unusable.
Also, if you're talking about ethernet networks, at 30% capacity you can already have enough collisions to really notice problems.
You've got to remember what the University installs these networks for: learning.
That's one way of looking at it. There's also the opportunity cost of NOT installing high speed networks. Leave aside the value to the institution as a whole and consider only the residential networks. Universities which don't have Ethernet in every dorm room and a decent backbone connection will lose applicants. Sure, it can enhance the educational experience but it's also "entertainment," in the same category as cable TV (which I think should never be installed in dorm rooms but that's another issue).
I think all schools have some document which students must agree to to use the network; they're probably pretty much all the same and the ones I've seen are reasonable. If your use of the network isn't illegal, doesn't violate other university policies (cheating, harrassing, etc.), and most importantly, doesn't significantly interfere with the use of the network by others (every use could be considered interference so it should be "significant interference"), then it should be okay. If Dialpad was causing a problem I'd say there's something wrong with the network they're running. Napster, or any other program that deals in large amounts of data can be a violation if it gets a lot of use. I hope that schools blocking Napster first checked to see if there was a small number of students who were using it really heavy. Actually I bet it's often the case that it's not the widespread use but the abuse by a few that causes the problems.
This kind of stuff is similar to carrying the binary newsgroups. I think it's better if they basically carry the "full" USENET groups but it's not censorship if a school decides to not carry any binary newsgroups because of the bandwidth and system load they require.
Apple still uses ATA drives because 1)you probably couldn't find any internal firewire drives because there aren't any 2)they still have to compete on price. That's why they dropped SCSI in the first place. I suppose you could put one of those pocket Firewire drives inside a G4 case, you just have to create your own way of mounting it:)
Also, all of today's firewire drives have ATA-Firewire bridges. What benefit is there for an internal drive to be bridged to Firewire? The Firewire standard will be helped when drive manufacturers finally make "native" Firewire drives.
Access to the NYT site is free but they lose advertising revenue if people read their content elsewhere. So to determine damages they could just use Slashdot's logs to find out how many saw the posting and multiply that by what they charge advertisers per impression.
Of course PGP has been around that long, since 1991. http://www.cypherspace.org/~adam/timeline/
If Mitnik used a 1K or 2K keysize (not really uncommon, remember assymetrical keys have to be a lot bigger than symetrical ones), I wouldn't think the feds could crack it. Maybe NSA can but as someone else pointed out, they may not want to let that fact get revealed, even to the Justice Dept.
The federal government is not one big happy family.
Only the copyright holder has the right to copy, distribute, etc. the materials. This reposting violates NYT's copyright unless the person has permission.
They consequences are highly variable. Copyright violation is a civil, not criminal, case. NYT would have to show their copyright had been violated by whoever (possibly including Slashdot for hosting it, precidence varies) and it cost them X amount of dollars. If NYT wins, the loser pays them X amount of dollars. It's not necessarily easy to prove how much something like a single article is worth, especially when you're giving it away yourself.
For people who violate lots of copyrights, I think they sometimes get charged with fraud. The idea is that they're posing as someone who either created to content or has the right to do so. Cloning NYT's site and hosting it www.nytimes.to would be an example.
5th Amendment doesn't keep people from being required to provide a blood sample for DNA and I'm pretty sure it doesn't keep them from being required to turn over keys to a safe if the court issues a warrant.
Perhaps encrypted files could be thought of as a safe. If law enforcement can convince a judge that the encrypted file(s) probably contain evidence of a crime (files from a cracked system) or are criminal themselves (encrypted kiddie porn), they'll get a warrant for Mitnik to provide the key. If he doesn't comply he could be jailed for contempt.
If you're thinking, "yeah but with a safe they could just jackhammer it open," think of it as a boobytrapped safe. The court could require someone to disable the boobytraps.
It's sort of like charging for printing or instituting quotas in computer labs. Many colleges and universities look at different packages to curtail the excessive printing in their labs. Most of the time they find that paper and toner are cheaper those systems and don't create the ill will that a malfunctioning payment system can create.
Environmental concerns could lead to implementing them anyway, regardless of cost but big recycling bins next to the printers seems to be good enough for most people.
The best system in an attended lab is to put the printers by the labbie's desk and have them scold people who print excessively.
