Regarding the Tunisian agreement - no corporate officer will EVER allow the lives of thousands of little brown (or yellow, in the case of Apple) people stand in the way of profit.
I should point out for the naive, that skin color means nothing in that equation. The same corporations would sacrifice thousands of white or black people, just as readily. The only thing that prevents that happening, in general, is the fact that you probably live in the USA, Canada, or Europe. Our laws are vastly superior to laws in Tunisia, China, Africa, and even some of South America.
Actually - Microsoft is most definitely still patent trolling. They still claim that Linux is using a whole pile of MS patents, but won't even identify what those patents are. They have already shaken down Suse. How does that agreement go, now? "You can use our stuff that you've already stolen, as long as we can use your stuff, and we won't have to face each other in court."
Just because MS has learned some subtlety, and avoids east Texas courtrooms doesn't mean they abandoned patent trolling.
You speak for yourself, of course. Personally, I don't take Anonymous seriously enough to either get angry with them, or to join them, or much of anything. I follow their stuff, and I'm mostly amused. I see mostly juvenile type pranks, carried out for mostly good reasons. So, they are misguided, but basically good kids. When the prime movers of Anonymous grow up a little bit, they'll probably be valuable members of society. The followers and hangers on, possibly the same. There are some really smart people among them. Of course, that doesn't apply to the script kiddies who just download LOIC and mindlessly follow orders. Most of those will grow up to occupy a niche in a trailer park, or a ghetto apartment, unless their mothers have basements that can be converted into living quarters.
Impractical PR stunts have their uses. They help to focus attention on what is possible today, and what will become commonplace in years to come. 8 Ghz may remain impractical for another two years, or ten years. But, eventually, people will come to expect that, and more. Someone has to do the early experimenting!
Not if the books are out of copyright. Books that are out of circulation might be debatable. Books which the copyrights have never been enforced are again debatable. Books whose authors are dead, and there are no clear estate holders are very much debatable.
Who owns a book, if not the university that paid for it?
I've never heard that Google was digitizing books that are currently under copyright, current in print, and the authors or their estates are actively enforcing copyrights. If the owner of a 200 year old book wants Google to digitize it, there is no question in my mind that it should be done. Ditto with a 150 year old book. And, again with a 100 year old book. The guy who owns the book has final say. 75 year old book? Well, the crazy laws we have today may just bar them from being scanned, but it's alright with me. When copyrights expire, these "guilds" have no say in the matter.
But, but, but - isn't it true that only white people are racist?/sarcasm
Oh, FYI, the most racist bastards on the planet today are the Azteca. They have an openly racist lobby in the United States, La Raza, which translates directly as "The Race". Their motto is "For the Race, everything. Outside the Race, nothing." Seems I remember that motto from some place/time in history, albeit, in another language.
"with computers we can get all the upsides of more features with none of the downsides (at least in software)"
Actually, the proper terms would include "bloat", "resource hungry", and "cpu intensive". Sorry, but there really ARE downsides to all those features.
Need an example? Install any Linux distro, with Gnome3. Look at your resource consumption. It's out of this world! Now, do a new installation of the same distro with Gnome2. Check out your resource consumption, and you'll find that you're using little more than 1/2 the resources that Gnome3 demands.
So - with all of Gnome's new "features", it has become necessary to install 6 gig of memory in your computer, in order to run things comfortably, and not rely on the swap file.
If you've bothered to experiment, you might want to nuke from orbit, and reinstall the same operating system with Enlightenment, instead of Gnome. Memory usage will drop dramatically, making a system with only 2 gig of memory quite responsive, and very usable.
If you're wondering where you can find a distro to experiment, Sabayon will work. Their newest version has both Gnome3 and Enlightenment (on different CD's), while their preceding version has Gnome2.
I've read 'The Art of War'. Perhaps you could remind me of which chapters specifically apply to naval and to air warfare? I seem to have missed those chapters. Surely, you will grant that naval warfare has enabled weaker nations to defeat stronger nations in the past. And, I'm sure that you will also grant that air power has revolutionized all other forms of warfare. Close in ground support is a force multiplier that can make a single division of infantry equal to ten or more divisions that lack air power.
