Unfortunately, oil IS currently a critical piece of our economy, until we figure out a workaround for that
wait, haven't you heard? Biodiesel made from hemp-seed will solve that problem. Of course, it's being covered up and supressed by the big oil-company conspiracy, that's why Marijuana is illegal, and why Bush and Cheney are in office, and why we're attacking Afghanistan, and why the CIA actually crashed the jetliners into the twin towers using a remote control system called "home-run".
That way we can pin the blame on Islamic terrorists and get our hands on all that Caspian Sea oil and Somali oil too. Yeah, that's right, the two most poor and lawless countries in the world are the KEY to the oil oligopoly maintaining dominance over the world's oil supply!
(of course,.NET sounds like "thin clients" all over again too - and SCCCCCCCA/RIAA/MPAA/BSA seems to not like the idea of ordinary people having fat clients anyway. Too much capability in the hands of the sheep they're trying to fleece).
What, they're not profitable?
You mean they're not enjoying having a huge marketshare and no competition because software piracy gives them all the benefits of "dumping" without any fingers of blame to point at the company?
They're just a bunch of whiners trying to justify a clampdown on our rights to their paid lackeys in the government.
Where would Windows be today if tens of thousands of future MSCE's hadn't pirated the crap out of Windows 3.1 and MS Office? At least PART of Microsoft's success is due to the rampant piracy - especially with MS Office, where WordPerfect employed goofy copy protection, Microsoft did not, and people flocked AWAY from WordPerfect. When people went from home-hobbyist to legit, they bought licenses.
Where would Adobe be today without the rampant piracy of Photoshop by tens of thousands of graphic art students (don't tell me this is not happening).
They'd be the publisher of software that is so hard to use, an artist's costs are DOUBLED *JUST* to begin learning about how to use Photoshop. Photoshop has a HUGE learning-curve to do anything but the most basic operations. Their marketshare would be comparatively microscopic. But since people have pirated it, they can mess around with it, learn it, evaluate it's worth (find out that, hey, $600 really IS justified for this gem!).
And it's been said MANY times, (it's like a broken record - no pun intended) that music sales have INCREASED due to Napster - because Napster tended to act as a free-promotion mechanism, and people may have kept a lot of MP3's they never intended to buy, but they also purchased a lot more CDs that they wouldn't have otherwise been exposed to.
In a society of law and order, we can bitch and moan all we want about whether or not these companies have a RIGHT to protect their own IP in the face of provisions like Fair Use. That's all academic. But it's certainly not in most company's best interests to do so. It's so blatantly obvious - and yet time and again, we see companies who are competing, don't often CARE if their software is pirated. It's a convenient way to gain marketshare - it's dumping, without actually dumping.
But as soon as they achieve any kind of dominance (read: monopoly power!!!) they clamp down the screws. I think this is what bothers everyone deep down in the bottom of their hearts - people know right from wrong, they sense it, and it's easy to justify "stealing" IP from a monopolist who's abusing their position. The monopolists want their cake, and they want to eat it too, and us consumers along with it.
If they weren't monopolies, I would join the "libertarian" crowd and say: hey, just let the free-market punish these assholes for their crappy business practices.
But that would be the same as saying - gee, I hate the way my electric company raises my rates and I still get outages. Fuck it all, I'm going to move to another state.
Just think, if you were DRIVING that 7 miles at that time, it would probably take you twice as long because all the roads would be clogged with people getting off the trains, and trains stopped at crossings.
Sometimes, giving everyone a car isn't a much better solution.
Maybe they need to combine Star Trek with the X Files.
Do a series on an investigatory branch of Starfleet, where two agents travel to various planets around the Federation, solving mysteries, exposing Federation cover-ups. (like hidden Vulcan military spy-bases!)
Wasn't this the point of the introduction to the BattleTech board game? The whole thing started with the invention of a technology that could simulate human muscle tissue.
This is the what the whole thing hinges on, and until THAT particular technology is invented, this is never going to happen. And that's been the case for probably 10-15 years now, since the electronics and control and structural issues were pretty much "solved".
Until the longbow saw regular use, battlefields were actually ruled by the sheild-wall and the spear.
Heavy cavalry troops WERE very effective in that era, but very rarely were they available in enough numbers due to the COST of outfitting them with enough armor. It's cheaper to get 500 guys with sheilds and spears and light armor than to outfit 10 heavy cavalry "knights". They were more significant as a psychological weapon, because one guy on a horse could breach a sheild-wall, mainly because he could carry a lance at high-speed that was longer than a spear (or pike, or glaive) that a footsoldier could carry, therefore he could strike with impunity. But once the mounted "knight" took out one pikeman, his buddy would come along and unhorse the knight, and that would be all she wrote. Attacking a phalanx was still a very risky venture.
Against poorly armed peasants is where the knight really shone though, because poorly armed peasants didn't have shield-walls and pikes. They'd pretty much turn and flee in the face of a charging horse, and get cut down as they ran.
