We do not have to , global warming is not proven. Even if the oceans rise and all of the poles melt, humans will still survive and thrive. Sure, polar bears might go extinct, but so did dinosaurs millions of years before we were even around driving our SUVs. The only constant on this planet is change be it natural or man-made.
And then what happens when we get plunged into another ice age because of something?
Plus, then you know for sure that someone is checking on the security of the certificates because that's 50% of their job.
Yes, and there are also supposed to be people making laws that agree with the constitution and striking down unconstitutional ones, and people that make sure patents are valid before they get approved. But in both of them they fail in their jobs.
And think about the ways that governments would abuse this system. For example AT&T might not have a decently secured site, but because they agreed to wiretap they might give them a certificate. On the other hand a site that sells materials disagreeing with the US government might be rejected a certificate because the government simply disagrees with them regardless of the status of the site.
Err, you do know that most of it is because the population of the USA is spread across a large area whereas just about any country in Europe (minus Russia) would fit within our borders? If the USA had roughly the same everything just scaled down to the size of a mid-sized state, I'm sure the USA would have the highest broadband access rates in the world.
When Office is an integral part of your processes, you tend to use features that are more..."unique" to it. Its then harder to replace (usually companies that go that route, do so with the idea that the license price of Office is minimal compared to the time saving of using it as a RAD client...)
Yes, but you assume also that during 2009 both Office along with OOo (and other open source office suites) will remain stagnant. Try convincing a person who already is afraid of their computer that Office 2007 is better when they have to relearn half the program. And who knows what Windows 7 will bring, it may be that in the final release they remove all compatibility with Office below 2007 in which case showing people that they might not have to be retrained with the (IMO) horrid "ribbon" interface of Office 2007 but a more familiar one of OOo might be enough to convince your boss to go with the free app even if it might take more admin work to make it work.
Most CIOs don't like the idea of having their engineers digging through mountains of C/C++ source code, plus Perl, Bourne, GNU make, autoconf, and m4 scripts, to find the source of a bug that they might have to build and maintain independently of the vendor's patch releases. And deploy on potentially dozens of production systems.
That is much, much, much, better than the Windows way. With FOSS you can at least fix a bug, with Windows you basically can report a bug, the MS engineers deny that it is a bug, you insist that it should not be default behavior, 2 weeks + you get a patch that may or may not work.
to be fair to MS, the reason business chooses them is they are cost effective, not because they are the cheapest. compared to vendors like IBM and redhat, MS products represent good value for money.
...Because having tons of downtime is "cheap"? Because having to buy $5K worth of software licenses is cheap compared to paying some contractor $2.5K to set up a comparable Linux system? Look, whenever a business currently running XP wants to upgrade their machines, they can either pay Vista licensing costs of around $50 per box, $50 for anti-virus and about $25 for other software. Compare that to $0 per box in software with Linux. Sure, someone who knows Linux is going to be harder to find, but really, having one Linux guy getting paid slightly more than a Windows guy is worth it with the software savings.
So, you honestly think there will be fewer calls with oss?
Yes, with non-root accounts and most of the major configuration hidden away in.config files they aren't going to be messing with any important settings. Compare this to Windows where people encounter.dll and other important system files on a day-to-day basis. The worst that someone will do on a Linux system is delete all their files, not break the entire system which is what happens with Windows.
You can explain to my mother in law why the card games disk she bought won't install and walk her through it then...
...But they won't buy things on disks with Linux. If it is a disk that they bought when they were still using Windows compare it to sticking a Wii game into a PS3, it just won't work (or a similar analogy). When people start just opening up a front-end to apt-get and getting their programs theres not much that can go wrong (with average use).
Safari on Windows just... fails compared to Firefox. No extensions, the strange Aqua GUI which no doubt increases the amount of memory and libraries to load that is un-themeable, and just about 0 customization makes Safari hard to recommend. Granted, its better than IE, but compared to Firefox just about everything minus the WebKit rendering engine (which, isn't much faster or slower then Gecko) can be done on Firefox and much, much, more.
Too bad there's no credible alternative to vista or vista 2nd release in sight for your average gaming-oriented PC.