So, while the Chinese have in fact "written the book" on several forms of warfare, there is no evidence to date that they grasp the strategic or the tactical use of air and sea power.
And, to be honest, there is little to demonstrate that they grasp strategic and tactical use of armor. They have no one who is quite comparable to General Erwin Rommel. Blitzkrieg was more than 75% a German invention, with a little contribution from America's General Sherman. (Rommel studied all of he preceding general officers, of course, but he makes special mention of Sherman among his writings.;^) )
Well, you've made a few comments that I disagree with. This one only shows that you're an ass. There's really nothing to disagree with, because it's so asinine.
I'm not into aviation, really, so I can only guess that both you and GP might be right. How about, Israel first stole the plans for that Mirage (GP doesn't say which model, precisely) and built a prototype (or more) then negotiated with France to license an aircraft which they could demonstrate that they had the capability to build - without a license.
So, today, yes, that plane is legally licensed. But that doesn't mean that the first craft that Israel produced was properly licensed.
That's all bullshit guessing - but the guesswork is done with their nuclear weapons program in mind.;^)
You might want to look up the "Assassin's Mace". The nearest definition that we seem to have, is "unconventional warfare". It's economic and political warfare, backed by military might. The Chinese have stated, as clearly as possible, that they intend to dominate the United States economically, politically, and militarily within 20 years. About ten years have passed, and they are well down the economic road, politically not so far, and they are indeed working on the military aspect. They actually have a few modern ships, that might be capable of challenging our own ships, one on one - although there is little evidence that they understand strategy, tactics, and fleet operations as well as we do. Likewise with their air power - they now own craft that are capable, in skilled hands, of challenging our best aircraft. The question is, do they have the skilled pilots to operate those craft? That hurdle passed (or not) the next question is whether they grasp the strategic, and tactical use of those aircraft.
Somewhat like the old Soviet, China takes a longterm view of things. They plan decades in advance. And, if they fail to accomplish their mission in 20 years, nothing prevents them from setting a new goal 10 or 20 years further into the future.
Compare that to the United States, where we can't plan 4 years ahead.
Nope. Cars have been stolen and recovered, cars have been stolen and never recovered, ever since there have been cars. In fact, I've had a car stolen, and never got it back. It was either stripped then crushed, or just crushed for drug money. Stuff happens.
And, I've always said that there are TO MANY COPS ALREADY! They don't need force multipliers at all. The only reason for all this added security is "terrorism" paranoia, and government's desire to pry into more and more of ordinary citizen's lives. Government wants to "govern", and they do govern more an more, getting ever more fine grained each decade, and even each year.
The fact that you may approve of some or all of the more recently passed laws doesn't change the fact that government watches your private life more and more. Seat belt laws, emissions testing laws, drunk driving laws that get ever more stringent, automobile searches, and totally unwarranted tickets by mail are examples - and I've only started with the most obvious laws that affect you and me on the public highways.
Let me stress - whether you approve of any of the laws is irrelevant to my statement that government is growing ever bigger, and ever more intrusive. There might be 500 "good" laws passed, with the net effect that government grows more intrusive. So, are all those laws, taken together, still good, or not?
"If you drive on a public road you've already agreed to give up many of your rights. This is a non-issue."
"Mr. Runaway, you may not drive on our highways, unless and until you agree to give up some constitutionally guaranteed rights. Do you wish to travel on our highways?"
Nooo, that's not coercion at all, now is it? Agreeing to give up your rights, and being coerced into such an "agreement" are not the same things.
I haven't explored TrueCrypt fully - but as I understand it, you can have multiple hidden volumes on it, right? So - you decrypt the least incriminating volume. If the judge doesn't know about the three additional volumes, he can't even try to compel you to decrypt them.
If it were "risk free", then one or more corporations would have bought up all the rent building in America, and started renting them out. You have merely shown your ignorance with this post.
I have land, and a vacant building which COULD be rented out. It's not high value, but the couple hundred dollars per month would be nice. I do not rent, however. It isn't WORTH the risk!
"We should all also agree that most vessels even have some protection for such violent attacks."
Actually, no. There are very few aircraft that are armored. Some aircraft have a few "hardened" points within the craft, ie, the cockpit on commercial craft have locking hatches nowadays. Armoring an aircraft just enough to protect against a near miss from a fragmenting missile is prohibitively expensive, in terms of fuel and maneuverability, not to mention the cost of the aircraft.
