The issue is not that people have something to hide, it's that there is no oversight in what these secret programs are doing. If the FBI wants a wiretap, they can already get one by getting a warrant, a process which comes in with judicial oversight. Additionally, how can a person verify that the information is correct and, if it's not, have the information corrected?
A very real problem that can occur with unmonitored surveillance (i.e., spying) is that the data can be used for harmful and illegal and/or unconstitutional purposes. In particular, it is possible to suppress free speech by targeting political opponents with spying and pressure. The following article provides information about several cases where this has occurred: http://www.inthesetimes.com/issue/27/02/feature3.s html
...the TSA itself has no guidelines defining who is put on the list, but rather relies on names provided by other federal agencies, such as the FBI, Secret Service or INS. The TSA also has no procedures for people to clear their names and get off the list.
Others, like the Green Party's Nancy Oden, have reported being detained by armed soldiers, or, like Green Party leader Doug Stuber, questioned by Secret Service agents, sometimes at such length that they missed their flights.
How can citizens of the US have any guarantee that the US gov't is not interfering with the political process by persecuting people based on their political affiliation?
You also left out (or I missed it in your write-up) IP address spoofing as a flaw. It's rare, but it happens. Probably more often on campus networks or corporate networks than on cable or DSL, where the modem itself limits spoofing quite a bit.
An excellent point and very important for this case.
You have a lot of really valid points, but you've muddied the waters with spots of pedantry.
The devil is in the details. The points that I bring up are not based on what the RIAA does, as I don't know their exact methodology. Rather, they are based on the declaration of Carlos Linares and my imperfect understanding of the ISP involved in this case and my imperfect understanding of Telus' practices (I'm a Telus DSL subscriber). Some of the flaws in my post are due to my limited understanding and many are due to errors or omissions in the declaration.
Pedantic does not mean incorrect. Corner cases are not as likely to apply as general cases but it needs to be determined if the corner cases apply, especially if the corner case could have a major impact on the outcome.
If the ISP receives the subpoena with only an IP and responds with the account info for the current holder, then Bob takes it in the shorts for Adam's actions.
This never happens. We receive notifications from the MPAA and RIAA on a daily basis. They always include a date and timestamp. Regardless, if one happened to omit it, the subpoena would be invalid. This is a strawman argument.
From item 16 of the declaration: "In some instance, providing the IP address alone to the ISP has been enough to enable the ISP to identify the infringer." You may never have seen a subpoena without a date and timestamp; however, Carlos Linares has gone on record strongly implying that such does happen. Also, "The RIAA typically has included... a date and time...". Note the use of the weasel word "typically". Even the RIAA isn't willing to claim that this never happens.
As for clock accuracy, that's such a border case as to be almost irrelevant. My suspicion (based solely on my own experience with the DHCP logs and these types of requests) is that they watch for several minutes to see that the files remain attached to that IP address. I've never seen a request that was less than 10 minutes from the beginning or end of a DHCP lease, and they're almost always in the middle of a multi-day string of renewals by the same user.
Can time-based information be considered reliable, especially if there is only a 10 minute allowance for error?
I've had computers that would gain or lose 5 minutes per month unless they had a SNTP client installed. This is potential source of error that could lead to the misidentification of a subscriber. Is there any guarantee that the ISP logger and the MediaSentry computers were both reasonably accurate? Is there third-party verification (e.g., a certificate of calibration)?
The changes to daylight savings are another potential source of inaccuracy. The investigating computer and the logger would both need DLS patches installed. AFAIK, there was no official DLS patch for Win2k and I could see some ISPs having one tucked away in the back corner, quietly logging, forgotten, until data was needed from it.
A server restart (due to a power failure or somesuch) may result in the time being reset. Can it be reasonably guaranteed that this didn't happen?
If Mark starts poking around at 21:32, downloads the files and disconnects at 21:45, finishes the paperwork at 21:59 and timestampts it when he finished the paperwork, it's possible that the IP address would have been reassigned to a different user in the intervening 14 mintues.
My understanding is that the software handles all of this, and what goes on the paperwork is the time that the software reports.
We should expect an even higher burden of proof, especially since the crime is more serious. If there is a lower burden of proof, then we are more likely to let a criminal roam free and ruin the life of an innocent man.
The last sentence of point 7 is false. In the days before Napster, a variety of other means were used. One was to submit a list of files to a centralized search engine, which would allow users to find materials on the computers of others. Modern P2P programs provide substantial improvements around usability and performance; however, the functionality that they provide was available and in common use pre-P2P boom.
Item 8 states that the majority of the traffic on P2P is pirated material and also implies that the "vast majority" of content shared via P2P is pirated audio. Is there data to back this up? I suspect that video, photos, and programs (e.g., games) makes up a large amount of illegal P2P traffic. It feels like a rhetorical device used to paint the RIAA as a tragic victim.
