How about some opinions from people who are Conservatives, in the traditional (classical, correct) usage of the word?
My brother insists that we and my sister are all still "Republicans as we were raised," it's just that the Republican party has moved away from us. Jumpin Jim Jeffords (Ind, VT) said the same thing.
I believe I'm a firm Moderate, and a bit of a Contrarian. In today's political arena, that makes me *look* like a L-Word.
Wow. Out of 296 comments, 63 at +3 or higher, this is the only one that appears to be truly clued in, with OS24Ever close behind.
I've seen posts in various places (can't remember if it's lkml, usenet, or web) by one of the guys working on this. The parent is right on the money with what this is.
The story about the Derby Line meeting was on a local show a few years back. Actually, the story was more about the oddities of a town that straddles a national border. They showed weird things like in-town deliveries going through customers, etc. The thing about the Beatles was just a side-show to the whole article, which was really just a side-show. They did show the church, though.
The reason for the odd meeting place was that Lennon feared not being able to get back into the US. I believe the Canadian side was driven by McCartney staying out of the US because if drug charges, but that may be defective memory.
Microchannel was 2 main things - it was a technical improvement on the ISA bus, and it was a way to hold the clones at bay. The industry saw that latter issue, and was able to work around the former.
I can allow IA64 to be better than X86, though I don't consider the extreme amount of funding to have been justified by the results, but it was also managed to stave off cloners, in an even more extreme way than microchannel.
At least microchannel could be licensed. All of the IP for IA64 is held by a separate company, and then licensed back to HP and Intel. That way none of the HP or Intel cross-licenses release any of the IA64 IP. The IP holding company couldn't actually build an IA64, because it no doubt depends on IP from other companies. But that's OK, because IA64 is only built by HP and Intel, who *are* cross-licensed. An interesting one-way sharing mechanism, far more sinistar than microchannel ever thought of being.
IA64 deserves to die may times more than microchannel did.
I think it's still a matter of lifetime. I agree that between nations, the lifetime issue might be longer, but frequently such lifetime issues are also related to the people in charge, and still take on human lifetimes, or human administration lifetimes.
I would just suggest that "never" is very rarely an acceptable secrecy duration. ALL information that is classified should be tagged with a release date, if only to trigger future review prior to release. There should also be guidelines to determine if the release is "administration," "human," or "weapons of mass destruction you can make at home" lifetime.
Sometime after they broke up, the Beatles did have a meeting to consider getting back together. But at the time, one of the ex-Beatles (forget who) wasn't allowed into the US. If he left the US, Lennon wouldn't be allowed back in. So how the heck do these guys meet?
There's a town called Derby Line, straddling the US-Canada border, specifically the Vermont-Quebec border. In that town, there's a church straddling the border. They met in that church. Lennon was able to stay IN the US the whole time, the other (unknown) ex-Beatle was able to stay OUT of the US the whole time.
Unfortunately, from what I can see, it's not that different from the bulk of political discourse in the US, other than being somewhat *better* informed and maybe more civil.
That's not meant as a compliment to Slashdot, either.
That's why there is often a delay before the information gets released. Most information is timely - after a few years, it just doesn't matter in any practical terms.
But it IS important that the information be released in order to become part of our history, and part of our historical learning.
Obviously things like the Witness Protection Act have a necessarily longer secrecy horizon. I wouldn't advocate that lives be endangered. But I don't want our stupid mistakes to be swept under the rug, so we can't learn not to do that, again.
You seem to have made an implicit assumtion that the AS/400 and FORTRAN are without merit, and that they have customers primarily because of lock-in.
Related digression... Last Summer, I took the family to Disney World. (I know, feeding the Beast. I do it as little as I can, but my wife and kids LOVE the place, and I do enjoy being there, in spite of it being the Beast.) Looking at the expensive fixtures in the bathroom and thinking about cost-effectiveness for a moment, I had an Epiphany.
What's the highest cost of a broken faucet in a Disney hotel bathroom? Loss of revenue.
In order to offer first-class service, they'd have to give the customer a different room. That means they have to hold a small pool of open rooms just to keep the customers happy. Those rooms generate no revenue. The more reliable their rooms, the fewer "spares" they need to keep, the more fully they can utilize their moneymaking machine. (the hotel) Kind of like a semiconductor fab, in that respect. In fact, there are a lot of other parallels between a hotel and any factory with a high fixed-cost component.