It really depends on what gaming you want to do. Anything that doesn't require Direct X 10 or strange drivers that for some reason are Vista only (which is like 99.9% of all games/hardware) Just use XP. For anything that does you should have 3+ GB of RAM and a high end dual or quad core CPU and a fast graphics card so Vista won't be horribly slow (no it won't be as fast as XP, Linux or even OS X, but it will be usable).
I wouldn't use linux for general desktop stuff either, too much pain if there's no ideological reason to go there.
I went all Linux back in 2006, apart from gaming just about everything else works perfectly. I used Firefox to browse, OOo to write documents, and so there was no change in software. Today just about everything with Ubuntu can be done quicker than on Windows to set up a comparable system, it takes me less time to get a fully functioning Ubuntu box with DVD/MP3/a few programs/nVidia drivers compared to just installing Windows XP and getting all of the hardware to work.
...I imagine that you and your co-worker aren't doing the exact same things. For example, if you go to different sites, or the same site with different ads, memory usage and crashes are going to be totally different. Then there is the issue which is the problem with about 95% of Firefox crashes, Flash and Java. Unless you have the exact same Flash and Java versions thats also going to make a world of difference.
How about NOT pointing out that more than two thirds of users on this planet are still browsing the net with IE -
...And about 2/3 of computer users don't really know how to actually *use* a computer. How many people do you know that either A) are scared to death of their computer, B) Use their computers very, very, little or C) has someone else make all decisions on their computer (such as a work computer)
I imaging that just about 2/3rds of people fall into those categories. Those that are scared of their computer probably think that Firefox is a virus because it wasn't pre-installed at the factory, these people also are the type to still have the Dell wallpaper still as their desktop background because changing it might somehow break their computer. These are the older people or people who don't really understand that the worst they can do to their $1000 is delete all their data.
Those that use their computers very little usually think of their computers only as tools to write e-mails, check blogs, and get on iTunes. They don't care about their browsers, they don't care about most anything on their computer. They might know how to play FreeCell but thats about it. This is a lot of students and working people.
And it is self-explanatory about those who have other people manage their computers, they just lack the access to change the browser or are afraid of getting yelled at by their computer-illiterate CEO because they installed Firefox even though it would be better than the IE6 currently installed on the company's desktop.
So really, 1/3rd of computer users know how to actually *use* a computer and have root access on their boxes. Or they just use Mac/Linux and wouldn't use IE.
Disappearance of microsoft will not be a happy event for nerds : it will be a disaster.
...Because people will now use decent operating systems that don't go into kernel panic half the time? Because viruses sharply decrease? Because there is no monopoly? Because of the growth of OSS?
Hopefully consumers remain accustomed to paying for software even when microsoft dies, or the market that pays our salaries shrinks by 90% or so. Even if companies continue to pay it will still be a large portion that dies.
Look at Red Hat and look at the future when MS dies. Red Hat isn't exactly struggling and yet all their software is pure OSS not even "freeware".
The demise of MS will only lead to better software, more competition, lower prices, and no more annoying unpaid tech support calls from your parents/grandparents/brother/etc.
Perhaps I was a bit unclear, I was referring to the possession of child pornography in which no one is harmed. Creating it would put the offender at a higher level.
Yes, child pornography is bad, but our laws forbidding the possession of it is equivalent to the thought crimes of 1984 and destroy freedom of speech/press. What starts out as the banning of child pornography might well end up as the banning of literature of other government methods and we end up with a one party (or an even more tyrannical version of our two party system) system like China.
They have a name for this "system" you speak of. It is called tyranny. We fought a war to get rid of the English tyranny.
After fighting the American revolution our country created a supreme law of the land, called the constitution. Through amendments to it, we now have rights that our founding fathers thought that everyone was entitled to. Among these include the right to be protected from "unreasonable searches" no matter who it is. Guess what, Hitler used same tactics to convince the German people to go along with his fascist rule. He took a group that was unpopular (Jews) and took away their rights, then he took away rights of other people till he took away the rights of everyone else.
The American people are are just like the German people, because of their hatred for sex offenders they are willing to let the constitution and all freedoms to be lost for everyone.