Item 9 is incorrect. The ISP can not know who the infringers are. They can only know whose account is attached to that IP number. NAT routers are a possible workaround. Also, some services allow for multiple simultaneous IP addresses. For example, Telus requires that visible MAC addresses be registered.
By registering 2 MAC addresses, Telus will let users have two IPs at once. If Alan has a single NAT router connected, that leaves 1 free registration slot. If Bob, someone completely unknown to Alan, were to get the username and password for Alan's account, it would be possible for Bob to register his NAT router to Alan's account. If Alan only uses 1 device (i.e., 1 IP), there is a good chance that he'll never discover that Bob was piggybacking his account. If Alan needs the second IP, then he'll probably overwrite Bob's MAC without noticing there is a problem. Even if Alan notes that there is a problem, it's unlikely the MAC address could be traced to Bob because Bob could change the MAC address on his device and because of the difficulties of tracking the MAC address of a device from manufacturer to end user.
Item 11 implies that searching is sufficient to tell if a file is a copyrighted song. This is not always the case; unless the file is downloaded, its contents can not be known. I think that "examines" needs to be rigorously defined. (This ties in with the parent's comments on item 15.)
Item 12 assumes that computers are single user. This is not the case with most modern OSes. It would be possible for someone to log into an unsecured computer and use it for sharing files over P2P. The IP of the computer used to share via P2P may be known but the user can not be. It also assumes that the computer has not been compromised via malware.
Item 14 states that files are downloaded. However, it does not provide any methodology for determining if the files contain copyrighted audio. Metadata can be falsified. How are logs created and handled? Are they screenshots? (This ties in with the parent's comments on item 15 again.)
Item 16 states that "...the infringer's ISP quickly and easily can identify the computer from which the infringement occured...". It may be able to provide an IP address but that's not a sure thing (there have been past incidents where the wrong person was identified). They definitely can't prove that a MAC address belongs to a computer that is owned and controlled by the identified account holder. The MAC address is configurable. It's not possible for an IP address alone to be capable of identifying a computer, even if the IP is static.
Adam decides to open his own business selling socks online and decides to house the server in his home. He upgrades his account to a server account with 1 static IP and sets up his business on that IP. After 3 months with no sales, Adam packs it in and downgrades his account after downloading the complete discography of NKOTB
Halliburton owes Cheney for a lot of no-bid contracts. Cheney owes Scooter for muddying the waters in the Plame affair. Any bets on whether Scooter lands a choice position at Halliburton in the near future?
In Canadian federal elections, some tax money is provided to the parties if there was sufficient support in the last election. If 4% or more of the popular vote was achieved, then the party receives $1.75 per vote received to use in the next election.
Private donations are allowed, though the amount is capped (I'm not sure how easy the caps are to circumvent). This allows previously unpopular parties to join the process.
It's a good system, allowing unknowns a chance at gaining traction while limiting influence via contributions.
The GPL licence restricts me from including GPL-licensed code in a closed-source product. I.e., I can not write a program that uses a GPL library unless I make the source code for the library AND the source code for the rest of the program available. Compare this what a developer can do with code that is in the public domain and you will see that the the GPL does restrict usage of code in ways that are very significant for business.
Regardless of where the fault lies, the outcome is still the same. Spending money is an unpalatable solution to the issue, especially since the amount of money that you are suggesting is comparable to the cost of a retail version of Windows Vista.
Also, your definition of "little difficulty" is curious: installation of nVidia's 3D drivers is a non-trivial task, especially when compared to that of Linux's two major competitors.
Been there, done that, and came to a similar conclusion: I want to use my system, not administer it. I could spend a lot of time learning how to administer Linux and keeping up-to-date on the errata but I find it much more enjoyable and profitable to invest my time into learning more about my field. I wanted something UNIXy to develop under and Windows/Cygwin was too slow (and somewhat difficult to work with), so OS X became my poison of choice.
Is the issue that there needs to be an Exchange killer or that there needs to be something Exchange compatible? A lot of organizations do great without Exchange; without it, it seems almost anything goes. Once Exchange is in the picture, you gotta have Windows. Or Mac and just Termserv into a central server... And there might be a Linux option (never looked).