Bringing it back to AS/400 and FORTRAN... Banks want computers to be like appliances. Pay the money, the supplier brings it in, installs it, and you're ready to run. How often does that happen with a computer? From what I've heard, the AS/400 comes closest to that ideal of *any* business computer. They're not computer scientists, they're bankers. Not having to fiddle with the silly thing is worth money. As for FORTRAN, it has been the linuga franca of numerical simulation for a long time, and is well suited to the job.
Both AS/400 and FORTRAN can be replaced, probably more cheaply. But has *anyone* made it easier for the customer - meaning less hassle - to replace them?
I clearly need to get to work on the 9/11 Report. But the other source stated distinctly that ATC is to notify NORAD immediately in the event of a hijacking, as an *existing* policy, not something new post-9/11.
With my posts on this, I've been trying to be more-than-fair and centrist, giving the administration every benefit of the doubt, and perhaps having people read my post that would otherwise scroll onward.
In another post I mentioned being a firm Moderate, and somewhat Contrarian. Almost keeping in that spirit:
Failure of Imagination, of course! The current administration had an Agenda the day it hit the oval office, and has been executing that Agenda ever since. The 9/11 incident was a speed bump I'm sure, and forced them to invade Afghanistan before they could proceed to their Real military goal. (Take a look at: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2000/conventions/repub lican/features/platform.00/#53 and focus on the 5th and especially 6th paragraphs. Read more and get more scared.) Given that base, "execute plan regardless of facts," and what do you expect. It is a distinctly unimaginative administration - they've got their Agenda, and they're executing it. Incidentally, 9/11 also gave them the pretext and acceptance of "fuller measures" to aid law enforcement, too.
Finally, it deserves my favorite observation by David Brin: In the novel "Earth" Brin attempted to come up with a culture-independent definition of sanity. He arrived at 3 criteria, and I'll give 2. 1: The ability to be satiated, to say you have enough, and stop eating/drinking/acquiring beyond your true needs. 2: The ability to change your plans based on changing circumstances. Adaptability.
I can never remember the 3rd, even after researching and rereading it, and have thus decided that it's not as useful as the first two. But IMHO the first two are great.
But from where I sit and can perceive, the election is a horse race, and it's being reported like a horse race. Issues take a back seat, and so does any actual consideration of *which leader the country needs more, now.*
For the moment, notice I didn't even say, "who would be a better leader," because I meant exactly what I said. Without stating who I think is a better leader, at the moment I don't think that's the critical issue before us. Sometimes the better leader is the right leader, but sometimes *not*. It depends on the *needs* (not wants) of the country.
BTW, I'm neither a Liberal nor a Conservative. I'm a staunch Middle-of-the-Road'er and a bit of a Contrarian. The only Supremes I like are the 3 swing voters, and I believe the country is nearly always better off when the Presidency and Congress are controlled by opposite parties. (And I'm only leaving that "nearly" in "nearly always" because I try to keep an open mind.)
Keep in mind: The Bush Doctrine doesn't just apply to the US. It applies to any nation with enough guns and chutzpa, including Russia, China, and who knows who else. Look for more 'preemptive action' in the world, explicitely following our lead.
The days of Herbert Hoover weren't all that rosey. The Great Depression didn't just happen on his watch, we were led into it by unsound fiscal policy. The hue and cry to return to the days of Herbert Hoover are wishing to shed bits of socialism like Social Security and Medicaire/Medicaid. But IMHO we may not be able to pick and choose pieces of Hoover, we will more likely get the whole package, Depression and all. By the way, we don't have the agrarian base any more that we had back then. A similar-scale Depression would be far, far worse with today's demographics.
As for the Pentagon plane, I don't know that there was sufficient time after the 2nd WTC crash to have scrambled an interceptor and done anything. IMHO, there *was* time after the first WTC crash, and that's the time that was wasted, in addition to the time from the first hijacking to the first WTC crash.