Please, just stop worshipping the Constitution blindly. I guess it comes from the American education. Don't they teach critical thinking there at all?
Oh heaven forbid we actually want to use the rights guaranteed in the supreme law of the USA. And so what are you proposing? No free speech? No freedom of religion? No freedom of privacy? If you want those things then you can go live in a few other countries such as China, Iran and Saudi Arabia.
What is your point about critical thinking? Obviously it means that you disagree with the rights to free speech, religion, press, assembly and petition? That you disagree with the right to bear arms? That you want the government to house troops in your house? That you don't believe in the right to privacy? That you don't believe in a public, jury trial with no possibility of cruel punishment?
What is there to really disagree with in the constitution? If you want tyranny, fine, move to China. But if you want freedom then demand the rights given by the supreme law of the USA.
Look, like other posters have pointed out Sex Offender != Child Molester != Pedophile. The main problem is, someone who did something stupid once (like deciding to pee on a tree rather than indoors) that didn't harm anyone but just managed to make the wrong cop mad, gets stuck on the same list as the guy who raped 10 kids. What we really need is a ranking of things.
Level 1 is small things like indecent exposure, etc. Which has 6 months of tracking and then its wiped off your record.
Level 2 is small things that are considered to be morally bad but did not harm anyone such as child pornography. Which has 2 years of tracking and is not wiped off your record but would not be publicly listed.
Level 3 are things in which people were harmed, but the offender has made positive steps towards rehabilitation. This has 15 years of tracking and is not wiped off your record. Such people would be publicly listed and for the 15 years might have to give online info.
Level 4 are things in which people were harmed and no or little steps were made towards rehabilitation. This has life tracking and is not wiped off your record. They would be publicly listed and would have to give out info. This could be lowered down to level 3 after 5 years if positive steps towards rehabilitation were taken.
Our current system makes people who have had minor, trivial offenses equivalent to those who have raped children which is about the same as punishing someone who stole $25 worth of goods to a guy who killed 3 people.
Like a previous poster pointed out Sex Offender != Child Molester != Pedophile. Seriously, there are lots of ways to become a "sex offender" without even having anything to do with kids. Such things like urinating outside can force someone to be registered as a "sex offender" seriously, yes, there are some really sick people out there that are sex offenders but there are even more who really didn't do anything bad (no, peeing on a tree does not qualify as being a sex offender in most people's consciousnesses)
Not in the USA. Government is either the Republicans or the Democrats, never yours. A vote for a third party is a vote thrown away. A vote for one of the two major parties is a vote for whatever lobbyist pays them the most money. Democracy is only an illusion in the USA or any two party system. Mix that with a public who will only vote for one of the two parties (either will never vote republican or will never vote democrat), will only vote for who their union says, will only vote based on some characteristic (for example voting for McCain because he was in the army, or voting for Obama because hes black), and the rest basically vote for a single issue (for example voting for someone only because they are for gay marriage or voting for someone because they oppose abortion). Add that public with a media that barely touches third-party candidates and you have a recipe for collapse.
The US government is not my government, it isn't your government, it is the lobbyists, the media and the politicians government.
If Obama's people have the integrity to go with their vision, and if their vision is better than the crippled mess that private industry has largely made of the Internet - which after all started as a government project - then let them have it.
But if you look at the US Government in the past, they never have the integrity to go with their vision. If the *AA decides to give say, 1.5 million dollars to whatever politicians will support mandatory BT filtering to look for "infringing" content to give to the *AA, most politicians will join on the bandwagon and go for that, regardless of what Obama/McCain/The public/China/whoever wants.
It's the quality of the people who make the quality of the world. Whether they organize themselves into "governments" or "corporations" or "anarcho-syndicates" to pursue their goals is totally secondary to the essential matter of who's doing it
...And if you have been paying attention for the last 50 years you come to the swift conclusion that the government isn't the people who should be doing it.
Sure, Obama wants change. But in a 2 party system, you are never going to get real change. Congress is largely made up of older people who oppose any form of change, a president who wants change will not get it unless congress wants change. If a president doesn't want change but congress does, change will happen. Obama is basically powerless, he has to bend to the wishes of the democratic party, lobbyists, congress and many more people before he listens to his own ideas or the ideas of the citizens of the USA.