C#.NET is wonderful, far better than Java. - Exception handling is much better. Rather than having the compiler complain when I forget to handle an exception, it encourages me to wade through many pages of docmentation and manually trace it. - Generics have a great naming convention. Instead of being able to remember 1 name and interface for a class, I need to know 2. It even encourages me to learn both by forcing me to modify sizeable portions of the code when moving from non-generics to generics. - The documentation is so much better than Java, too. Rather than have 1 page per class and making me use the page-up and page-down keys, it lets me use the much more convenient type-to-search-and-click-through-6-pages approach. - It's great that the solution file changes every time that I pick my nose. It makes using Subversion and CVS so much easier, especially with a large team. - The kept all the good stuff from Java, such as: ArrayList arrayList = new ArrayList(); - Also, I don't have to worry about another creating a non-standard implementation of the CLR and trying to lock-out clones. Microsoft can do this all by itself. - I don't need to worry about trying to get.NET applications working on non-Windows platforms because MS has only released a reference implementation for Windows. - I don't need to worry about adding in code generation for repetitive tasks because there doesn't seem to be any facility for it.
I'm sure that there are workarounds for some of these issues but, really, I don't care. I learned Java a decade ago and, if I want to program in something like Java, I'd rather do it in Java than learn C#.NET. Especially when I can use vim or Eclipse to crank out a Ruby or Bash script to tie together a few simple programs. C#.NET is Java that tried to not be Java, but only succeeded in the bad ways.
Admittedly, Visual Studio 2k3 and 2k5 have advantages over Eclipse. The comments in C# are somewhat nice (// comments are better than/* */ comments when commenting out large blocks of code, though the XML thing is really verbose). The word-completion is totally sexy. I could do without the curious glitches, though...
One of the first things that Steve Jobs did when he got back into the CEO chair was to reduce the number of Macs. Why? Too many choices are daunting. Now, there are 5 different families of computers: Macbook, Macbook Pro, Mac-Mini, iMac, and PowerMac. While there are some variations to be had, this makes it easy for most people to find the right one (especially since most retail stores don't allow for customization). It doesn't look like this lack of choice has done much to hold Apple back.
Choice is good when there is significant differences between the options (e.g., Windows, Linux, Mac) and bad when there are many options without strong selling points (e.g., a bazillion window managers for Linux). Sure, there will be some people that love choosing and customizing every small thing. The other 99.99% of the will be happy in choosing the right broad strokes.
Your points about Exchange are well taken; I agree that there are some considerable downsides to adopting it in the enterprise. I wonder if Apple has something up their sleeves for Exchange integration. If so, I can see them sitting on it until the launch presentation.
Even if the iPhone is not ideal for a large Windows shop, I can still see many managers buying them and telling the IT department to make it work; I see a few Exchange servers getting hastily replaced with Apple/FOSS solutions. I don't believe that this will necessarily be good for the organization but when has the health of the organization been more important than maintaining an aura of infallibility?;)
It reminds me of the RAZR when it was first released. It was expensive, buggy, usable only as a cellphone, yet sold well enough that 2 years later it has become the phone of choice for much of the general market. Maybe the iPhone is the new RAZR?
Does Exchange provide a web client? If so, Exchange sync isn't as big of a deal. Are Blackberries capable of communicating with other devices via email? If so, that's probably not as big of a deal either.
A lot of devices seem to be difficult to use, with random crashes or features that don't behave as conveniently as a user would hope. The impression that I get is that the enterprise market is willing to tolerate difficulties that the home user isn't. ("This is what we use. You need to tap it with this willow branch before you answer a call or it will lockup within 5 seconds of answering it. Deal with it or we'll quietly disqualify you for any promotions.")
Webapps are a key feature for it. The lack of a real keyboard may be a problem; I hope they offer a fold-up keyboard, similar to the ones for PDAs. A small tripod would also be a help for me. Overall, the iPhone reminds me of a more portable Nokia 770. There doesn't really appear to be a pre-conceived purpose to the device (other than general cellphone/smartphone usage) but there are a lot of features that will find good use in the right hands. Home automation is something that I can see this device working well with. Apple will have to open the platform for application development to take full advantage, though. (I have a hunch that the iPhone will run Leopard and will be opened for development when Leopard launches or soon after.)
I'm a contractor (software testing) and this product is of much interest to me. I can use my MBP as a portable server use the iPhone as an ultra-portable client. I can serve test scripts off my MPB to my iPhone via WiFi and fill them out. I can enter bug reports, including screenshots, video, audio commentary, and diagrams with a very portable portable, easy-to-use device that require minimal on-site setup and tear-down.
From a marketing and self-promotion standpoint, the device is great. It's pretty, it's expensive, it's new, and it's known. Having one, whether you need it or not, tells people that you are successful enough to afford it. Demonstrate a nifty webapp with it and people will take notice.
It doesn't have Word on it, but that's what the MBP is for (OOo, if you want to be precise). I'm not keen on doing word-processing on a cell-phone or PDA unless there is no other option.
I won't be an early adopter but this device does have interest for me and the price isn't that bad when compared with WiFi-capable smartphones. If it can save me some time it may well be worth it; even an hour a week would handsomely pay off over the course of a year, let alone 3. Competing products would include any WiFi capable smartphone with a built-in keyboard that runs Linux or BSD.
