One crucial difference is that you are (for the moment, at least) still able to point these things out in a public forum without taking your own turn with an executioner. In China there is no internal check or balance against the unlimited power of the state to kill at will.
> How about this truism: Technology like business is a > double-edged sword, with no inherent moral authority.
Would being a single-edged sword give it inherent moral authority? I admit your predicate, but find your metaphor dubious.
Government, too, is a double-edged sword, with no inherent moral authority.
I feel an obligation to defend the people of China because they have no defense within China. Rolondo Cruz has Scott Turow.
Canadians are Americans too. But yeah, I wouldn't want to deprive Canada of due credit for its support role in the torture and murder of prisoners of conscience.
I think "I don't give a rat's anus for your fallacious self-serving justification of extortion" is the operative phrase. After shelling out a few hundred to support an organization that is actively pursuing the rape of the public domain and the suppression of free speech, I think I've done more than my share to support the art that I am consuming, and I unilaterally claim a comprehensive right to unlimited use of this material in my home, where, by the way, I have the right to privacy and what I do is none of your flipping business.
Let's see now, one cabinet of a CM-5 has 128 Cypress SPARC v7 chips in it, along with 4 VEUs per SPARC, at ca. 64MFLOPS per VU peak (assuming all mult-add-accumulate operations with no pipeline stalls). That's roughly equivalent to 8 AMD 2800+ chips with 3D-now+ SIMD running a similarly optimal instruction stream. I think you can buy one of those for about $60,000 in a 4U enclosure, and use Gig-E NICs for I/O that will knock the socks off of the antique HiPPI channel hardware that the CM-5 backplane would support.
I find Linux to be substantially superior to Windows as a desktop OS. Firstly, if something is broken, I can fix it. Secondly, if an API doesn't work as advertised or is undocumented, I can read the code and use it anyhow. Thirdly, all of the major productivity tools are available for free (cf. OpenOffice). Fourthly, it runs pretty much anything Windows will run (cf. crossover plugin, Wine). Fifthly, it's faster and takes less memory, so it runs well on more hardware. Sixthly, I can customize the UI much more effectively, without replacing binary code. Seventhly, I can get security updates much more rapidly as vulnerabilities emerge, and when I do, I don't have to sign a license permitting an untrustworthy entity to remotely control and secretly install arbitrary untrusted software on my system. Eighthly, I don't have to finance Bill Gates' questionable charitable causes. Ninthly, I'm not supporting the role of megacorporations in destroying liberal democracy.... I could go on, but that's more than enough.
I've seen FOTR in theatres (with several guests) three times, and will certainly see TTT and ROTK similarly. I downloaded FOTR while waiting for the 4-disc set to come out, and if I feel like downloading TTT and ROTK, I damn well will.
It's like an applet in Gnome or KDE: A little memory-sucking thing that occasionally crashes your window system.
Re:This is where a tablet pc would be nice
on
War of Honor
·
· Score: 2
notebooks and subnotes are very nice to read from, i find. palmtops are too crippled by their miniscule storage. i love the toshiba portege 3980ct with its 11" XGA screen, weighing about what an average harcover book weighs, but being readable in the dark. The old porteges fold flat and feel like they are carved from a single block of solid magnesium, they're so tight.
now reading from a creaky 5 pound dell plastic monstrosity so big that it bangs into things when you walk with it in one hand, that won't fold out flat would suck, i admit. but i won't pay for a cf format 802.11b card that goes into a pda that won't hold more than one book at a time and won't connect to a cd-rom.
if you like tiny, you should check out some of the new sony's. personally, i want >=XGA in an 11 or 12" factor, and the discontinuted toshibas are the only game in town, to my knowledge.
How can you argue that the Democrats are for civil liberties when they consistently vote in favor of grossly anti-constitutional laws, such as the PATRIOT act and this latest treasonous abomination?
It's called a false dichotomy. Republican vs. Democrat is simply a divide-and-conquer strategy, and the American electorate has fallen for it largely because of the role of the mass-media oligarchs in playing up this false dichotomy.
> The right of the people to be secure in their > persons, houses, papers, and effects, against > unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be > violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon > probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, > and particularly describing the place to be > searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
This explicit constitutional protection specifies that no government under its jurisdiction can do blanket searches of papers and effects (the 18th century equivalent of email and browser logs). Not only is the right to do so not granted, but it is explicitly denied.
In a democracy, allowing the electorate access to raw information about the operations of government is very counter-productive, because they will tend to vote in an uncontrolled manner.
For example, could the Gulf War have been conducted if it's pretextual deceits were not prominently featured by the 5 major global media corporations? Could it have been continued to a successful conclusion if the massive extermination of the Iraqis in the neutral zone and southern Iraq had been covered in widely available press? Squeamish elements would have militated vociferously against the mass-live-burial in the neutral zone, and the mass-incineration of the retreating, defeated soldiers and thousands of civillians on the "road of death".
It's crucially important that the organs of the media which direct the attention of the masses should be responsible to the authorities, or the ability of the U.S. to subjugate the swarthy people with oil is threatened, and if that is threatened, the entire stock market is threatened.