That is how it sounds on paper, but the current ISP monopolies sound exactly the same on paper. In reality it means that rather than having dial up you now can get Cable/Internet by Time Warner/Comcast (or depending on how far towards 1984 Obama wants to go, the government) but it will always be crappy service for a high price and usually there won't be any choice other than one and because on paper it shows you have broadband it doesn't matter to the government or to other businesses if you are paying $1000 per month for it because you have no other choice.
With very, very, very minimal taxation and a very, very, very minimal state, the way it should be. Ideally, the government should only do four things, A) Protect citizens from foreign invasion B) Protect citizens from fraud C) Printing a stable currency *preferably backed by something other than "the full faith of the government"* and D) Protecting citizens from harm from other citizens.
Today, we have the government making laws on things that they have no business doing, such as maintaining a strong copyright system (if the government finds it necessary to implement a copyright system, 20 years should be the maximum on copyright), regulating civil affairs (such as marriage, employment, sex, etc) or by censoring the airwaves (regulation is fine if necessary, I'm not sure if I want my cell phone having to compete with a huge signal, but no censorship, at all. Ever.).
The ideal government would be minimal at most, nowhere close to this huge governmental we have today who thinks its their business to deal with day-to-day affairs of people.
Oh and look how well the government did with the FCC. Basically, it allows for government censorship for just about everything on the air. The government doesn't want you saying something? They use the FCC to prevent you from saying it, or they load you up with excessive fines for minor things (wow, someone said "fuck", its a word, get over it). American citizens are right to be wary of any government influence, the government has screwed up more times than we can count on just about everything that deals with technology. The FDA is being lobbied left and right, just look at the case with the Miracle Berry (a fruit that contains a protein that turns sour/bitter flavors sweet to the tongue) But was denied approval by the FDA (most speculate that the Sugar Industry lobbied to stop it, but no files have been released from the FDA, great job with government transparency!) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_berry#History .
The government also let AT&T have a monopoly by basically giving them permission to use whatever land they felt like to "modernize" the USA and then did nothing when they started abusing that monopoly (until some time later).
The US Government has managed to screw up everything that we gave them to control. Yes, some private businesses can do the same, but at least there is some action people can take against them (protests, boycotts, etc), there is nothing short of revolution that can be done against a tyrannical government.
...A change towards 1984 perhaps. Look, if the government owns the US portion of the internet, how long before FCC-mandated censorship (read as tyranny) comes to the internet. No doubt this will also harm American innovation because the *AA will be able to have access to all the logs they want and keep proclaiming that if we don't stop filesharers and don't extend copyright to life + 300 years Hollywood is going to stop making movies and you will see Hannah Montana in line at the soup kitchen. Obama's heart is in the right place, but honestly, most of his policies are just going to screw up America in the long run but in the short run he might get us out of the current recession, such as this current broadband plan. On paper it sounds wonderful, everyone having T1 connections to the 'net and innovation prospers and everything turns out good, but in practice, this is only going to screw up the economy with yet another monopoly/reign of terror by the FCC/*AA.
Wow Obama, you've screwed up more than I thought you would have. If there is something we have learned about government, big businesses and technology is they don't mix. Just look at the old AT&T, the government gave them money and allowed them to "modernize" the USA and then proceed to abuse their monopoly. Then take that same thing and do it to "connect" the USA, and we now have ISPs that are abusive monopolies. Now we are going to do that again to "better connect" the USA and we are going to either end up in FCC tyrannical censorship land, or more than likely into yet another economy-damaging, money-wasting, taxpayer-funded monopoly.
Yes, but there is nothing stopping them from swiping the plans for the rocket boosters and developing a few payload systems that could easily hit US shores with a dirty/chemical warhead.
Technically, this would not result in massive retaliation. Technically, as we weren't nuked, but I have no idea how governments would react to this kind of attack. And frankly, if it was a terrorist/extremist group it would be just as bad I guess.