MechaBlue
PS: Why Mac for me? It's a low maintenance UNIX-style environment, that comes on a laptop, with my software and hardware configuration specifically tested by the manufacturer, with full manufacturer support for 3 years, several local authorized service technicians, good 3D acceleration, and good interoperability with other OSes. My laptop was also significantly thinner, lighter, and cheaper than a comparable Dell.
My personal experience is that strain from typing goes down by 30-40%, which can make a huge difference. I've found that laptop keyboards have a similar strain reduction due to the lower force needed and shorter travel distance. The Dvorak kbs are significatnly more expensive but worth it for desktops. There is little advantage for coding but there is a large advantage for documentation and commenting. A major downside is a productivity hit for a few days or weeks until the new layout is learned.
I'd really like to see Dvorak or dual keycaps for the MBP (I'd be willing to shell out a good $200 for an option that doesn't violate warranty and works with the backlighting). Hopefully the OLED keyboard will make it into laptops soon.
It was actually 3 people: John William King, Shawn Allen Berry, and Lawrence Russell Brewer.
Assumption 2: They were mentally ill.
If that were the case, they would likely have been found innocent due to reasons of insanity. However, at least one of the men was convicted and sentenced to death. That strongly suggests that the actions, while abhorrent and inhumane, were performed by sane individuals.
A comparison is easy. Imus uttered a racially derogatory mark on air while the three men committed a racially motivated hate crime. They are similar in nature (i.e., racist) though very different in magnitude. On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd say that Imus was a 2 and King et al were a 9.
After the murder of James Byrd, Jr., there was a short clip aired on the news. A law enforcement officer (the sheriff, if I recall correctly) made a statement that this was an isolated case and that there were no problems with racism in Jasper. The crowd around the official laughed at this. I'm sure that there are quite a few people who agreed with what King et al had done, and it seems likely that this officer of the law was one of them.
It's pretty obvious that Jasper has some serious problems with racism. A significant portion of the population, including law enforcement officials, have strong, deep-seated racist beliefs. The words of Imus promote and reinforce these kinds of beliefs, saying: It's okay to be racist. I'm a bigot and I've got a popular radio/TV show that makes tens of millions of dollars. Corporate America is okay with it and so is the FCC. I couldn't do it without them feeling the same way, right? So it must be okay to be racist. If all these people are racist, so there must be a good reason for it, right? You don't want to be left out and have everyone think you a fool, do you?
The words themselves are not racist, but the ideas that they were used to convey are. Context counts for a lot, as does tone. In this instance, he off-handedly dismissed a mostly black team of university students as being no better than prostitutes. His use of `nappy-headed' added a racial tone to a derogatory statement. If he had used `ugly-assed hos' instead, he may have been called for mysogyny but probably not for racism,
What is a political solution to a problem like this? Any solution involving politicians? Is legislation the best way to handle a situation like this? Or should government intervention be a last resort?
Personally, I'm all in favor of non-violent social activism.
It would be interesting to follow the transmission of the memes on the whole "thug life" culture. I'm betting that it's not coming from the NAACP. Is it from pop culture, such as movies and music? Take a step up the ladder and see who owns and runs the studios, labels, distributors, and stores. I'm betting that it's not the artists and it's not the guy with the baggy pants, G-Unit shirt, and a swagger.
Is it okay for these pop icons, and their fans, to be using such language? I would imagine that many groups for black civil rights would say that it isn't, that glorifying thugs and hos is not helping black people gain equal social footing.
Or I could judge a visible group solely by the words, actions, and affectations of its most visible and accessible members.
Is freedom of speech the ability to say whatever I want, wherever and whenever I want, to whomever I want, in a private or public venue, without justification or repercussion? Or is freedom of speech about the ability to advance unpopular ideas, particularly those that are critical of powerful bodies, such as the government.
The man makes a racist comment on a syndicated talk show and someone heard it. No shock there. This person was recording the show and passed on portions that were of interest to other people. Like Slashdot, Digg, and other information aggregators and disseminators. People took particular offense to the issue which, given a long history of slavery, segregation, and discrimination didn't sit too well. Then the invisible hand of the free market came down upon the companies that were making millions from this talk show and said that it was completely unacceptable. Rather than lose more money, the companies cut their losses.
A few casually racist words on the air may not seem like much but it does imply that racism is okay. It reinforces the idea in the minds of the public and it tacitly condones actions like this: http://www.texasnaacp.org/jasper.htm.
Brewer testified Berry then pulled a logging chain out of his truck bed and tied it to Byrd's limp body.
"I said personally, 'You're not going to drag this man like you did that mailbox?'" Brewer said. "And he said, 'I know where we're taking him.'"
