An honest whistle-blower who reveals true wrongdoing will lose their job when found out, but they won't be prosecuted for releasing the information. However, deciding to release all classified information you can get your hands on is not whistle-blowing. It is nothing short of displaying a reckless disregard for any consequences.
The leaks did reveal true wrongdoing. The Danish government has consistently been claiming that the Danish army did not turn over prisoners to torture at the hands of the Iraqi or Afghan armies. However, the leaks showed that not only did the Danish army turn over prisoners, they adopted a practice of embedding a couple of Brittish soldiers into their units. Whenever they caught someone, the Brittish soldiers would do the arresting and subsequent turning over of prisoners. This obvious attempt by the Danish army to circumvent the rules shows that they knew that they were doing something wrong. Unfortunately, the wikileaks documents did not show how far up this travesty goes, but one can hope this release sheds some light on the issue.
I find your link somewhat perplexing. On first view, the link sugggests that the EU Parliament rejected the ACTA treaty text, by a slim majority. More surprisingly Christian Engström (Pirate Party member) voted in favor of the treaty text. However, a visit to his blog shows that the vote that failed (the one you linked) were in favor of
a joint resolution demanding that the Commission should clarify and assess the consequences of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement ACTA.
If the ships were not allowed to go to port (or had to pay an extreme toll) in an industrialized county, it is possible that the owners would make more by modifying the ships to abide by regulations than by going for a small fleet. But it is very likely that it would require some heavy handed regulations, and decisive action from governments to force Maersk and the other large shipping corporations to follow the new regulations.
Tell me then: How often do you hear a lengthy interview with an Afghan rebel explaining why he fights NATO? And how often do you hear a NATO supporter explain why it is important we "stay the course" against the Taliban-Quaida? I don't think I have ever heard the first in mainstream media, whereas the other is in every second article on Afghanistan (if not more).
What makes it even worse is that the Danish forces *knew* they were committing a crime. How do we know? Because the Danish forces got into the habit of going on patrol with a few British solders, who would do the actual arrest. Thus, they argued, the Danish army would not be responsible for turning over people to torture, and not be criminal. That is the type of tricks you pull when you know you are doing something wrong.
And yet... most cats learn to go to the toilet. Most dogs do not.
However, the study seems to show that dogs (surprise, surprise) are better at reading body language than cats, and use significant brainpower to do so. So, in terms of social intelligense, dogs are "smarter" than cats. But it really does not tell us anything on their ability to solve problems, learn new skills or other intellectual pursuits.
Indeed. The same asymmetry can be seen in the media: The Pentagon and the US government get to spread their probaganda to a much, much larger degree than Afghan rebels, Taliban, Al Quaida or whoever else "we" are fighting at the moment. On a more practical level, I would also hazard the guess that the secrets of the Pentagon are accessible to a much larger group of people than the secrets of the Taliban. Not to mention that the format is likely more convenient.
Obsidian were given the full source code and allowed to edit it however they saw fit, so I would say that they hold some responsibility on the engine bugs. As an example: The SDK (called GECK) that came with Fallout: New Vegas had a number of serious bugs that were not in the Fallout 3 GECK, such as the script compiler failing silently! But engine bugs are usually not the type of bugs that plague Bethesda games. Fallout: New Vegas consists of three large parts each of which need to be correct:
1) Engine
2) Resources (meshes, sounds, textures etc)
3) Game content (quests, locations, npcs etc)
The engine is mostly by Bethesda, the resources are a little of both, and the game content is mostly Obsidian. My experience with Bethesda games is that most of the bugs are in the game content portion, and I expect the same to be true of Fallout: New Vegas, even if it is developed by Obsidian. So, GP is fully correct in pointing out that this an Obsidian game. Yes, you could have hoped that Bethesda would force Obsidian through decent testing, and yes, you could suspect that they may have forced Obsisian to release Fallout: New Vegas before it was finished, but Obsidian did know the deadline and obviously prioritized more content over robustness. Just like Interplay and Trojka did before them.
But it also means that the debt will be collecting interest for a long, long time before payments can start. If the parents aren't wealthy enough to pay up, the child may end up with a debt so large that it will be unable to pay it. Ever. Because it did something stupid at age 4.
Given that the extensions of the copyright term were applied retroactively, I don't see the problem with retroactively applying a shorter copyright term. Particularly w.r.t. those works that has had their copyright term extended.
You see, once upon a time, in the mythic age of the mid-2000's, developers intentionally added cheat codes to their games. Yes, intentionally. No, I'm not pulling your leg, it's true! "But Keatonguy", you ask, befuddled, "Why would they intentionally give people ways to do things in the game without spending untold days of time to unlock it piecemeal?" Well, young poster, because it's fun as hell. Cheating and hacking the RAM of games is where half the replay value of the classics comes from.