I'm always surprised at how many times I see comments about failed power supplies, both in home-built and OEM PCs. I've been where I work for close to 3 years now, we have well over 200 machines now and I have seen only one power supply failure.
Maybe all these power supply failures are an aspect of this online communities use of hardware. Machines running 24/7, expansions to the max, older machines still kicking by running Linux instead of Windows, etc.
The thing I worry about with a home-built machine is hardware manufacturer's blaming each other for problems. I don't want to worry whether a video problem is caused by the card itself or the slot on the motherboard. An OEM's warranty covers the whole thing.
You sent them your HD and got a new one in a few weeks? That's a joke. When I call Gateway with a failed HD, after a talking through some diagnostics (finding bad blocks basically), they ship a new drive (2-3 days delivery) and I ship the broken one back to them in the same box for free. Ditto for monitors, you do NOT want to pay shipping on those suckers.
It does bug me that system components can vary within the same model and details on ALL components are hard to come by. I think Dell's business models are better about system component consistency. Gateway has gotten better but it still happens.
An intermediate option is custom built machines from a local vendor. If you can find one with a good service record you can come close to having the best of both worlds.
My experience is with systems purchased for a University (but small quantities) so it may be a little different for a home consumer.
People are getting a lot of issues confused, and Ramsey doesn't seem to be clarifying it. The federal prosecutor make it more clear but there's more to it. If you look at Ramsey's page federal restrictions (sorry I can't seem to link straight to it), you see descriptions like "Disguised Clock w/audio ". A hobbyist experimenting with FM transmitters does not need to disguise it. Ramsey is making it sound like all small, wireless transmitters are illegal and that's just not true. Some of these kits appear to be sold specifically as disguised listening devices which are illegal (unless you're a cop and have a warrant).
As for disguised video cameras, in most parts of the country these are NOT illegal! Those nanny nabber teddy bears and the like are legal in most states if they have no audio capability.
So, it seems like the issued warrant was reasonable. That doesn't make Ramsey guilty, it just means the Feds aren't crazy to be working on the case. As for coming from Buffalo, that's the closest border crossing so I'm sure that's the closest Customs office.
The real problem is how the warrant was carried out. The show of force and disrespectful treatment was totally unjustifiable as was their unprofessional handling of evidence.
You don't know what they fuck you're talking about. I'm not trying to insult you, just inform you.
I doubt Sterling gives a shit what "slashdotters" think about what he writes. He didn't submit this to Slashdot. And I'd guess he likes ranting about as much as persuading so gathering followers is not on the agenda.
I like both Sterling and Stephenson's writings a lot, at this point I may like Stephenson a little more. Sterling's recent books aren't as good as Islands in the Net but Stephenson's Cryptonomicon is one of his best. Stephenson has real, hands-on experience with computers which leads him to writing good stuff like In the Beginning. But what makes you think Stephenson has more insight into society or the human condition than Sterling?
Like Gibson, a lot of the stuff in Stephenson's work, like burbclaves, franchulates, and just about all of Cryptonomicon, is about what is not what could be. The Neo-Victorians were interesting and plausible, but did they seem real? I'm not talking about technology but society, human behavior, and how technology can change it. I think Sterling taps into that stuff much more. Sterling is also constantly expressing what he hopes will be. You may consider that good or bad. I don't mean he literally wants the future to be just like any of his books but that underlying ideologies and attitudes will be found in the future. This manifesto touches on ideas you can find in his earliest work, which is now going back 20 years.
Moral decay? Death in war? I believe in that regard people suck just as much as they used to but technological advances in war-making and infrastructure did outpace advances in medicine. Morally, were the concentration camps worse than pogroms? I bet the 20th century was the first time wars were fought in which more people died primarily due to the damage of their wounds rather than secondary causes like infection and disease. That doesn't make them worse wars.
I would be very interested to see a source which could show that the ratio between deaths due to war and population size increased this century.
Sub-Saharan Africa is probably the suckiest place to live on the planet. I would not be surprised if conditions are worse there than they were 100 years ago. But how large a proportion of the planet or the planet's population is there? I'm sure some practices made a bad situation worse, like the dustbowl in the U.S. in the first part of this century, but can you tell me what 20th century acts were done to create the droughts in that region?
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, they look about as nice as that Apple mouse she's holding in one of the pictures. A little ironic considering Daikatana's single platform choice.
Are you trying to be funny or just fighting FUD with FUD?
