I'm all for cynicism, but if you go too far you end up going full circle, approaching naive idealism from, as it were, the other side. It appears that you think that governments should operate more effectively other human institutions.
We had a bit of a different problem here however, where the checks and balances were removed by a failure of the system (both houses of parliament belonged to one party). As a result our freedoms have been eroded.
But things are never quite what you expected them to be; over time you are forced to compromise so many times that the initial coherence of your plans starts to fall apart.
If you have ever worked inside a political machine before you will see that the public face is completely different from the internal workings. The policy documents and legislation are carefully worded so as to pacify the grass roots membership (when possible), confuse the public and satisfy the financiers of the political machine.
An example is when governments want to introduce changes that favour big business (such as a whopping big tax exemption). They will introduce a law that appears to favour the middle classes in a small way (small enough so the lower classes don't complain) but no mention is made by either side that the richest few walk away with literally tonnes of cash.
My point here is that while I agree that removing 'bad government' painlessly is a wonderful thing, I don't think this choice is a reality anymore in the English speaking democracies.
The OLPC programme is an example of how cleverly governments can work in killing off projects while talking them up. Political parties carry their membership base begrudgingly, but the politicians know who really pays for their lavish dinners. Cui bono?
But... it's more convenient to just vote for the guy that mass media presents to them. Then bitch about it till the next cycle, repeat. And shoot the one who doesn't do the bidding of the money masters.
The Vatican is really taking their modernization seriously, aren't they? Well, McDonalds has 'healthy' meal choices now, because those annoying teachers at school educated the kids on fat and sugar and heart attacks, but it's still Mc-DieOfHeartDisease-Donalds. The (modern) Vatican is more than ever a franchise (albeit a threatened one by law-suits and atrophic congregations) and knows full well where it's money has to come from.
We forced the monopolist to open their network and we enforced the laws to keep the competition healthy. That's true, and activism still works in Australia - except in Tasmania, of course (the place where you see bumper stickers reading "Tasmania, Smell the Corruption").
We have a website which provides pretty detailed information on what the ISP's are up to. Because there are so many members, I think the ISP's are sitting up and paying attention to a degree, because it's really not that expensive to change providers now.
So here it's just a matter of choose your carrier and tell the other telco's to piss off.
Anybody remember THAT installer? There was no "back" option on most of the screens. If you screwed up, you had to start over from scratch. You mean you had to download Linux From Scratch if you decided you wanted a back button? I didn't know LFS had a back button.
Slashdot has evolved, through this one action, into a community of sour-faced monks. Such a community makes me wonder why I want to still be a part of it. Ok, some gripes:
Slashdot isn't evolving if it's going backwards.
How do you know some people aren't becoming sour-faced nuns and not monks? Hey, maybe they're hot looking nuns who aren't really nuns but are just kind of being nuns for the first bit and then suddenly the uniforms come off and...
And how can you not want to be part the coolest monestary/convent on the net?
We should be wearing hoods and cloaks and stuff. And the rest of us who are karma whores should rightly be wearing bling and fishnets.
Ok, but seriously, I agree with you. Just my mind is still in the gutter until the booze wears off.
I have no doubt that Microsoft will attempt to subvert this project, as it does everything else, but so far, the Rudd government has delivered on most of their promises.
Indeed.
But the Rudd government is still young, and we are yet to discover the riddles and traps of their policies. I mean, Howard's government was a breath of fresh air when it came into power, but you can see how that turned into a putrid stench in retrospect.
OLPC might not float in the end, but the idea of a cheap laptop running open software is coming fast. That's a thing that's being motivated by markert forces (ie: the people) and I like where it's heading. If things go well enough, we'll all be sending new or used mini-laptops to the 3rd world as part of many run-of-the-mill aid programmes.
The non free way has been an unmitigated disaster and should not be pushed onto anyone else. Well, while we are all getting the best governments that money can buy (ie: non-free government), we will end up with people pushing the same principles in software. Governments are not selfless enough to want to actually "help" someone. They mostly just send aid and "help" to entrap the downtrodden and desperate.
Is there much prospect of the price of wireless broadband becoming affordable? It's very irritating to have ubuquitous technology that practically nobody can afford (or is willing to spend that kind of money) to use.
The advanced technology was thought to be unbreakable due to laws of quantum mechanics that state that quantum mechanical objects cannot be observed or manipulated without being disturbed.