The main reason that the US government has not had Assange disappear is the simple fact that if Assange did disappear, everyone would know who did it. The political fallout of highprofile political murder is simply not worth it. However, that does not mean that they cannot retaliate. By blacklisting him and his coworkers, by hacking wikileaks, by using diplomatic channels to limit his movement (such as it may have happened here) and by digging up / fabricating filth on his character. Much more efficient, much less fallout. And even people who do support wikileaks and know these things, may start thinking that Assange may have raped those women, and he really is a smug.
Template programming seems like such a nice idea, but it's so cryptic, and totally unreadable - and why use the triangular brackets!?
Template programming is a great idea, and it is very useful in a number of cases. After heavy usage of C++ templates, I have been programming a bit in Java using generics, and, well, there are just so much stuff I can't do with generics. But I agree on your point about readability. The worst part, however, is the learning curve when you start out with your first template heavy project. Figuring out what functionality some_random_type has can be quite a challenge, particularly when there are typedefs all over. Compiler output can also be a challenge, but has improved significantly over the last few years.
Do you have the correct form, mr. Forkazoo? Oh, you do. Unfortunately it isn't stamped correctly. Please proceed to the Ministry of Information to get the correct stamps...
I live in Copenhagen, Denmark and my last bill were some $148 for 304 kWh all included - or some 49 cents per kWh compared to your 13 cents. Some 43% of the bill comes from various taxes and public commitments, so the non-taxed price is 28 cents per kWh. However, it should be noted that some if this is flat rate subscriptions, which has a larger influence on my low power consumption. Taking these into account, your usage of 589 kWh would cost some $247 in Denmark or 42 cents per kWh. So, it would be resonable to assume a x3 price increase in power bill going from Texas to Denmark. Give or take a bit.
Where I live, people most often vote for a party, not a person. It is quite seldom that they know that much about the personal beliefs of the local members on the party list. It should also be noted that the only thing stopping someone from breaking party line is that they can be excluded from their party. Depending on the situation their career in politics may also end at the next exection, but they do not lose their seat until a new parliament is elected. Indeed, since the last parliamentary election 3 years ago, 3% of the elected representatives have left their party for another (or for being independent).
Slashdot Mirror
An honest whistle-blower who reveals true wrongdoing will lose their job when found out, but they won't be prosecuted for releasing the information. However, deciding to release all classified information you can get your hands on is not whistle-blowing. It is nothing short of displaying a reckless disregard for any consequences.
The leaks did reveal true wrongdoing. The Danish government has consistently been claiming that the Danish army did not turn over prisoners to torture at the hands of the Iraqi or Afghan armies. However, the leaks showed that not only did the Danish army turn over prisoners, they adopted a practice of embedding a couple of Brittish soldiers into their units. Whenever they caught someone, the Brittish soldiers would do the arresting and subsequent turning over of prisoners. This obvious attempt by the Danish army to circumvent the rules shows that they knew that they were doing something wrong. Unfortunately, the wikileaks documents did not show how far up this travesty goes, but one can hope this release sheds some light on the issue.
This was the appeal. I think the next appeal option is the Supreme Court.
Do not try to find the center. That is impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth: There is no center.
a joint resolution demanding that the Commission should clarify and assess the consequences of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement ACTA.
If the ships were not allowed to go to port (or had to pay an extreme toll) in an industrialized county, it is possible that the owners would make more by modifying the ships to abide by regulations than by going for a small fleet. But it is very likely that it would require some heavy handed regulations, and decisive action from governments to force Maersk and the other large shipping corporations to follow the new regulations.
Tell me then: How often do you hear a lengthy interview with an Afghan rebel explaining why he fights NATO? And how often do you hear a NATO supporter explain why it is important we "stay the course" against the Taliban-Quaida? I don't think I have ever heard the first in mainstream media, whereas the other is in every second article on Afghanistan (if not more).
What makes it even worse is that the Danish forces *knew* they were committing a crime. How do we know? Because the Danish forces got into the habit of going on patrol with a few British solders, who would do the actual arrest. Thus, they argued, the Danish army would not be responsible for turning over people to torture, and not be criminal. That is the type of tricks you pull when you know you are doing something wrong.
And yet ... most cats learn to go to the toilet. Most dogs do not.
However, the study seems to show that dogs (surprise, surprise) are better at reading body language than cats, and use significant brainpower to do so. So, in terms of social intelligense, dogs are "smarter" than cats. But it really does not tell us anything on their ability to solve problems, learn new skills or other intellectual pursuits.
Indeed. The same asymmetry can be seen in the media: The Pentagon and the US government get to spread their probaganda to a much, much larger degree than Afghan rebels, Taliban, Al Quaida or whoever else "we" are fighting at the moment. On a more practical level, I would also hazard the guess that the secrets of the Pentagon are accessible to a much larger group of people than the secrets of the Taliban. Not to mention that the format is likely more convenient.