Even ships aren't armored. Take a typical destroyer, in any of the world's modern navies. A high powered sporting rifle can penetrate the hull in most places. Those places impenetrable by such a rifle aren't exaclty "armored" - they are just stronger sections of the hull, made necessary by the ship's size, design, and the forces that act upon the ship.
You might experiment a little bit. Go buy an old junker of a car, and get a.22 rifle. Start trying to armor your car so that the.22 can't penetrate it. By the time you're finished making that car impenetrable, you'll have tens of thousands of dollars invested, and the car will weigh between 3 1/2 and 5 tons. Kiss performance good-bye!
BTW - don't do that little experiment in the US of A. Most certainly don't perform such an experiment within several miles of an airport, military installation, or government office. You're likely to end up in Guantanamo bay, as a guest of the US government.
While that is perfectly true - the question remains. Why is an aircraft unable to perform it's mission because GPS has been knocked out? A pair of well trained pilots in a recon craft should be able to navigate with, or without GPS. There should be redundant systems aboard the craft, and if all the navigation systems fail and/or become questionable, the pilots themselves should be able to navigate.
Our reliance on high tech may well be our undoing. Remember, some dumb grunt with a sharp stick can make you just as dead as a highly trained American soldier with a "smart" assault rifle, night vision, and instant communications with his command post.
Where am I? I've traveled a lot. Started out in western Pennsylvania, put 8 years into the Navy, drove truck for 13 years, worked industrial construction for another 12 years, and I've settled near Texarkana.
My own education had me headed into business administration and accounting. During a late night study session, leaning up against a mainframe computer, listening to a downeast Maine thunderstorm, it occured to me that I didn't really want to spend my life counting other people's money for them. So - I "dropped out" of the degree thing, and instead pursued careers that appealed to me. Destroying things, building things, and moving things.;^)
Parking lots are private property, owned by the individual vendor, or by the strip mall owner. I used to be a truck driver, and it didn't take long to figure out that almost all property is private property. A lot of good parking lots are posted "No truck parking", and stopping to get a burger to go would mean a ticket if a cop happened to come by.
The thing is, you accept that surveillance is acceptable, and normal. Some of us do not. It is none of the police department's business where I go, what I do, who I see, or how long I might meet with any person. None of their business. Basically, widespread surveillance relieves the police of doing real police work.
I can justify surveillance inside of a business place that is commonly subject to armed robbery and/or shoplifting. I cannot justify surveillance of public streets, parking logs, and business places that aren't commonly targeted by thieves.
There are, after all, only so many different ways to make a statement. If, over time, the statement has been re-stated 3 1/2 million times, then some of those re-statements are going to look suspiciously like plagiarism. In the final analysis, your answers to a test and/or your essays are merely tweaked rephrasing of whatever the teacher and the textbook already said.
"In which case, WTF is the point of the degree in the first place?"
In far to many cases, a degree is just something to make Mommy and Daddy proud.
Maybe I have led an extremely unusual life, or something. Surely, I'm not the only person in the world to have identified a lot of "educated" people, who occupy niches at the bottom end of the food chain. I've met doctors driving truck, professors working as sales clerks, people with lesser degrees pushing brooms.
We hear all the hype about college graduates earning a million dollars and more than their non-educated counterparts. As a generality, that is probably close to the truth. But, there are also millions of graduates who never hit the "big time" in their chosen field, or any other field.
Though I've never done so, I'll wager that you could cruise through your local projects, and find welfare bums with degrees. If you know any social services people, you might discuss the possibility with them.
Oh - the OTHER reason for all those degrees is, colleges make money based on bodies. The more bodies packed into their classrooms, the more money they get from all the various funding sources. So, yeah, like any other business, the education system is going to do it's best to educate a lot of people. It doesn't much matter to THEM that there is already a surplus in any given field, and that none of the grads will ever find work for which they are prepared.
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Regarding the Tunisian agreement - no corporate officer will EVER allow the lives of thousands of little brown (or yellow, in the case of Apple) people stand in the way of profit.