It's a fundamental absurdity to say that an act of congress grants the government rights. The constitution reserves all rights not specifically and explicitly granted to the federal government for the states or the people. No act of congress can legitimately abbrogate this fundamental limitation.
Obviously, this decision is unconstitutional, and void.
Actually, according to Microsoft's recent SEC filings they are losing money on PocketPC stuff. Only the Windows PC OS line and the Office application suite line are making a profit. They are using their deep pockets to subsidize a take-over of the palmtop world. It's amusing though, because this market is *tiny* compared to the cellphone market, where they are tanking bigtime, so the WinCE line is very unlikely to turn a profit for a loooooong time. If the desktop and office lines should begin to lose margin, I smell an investor lawsuit over WinCE and the X-Box.
As a computer security professional, I regard this as a personal threat against my safety. If the bill is passed, I intend to leave the U.S. immediately, probably for Canada. The threat of mis-prosecution which takes my life, and irrepairably harms my dependents is too great. DMCA was one thing, but CSEA has a LIFE penalty.
Unfortunately, even leaving the U.S. may not be sufficient, if I become a target of U.S. political terrorism, because the U.S. feels free to prosecute foreign nationals on the basis of U.S. law and to assassinate anyone (even U.S. citizens) who are abroad. But I regard the probability of attack as being significantly less if I am not within U.S. territory, and consider that the government of Canada is likely to protect me from extradition, while the U.S. intelligence agencies are unlikely to consider assassinations on Canadian territory as acceptable policy.
XP is the revelation of divine spirit, in my book, because it saves me from the alternatives: Water-fall management, or the Unified process. I would be equally enthusiastic about Fascist Programming or Insects-for-Lunch Programming if it saved me from Unified.
Slashdot Mirror
A headline which reflected the most pertinent facts
of the matter would read something like
"Sun and Microsoft aid the CCP to kill whistleblowers".
One crucial difference is that you are (for the
moment, at least) still able to point these things
out in a public forum without taking your own
turn with an executioner. In China there is no
internal check or balance against the unlimited
power of the state to kill at will.
> How about this truism: Technology like business is a
> double-edged sword, with no inherent moral authority.
Would being a single-edged sword give it inherent
moral authority? I admit your predicate, but
find your metaphor dubious.
Government, too, is a double-edged sword, with no
inherent moral authority.
I feel an obligation to defend the people of China
because they have no defense within China.
Rolondo Cruz has Scott Turow.
Canadians are Americans too. But yeah, I wouldn't
want to deprive Canada of due credit for its support
role in the torture and murder of prisoners of
conscience.
One big difference is that Cisco doesn't put a bullet
in your head if they don't like your web habits.
Another is that you're not trapped into a life at
Cisco by birth.
Ah, I see. The light has dawned on me.
Extremism is the only true path.
I repent in sackcloth and ashes!
Not.
While waiting for the Jews to drop dead of
their own accord, I decided to waste a few
million of them with Zyklon-B.
The analogy sounds about as relevant as yours.
I don't understand how you justify it.
I think "I don't give a rat's anus for your
fallacious self-serving justification of
extortion" is the operative phrase. After
shelling out a few hundred to support an
organization that is actively pursuing the
rape of the public domain and the suppression
of free speech, I think I've done more than
my share to support the art that I am
consuming, and I unilaterally claim a
comprehensive right to unlimited use of this
material in my home, where, by the way,
I have the right to privacy and what I do
is none of your flipping business.
Let's see now, one cabinet of a CM-5 has 128
Cypress SPARC v7 chips in it, along with 4 VEUs
per SPARC, at ca. 64MFLOPS per VU peak (assuming
all mult-add-accumulate operations with no pipeline
stalls). That's roughly equivalent to 8 AMD 2800+
chips with 3D-now+ SIMD running a similarly optimal
instruction stream. I think you can buy one of those
for about $60,000 in a 4U enclosure, and use Gig-E
NICs for I/O that will knock the socks off of the
antique HiPPI channel hardware that the CM-5
backplane would support.
Incremental release. If we get 60% of the money,
we release 60% of the code.
I find Linux to be substantially superior to Windows
as a desktop OS. Firstly, if something is broken,
I can fix it. Secondly, if an API doesn't work as
advertised or is undocumented, I can read the code
and use it anyhow. Thirdly, all of the major
productivity tools are available for free (cf.
OpenOffice). Fourthly, it runs pretty much anything
Windows will run (cf. crossover plugin, Wine).
Fifthly, it's faster and takes less memory, so it
runs well on more hardware. Sixthly, I can
customize the UI much more effectively, without
replacing binary code. Seventhly, I can get
security updates much more rapidly as vulnerabilities
emerge, and when I do, I don't have to sign a
license permitting an untrustworthy entity to
remotely control and secretly install arbitrary
untrusted software on my system. Eighthly,
I don't have to finance Bill Gates' questionable
charitable causes. Ninthly, I'm not supporting
the role of megacorporations in destroying
liberal democracy.... I could go on, but that's
more than enough.