Think about this while you're finishing your paper route, MrSparkle. The fact that you think "most [musical] artists" make a lot of money shows how the Music Industry has distorted your view. The millionaire musicians are a small minority of all the artists signed to major labels, never mind the many, many more unsigned artists. I hope the Internet can help tear down the Industry so there is more choice for listeners, but also so there are more opportunities for talented musicians to be heard and make a living at their profession.
You don't want to call copying music stealing, fine, call it something else. It still leads to less money in the pocket of the people who created it just as much as if you reached in their jeans and pulled dollar bills out. The purpose of copyright law is to protect people's ability to make a profession out of creating easily duplicable content. Something being easily duplicable does not automatically make it worth less. If there was any chance your mind was going produce something someone else would want, you'd probably feel differently.
> Then why does a CD cost so much more than a tape? Same content, right?
It's NOT the same content. The CD sounds better than the tape, allows for random access, doesn't wear out with use and is overall a better medium than tape. Isn't that worth a few extra bucks?
I wouldn't be surprised if profit margins are better on CDs than tapes. So what? What something cost to make does not determine its worth. I thought high schools were teaching more economics than they used to.
So you're saying Darwin is not an "Open Source OS" because even tho' all it's components are open source it's, what, not new? Would you rather call Darwin a BSD distro? Whatever. Don't discount how much work Apple has put into Darwin, there's a lot in there that wasn't in BSD before. And they've made important contributions to other things you might have heard of, like gcc.
Darwin will run the open sourced QuickTime Streaming Server, that's a pretty good reason to run it. It's normal to dedicate a server to that task so choosing an OS (especially a free one) and hardware just for that is unremarkable. Maybe Apple's hardware isn't server-ish enough. Okay, how about an RS/6000?
I would agree that Quartz, the MacOS X GUI, is the most innovative part of MOSX. Considering they'd like to make some money, which they can only really do by selling hardware, I would understand not open sourcing it which would ultimately lead to Quartz on other platforms. The reality is that it probably probably can't be open sourced, not just by Apple anyway, because it depends upon licensed technology from Adobe. So John Carmack and others will get X Windows to the useable point on Darwin, is that so bad?
Once MOSX is out, what I would like to see is Apple letting others make true server hardware. I'm thinking of stuff like big cases, multiple processors, redundant power supplies, hot swappable RAID drives, various tape backup drives, all kinds of on-board monitoring, common stuff in the $4000+ range. They shouldn't do it themselves, they're not good enough at it, they've never taken it past the workgroup level, and it is too much of a distraction from they core markets. IBM already makes PPC systems and is an AIM partner so they would be a logical choice but I'd want to see at least one other as competition. The trick would be keeping them expensive enough and server oriented enough to keep the high-end graphics pros at bay. Even if Apple did lose some of that market, it wouldn't be a huge loss although the profit margins are much better. If MOSX stayed with just Apple hardware, Darwin could become the server OS anyway and graphics pros would never choose its GUI over MOSX's.
From the brief description, I assume this creates a big-ass file on an existing FAT partition which contains all the ext2 partitions you, like many emulation programs and the next (current?) version of BeOS.
What, if any, other distros offer this? Any experiences with it? This could be handy for a Wintel machine which is used as a secondary linux box.
to Apple and use USB for input devices. Putting PS/2 on Macs now would be a joke.
Doing tech support for a couple hundred secretaries and administrators, I see very little understanding or use of the right mouse button on their Win9x computers. I think Microsoft's implementation of context menus is pretty good (easy customization would be nice tho') but their utility is clearly beyond ordinary users conceptual sphere. Some just don't get it and others are too accustomed to going to the menus (they don't use keyboard shortcuts either, you see). The "power users" are those who know what many of the toolbar buttons do in Word.
Actually, where I work the scroll wheel has been adopted more than the 2nd mouse button, presumably because it is *not* contextual. The scroll wheel pretty much does the same thing in every app.
I love my Mac's Kensington USB two-button scroll mouse (I have one at work on my Win2K machine too) and think Apple should have it as a BTO option but
The College of Arts and Sciences at University of Rochester has been doing their student elections for at least two years online. Maybe it isn't cool enough tho' because they do it through the UNIX shell accounts every student is given. That takes care of the authentication well enough.
I'm sure they weren't the first either.