As for the last plane and the unknown others, I was speaking in retrospect. Nor am I trying to excuse the 7 minute pause. I AM trying to say that the failures began much earlier. Much, much earlier if you want to count discounting intelligence, discarding Clarke's plan inherited from the Clinton administration, or turning the administration's focus away from the Middle East toward missile defense and the ABM treaty.
There's doing nothing. (What happened) There's running around in a panic. (What is suggested here as THE alternative.)
Then again...
I got the official 9/11 report for my birthday. I haven't had time to read it, but I have cracked it a little. I've also read another minute-by-minute account of the morning of 9/11, backed up by source links.
The *real* crime of 9/11 had nothing to do with Bush, but rather with the link between the FAA and NORAD. FAA rules state that NORAD is to be notified immediately of all hijackings. There was a delay of nearly 1/2 hour between recognition of the first hijacking and NORAD acknowledgement. (This is from the other report, I need to verify this in the 9/11 report.)
Next, in that first hour or so after the hijacking there appeared to be mass confusion between ATC and NORAD. There was uncertainty about how many hijackings, who should be looking where for what, etc. (Still from the other report.)
Finally, within the space of a few minutes, the first jet hit the WTC, and the other 3 jets were hijacked. (From the 9/11 report) We were a half-hour into the confusion, with another half-hour to go, by which time the whole thing was pretty well over, except for the shouting.
I don't know if anything could have been done to stop the first jet, after the hijacking. Ignoring the intelligence leading up to 9/11 is a different issue. But about the time one jet has crashed into a building and 3 more are known hijacked, we should have been into Full Response, instead of confusion.
What would I want Bush to have done? Put someone in Charge. He was probably too far out of the loop, in Florida. But he should have put someone in Charge to tie together ATC, NORAD, and whoever else was appropriate.
But then again, the famed 7-minute pause was *after* the 2nd jet crashed into the WTC. So even had he calmly stood up, excused himself, and taken/delegated control, it was too late. There's some question about whether or not he heard about the first jet hitting the WTC prior to entering the school. There's some question about those in the White House delaying feeding him info for 10 minutes or so. The findings: "A Failure of Imagination." Whatever happened to Truman's, "The Buck Stops Here?"
The machine called "The US Government" had multiple failures that day. In fact, the only correct, effective response was by passengers. Grounding all air traffic was correct, and might have been effective had there been more jets-as-missiles planned, and did serve to restart air traffic with better security.
Back to Moore... It's so fun to tear down 1-800 vs 1-888, and Enlisted vs Officers, etc that we just lose track of the other points where the facts were less tilted and more clear. The less disputed facts raise perhaps the more important questions, yet recieve little focus.
But then that's been the way of this whole election cycle.
I wasn't thinking so much of copyright itself, as the enforcement perversions being layered on top of it. Those could be implemented federally or state-by-state.
As a comment on the parent, it's much easier to tear down and replace a state government by voting than it is the federal. The more power that can be pushed down to the states, the more you can directly effect change with your vote.
Keep in mind that a ??AA "takeover" of California mostly affects California, but ??AA "takeover" of the US government affects the rest of us. I know "takeover" is a bit strong, but essentially the various industries *are* attempting to take over those aspects of the federal government that affect their business. In the case of the ??AA, they *have* taken over copyright, and those aspects of IP enforcement that pertain.
But I do know that IBM is like any other big company, including Microsoft. There are many factions, and they don't all work together, all the time. The split between the PC hardware people and the OS/2 people was well-known in the industry, at the time.
Plus even though IBM "won" its antitrust suit, in another way it lost, because its conduct was changed. Even though Microsoft "lost" its antitrust suit, it really won, at least partly because of the administration change. But at the end of the day, it's conduct didn't really change. IMHO the only thing holding Microsoft's conduct in any sort of check is the EU.
It's great that you like to use XP on purpose. I'm glad you're happy.
I simply want the freedom to choose to run Linux. The way Microsoft works, I feel that freedom is threatened.
It's Microsoft's policies I HATE!!!!!!!
I used to be an OS/2 user. Microsoft didn't out-compete OS/2 in any technical sort of way. They arm-twisted, cheated, and lied, and there's not much of any other way to put it. OS/2 Warp was competing and winning some amount of market share. One 'opportunity' for OS/2 software was music/midi. A company had a product called "Easy Keys for OS/2" all set to go. Microsoft bought the company before Easy Keys could get to market. Did the product get re-directed to Windows? NO! Microsoft bought the company pure and simple to prevent it from bringing out an OS/2 product. That's only one thing. There were others.