I've seen FOTR in theatres (with several guests)
three times, and will certainly see TTT and ROTK
similarly. I downloaded FOTR while waiting for
the 4-disc set to come out, and if I feel like
downloading TTT and ROTK, I damn well will.
It's about the freedom, stupid.
It's like an applet in Gnome or KDE: A little memory-sucking thing that occasionally crashes
your window system.
notebooks and subnotes are very nice to read from,
i find. palmtops are too crippled by their miniscule
storage. i love the toshiba portege 3980ct with its
11" XGA screen, weighing about what an average
harcover book weighs, but being readable in the dark.
The old porteges fold flat and feel like they are
carved from a single block of solid magnesium, they're
so tight.
now reading from a creaky 5 pound dell plastic
monstrosity so big that it bangs into things when
you walk with it in one hand, that won't fold out
flat would suck, i admit. but i won't pay for
a cf format 802.11b card that goes into a pda that won't
hold more than one book at a time and won't connect
to a cd-rom.
if you like tiny, you should check out some of the new sony's. personally, i want >=XGA in an 11 or
12" factor, and the discontinuted toshibas are
the only game in town, to my knowledge.
So who is your provider? What is the tech?
How can you argue that the Democrats are for
civil liberties when they consistently vote
in favor of grossly anti-constitutional laws,
such as the PATRIOT act and this latest
treasonous abomination?
It's called a false dichotomy. Republican vs.
Democrat is simply a divide-and-conquer strategy,
and the American electorate has fallen for it
largely because of the role of the mass-media
oligarchs in playing up this false dichotomy.
> Watch for the Capitol building to have a mysterious fire.
Or the Pentagon building.
This link reports airline pilots' description of what might be the protective destruction of a massive meteor as it entered the atmosphere.
Particular description is what differentiates
a blanket search from a lawful one.
Your protestations remind me of nothing so much as
Bill Clinton's creative deconstruction of the word
"is".
> The right of the people to be secure in their
> persons, houses, papers, and effects, against
> unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be
> violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon
> probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation,
> and particularly describing the place to be
> searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
This explicit constitutional protection specifies
that no government under its jurisdiction can
do blanket searches of papers and effects (the
18th century equivalent of email and browser logs).
Not only is the right to do so not granted, but
it is explicitly denied.
In a democracy, allowing the electorate access
to raw information about the operations of government
is very counter-productive, because they will tend
to vote in an uncontrolled manner.
For example, could the Gulf War have been conducted
if it's pretextual deceits were not prominently
featured by the 5 major global media corporations?
Could it have been continued to a successful
conclusion if the massive extermination of the
Iraqis in the neutral zone and southern Iraq had
been covered in widely available press? Squeamish
elements would have militated vociferously against
the mass-live-burial in the neutral zone, and
the mass-incineration of the retreating, defeated
soldiers and thousands of civillians on the "road
of death".
It's crucially important that the organs of the
media which direct the attention of the masses
should be responsible to the authorities, or
the ability of the U.S. to subjugate the swarthy
people with oil is threatened, and if that is
threatened, the entire stock market is threatened.
It has occurred to me, however, I must ask:
When did Osama bin Laden vow to destroy America?
It's a fundamental absurdity to say that an act of
congress grants the government rights. The
constitution reserves all rights not specifically
and explicitly granted to the federal government
for the states or the people. No act of congress
can legitimately abbrogate this fundamental
limitation.
Obviously, this decision is unconstitutional, and
void.
Actually, according to Microsoft's recent SEC filings
they are losing money on PocketPC stuff. Only the
Windows PC OS line and the Office application suite
line are making a profit. They are using their deep
pockets to subsidize a take-over of the palmtop
world. It's amusing though, because this market
is *tiny* compared to the cellphone market, where
they are tanking bigtime, so the WinCE line is very
unlikely to turn a profit for a loooooong time.
If the desktop and office lines should begin to
lose margin, I smell an investor lawsuit over
WinCE and the X-Box.
As a computer security professional, I regard this
as a personal threat against my safety. If the
bill is passed, I intend to leave the U.S.
immediately, probably for Canada. The threat of
mis-prosecution which takes my life, and
irrepairably harms my dependents is too great.
DMCA was one thing, but CSEA has a LIFE penalty.
Unfortunately, even leaving the U.S. may not
be sufficient, if I become a target of U.S. political
terrorism, because the U.S. feels free to
prosecute foreign nationals on the basis of
U.S. law and to assassinate anyone (even U.S.
citizens) who are abroad. But I regard the
probability of attack as being significantly
less if I am not within U.S. territory, and
consider that the government of Canada is
likely to protect me from extradition, while
the U.S. intelligence agencies are unlikely
to consider assassinations on Canadian territory
as acceptable policy.
XP is the revelation of divine spirit, in my book,
because it saves me from the alternatives: Water-fall
management, or the Unified process. I would
be equally enthusiastic about Fascist Programming
or Insects-for-Lunch Programming if it saved me
from Unified.