Berry backed up over Byrd's body, then drove along the dark roads.
"I told Shawn again, 'Pull over and take the man off ' the chain, Brewer testified. "He said, 'We're almost there. Don't worry.'"
They stopped in front of a predominantly black church, where the remainders of Byrd's body were left.
Putting the screws to your boss is a bad thing to do. Your boss will see you as disloyal and will replace you as soon as it is convenient for them. It's far better to leave on your own terms. Otherwise, you won't have a job and you may have no offers.
Also, I think most employers would prefer a hot potato to a cold fish; many will gauge your value by your demand.
Slashdot Mirror
The issue is not that people have something to hide, it's that there is no oversight in what these secret programs are doing. If the FBI wants a wiretap, they can already get one by getting a warrant, a process which comes in with judicial oversight. Additionally, how can a person verify that the information is correct and, if it's not, have the information corrected?
A very real problem that can occur with unmonitored surveillance (i.e., spying) is that the data can be used for harmful and illegal and/or unconstitutional purposes. In particular, it is possible to suppress free speech by targeting political opponents with spying and pressure. The following article provides information about several cases where this has occurred: http://www.inthesetimes.com/issue/27/02/feature3.s html
...the TSA itself has no guidelines defining who is put on the list, but rather relies on names provided by other federal agencies, such as the FBI, Secret Service or INS. The TSA also has no procedures for people to clear their names and get off the list. Others, like the Green Party's Nancy Oden, have reported being detained by armed soldiers, or, like Green Party leader Doug Stuber, questioned by Secret Service agents, sometimes at such length that they missed their flights.How can citizens of the US have any guarantee that the US gov't is not interfering with the political process by persecuting people based on their political affiliation?
An excellent point and very important for this case.
The devil is in the details. The points that I bring up are not based on what the RIAA does, as I don't know their exact methodology. Rather, they are based on the declaration of Carlos Linares and my imperfect understanding of the ISP involved in this case and my imperfect understanding of Telus' practices (I'm a Telus DSL subscriber). Some of the flaws in my post are due to my limited understanding and many are due to errors or omissions in the declaration.
Pedantic does not mean incorrect. Corner cases are not as likely to apply as general cases but it needs to be determined if the corner cases apply, especially if the corner case could have a major impact on the outcome.
From item 16 of the declaration: "In some instance, providing the IP address alone to the ISP has been enough to enable the ISP to identify the infringer." You may never have seen a subpoena without a date and timestamp; however, Carlos Linares has gone on record strongly implying that such does happen. Also, "The RIAA typically has included... a date and time...". Note the use of the weasel word "typically". Even the RIAA isn't willing to claim that this never happens.
Can time-based information be considered reliable, especially if there is only a 10 minute allowance for error?
I've had computers that would gain or lose 5 minutes per month unless they had a SNTP client installed. This is potential source of error that could lead to the misidentification of a subscriber. Is there any guarantee that the ISP logger and the MediaSentry computers were both reasonably accurate? Is there third-party verification (e.g., a certificate of calibration)?
The changes to daylight savings are another potential source of inaccuracy. The investigating computer and the logger would both need DLS patches installed. AFAIK, there was no official DLS patch for Win2k and I could see some ISPs having one tucked away in the back corner, quietly logging, forgotten, until data was needed from it.
A server restart (due to a power failure or somesuch) may result in the time being reset. Can it be reasonably guaranteed that this didn't happen?
We should expect an even higher burden of proof, especially since the crime is more serious. If there is a lower burden of proof, then we are more likely to let a criminal roam free and ruin the life of an innocent man.
The last sentence of point 7 is false. In the days before Napster, a variety of other means were used. One was to submit a list of files to a centralized search engine, which would allow users to find materials on the computers of others. Modern P2P programs provide substantial improvements around usability and performance; however, the functionality that they provide was available and in common use pre-P2P boom.
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Item 8 states that the majority of the traffic on P2P is pirated material and also implies that the "vast majority" of content shared via P2P is pirated audio. Is there data to back this up? I suspect that video, photos, and programs (e.g., games) makes up a large amount of illegal P2P traffic. It feels like a rhetorical device used to paint the RIAA as a tragic victim.
Item 9 is incorrect. The ISP can not know who the infringers are. They can only know whose account is attached to that IP number. NAT routers are a possible workaround. Also, some services allow for multiple simultaneous IP addresses. For example, Telus requires that visible MAC addresses be registered.
By registering 2 MAC addresses, Telus will let users have two IPs at once. If Alan has a single NAT router connected, that leaves 1 free registration slot. If Bob, someone completely unknown to Alan, were to get the username and password for Alan's account, it would be possible for Bob to register his NAT router to Alan's account. If Alan only uses 1 device (i.e., 1 IP), there is a good chance that he'll never discover that Bob was piggybacking his account. If Alan needs the second IP, then he'll probably overwrite Bob's MAC without noticing there is a problem. Even if Alan notes that there is a problem, it's unlikely the MAC address could be traced to Bob because Bob could change the MAC address on his device and because of the difficulties of tracking the MAC address of a device from manufacturer to end user.