How many of these suits can this army's supporting government afford to buy, supply with spare parts, and maintain?
If this thing is $4 million dollars a suit, it would be way too expensive to outfit an entire army with them. You'd end up with a few hundred special squads at best. Put 1000 powered troops up against 1 million enemies with AK-47's, and I'd say you still don't have a fair fight. Those 1000 soldiers might have the combat effectiveness of maybe 100,000, but the COST of 1 million.
A Domain Name is the name of a BOX, a piece of hardware, an address. Just because it's more friendly to humans than an IP address, doesn't mean that it's the best way to get a WEB user to the right place. Having companies jump through hoops to 0wn "ibm.com" "ibm.edu" "ibm.org" "ibm.net" "ibmsucks.com" "international_business_machines.com" "international_business_machines.org" etc. ad infinitum makes NO fucking sense at all. Just as it makes no sense for some guy named John to get his "john.com" domain legally removed from his posession, because the international brotherhood of guys looking for prostitutes comes along a year later and decides they want a website.
If I want to find Apple Computer's website, I should have a place on my browser where I can enter text: "Apple Computer" and get www.apple.com. And if I want Apple Records, I type in "Apple Records". If I type in "Apple" it gives me a choice, plus all the Apple advocacy and rumors sites, and both Apple Computer and Apple Records should be satisfied with that.
I, as the Joe Sixpack user of the net shouldn't have to know if the correct address is "www.apple.com" "www.applecomputer.com" or "www.apple_computer.com". Relying on these weird domain name permutations will often get you the WRONG site!
For you and I, the average clueful slashdot user, domain names are a fine way to find where you want to go - but even WE rely on bookmarks, favorites and shortcuts for many of our favorite sites. The typing of actual DNS names should be the resort of the technical though - and my mother should not have to know what an underscore is, or why a site should be a.org,.com, or.edu. (not that anybody follows those rules anymore).
Re:The first Slashdot troll post investigation
on
KaZaa Suspends Downloads
·
· Score: -1, Offtopic
Interesting observations.
Too bad it's offtopic. (ooh, if only I hadn't squandered all my moderation points on the penis bird!)
Re:What constitutes intelligence (artificial or no
on
True Names
·
· Score: 2
Well, this isn't so far from the truth.
There are some video games which have some pretty brain-dead AI - but you still lose in the end, to superior forces. Either they have more firepower, or are more maneuverable, or better armor, better "intelligence" (information), or numbers.
In any case - we're focussing on the wrong aspects of the "threat machine" - intelligence isn't really all that necessary. In fact, I think that the intelligence required to be a threat to humanity already exists.
Even the "power" aspect already exists. Automated warfare. ICBMs. Cruise Missiles.
What does not exist is self-sufficiency.
When someone can create the mechanical apparatus for current machine intelligence, that can build, repair, service, and power a suitable weapons platform, we (humanity) are toast.
Right now, it would definately take concerted deliberate innovation to develop a "threat" along these lines.
What the fear is - in the future, the intelligence will exist in the machine world, that can become self-sufficient in it's own right. THAT is where we'll need to start worrying.
Re:"The Rapture for atheists"
on
True Names
·
· Score: 2
I, for one, don't believe that we'll ever create AI. Not if the definition of "AI" is; a perfect duplication of the human mind - consciousness. I don't think it will ever be possible. Hell, thousands of years of philosophy, and we still can't really define what the human consciousness is.
On the other hand, I *do* believe that one day, computers will be "smart enough" to pose a threat to our existance. They won't even have to be "conscious".
Re:Tolerance for Casualties
on
The Drone War
·
· Score: 2
... we came to the rather dissapointing conclusion that the only respect for human life common to all humanity was the protection of life for the preservation of the species; this might not even apply to some who we might call terrorists.
People who believe in "eternal life" don't really give a rat's ass about the preservation of the species. As far as they're concerned - we're all gonna die anyway. It's just a matter of which ones among us are going to heaven.
On the other hand, the elimination of the species wasn't much of a deterrent for Stalin, Pol Pot, and other well-known mass-murderers who also happened to be atheists.
Re:$ make a lot of things happen...
on
The Drone War
·
· Score: 2
Hm - doesn't GE build engines for military jets and tanks?
And doesn't GE also own some major newsmedia outlets - reporting on "attrocities" by 3rd-world dictators on their own people - etc, ad infinutm - trying to goad the US Govt into helping the poor innocent victems?
This has been the case in news since. . . since forever.
Pretty much any corporate "press release" is really an advertisement. isn't that about 90% of so-called "business news"?
Re:Unfortunately, an end to wars
on
The Drone War
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
um - wait, that's circular logic.
You're saying that "nonlethal" weapons allow an elite minority to deal with an unhappy majority by quelling revolt without "massive loss of life and it's consequent political fallout"?
I think that an opressed majority in of itself is going to yeild "political fallout" whether or not there is loss of life.
In fact, nonlethal means of quelling such rebellions will give you a lot of people who end up being MORE pissed off.