Consider that per-CPU licensing was struck down in courts, but somehow Microsoft still has some sort of equivalent contract in-place preventing non-Windows preloads. Yes, there are a few non-Windows preloads, few and far between, and if the major brands have one, you have to look alongside the Vogan Interstellar Bypass plans at Alpha Centauri to find them.
It has become more fashionable on Slashdot to bash people for bashing Microsoft or Microsoft products. I'm going to leave products out of this one, I'm bashing the company. I have seen NOTHING in their conduct, especially as the Linux community starts fearing the DRM and IP attacks, that makes me think there is any improvement whatsoever in Microsoft's Corporate conduct.
IMHO, Microsoft deserved bashing 10 years ago with the AARD code, they deserve bashing NOW, and for nearly all of that time in-between.
From the very first the general public ever heard about it, people cried, "DEATH RAY!!"
But so far the laser just hasn't made a very good death ray. It has done just about everything else, there are lasers *everywhere*, now. Except for death rays. I know, there may be some military death rays, but from what I can tell, they're more cumbersome than regular weapons, and barely work, at best. It's kind of like using DHMO as a poison - it can be done, but drinking enough water to kill myself wouldn't be the first choice for a way to go about it. Nor would it be the first choice for a way to murder.
From it's Death Ray origins, the laser has been one of the most peaceful inventions ever, resisting all but the strongest efforts to turn it into that Death Ray.
Slashdot Mirror
How about some opinions from people who are Conservatives, in the traditional (classical, correct) usage of the word?
My brother insists that we and my sister are all still "Republicans as we were raised," it's just that the Republican party has moved away from us. Jumpin Jim Jeffords (Ind, VT) said the same thing.
I believe I'm a firm Moderate, and a bit of a Contrarian. In today's political arena, that makes me *look* like a L-Word.
Wow. Out of 296 comments, 63 at +3 or higher, this is the only one that appears to be truly clued in, with OS24Ever close behind.
I've seen posts in various places (can't remember if it's lkml, usenet, or web) by one of the guys working on this. The parent is right on the money with what this is.
Where's Forrest Gump when we need him?
The story about the Derby Line meeting was on a local show a few years back. Actually, the story was more about the oddities of a town that straddles a national border. They showed weird things like in-town deliveries going through customers, etc. The thing about the Beatles was just a side-show to the whole article, which was really just a side-show. They did show the church, though.
The reason for the odd meeting place was that Lennon feared not being able to get back into the US. I believe the Canadian side was driven by McCartney staying out of the US because if drug charges, but that may be defective memory.
Itanium is the son of microchannel, in a way.
Microchannel was 2 main things - it was a technical improvement on the ISA bus, and it was a way to hold the clones at bay. The industry saw that latter issue, and was able to work around the former.
I can allow IA64 to be better than X86, though I don't consider the extreme amount of funding to have been justified by the results, but it was also managed to stave off cloners, in an even more extreme way than microchannel.
At least microchannel could be licensed. All of the IP for IA64 is held by a separate company, and then licensed back to HP and Intel. That way none of the HP or Intel cross-licenses release any of the IA64 IP. The IP holding company couldn't actually build an IA64, because it no doubt depends on IP from other companies. But that's OK, because IA64 is only built by HP and Intel, who *are* cross-licensed. An interesting one-way sharing mechanism, far more sinistar than microchannel ever thought of being.
IA64 deserves to die may times more than microchannel did.
I think it's still a matter of lifetime. I agree that between nations, the lifetime issue might be longer, but frequently such lifetime issues are also related to the people in charge, and still take on human lifetimes, or human administration lifetimes.
I would just suggest that "never" is very rarely an acceptable secrecy duration. ALL information that is classified should be tagged with a release date, if only to trigger future review prior to release. There should also be guidelines to determine if the release is "administration," "human," or "weapons of mass destruction you can make at home" lifetime.
Sometime after they broke up, the Beatles did have a meeting to consider getting back together. But at the time, one of the ex-Beatles (forget who) wasn't allowed into the US. If he left the US, Lennon wouldn't be allowed back in. So how the heck do these guys meet?