Item 9 also feels like a rhetorical device used to paint the RIAA as a tragic victim. The scope and value of piracy is hotly debated. http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070212-8813
Item 11 implies that searching is sufficient to tell if a file is a copyrighted song. This is not always the case; unless the file is downloaded, its contents can not be known. I think that "examines" needs to be rigorously defined. (This ties in with the parent's comments on item 15.)
Item 12 assumes that computers are single user. This is not the case with most modern OSes. It would be possible for someone to log into an unsecured computer and use it for sharing files over P2P. The IP of the computer used to share via P2P may be known but the user can not be. It also assumes that the computer has not been compromised via malware.
Item 14 states that files are downloaded. However, it does not provide any methodology for determining if the files contain copyrighted audio. Metadata can be falsified. How are logs created and handled? Are they screenshots? (This ties in with the parent's comments on item 15 again.)
Item 16 states that "...the infringer's ISP quickly and easily can identify the computer from which the infringement occured...". It may be able to provide an IP address but that's not a sure thing (there have been past incidents where the wrong person was identified). They definitely can't prove that a MAC address belongs to a computer that is owned and controlled by the identified account holder. The MAC address is configurable. It's not possible for an IP address alone to be capable of identifying a computer, even if the IP is static.
Adam decides to open his own business selling socks online and decides to house the server in his home. He upgrades his account to a server account with 1 static IP and sets up his business on that IP. After 3 months with no sales, Adam packs it in and downgrades his account after downloading the complete discography of NKOTB
Halliburton owes Cheney for a lot of no-bid contracts. Cheney owes Scooter for muddying the waters in the Plame affair. Any bets on whether Scooter lands a choice position at Halliburton in the near future?
In Canadian federal elections, some tax money is provided to the parties if there was sufficient support in the last election. If 4% or more of the popular vote was achieved, then the party receives $1.75 per vote received to use in the next election.
Private donations are allowed, though the amount is capped (I'm not sure how easy the caps are to circumvent). This allows previously unpopular parties to join the process.
It's a good system, allowing unknowns a chance at gaining traction while limiting influence via contributions.
The GPL licence restricts me from including GPL-licensed code in a closed-source product. I.e., I can not write a program that uses a GPL library unless I make the source code for the library AND the source code for the rest of the program available. Compare this what a developer can do with code that is in the public domain and you will see that the the GPL does restrict usage of code in ways that are very significant for business.
Regardless of where the fault lies, the outcome is still the same. Spending money is an unpalatable solution to the issue, especially since the amount of money that you are suggesting is comparable to the cost of a retail version of Windows Vista.
Also, your definition of "little difficulty" is curious: installation of nVidia's 3D drivers is a non-trivial task, especially when compared to that of Linux's two major competitors.
Been there, done that, and came to a similar conclusion: I want to use my system, not administer it. I could spend a lot of time learning how to administer Linux and keeping up-to-date on the errata but I find it much more enjoyable and profitable to invest my time into learning more about my field. I wanted something UNIXy to develop under and Windows/Cygwin was too slow (and somewhat difficult to work with), so OS X became my poison of choice.
That's what happens when you've been on the Mac platform as long as I have. Ah, the days of 10.3.9...
Is a choice between 30 indistinguisable options better than a choice between 3 distinguishable options?
Is the issue that there needs to be an Exchange killer or that there needs to be something Exchange compatible? A lot of organizations do great without Exchange; without it, it seems almost anything goes. Once Exchange is in the picture, you gotta have Windows. Or Mac and just Termserv into a central server... And there might be a Linux option (never looked).
C#.NET is wonderful, far better than Java. .NET applications working on non-Windows platforms because MS has only released a reference implementation for Windows.
/* */ comments when commenting out large blocks of code, though the XML thing is really verbose). The word-completion is totally sexy. I could do without the curious glitches, though...
- Exception handling is much better. Rather than having the compiler complain when I forget to handle an exception, it encourages me to wade through many pages of docmentation and manually trace it.
- Generics have a great naming convention. Instead of being able to remember 1 name and interface for a class, I need to know 2. It even encourages me to learn both by forcing me to modify sizeable portions of the code when moving from non-generics to generics.
- The documentation is so much better than Java, too. Rather than have 1 page per class and making me use the page-up and page-down keys, it lets me use the much more convenient type-to-search-and-click-through-6-pages approach.
- It's great that the solution file changes every time that I pick my nose. It makes using Subversion and CVS so much easier, especially with a large team.