Just look at Pearl Harbor and the 9/11 attacks, minor attacks that launched major offensive strikes by the USA. And, a terrorist group with an ICBM? I doubt that would ever happen, about the closest would be North Korea but as far as we know they only have slightly long range misses, not ICBMs, and because North Korea is so poor, I doubt they would have the capability to build one especially with international pressure along with resource constraints. The main threat is a nuclear device by a terrorist/extremist group, something more akin to a "suitcase nuke" than a full ICBM.
Either way, I'd really prefer it if our rocketry sciences weren't put into public domain
...But honestly, there is no accountability. Why should I pay taxes just for some pretty pictures of a distant galaxy? Why should I have to pay in part for a billion dollar exploration mission to Pluto? If the findings of both the scientific and rocketry aspects aren't put in the public domain, then its no better than paying for the president to have a billion dollar dinner, either way, no one but the government benefits from it. And really, that is the public sentiment about space exploration in 2008.
Slashdot Mirror
Because we have to.
We do not have to , global warming is not proven. Even if the oceans rise and all of the poles melt, humans will still survive and thrive. Sure, polar bears might go extinct, but so did dinosaurs millions of years before we were even around driving our SUVs. The only constant on this planet is change be it natural or man-made.
And then what happens when we get plunged into another ice age because of something?
Plus, then you know for sure that someone is checking on the security of the certificates because that's 50% of their job.
Yes, and there are also supposed to be people making laws that agree with the constitution and striking down unconstitutional ones, and people that make sure patents are valid before they get approved. But in both of them they fail in their jobs.
And think about the ways that governments would abuse this system. For example AT&T might not have a decently secured site, but because they agreed to wiretap they might give them a certificate. On the other hand a site that sells materials disagreeing with the US government might be rejected a certificate because the government simply disagrees with them regardless of the status of the site.
Low broadband access rates,
Err, you do know that most of it is because the population of the USA is spread across a large area whereas just about any country in Europe (minus Russia) would fit within our borders? If the USA had roughly the same everything just scaled down to the size of a mid-sized state, I'm sure the USA would have the highest broadband access rates in the world.
When Office is an integral part of your processes, you tend to use features that are more..."unique" to it. Its then harder to replace (usually companies that go that route, do so with the idea that the license price of Office is minimal compared to the time saving of using it as a RAD client...)
Yes, but you assume also that during 2009 both Office along with OOo (and other open source office suites) will remain stagnant. Try convincing a person who already is afraid of their computer that Office 2007 is better when they have to relearn half the program. And who knows what Windows 7 will bring, it may be that in the final release they remove all compatibility with Office below 2007 in which case showing people that they might not have to be retrained with the (IMO) horrid "ribbon" interface of Office 2007 but a more familiar one of OOo might be enough to convince your boss to go with the free app even if it might take more admin work to make it work.
Most CIOs don't like the idea of having their engineers digging through mountains of C/C++ source code, plus Perl, Bourne, GNU make, autoconf, and m4 scripts, to find the source of a bug that they might have to build and maintain independently of the vendor's patch releases. And deploy on potentially dozens of production systems.
That is much, much, much, better than the Windows way. With FOSS you can at least fix a bug, with Windows you basically can report a bug, the MS engineers deny that it is a bug, you insist that it should not be default behavior, 2 weeks + you get a patch that may or may not work.
to be fair to MS, the reason business chooses them is they are cost effective, not because they are the cheapest. compared to vendors like IBM and redhat, MS products represent good value for money.
So, you honestly think there will be fewer calls with oss?
Yes, with non-root accounts and most of the major configuration hidden away in .config files they aren't going to be messing with any important settings. Compare this to Windows where people encounter .dll and other important system files on a day-to-day basis. The worst that someone will do on a Linux system is delete all their files, not break the entire system which is what happens with Windows.
You can explain to my mother in law why the card games disk she bought won't install and walk her through it then...
Safari on Windows just... fails compared to Firefox. No extensions, the strange Aqua GUI which no doubt increases the amount of memory and libraries to load that is un-themeable, and just about 0 customization makes Safari hard to recommend. Granted, its better than IE, but compared to Firefox just about everything minus the WebKit rendering engine (which, isn't much faster or slower then Gecko) can be done on Firefox and much, much, more.