There's a town called Derby Line, straddling the US-Canada border, specifically the Vermont-Quebec border. In that town, there's a church straddling the border. They met in that church. Lennon was able to stay IN the US the whole time, the other (unknown) ex-Beatle was able to stay OUT of the US the whole time.
Obviously the meeting came to naught.
Never heard this. Reference, please?
Unfortunately, from what I can see, it's not that different from the bulk of political discourse in the US, other than being somewhat *better* informed and maybe more civil.
That's not meant as a compliment to Slashdot, either.
That's why there is often a delay before the information gets released. Most information is timely - after a few years, it just doesn't matter in any practical terms.
But it IS important that the information be released in order to become part of our history, and part of our historical learning.
Obviously things like the Witness Protection Act have a necessarily longer secrecy horizon. I wouldn't advocate that lives be endangered. But I don't want our stupid mistakes to be swept under the rug, so we can't learn not to do that, again.
You seem to have made an implicit assumtion that the AS/400 and FORTRAN are without merit, and that they have customers primarily because of lock-in.
Related digression...
Last Summer, I took the family to Disney World. (I know, feeding the Beast. I do it as little as I can, but my wife and kids LOVE the place, and I do enjoy being there, in spite of it being the Beast.) Looking at the expensive fixtures in the bathroom and thinking about cost-effectiveness for a moment, I had an Epiphany.
What's the highest cost of a broken faucet in a Disney hotel bathroom? Loss of revenue.
In order to offer first-class service, they'd have to give the customer a different room. That means they have to hold a small pool of open rooms just to keep the customers happy. Those rooms generate no revenue. The more reliable their rooms, the fewer "spares" they need to keep, the more fully they can utilize their moneymaking machine. (the hotel) Kind of like a semiconductor fab, in that respect. In fact, there are a lot of other parallels between a hotel and any factory with a high fixed-cost component.
Bringing it back to AS/400 and FORTRAN... Banks want computers to be like appliances. Pay the money, the supplier brings it in, installs it, and you're ready to run. How often does that happen with a computer? From what I've heard, the AS/400 comes closest to that ideal of *any* business computer. They're not computer scientists, they're bankers. Not having to fiddle with the silly thing is worth money. As for FORTRAN, it has been the linuga franca of numerical simulation for a long time, and is well suited to the job.
Both AS/400 and FORTRAN can be replaced, probably more cheaply. But has *anyone* made it easier for the customer - meaning less hassle - to replace them?
"They" can call it whatever they want. IMHO, it's only flip-flopping if someone's mind changes without new and pertinent facts.
Unfortunately too many people are listening to "them" cast anything other than the single, change-proof mindset as "flip-flopping."
I clearly need to get to work on the 9/11 Report. But the other source stated distinctly that ATC is to notify NORAD immediately in the event of a hijacking, as an *existing* policy, not something new post-9/11.
With my posts on this, I've been trying to be more-than-fair and centrist, giving the administration every benefit of the doubt, and perhaps having people read my post that would otherwise scroll onward.
b lican/features/platform.00/#53 and focus on the 5th and especially 6th paragraphs. Read more and get more scared.) Given that base, "execute plan regardless of facts," and what do you expect. It is a distinctly unimaginative administration - they've got their Agenda, and they're executing it. Incidentally, 9/11 also gave them the pretext and acceptance of "fuller measures" to aid law enforcement, too.
In another post I mentioned being a firm Moderate, and somewhat Contrarian. Almost keeping in that spirit:
Failure of Imagination, of course! The current administration had an Agenda the day it hit the oval office, and has been executing that Agenda ever since. The 9/11 incident was a speed bump I'm sure, and forced them to invade Afghanistan before they could proceed to their Real military goal. (Take a look at: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2000/conventions/repu
Finally, it deserves my favorite observation by David Brin:
In the novel "Earth" Brin attempted to come up with a culture-independent definition of sanity. He arrived at 3 criteria, and I'll give 2.
1: The ability to be satiated, to say you have enough, and stop eating/drinking/acquiring beyond your true needs.
2: The ability to change your plans based on changing circumstances. Adaptability.