- The kept all the good stuff from Java, such as: ArrayList arrayList = new ArrayList();
- Also, I don't have to worry about another creating a non-standard implementation of the CLR and trying to lock-out clones. Microsoft can do this all by itself.
- I don't need to worry about trying to get
- I don't need to worry about adding in code generation for repetitive tasks because there doesn't seem to be any facility for it.
I'm sure that there are workarounds for some of these issues but, really, I don't care. I learned Java a decade ago and, if I want to program in something like Java, I'd rather do it in Java than learn C#.NET. Especially when I can use vim or Eclipse to crank out a Ruby or Bash script to tie together a few simple programs. C#.NET is Java that tried to not be Java, but only succeeded in the bad ways.
Admittedly, Visual Studio 2k3 and 2k5 have advantages over Eclipse. The comments in C# are somewhat nice (// comments are better than
One of the first things that Steve Jobs did when he got back into the CEO chair was to reduce the number of Macs. Why? Too many choices are daunting. Now, there are 5 different families of computers: Macbook, Macbook Pro, Mac-Mini, iMac, and PowerMac. While there are some variations to be had, this makes it easy for most people to find the right one (especially since most retail stores don't allow for customization). It doesn't look like this lack of choice has done much to hold Apple back.
Choice is good when there is significant differences between the options (e.g., Windows, Linux, Mac) and bad when there are many options without strong selling points (e.g., a bazillion window managers for Linux). Sure, there will be some people that love choosing and customizing every small thing. The other 99.99% of the will be happy in choosing the right broad strokes.
Your points about Exchange are well taken; I agree that there are some considerable downsides to adopting it in the enterprise. I wonder if Apple has something up their sleeves for Exchange integration. If so, I can see them sitting on it until the launch presentation.
;)
Even if the iPhone is not ideal for a large Windows shop, I can still see many managers buying them and telling the IT department to make it work; I see a few Exchange servers getting hastily replaced with Apple/FOSS solutions. I don't believe that this will necessarily be good for the organization but when has the health of the organization been more important than maintaining an aura of infallibility?
It reminds me of the RAZR when it was first released. It was expensive, buggy, usable only as a cellphone, yet sold well enough that 2 years later it has become the phone of choice for much of the general market. Maybe the iPhone is the new RAZR?
Does Exchange provide a web client? If so, Exchange sync isn't as big of a deal. Are Blackberries capable of communicating with other devices via email? If so, that's probably not as big of a deal either. A lot of devices seem to be difficult to use, with random crashes or features that don't behave as conveniently as a user would hope. The impression that I get is that the enterprise market is willing to tolerate difficulties that the home user isn't. ("This is what we use. You need to tap it with this willow branch before you answer a call or it will lockup within 5 seconds of answering it. Deal with it or we'll quietly disqualify you for any promotions.")
Webapps are a key feature for it. The lack of a real keyboard may be a problem; I hope they offer a fold-up keyboard, similar to the ones for PDAs. A small tripod would also be a help for me. Overall, the iPhone reminds me of a more portable Nokia 770. There doesn't really appear to be a pre-conceived purpose to the device (other than general cellphone/smartphone usage) but there are a lot of features that will find good use in the right hands. Home automation is something that I can see this device working well with. Apple will have to open the platform for application development to take full advantage, though. (I have a hunch that the iPhone will run Leopard and will be opened for development when Leopard launches or soon after.)
I'm a contractor (software testing) and this product is of much interest to me. I can use my MBP as a portable server use the iPhone as an ultra-portable client. I can serve test scripts off my MPB to my iPhone via WiFi and fill them out. I can enter bug reports, including screenshots, video, audio commentary, and diagrams with a very portable portable, easy-to-use device that require minimal on-site setup and tear-down.
From a marketing and self-promotion standpoint, the device is great. It's pretty, it's expensive, it's new, and it's known. Having one, whether you need it or not, tells people that you are successful enough to afford it. Demonstrate a nifty webapp with it and people will take notice.
It doesn't have Word on it, but that's what the MBP is for (OOo, if you want to be precise). I'm not keen on doing word-processing on a cell-phone or PDA unless there is no other option.
I won't be an early adopter but this device does have interest for me and the price isn't that bad when compared with WiFi-capable smartphones. If it can save me some time it may well be worth it; even an hour a week would handsomely pay off over the course of a year, let alone 3. Competing products would include any WiFi capable smartphone with a built-in keyboard that runs Linux or BSD.
MechaBlue
PS: Why Mac for me? It's a low maintenance UNIX-style environment, that comes on a laptop, with my software and hardware configuration specifically tested by the manufacturer, with full manufacturer support for 3 years, several local authorized service technicians, good 3D acceleration, and good interoperability with other OSes. My laptop was also significantly thinner, lighter, and cheaper than a comparable Dell.