Too bad there's no credible alternative to vista or vista 2nd release in sight for your average gaming-oriented PC.
It really depends on what gaming you want to do. Anything that doesn't require Direct X 10 or strange drivers that for some reason are Vista only (which is like 99.9% of all games/hardware) Just use XP. For anything that does you should have 3+ GB of RAM and a high end dual or quad core CPU and a fast graphics card so Vista won't be horribly slow (no it won't be as fast as XP, Linux or even OS X, but it will be usable).
I wouldn't use linux for general desktop stuff either, too much pain if there's no ideological reason to go there.
I went all Linux back in 2006, apart from gaming just about everything else works perfectly. I used Firefox to browse, OOo to write documents, and so there was no change in software. Today just about everything with Ubuntu can be done quicker than on Windows to set up a comparable system, it takes me less time to get a fully functioning Ubuntu box with DVD/MP3/a few programs/nVidia drivers compared to just installing Windows XP and getting all of the hardware to work.
...I imagine that you and your co-worker aren't doing the exact same things. For example, if you go to different sites, or the same site with different ads, memory usage and crashes are going to be totally different. Then there is the issue which is the problem with about 95% of Firefox crashes, Flash and Java. Unless you have the exact same Flash and Java versions thats also going to make a world of difference.
How about NOT pointing out that more than two thirds of users on this planet are still browsing the net with IE -
I imaging that just about 2/3rds of people fall into those categories. Those that are scared of their computer probably think that Firefox is a virus because it wasn't pre-installed at the factory, these people also are the type to still have the Dell wallpaper still as their desktop background because changing it might somehow break their computer. These are the older people or people who don't really understand that the worst they can do to their $1000 is delete all their data.
Those that use their computers very little usually think of their computers only as tools to write e-mails, check blogs, and get on iTunes. They don't care about their browsers, they don't care about most anything on their computer. They might know how to play FreeCell but thats about it. This is a lot of students and working people.
And it is self-explanatory about those who have other people manage their computers, they just lack the access to change the browser or are afraid of getting yelled at by their computer-illiterate CEO because they installed Firefox even though it would be better than the IE6 currently installed on the company's desktop.
So really, 1/3rd of computer users know how to actually *use* a computer and have root access on their boxes. Or they just use Mac/Linux and wouldn't use IE.
Disappearance of microsoft will not be a happy event for nerds : it will be a disaster.
Hopefully consumers remain accustomed to paying for software even when microsoft dies, or the market that pays our salaries shrinks by 90% or so. Even if companies continue to pay it will still be a large portion that dies.
Look at Red Hat and look at the future when MS dies. Red Hat isn't exactly struggling and yet all their software is pure OSS not even "freeware".
The demise of MS will only lead to better software, more competition, lower prices, and no more annoying unpaid tech support calls from your parents/grandparents/brother/etc.
Perhaps I was a bit unclear, I was referring to the possession of child pornography in which no one is harmed. Creating it would put the offender at a higher level.
Yes, child pornography is bad, but our laws forbidding the possession of it is equivalent to the thought crimes of 1984 and destroy freedom of speech/press. What starts out as the banning of child pornography might well end up as the banning of literature of other government methods and we end up with a one party (or an even more tyrannical version of our two party system) system like China.
They have a name for this "system" you speak of. It is called tyranny. We fought a war to get rid of the English tyranny.
After fighting the American revolution our country created a supreme law of the land, called the constitution. Through amendments to it, we now have rights that our founding fathers thought that everyone was entitled to. Among these include the right to be protected from "unreasonable searches" no matter who it is. Guess what, Hitler used same tactics to convince the German people to go along with his fascist rule. He took a group that was unpopular (Jews) and took away their rights, then he took away rights of other people till he took away the rights of everyone else.
The American people are are just like the German people, because of their hatred for sex offenders they are willing to let the constitution and all freedoms to be lost for everyone.
Please, just stop worshipping the Constitution blindly. I guess it comes from the American education. Don't they teach critical thinking there at all?
Oh heaven forbid we actually want to use the rights guaranteed in the supreme law of the USA. And so what are you proposing? No free speech? No freedom of religion? No freedom of privacy? If you want those things then you can go live in a few other countries such as China, Iran and Saudi Arabia.