I should point out for the naive, that skin color means nothing in that equation. The same corporations would sacrifice thousands of white or black people, just as readily. The only thing that prevents that happening, in general, is the fact that you probably live in the USA, Canada, or Europe. Our laws are vastly superior to laws in Tunisia, China, Africa, and even some of South America.
Actually - Microsoft is most definitely still patent trolling. They still claim that Linux is using a whole pile of MS patents, but won't even identify what those patents are. They have already shaken down Suse. How does that agreement go, now? "You can use our stuff that you've already stolen, as long as we can use your stuff, and we won't have to face each other in court."
Just because MS has learned some subtlety, and avoids east Texas courtrooms doesn't mean they abandoned patent trolling.
"lacking a lot of things that the Flash player has."
Yeah, I want my SuperCookies, dammit. /sarcasm
You speak for yourself, of course. Personally, I don't take Anonymous seriously enough to either get angry with them, or to join them, or much of anything. I follow their stuff, and I'm mostly amused. I see mostly juvenile type pranks, carried out for mostly good reasons. So, they are misguided, but basically good kids. When the prime movers of Anonymous grow up a little bit, they'll probably be valuable members of society. The followers and hangers on, possibly the same. There are some really smart people among them. Of course, that doesn't apply to the script kiddies who just download LOIC and mindlessly follow orders. Most of those will grow up to occupy a niche in a trailer park, or a ghetto apartment, unless their mothers have basements that can be converted into living quarters.
Impractical PR stunts have their uses. They help to focus attention on what is possible today, and what will become commonplace in years to come. 8 Ghz may remain impractical for another two years, or ten years. But, eventually, people will come to expect that, and more. Someone has to do the early experimenting!
Thank you - I was sorta scratching my head on that one. I had a 386 SX, then a 486 DX, and I was pretty sure that the FPU was separate on the 386.
Not if the books are out of copyright. Books that are out of circulation might be debatable. Books which the copyrights have never been enforced are again debatable. Books whose authors are dead, and there are no clear estate holders are very much debatable.
Who owns a book, if not the university that paid for it?
I've never heard that Google was digitizing books that are currently under copyright, current in print, and the authors or their estates are actively enforcing copyrights. If the owner of a 200 year old book wants Google to digitize it, there is no question in my mind that it should be done. Ditto with a 150 year old book. And, again with a 100 year old book. The guy who owns the book has final say. 75 year old book? Well, the crazy laws we have today may just bar them from being scanned, but it's alright with me. When copyrights expire, these "guilds" have no say in the matter.
But, but, but - isn't it true that only white people are racist? /sarcasm
Oh, FYI, the most racist bastards on the planet today are the Azteca. They have an openly racist lobby in the United States, La Raza, which translates directly as "The Race". Their motto is "For the Race, everything. Outside the Race, nothing." Seems I remember that motto from some place/time in history, albeit, in another language.
"with computers we can get all the upsides of more features with none of the downsides (at least in software)"
Actually, the proper terms would include "bloat", "resource hungry", and "cpu intensive". Sorry, but there really ARE downsides to all those features.
Need an example? Install any Linux distro, with Gnome3. Look at your resource consumption. It's out of this world! Now, do a new installation of the same distro with Gnome2. Check out your resource consumption, and you'll find that you're using little more than 1/2 the resources that Gnome3 demands.
So - with all of Gnome's new "features", it has become necessary to install 6 gig of memory in your computer, in order to run things comfortably, and not rely on the swap file.
If you've bothered to experiment, you might want to nuke from orbit, and reinstall the same operating system with Enlightenment, instead of Gnome. Memory usage will drop dramatically, making a system with only 2 gig of memory quite responsive, and very usable.
If you're wondering where you can find a distro to experiment, Sabayon will work. Their newest version has both Gnome3 and Enlightenment (on different CD's), while their preceding version has Gnome2.
Features cost.
I've read 'The Art of War'. Perhaps you could remind me of which chapters specifically apply to naval and to air warfare? I seem to have missed those chapters. Surely, you will grant that naval warfare has enabled weaker nations to defeat stronger nations in the past. And, I'm sure that you will also grant that air power has revolutionized all other forms of warfare. Close in ground support is a force multiplier that can make a single division of infantry equal to ten or more divisions that lack air power.