I can never remember the 3rd, even after researching and rereading it, and have thus decided that it's not as useful as the first two. But IMHO the first two are great.
If it were what you say, I'd be happy.
But from where I sit and can perceive, the election is a horse race, and it's being reported like a horse race. Issues take a back seat, and so does any actual consideration of *which leader the country needs more, now.*
For the moment, notice I didn't even say, "who would be a better leader," because I meant exactly what I said. Without stating who I think is a better leader, at the moment I don't think that's the critical issue before us. Sometimes the better leader is the right leader, but sometimes *not*. It depends on the *needs* (not wants) of the country.
BTW, I'm neither a Liberal nor a Conservative. I'm a staunch Middle-of-the-Road'er and a bit of a Contrarian. The only Supremes I like are the 3 swing voters, and I believe the country is nearly always better off when the Presidency and Congress are controlled by opposite parties. (And I'm only leaving that "nearly" in "nearly always" because I try to keep an open mind.)
Keep in mind:
The Bush Doctrine doesn't just apply to the US. It applies to any nation with enough guns and chutzpa, including Russia, China, and who knows who else. Look for more 'preemptive action' in the world, explicitely following our lead.
The days of Herbert Hoover weren't all that rosey. The Great Depression didn't just happen on his watch, we were led into it by unsound fiscal policy. The hue and cry to return to the days of Herbert Hoover are wishing to shed bits of socialism like Social Security and Medicaire/Medicaid. But IMHO we may not be able to pick and choose pieces of Hoover, we will more likely get the whole package, Depression and all. By the way, we don't have the agrarian base any more that we had back then. A similar-scale Depression would be far, far worse with today's demographics.
If I want to put on my tinfoil hat, I might think that Cheney deliberately kept Bush in the dark, for a while.
I wasn't excusing the 7 minute delay, only saying that it was minor compared to the other, earlier missteps.
As for the Pentagon plane, I don't know that there was sufficient time after the 2nd WTC crash to have scrambled an interceptor and done anything. IMHO, there *was* time after the first WTC crash, and that's the time that was wasted, in addition to the time from the first hijacking to the first WTC crash.
As for the last plane and the unknown others, I was speaking in retrospect. Nor am I trying to excuse the 7 minute pause. I AM trying to say that the failures began much earlier. Much, much earlier if you want to count discounting intelligence, discarding Clarke's plan inherited from the Clinton administration, or turning the administration's focus away from the Middle East toward missile defense and the ABM treaty.
There's doing nothing. (What happened)
There's running around in a panic. (What is suggested here as THE alternative.)
Then again...
I got the official 9/11 report for my birthday. I haven't had time to read it, but I have cracked it a little. I've also read another minute-by-minute account of the morning of 9/11, backed up by source links.
The *real* crime of 9/11 had nothing to do with Bush, but rather with the link between the FAA and NORAD. FAA rules state that NORAD is to be notified immediately of all hijackings. There was a delay of nearly 1/2 hour between recognition of the first hijacking and NORAD acknowledgement. (This is from the other report, I need to verify this in the 9/11 report.)
Next, in that first hour or so after the hijacking there appeared to be mass confusion between ATC and NORAD. There was uncertainty about how many hijackings, who should be looking where for what, etc. (Still from the other report.)
Finally, within the space of a few minutes, the first jet hit the WTC, and the other 3 jets were hijacked. (From the 9/11 report) We were a half-hour into the confusion, with another half-hour to go, by which time the whole thing was pretty well over, except for the shouting.
I don't know if anything could have been done to stop the first jet, after the hijacking. Ignoring the intelligence leading up to 9/11 is a different issue. But about the time one jet has crashed into a building and 3 more are known hijacked, we should have been into Full Response, instead of confusion.
What would I want Bush to have done? Put someone in Charge. He was probably too far out of the loop, in Florida. But he should have put someone in Charge to tie together ATC, NORAD, and whoever else was appropriate.
But then again, the famed 7-minute pause was *after* the 2nd jet crashed into the WTC. So even had he calmly stood up, excused himself, and taken/delegated control, it was too late. There's some question about whether or not he heard about the first jet hitting the WTC prior to entering the school. There's some question about those in the White House delaying feeding him info for 10 minutes or so. The findings: "A Failure of Imagination." Whatever happened to Truman's, "The Buck Stops Here?"