What is your point about critical thinking? Obviously it means that you disagree with the rights to free speech, religion, press, assembly and petition? That you disagree with the right to bear arms? That you want the government to house troops in your house? That you don't believe in the right to privacy? That you don't believe in a public, jury trial with no possibility of cruel punishment?
What is there to really disagree with in the constitution? If you want tyranny, fine, move to China. But if you want freedom then demand the rights given by the supreme law of the USA.
Look, like other posters have pointed out Sex Offender != Child Molester != Pedophile. The main problem is, someone who did something stupid once (like deciding to pee on a tree rather than indoors) that didn't harm anyone but just managed to make the wrong cop mad, gets stuck on the same list as the guy who raped 10 kids. What we really need is a ranking of things.
Level 1 is small things like indecent exposure, etc. Which has 6 months of tracking and then its wiped off your record.
Level 2 is small things that are considered to be morally bad but did not harm anyone such as child pornography. Which has 2 years of tracking and is not wiped off your record but would not be publicly listed.
Level 3 are things in which people were harmed, but the offender has made positive steps towards rehabilitation. This has 15 years of tracking and is not wiped off your record. Such people would be publicly listed and for the 15 years might have to give online info.
Level 4 are things in which people were harmed and no or little steps were made towards rehabilitation. This has life tracking and is not wiped off your record. They would be publicly listed and would have to give out info. This could be lowered down to level 3 after 5 years if positive steps towards rehabilitation were taken.
Our current system makes people who have had minor, trivial offenses equivalent to those who have raped children which is about the same as punishing someone who stole $25 worth of goods to a guy who killed 3 people.
Like a previous poster pointed out Sex Offender != Child Molester != Pedophile. Seriously, there are lots of ways to become a "sex offender" without even having anything to do with kids. Such things like urinating outside can force someone to be registered as a "sex offender" seriously, yes, there are some really sick people out there that are sex offenders but there are even more who really didn't do anything bad (no, peeing on a tree does not qualify as being a sex offender in most people's consciousnesses)
Not in the USA. Government is either the Republicans or the Democrats, never yours. A vote for a third party is a vote thrown away. A vote for one of the two major parties is a vote for whatever lobbyist pays them the most money. Democracy is only an illusion in the USA or any two party system. Mix that with a public who will only vote for one of the two parties (either will never vote republican or will never vote democrat), will only vote for who their union says, will only vote based on some characteristic (for example voting for McCain because he was in the army, or voting for Obama because hes black), and the rest basically vote for a single issue (for example voting for someone only because they are for gay marriage or voting for someone because they oppose abortion). Add that public with a media that barely touches third-party candidates and you have a recipe for collapse.
The US government is not my government, it isn't your government, it is the lobbyists, the media and the politicians government.
If Obama's people have the integrity to go with their vision, and if their vision is better than the crippled mess that private industry has largely made of the Internet - which after all started as a government project - then let them have it.
But if you look at the US Government in the past, they never have the integrity to go with their vision. If the *AA decides to give say, 1.5 million dollars to whatever politicians will support mandatory BT filtering to look for "infringing" content to give to the *AA, most politicians will join on the bandwagon and go for that, regardless of what Obama/McCain/The public/China/whoever wants.
It's the quality of the people who make the quality of the world. Whether they organize themselves into "governments" or "corporations" or "anarcho-syndicates" to pursue their goals is totally secondary to the essential matter of who's doing it
Sure, Obama wants change. But in a 2 party system, you are never going to get real change. Congress is largely made up of older people who oppose any form of change, a president who wants change will not get it unless congress wants change. If a president doesn't want change but congress does, change will happen. Obama is basically powerless, he has to bend to the wishes of the democratic party, lobbyists, congress and many more people before he listens to his own ideas or the ideas of the citizens of the USA.
That is how it sounds on paper, but the current ISP monopolies sound exactly the same on paper. In reality it means that rather than having dial up you now can get Cable/Internet by Time Warner/Comcast (or depending on how far towards 1984 Obama wants to go, the government) but it will always be crappy service for a high price and usually there won't be any choice other than one and because on paper it shows you have broadband it doesn't matter to the government or to other businesses if you are paying $1000 per month for it because you have no other choice.