So, while the Chinese have in fact "written the book" on several forms of warfare, there is no evidence to date that they grasp the strategic or the tactical use of air and sea power.
And, to be honest, there is little to demonstrate that they grasp strategic and tactical use of armor. They have no one who is quite comparable to General Erwin Rommel. Blitzkrieg was more than 75% a German invention, with a little contribution from America's General Sherman. (Rommel studied all of he preceding general officers, of course, but he makes special mention of Sherman among his writings. ;^) )
Well, you've made a few comments that I disagree with. This one only shows that you're an ass. There's really nothing to disagree with, because it's so asinine.
I'm not into aviation, really, so I can only guess that both you and GP might be right. How about, Israel first stole the plans for that Mirage (GP doesn't say which model, precisely) and built a prototype (or more) then negotiated with France to license an aircraft which they could demonstrate that they had the capability to build - without a license.
So, today, yes, that plane is legally licensed. But that doesn't mean that the first craft that Israel produced was properly licensed.
That's all bullshit guessing - but the guesswork is done with their nuclear weapons program in mind. ;^)
You might want to look up the "Assassin's Mace". The nearest definition that we seem to have, is "unconventional warfare". It's economic and political warfare, backed by military might. The Chinese have stated, as clearly as possible, that they intend to dominate the United States economically, politically, and militarily within 20 years. About ten years have passed, and they are well down the economic road, politically not so far, and they are indeed working on the military aspect. They actually have a few modern ships, that might be capable of challenging our own ships, one on one - although there is little evidence that they understand strategy, tactics, and fleet operations as well as we do. Likewise with their air power - they now own craft that are capable, in skilled hands, of challenging our best aircraft. The question is, do they have the skilled pilots to operate those craft? That hurdle passed (or not) the next question is whether they grasp the strategic, and tactical use of those aircraft.
Somewhat like the old Soviet, China takes a longterm view of things. They plan decades in advance. And, if they fail to accomplish their mission in 20 years, nothing prevents them from setting a new goal 10 or 20 years further into the future.
Compare that to the United States, where we can't plan 4 years ahead.
I think that ultimately, China will succeed.
Nope. Cars have been stolen and recovered, cars have been stolen and never recovered, ever since there have been cars. In fact, I've had a car stolen, and never got it back. It was either stripped then crushed, or just crushed for drug money. Stuff happens.
And, I've always said that there are TO MANY COPS ALREADY! They don't need force multipliers at all. The only reason for all this added security is "terrorism" paranoia, and government's desire to pry into more and more of ordinary citizen's lives. Government wants to "govern", and they do govern more an more, getting ever more fine grained each decade, and even each year.
The fact that you may approve of some or all of the more recently passed laws doesn't change the fact that government watches your private life more and more. Seat belt laws, emissions testing laws, drunk driving laws that get ever more stringent, automobile searches, and totally unwarranted tickets by mail are examples - and I've only started with the most obvious laws that affect you and me on the public highways.
Let me stress - whether you approve of any of the laws is irrelevant to my statement that government is growing ever bigger, and ever more intrusive. There might be 500 "good" laws passed, with the net effect that government grows more intrusive. So, are all those laws, taken together, still good, or not?
I say, they are not.
"If you drive on a public road you've already agreed to give up many of your rights. This is a non-issue."
"Mr. Runaway, you may not drive on our highways, unless and until you agree to give up some constitutionally guaranteed rights. Do you wish to travel on our highways?"
Nooo, that's not coercion at all, now is it? Agreeing to give up your rights, and being coerced into such an "agreement" are not the same things.
I haven't explored TrueCrypt fully - but as I understand it, you can have multiple hidden volumes on it, right? So - you decrypt the least incriminating volume. If the judge doesn't know about the three additional volumes, he can't even try to compel you to decrypt them.
If it were "risk free", then one or more corporations would have bought up all the rent building in America, and started renting them out. You have merely shown your ignorance with this post.
I have land, and a vacant building which COULD be rented out. It's not high value, but the couple hundred dollars per month would be nice. I do not rent, however. It isn't WORTH the risk!
"We should all also agree that most vessels even have some protection for such violent attacks."