I only like the ones from Iguana Bob in the Hub. I don't know how he does it, but I swear I have never tasted anything that great.
Obsidian were given the full source code and allowed to edit it however they saw fit, so I would say that they hold some responsibility on the engine bugs. As an example: The SDK (called GECK) that came with Fallout: New Vegas had a number of serious bugs that were not in the Fallout 3 GECK, such as the script compiler failing silently! But engine bugs are usually not the type of bugs that plague Bethesda games. Fallout: New Vegas consists of three large parts each of which need to be correct:
1) Engine
2) Resources (meshes, sounds, textures etc)
3) Game content (quests, locations, npcs etc)
The engine is mostly by Bethesda, the resources are a little of both, and the game content is mostly Obsidian. My experience with Bethesda games is that most of the bugs are in the game content portion, and I expect the same to be true of Fallout: New Vegas, even if it is developed by Obsidian. So, GP is fully correct in pointing out that this an Obsidian game. Yes, you could have hoped that Bethesda would force Obsidian through decent testing, and yes, you could suspect that they may have forced Obsisian to release Fallout: New Vegas before it was finished, but Obsidian did know the deadline and obviously prioritized more content over robustness. Just like Interplay and Trojka did before them.
But it also means that the debt will be collecting interest for a long, long time before payments can start. If the parents aren't wealthy enough to pay up, the child may end up with a debt so large that it will be unable to pay it. Ever. Because it did something stupid at age 4.
Given that the extensions of the copyright term were applied retroactively, I don't see the problem with retroactively applying a shorter copyright term. Particularly w.r.t. those works that has had their copyright term extended.
You see, once upon a time, in the mythic age of the mid-2000's, developers intentionally added cheat codes to their games. Yes, intentionally. No, I'm not pulling your leg, it's true! "But Keatonguy", you ask, befuddled, "Why would they intentionally give people ways to do things in the game without spending untold days of time to unlock it piecemeal?" Well, young poster, because it's fun as hell. Cheating and hacking the RAM of games is where half the replay value of the classics comes from.
One word: Debugging.
... and for a single user it would be $72. Assuming 3 years between new versions of MS Office, the total payment would be $216. Not cheap at all.
The main reason that the US government has not had Assange disappear is the simple fact that if Assange did disappear, everyone would know who did it. The political fallout of highprofile political murder is simply not worth it. However, that does not mean that they cannot retaliate. By blacklisting him and his coworkers, by hacking wikileaks, by using diplomatic channels to limit his movement (such as it may have happened here) and by digging up / fabricating filth on his character. Much more efficient, much less fallout. And even people who do support wikileaks and know these things, may start thinking that Assange may have raped those women, and he really is a smug.
Template programming seems like such a nice idea, but it's so cryptic, and totally unreadable - and why use the triangular brackets!?
Template programming is a great idea, and it is very useful in a number of cases. After heavy usage of C++ templates, I have been programming a bit in Java using generics, and, well, there are just so much stuff I can't do with generics. But I agree on your point about readability. The worst part, however, is the learning curve when you start out with your first template heavy project. Figuring out what functionality some_random_type has can be quite a challenge, particularly when there are typedefs all over. Compiler output can also be a challenge, but has improved significantly over the last few years.
Do you have the correct form, mr. Forkazoo? Oh, you do. Unfortunately it isn't stamped correctly. Please proceed to the Ministry of Information to get the correct stamps ...
I think you need to reread your electricity bill. I live in Denmark as well, and on my bill taxes amount to some 43% of the price.
I live in Copenhagen, Denmark and my last bill were some $148 for 304 kWh all included - or some 49 cents per kWh compared to your 13 cents. Some 43% of the bill comes from various taxes and public commitments, so the non-taxed price is 28 cents per kWh. However, it should be noted that some if this is flat rate subscriptions, which has a larger influence on my low power consumption. Taking these into account, your usage of 589 kWh would cost some $247 in Denmark or 42 cents per kWh. So, it would be resonable to assume a x3 price increase in power bill going from Texas to Denmark. Give or take a bit.
Have you ever heard about the invisible woman?
Now, where did all my mod points go?
Don't worry. It will be here in a second.
Where I live, people most often vote for a party, not a person. It is quite seldom that they know that much about the personal beliefs of the local members on the party list. It should also be noted that the only thing stopping someone from breaking party line is that they can be excluded from their party. Depending on the situation their career in politics may also end at the next exection, but they do not lose their seat until a new parliament is elected. Indeed, since the last parliamentary election 3 years ago, 3% of the elected representatives have left their party for another (or for being independent).
On my somewhat elderly x86_64 Linux system