With very, very, very minimal taxation and a very, very, very minimal state, the way it should be. Ideally, the government should only do four things, A) Protect citizens from foreign invasion B) Protect citizens from fraud C) Printing a stable currency *preferably backed by something other than "the full faith of the government"* and D) Protecting citizens from harm from other citizens.
Today, we have the government making laws on things that they have no business doing, such as maintaining a strong copyright system (if the government finds it necessary to implement a copyright system, 20 years should be the maximum on copyright), regulating civil affairs (such as marriage, employment, sex, etc) or by censoring the airwaves (regulation is fine if necessary, I'm not sure if I want my cell phone having to compete with a huge signal, but no censorship, at all. Ever.).
The ideal government would be minimal at most, nowhere close to this huge governmental we have today who thinks its their business to deal with day-to-day affairs of people.
Oh and look how well the government did with the FCC. Basically, it allows for government censorship for just about everything on the air. The government doesn't want you saying something? They use the FCC to prevent you from saying it, or they load you up with excessive fines for minor things (wow, someone said "fuck", its a word, get over it). American citizens are right to be wary of any government influence, the government has screwed up more times than we can count on just about everything that deals with technology. The FDA is being lobbied left and right, just look at the case with the Miracle Berry (a fruit that contains a protein that turns sour/bitter flavors sweet to the tongue) But was denied approval by the FDA (most speculate that the Sugar Industry lobbied to stop it, but no files have been released from the FDA, great job with government transparency!) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_berry#History .
The government also let AT&T have a monopoly by basically giving them permission to use whatever land they felt like to "modernize" the USA and then did nothing when they started abusing that monopoly (until some time later).
The US Government has managed to screw up everything that we gave them to control. Yes, some private businesses can do the same, but at least there is some action people can take against them (protests, boycotts, etc), there is nothing short of revolution that can be done against a tyrannical government.
...A change towards 1984 perhaps. Look, if the government owns the US portion of the internet, how long before FCC-mandated censorship (read as tyranny) comes to the internet. No doubt this will also harm American innovation because the *AA will be able to have access to all the logs they want and keep proclaiming that if we don't stop filesharers and don't extend copyright to life + 300 years Hollywood is going to stop making movies and you will see Hannah Montana in line at the soup kitchen. Obama's heart is in the right place, but honestly, most of his policies are just going to screw up America in the long run but in the short run he might get us out of the current recession, such as this current broadband plan. On paper it sounds wonderful, everyone having T1 connections to the 'net and innovation prospers and everything turns out good, but in practice, this is only going to screw up the economy with yet another monopoly/reign of terror by the FCC/*AA.
Wow Obama, you've screwed up more than I thought you would have. If there is something we have learned about government, big businesses and technology is they don't mix. Just look at the old AT&T, the government gave them money and allowed them to "modernize" the USA and then proceed to abuse their monopoly. Then take that same thing and do it to "connect" the USA, and we now have ISPs that are abusive monopolies. Now we are going to do that again to "better connect" the USA and we are going to either end up in FCC tyrannical censorship land, or more than likely into yet another economy-damaging, money-wasting, taxpayer-funded monopoly.
Yes, but there is nothing stopping them from swiping the plans for the rocket boosters and developing a few payload systems that could easily hit US shores with a dirty/chemical warhead. Technically, this would not result in massive retaliation. Technically, as we weren't nuked, but I have no idea how governments would react to this kind of attack. And frankly, if it was a terrorist/extremist group it would be just as bad I guess.
Just look at Pearl Harbor and the 9/11 attacks, minor attacks that launched major offensive strikes by the USA. And, a terrorist group with an ICBM? I doubt that would ever happen, about the closest would be North Korea but as far as we know they only have slightly long range misses, not ICBMs, and because North Korea is so poor, I doubt they would have the capability to build one especially with international pressure along with resource constraints. The main threat is a nuclear device by a terrorist/extremist group, something more akin to a "suitcase nuke" than a full ICBM.
Either way, I'd really prefer it if our rocketry sciences weren't put into public domain