According to the article, Cat 6 is not even at the draft stage as a standard. Where do you think that puts Cat 7? Cat 6 is the last spec to use RJ-45 for cripes sake! Cat 5E was only ratified a few months ago. It's good enough to do Gigbit Ethernet as long as you follow the installation guidelines (it's more than just cable length). As for fibre to the desktop, I'd spend the money on conduit instead. It's unlikely that you'll have a use for fibre in the next 5 years for anything other than interconnecting network equipment. You're more likely to use Firewire first. Seriously.
Good point. The details I've read at one school (which actually hasn't banned anything, yet) was that the problems weren't at the uplink or the school backbone (if they have someithing like a FDDI ring) but particular subnets gettings swamped by individuals. Sometimes it's been so bad even telnet is unusable.
Also, if you're talking about ethernet networks, at 30% capacity you can already have enough collisions to really notice problems.
That's one way of looking at it. There's also the opportunity cost of NOT installing high speed networks. Leave aside the value to the institution as a whole and consider only the residential networks. Universities which don't have Ethernet in every dorm room and a decent backbone connection will lose applicants. Sure, it can enhance the educational experience but it's also "entertainment," in the same category as cable TV (which I think should never be installed in dorm rooms but that's another issue).
I think all schools have some document which students must agree to to use the network; they're probably pretty much all the same and the ones I've seen are reasonable. If your use of the network isn't illegal, doesn't violate other university policies (cheating, harrassing, etc.), and most importantly, doesn't significantly interfere with the use of the network by others (every use could be considered interference so it should be "significant interference"), then it should be okay. If Dialpad was causing a problem I'd say there's something wrong with the network they're running. Napster, or any other program that deals in large amounts of data can be a violation if it gets a lot of use. I hope that schools blocking Napster first checked to see if there was a small number of students who were using it really heavy. Actually I bet it's often the case that it's not the widespread use but the abuse by a few that causes the problems.
This kind of stuff is similar to carrying the binary newsgroups. I think it's better if they basically carry the "full" USENET groups but it's not censorship if a school decides to not carry any binary newsgroups because of the bandwidth and system load they require.
Apple still uses ATA drives because 1)you probably couldn't find any internal firewire drives because there aren't any 2)they still have to compete on price. That's why they dropped SCSI in the first place. I suppose you could put one of those pocket Firewire drives inside a G4 case, you just have to create your own way of mounting it :)
Also, all of today's firewire drives have ATA-Firewire bridges. What benefit is there for an internal drive to be bridged to Firewire? The Firewire standard will be helped when drive manufacturers finally make "native" Firewire drives.
Access to the NYT site is free but they lose advertising revenue if people read their content elsewhere. So to determine damages they could just use Slashdot's logs to find out how many saw the posting and multiply that by what they charge advertisers per impression.
Of course PGP has been around that long, since 1991.
http://www.cypherspace.org/~adam/timeline/
If Mitnik used a 1K or 2K keysize (not really uncommon, remember assymetrical keys have to be a lot bigger than symetrical ones), I wouldn't think the feds could crack it. Maybe NSA can but as someone else pointed out, they may not want to let that fact get revealed, even to the Justice Dept.
The federal government is not one big happy family.
Once again, IANAL.
Only the copyright holder has the right to copy, distribute, etc. the materials. This reposting violates NYT's copyright unless the person has permission.
They consequences are highly variable. Copyright violation is a civil, not criminal, case. NYT would have to show their copyright had been violated by whoever (possibly including Slashdot for hosting it, precidence varies) and it cost them X amount of dollars. If NYT wins, the loser pays them X amount of dollars. It's not necessarily easy to prove how much something like a single article is worth, especially when you're giving it away yourself.
For people who violate lots of copyrights, I think they sometimes get charged with fraud. The idea is that they're posing as someone who either created to content or has the right to do so. Cloning NYT's site and hosting it www.nytimes.to would be an example.
First, IANAL.
5th Amendment doesn't keep people from being required to provide a blood sample for DNA and I'm pretty sure it doesn't keep them from being required to turn over keys to a safe if the court issues a warrant.
Perhaps encrypted files could be thought of as a safe. If law enforcement can convince a judge that the encrypted file(s) probably contain evidence of a crime (files from a cracked system) or are criminal themselves (encrypted kiddie porn), they'll get a warrant for Mitnik to provide the key. If he doesn't comply he could be jailed for contempt.