The machine called "The US Government" had multiple failures that day. In fact, the only correct, effective response was by passengers. Grounding all air traffic was correct, and might have been effective had there been more jets-as-missiles planned, and did serve to restart air traffic with better security.
Back to Moore... It's so fun to tear down 1-800 vs 1-888, and Enlisted vs Officers, etc that we just lose track of the other points where the facts were less tilted and more clear. The less disputed facts raise perhaps the more important questions, yet recieve little focus.
But then that's been the way of this whole election cycle.
I wasn't thinking so much of copyright itself, as the enforcement perversions being layered on top of it. Those could be implemented federally or state-by-state.
Mod parent up, please.
It's worth reading, whether you agree, or not.
As a comment on the parent, it's much easier to tear down and replace a state government by voting than it is the federal. The more power that can be pushed down to the states, the more you can directly effect change with your vote.
Keep in mind that a ??AA "takeover" of California mostly affects California, but ??AA "takeover" of the US government affects the rest of us. I know "takeover" is a bit strong, but essentially the various industries *are* attempting to take over those aspects of the federal government that affect their business. In the case of the ??AA, they *have* taken over copyright, and those aspects of IP enforcement that pertain.
Dunno, I'm not IBM.
But I do know that IBM is like any other big company, including Microsoft. There are many factions, and they don't all work together, all the time. The split between the PC hardware people and the OS/2 people was well-known in the industry, at the time.
Plus even though IBM "won" its antitrust suit, in another way it lost, because its conduct was changed. Even though Microsoft "lost" its antitrust suit, it really won, at least partly because of the administration change. But at the end of the day, it's conduct didn't really change. IMHO the only thing holding Microsoft's conduct in any sort of check is the EU.
It's great that you like to use XP on purpose. I'm glad you're happy.
I simply want the freedom to choose to run Linux. The way Microsoft works, I feel that freedom is threatened.
It's Microsoft's policies I HATE!!!!!!!
I used to be an OS/2 user. Microsoft didn't out-compete OS/2 in any technical sort of way. They arm-twisted, cheated, and lied, and there's not much of any other way to put it. OS/2 Warp was competing and winning some amount of market share. One 'opportunity' for OS/2 software was music/midi. A company had a product called "Easy Keys for OS/2" all set to go. Microsoft bought the company before Easy Keys could get to market. Did the product get re-directed to Windows? NO! Microsoft bought the company pure and simple to prevent it from bringing out an OS/2 product. That's only one thing. There were others.
Consider that per-CPU licensing was struck down in courts, but somehow Microsoft still has some sort of equivalent contract in-place preventing non-Windows preloads. Yes, there are a few non-Windows preloads, few and far between, and if the major brands have one, you have to look alongside the Vogan Interstellar Bypass plans at Alpha Centauri to find them.
It has become more fashionable on Slashdot to bash people for bashing Microsoft or Microsoft products. I'm going to leave products out of this one, I'm bashing the company. I have seen NOTHING in their conduct, especially as the Linux community starts fearing the DRM and IP attacks, that makes me think there is any improvement whatsoever in Microsoft's Corporate conduct.
IMHO, Microsoft deserved bashing 10 years ago with the AARD code, they deserve bashing NOW, and for nearly all of that time in-between.
Just in time for the Induce Act, and for some sort of chicanery to reverse the Betamax Decision.
Has RadioShark lined itself up to be the first victim?
I've always liked the laser.
From the very first the general public ever heard about it, people cried, "DEATH RAY!!"
But so far the laser just hasn't made a very good death ray. It has done just about everything else, there are lasers *everywhere*, now. Except for death rays. I know, there may be some military death rays, but from what I can tell, they're more cumbersome than regular weapons, and barely work, at best. It's kind of like using DHMO as a poison - it can be done, but drinking enough water to kill myself wouldn't be the first choice for a way to go about it. Nor would it be the first choice for a way to murder.
From it's Death Ray origins, the laser has been one of the most peaceful inventions ever, resisting all but the strongest efforts to turn it into that Death Ray.
Actually, I suspect Steward has MORE influence than O'Reilly. Isn't O'Reilly preaching to the choir, for the most part?