My personal experience is that strain from typing goes down by 30-40%, which can make a huge difference. I've found that laptop keyboards have a similar strain reduction due to the lower force needed and shorter travel distance. The Dvorak kbs are significatnly more expensive but worth it for desktops. There is little advantage for coding but there is a large advantage for documentation and commenting. A major downside is a productivity hit for a few days or weeks until the new layout is learned.
I'd really like to see Dvorak or dual keycaps for the MBP (I'd be willing to shell out a good $200 for an option that doesn't violate warranty and works with the backlighting). Hopefully the OLED keyboard will make it into laptops soon.
Assumption 1: It was one person.
It was actually 3 people: John William King, Shawn Allen Berry, and Lawrence Russell Brewer.
Assumption 2: They were mentally ill.
If that were the case, they would likely have been found innocent due to reasons of insanity. However, at least one of the men was convicted and sentenced to death. That strongly suggests that the actions, while abhorrent and inhumane, were performed by sane individuals.
A comparison is easy. Imus uttered a racially derogatory mark on air while the three men committed a racially motivated hate crime. They are similar in nature (i.e., racist) though very different in magnitude. On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd say that Imus was a 2 and King et al were a 9.
After the murder of James Byrd, Jr., there was a short clip aired on the news. A law enforcement officer (the sheriff, if I recall correctly) made a statement that this was an isolated case and that there were no problems with racism in Jasper. The crowd around the official laughed at this. I'm sure that there are quite a few people who agreed with what King et al had done, and it seems likely that this officer of the law was one of them.
It's pretty obvious that Jasper has some serious problems with racism. A significant portion of the population, including law enforcement officials, have strong, deep-seated racist beliefs. The words of Imus promote and reinforce these kinds of beliefs, saying:
It's okay to be racist. I'm a bigot and I've got a popular radio/TV show that makes tens of millions of dollars. Corporate America is okay with it and so is the FCC. I couldn't do it without them feeling the same way, right? So it must be okay to be racist. If all these people are racist, so there must be a good reason for it, right? You don't want to be left out and have everyone think you a fool, do you?
The words themselves are not racist, but the ideas that they were used to convey are. Context counts for a lot, as does tone. In this instance, he off-handedly dismissed a mostly black team of university students as being no better than prostitutes. His use of `nappy-headed' added a racial tone to a derogatory statement. If he had used `ugly-assed hos' instead, he may have been called for mysogyny but probably not for racism,
What is a political solution to a problem like this? Any solution involving politicians? Is legislation the best way to handle a situation like this? Or should government intervention be a last resort?
Personally, I'm all in favor of non-violent social activism.
It would be interesting to follow the transmission of the memes on the whole "thug life" culture. I'm betting that it's not coming from the NAACP. Is it from pop culture, such as movies and music? Take a step up the ladder and see who owns and runs the studios, labels, distributors, and stores. I'm betting that it's not the artists and it's not the guy with the baggy pants, G-Unit shirt, and a swagger.
Is it okay for these pop icons, and their fans, to be using such language? I would imagine that many groups for black civil rights would say that it isn't, that glorifying thugs and hos is not helping black people gain equal social footing.
Or I could judge a visible group solely by the words, actions, and affectations of its most visible and accessible members.
The man makes a racist comment on a syndicated talk show and someone heard it. No shock there. This person was recording the show and passed on portions that were of interest to other people. Like Slashdot, Digg, and other information aggregators and disseminators. People took particular offense to the issue which, given a long history of slavery, segregation, and discrimination didn't sit too well. Then the invisible hand of the free market came down upon the companies that were making millions from this talk show and said that it was completely unacceptable. Rather than lose more money, the companies cut their losses.
A few casually racist words on the air may not seem like much but it does imply that racism is okay. It reinforces the idea in the minds of the public and it tacitly condones actions like this: http://www.texasnaacp.org/jasper.htm. Brewer testified Berry then pulled a logging chain out of his truck bed and tied it to Byrd's limp body.
"I said personally, 'You're not going to drag this man like you did that mailbox?'" Brewer said. "And he said, 'I know where we're taking him.'"
Berry backed up over Byrd's body, then drove along the dark roads.
"I told Shawn again, 'Pull over and take the man off ' the chain, Brewer testified. "He said, 'We're almost there. Don't worry.'"
They stopped in front of a predominantly black church, where the remainders of Byrd's body were left.
Putting the screws to your boss is a bad thing to do. Your boss will see you as disloyal and will replace you as soon as it is convenient for them. It's far better to leave on your own terms. Otherwise, you won't have a job and you may have no offers.
Also, I think most employers would prefer a hot potato to a cold fish; many will gauge your value by your demand.