Well the worst thing about an encrypted stream is that you trust it, not really knowing if someone is listening half way down the line. If you get a hint that it's being listened to, you can start sending garbage (or misinformation) down the line so as to confuse the hell out of the eavesdropper, whilst taking up alternative methods of communication or something.
This makes me wonder if cryptography needs to become cleverer. I mean, depending on the type of data you're sending, might there be a role in padding encrypted streams with 'honeypot' data, like random bits of vaguely interesting crap that the expected listener might want to be interested in. Sort of a live equivalent of Truecrypt's plausible deniability.
Which is interesting because I could swear China had a Youtube block to prevent such uncontrolled proliferation of footage. Well if you try to build a rabbit proof fence, you'll just end up with clever rabbits.
I asked 'Where do babies come from' and it just gave me back a bunch of articles with that string somewhere in their text.
Funny, when I was a boy I asked my father the same thing and he gave me a few articles with pictures of women wearing string. My conclusion: It's amazing what can be done with just a few bits of string.
Slashdot Mirror
But is it Vista capable?
We had a bit of a different problem here however, where the checks and balances were removed by a failure of the system (both houses of parliament belonged to one party). As a result our freedoms have been eroded.
But things are never quite what you expected them to be; over time you are forced to compromise so many times that the initial coherence of your plans starts to fall apart.If you have ever worked inside a political machine before you will see that the public face is completely different from the internal workings. The policy documents and legislation are carefully worded so as to pacify the grass roots membership (when possible), confuse the public and satisfy the financiers of the political machine.
An example is when governments want to introduce changes that favour big business (such as a whopping big tax exemption). They will introduce a law that appears to favour the middle classes in a small way (small enough so the lower classes don't complain) but no mention is made by either side that the richest few walk away with literally tonnes of cash.
My point here is that while I agree that removing 'bad government' painlessly is a wonderful thing, I don't think this choice is a reality anymore in the English speaking democracies.
The OLPC programme is an example of how cleverly governments can work in killing off projects while talking them up. Political parties carry their membership base begrudgingly, but the politicians know who really pays for their lavish dinners. Cui bono?
.. kind of lucky, anyway.
We have a website which provides pretty detailed information on what the ISP's are up to. Because there are so many members, I think the ISP's are sitting up and paying attention to a degree, because it's really not that expensive to change providers now.
So here it's just a matter of choose your carrier and tell the other telco's to piss off.
Well he would be getting frosty piss at that height.
But I want to know if he can run.. err.. fly.. Linux!
NASA: Oh my, Mars, what big craters you have!
GrandMars: All the better to SWALLOW you with.. grrrr!
Here we go again, just another poorly written slashvertisement for.. uhmm..
Actually, this is a really good posting.
We should be wearing hoods and cloaks and stuff. And the rest of us who are karma whores should rightly be wearing bling and fishnets.
Ok, but seriously, I agree with you. Just my mind is still in the gutter until the booze wears off.
Indeed.
But the Rudd government is still young, and we are yet to discover the riddles and traps of their policies. I mean, Howard's government was a breath of fresh air when it came into power, but you can see how that turned into a putrid stench in retrospect.
OLPC might not float in the end, but the idea of a cheap laptop running open software is coming fast. That's a thing that's being motivated by markert forces (ie: the people) and I like where it's heading. If things go well enough, we'll all be sending new or used mini-laptops to the 3rd world as part of many run-of-the-mill aid programmes.
Is there much prospect of the price of wireless broadband becoming affordable? It's very irritating to have ubuquitous technology that practically nobody can afford (or is willing to spend that kind of money) to use.
Well the worst thing about an encrypted stream is that you trust it, not really knowing if someone is listening half way down the line. If you get a hint that it's being listened to, you can start sending garbage (or misinformation) down the line so as to confuse the hell out of the eavesdropper, whilst taking up alternative methods of communication or something.
This makes me wonder if cryptography needs to become cleverer. I mean, depending on the type of data you're sending, might there be a role in padding encrypted streams with 'honeypot' data, like random bits of vaguely interesting crap that the expected listener might want to be interested in. Sort of a live equivalent of Truecrypt's plausible deniability.
What do people think about that?
.. blurryfaceporn.com
If that's true then it's a Good Thing (TM) and a worthy investment, but I've never seen that happen anywhere else before.
Funny, when I was a boy I asked my father the same thing and he gave me a few articles with pictures of women wearing string. My conclusion: It's amazing what can be done with just a few bits of string.