If you're thinking, "yeah but with a safe they could just jackhammer it open," think of it as a boobytrapped safe. The court could require someone to disable the boobytraps.
It's sort of like charging for printing or instituting quotas in computer labs. Many colleges and universities look at different packages to curtail the excessive printing in their labs. Most of the time they find that paper and toner are cheaper those systems and don't create the ill will that a malfunctioning payment system can create.
Environmental concerns could lead to implementing them anyway, regardless of cost but big recycling bins next to the printers seems to be good enough for most people.
The best system in an attended lab is to put the printers by the labbie's desk and have them scold people who print excessively.
I'm always surprised at how many times I see comments about failed power supplies, both in home-built and OEM PCs. I've been where I work for close to 3 years now, we have well over 200 machines now and I have seen only one power supply failure.
Maybe all these power supply failures are an aspect of this online communities use of hardware. Machines running 24/7, expansions to the max, older machines still kicking by running Linux instead of Windows, etc.
The thing I worry about with a home-built machine is hardware manufacturer's blaming each other for problems. I don't want to worry whether a video problem is caused by the card itself or the slot on the motherboard. An OEM's warranty covers the whole thing.
You sent them your HD and got a new one in a few weeks? That's a joke. When I call Gateway with a failed HD, after a talking through some diagnostics (finding bad blocks basically), they ship a new drive (2-3 days delivery) and I ship the broken one back to them in the same box for free. Ditto for monitors, you do NOT want to pay shipping on those suckers.
It does bug me that system components can vary within the same model and details on ALL components are hard to come by. I think Dell's business models are better about system component consistency. Gateway has gotten better but it still happens.
An intermediate option is custom built machines from a local vendor. If you can find one with a good service record you can come close to having the best of both worlds.
My experience is with systems purchased for a University (but small quantities) so it may be a little different for a home consumer.
Don't get me started. I almost wet myself the first time I saw that and I'm not normally incontinent.
I also love when Homer's mom is on the lam.
Wiggum: Are you senile or are you stalling us while she gets away?
Granpa: A little from column A and a little from column B
http://www.ramseyelectronics.com/cgi-bin/SoftCart. exe/scstore/sitepages/hobby/fedpage3.htm ?L+scstore+fxwm3054+947117653
As for disguised video cameras, in most parts of the country these are NOT illegal! Those nanny nabber teddy bears and the like are legal in most states if they have no audio capability.
So, it seems like the issued warrant was reasonable. That doesn't make Ramsey guilty, it just means the Feds aren't crazy to be working on the case. As for coming from Buffalo, that's the closest border crossing so I'm sure that's the closest Customs office.
The real problem is how the warrant was carried out. The show of force and disrespectful treatment was totally unjustifiable as was their unprofessional handling of evidence.
I doubt Sterling gives a shit what "slashdotters" think about what he writes. He didn't submit this to Slashdot. And I'd guess he likes ranting about as much as persuading so gathering followers is not on the agenda.
I like both Sterling and Stephenson's writings a lot, at this point I may like Stephenson a little more. Sterling's recent books aren't as good as Islands in the Net but Stephenson's Cryptonomicon is one of his best. Stephenson has real, hands-on experience with computers which leads him to writing good stuff like In the Beginning. But what makes you think Stephenson has more insight into society or the human condition than Sterling?
Like Gibson, a lot of the stuff in Stephenson's work, like burbclaves, franchulates, and just about all of Cryptonomicon, is about what is not what could be. The Neo-Victorians were interesting and plausible, but did they seem real? I'm not talking about technology but society, human behavior, and how technology can change it. I think Sterling taps into that stuff much more. Sterling is also constantly expressing what he hopes will be. You may consider that good or bad. I don't mean he literally wants the future to be just like any of his books but that underlying ideologies and attitudes will be found in the future. This manifesto touches on ideas you can find in his earliest work, which is now going back 20 years.
I would be very interested to see a source which could show that the ratio between deaths due to war and population size increased this century.
Sub-Saharan Africa is probably the suckiest place to live on the planet. I would not be surprised if conditions are worse there than they were 100 years ago. But how large a proportion of the planet or the planet's population is there? I'm sure some practices made a bad situation worse, like the dustbowl in the U.S. in the first part of this century, but can you tell me what 20th century acts were done to create the droughts in that region?