Actually, no. There are very few aircraft that are armored. Some aircraft have a few "hardened" points within the craft, ie, the cockpit on commercial craft have locking hatches nowadays. Armoring an aircraft just enough to protect against a near miss from a fragmenting missile is prohibitively expensive, in terms of fuel and maneuverability, not to mention the cost of the aircraft.
Even ships aren't armored. Take a typical destroyer, in any of the world's modern navies. A high powered sporting rifle can penetrate the hull in most places. Those places impenetrable by such a rifle aren't exaclty "armored" - they are just stronger sections of the hull, made necessary by the ship's size, design, and the forces that act upon the ship.
You might experiment a little bit. Go buy an old junker of a car, and get a .22 rifle. Start trying to armor your car so that the .22 can't penetrate it. By the time you're finished making that car impenetrable, you'll have tens of thousands of dollars invested, and the car will weigh between 3 1/2 and 5 tons. Kiss performance good-bye!
BTW - don't do that little experiment in the US of A. Most certainly don't perform such an experiment within several miles of an airport, military installation, or government office. You're likely to end up in Guantanamo bay, as a guest of the US government.
While that is perfectly true - the question remains. Why is an aircraft unable to perform it's mission because GPS has been knocked out? A pair of well trained pilots in a recon craft should be able to navigate with, or without GPS. There should be redundant systems aboard the craft, and if all the navigation systems fail and/or become questionable, the pilots themselves should be able to navigate.
Our reliance on high tech may well be our undoing. Remember, some dumb grunt with a sharp stick can make you just as dead as a highly trained American soldier with a "smart" assault rifle, night vision, and instant communications with his command post.
Where am I? I've traveled a lot. Started out in western Pennsylvania, put 8 years into the Navy, drove truck for 13 years, worked industrial construction for another 12 years, and I've settled near Texarkana.
My own education had me headed into business administration and accounting. During a late night study session, leaning up against a mainframe computer, listening to a downeast Maine thunderstorm, it occured to me that I didn't really want to spend my life counting other people's money for them. So - I "dropped out" of the degree thing, and instead pursued careers that appealed to me. Destroying things, building things, and moving things. ;^)
Uhhhh - yeah. And, at no time during your approach and backing maneuver will the camera have a clear shot at your license plate, right?
Parking lots are private property, owned by the individual vendor, or by the strip mall owner. I used to be a truck driver, and it didn't take long to figure out that almost all property is private property. A lot of good parking lots are posted "No truck parking", and stopping to get a burger to go would mean a ticket if a cop happened to come by.
The thing is, you accept that surveillance is acceptable, and normal. Some of us do not. It is none of the police department's business where I go, what I do, who I see, or how long I might meet with any person. None of their business. Basically, widespread surveillance relieves the police of doing real police work.
I can justify surveillance inside of a business place that is commonly subject to armed robbery and/or shoplifting. I cannot justify surveillance of public streets, parking logs, and business places that aren't commonly targeted by thieves.
There is still a problem, as I see it.
There are, after all, only so many different ways to make a statement. If, over time, the statement has been re-stated 3 1/2 million times, then some of those re-statements are going to look suspiciously like plagiarism. In the final analysis, your answers to a test and/or your essays are merely tweaked rephrasing of whatever the teacher and the textbook already said.
"In which case, WTF is the point of the degree in the first place?"
In far to many cases, a degree is just something to make Mommy and Daddy proud.
Maybe I have led an extremely unusual life, or something. Surely, I'm not the only person in the world to have identified a lot of "educated" people, who occupy niches at the bottom end of the food chain. I've met doctors driving truck, professors working as sales clerks, people with lesser degrees pushing brooms.
We hear all the hype about college graduates earning a million dollars and more than their non-educated counterparts. As a generality, that is probably close to the truth. But, there are also millions of graduates who never hit the "big time" in their chosen field, or any other field.
Though I've never done so, I'll wager that you could cruise through your local projects, and find welfare bums with degrees. If you know any social services people, you might discuss the possibility with them.
Oh - the OTHER reason for all those degrees is, colleges make money based on bodies. The more bodies packed into their classrooms, the more money they get from all the various funding sources. So, yeah, like any other business, the education system is going to do it's best to educate a lot of people. It doesn't much matter to THEM that there is already a surplus in any given field, and that none of the grads will ever find work for which they are prepared.