When you get a mob pissed off at you, you either have to give in to their demands, or kill every last one of the fuckers, because when a mob is pissed off at you, you're already suffering "political fallout". Look at what happened to the 5th president of Argentina last month. He hosed down rioters with boiling water from water cannons. He still ended up resigning.
The only PROVEN EFFECTIVE method of quelling the mob is to create a fat, happy middle-class, who are more interested in creating their own success than potentially losing it all by getting arrested in a protest.
Re:OK, let's kill soldiers instead.
on
The Drone War
·
· Score: 3, Informative
The Afghan "villages" we bombed were a case of enemy propaganda. When information indicates that we have an Al Qaida ammo dump, or Al Qaida gunmen hiding out in buildings, we bomb it. If it was a village harboring the gunmen, then they've been warned, and should consider themselves combatants, not civillians.
You say that the eyewitnesses are "credible" and "neutral" - well, how do you know that? up to 60% of the current Northern Alliance forces are "tribal forces" that switched sides when they saw which direction the wind is blowing. We've seen high-level Taliban ministers released from captivity by the Afghan government, rather than handed over to the US. Obviously there are some elements to the new government, as well as their fighters, who harbor secret loyalties to the Taliban. So of course there are going to be apparent civillians who will gladly set up in front of a CNN camera and claim wild stories about the US's evil bombing of unarmed innocent civillians. Propaganda is the only effective weapon that the Taliban and Al Qaida have left. It was really their only weapon to begin with. Don't you think that the WTC wasn't selected for it's propaganda value? They want to paint us as the criminals, they want this war characterized as "Faith versus Atheism" (their words) and that it's "Crusader hatred" out to wipe out Islam.
And the Chinese embassy in Belgrade was *not* an accident. Depending on what you may believe.
I'm not saying that "smart weapons" and modern automated warfare is flawless. Of course there are instances where bombs don't detonate, and years later, explode when a farmer tills the field. There are lg bombs that go off course when intermittent cloud cover interrupts the guiding laser beam. GPS-guided bombs are actually known to be rather innacurate, and nobody's claiming they are accurate. Plus, you can't tell from 70,000 feet whether a target on the ground is a good guy, or a bad guy, or a civillian. Especially when the bad guys wear civillian clothing, and hide amongst civillian buildings. I think that none of that means that the war-effort is immoral. You have a choice. Either DON'T prosecute the war, or prosecute it as carefully as possible. Right now, I think it's being done as carefully as possible. Are our soldiers' lives more valuable to us than their civillians? Damn straight! Their civillians don't protect us. Our soldiers do. Some of those civillians danced and partied on September 11th. If any innocents get killed, they really ought to be blaming the people who brought the bombing on them - their own precious Taliban and the religious leaders who wanted to war with the west in the name of their own religious glory.
If some right-wing Christian nut from the US goes to Baghdad and blows up an apartment building, and Bush decides to shelter him instead of turning him over to the Iraqi government, I'd be pissed at Bush if it started a war. Especially if my home and family got bombed because of it. I certainly wouldn't blame the Iraqis for defending themselves.
Honestly, I can't tell if the problem happens on the Mac, because I haven't been able to successfully implement HOSTS file. No matter what I do to the damn file, it always errors out being imported. I know it's probably a formating problem, but I can't seem to figure out how to fix it.
The problem with that is, the way Netscape 4.77 (Windows) seems to load pages, is, it won't fully render the page until these ad banners have timed out. This problem is particularly noticable on MyYahoo.
For this reason, I switched to IE and IE does not do this - I get to see the content sooner. Sucks, because, otherwise, I would continue to use Netscape.
However, Netscape (Macintosh) does not seem to have this problem.
Slashdot Mirror
he raped AND molested her?
Unfortunately, oil IS currently a critical piece of our economy, until we figure out a workaround for that
wait, haven't you heard? Biodiesel made from hemp-seed will solve that problem. Of course, it's being covered up and supressed by the big oil-company conspiracy, that's why Marijuana is illegal, and why Bush and Cheney are in office, and why we're attacking Afghanistan, and why the CIA actually crashed the jetliners into the twin towers using a remote control system called "home-run".
That way we can pin the blame on Islamic terrorists and get our hands on all that Caspian Sea oil and Somali oil too. Yeah, that's right, the two most poor and lawless countries in the world are the KEY to the oil oligopoly maintaining dominance over the world's oil supply!
[snort!]
Exactly.
.NET sounds like "thin clients" all over again too - and SCCCCCCCA/RIAA/MPAA/BSA seems to not like the idea of ordinary people having fat clients anyway. Too much capability in the hands of the sheep they're trying to fleece).
This sounds like "thin clients" all over again.
(of course,
What, they're not profitable?
You mean they're not enjoying having a huge marketshare and no competition because software piracy gives them all the benefits of "dumping" without any fingers of blame to point at the company?
They're just a bunch of whiners trying to justify a clampdown on our rights to their paid lackeys in the government.
They'll just migrate all the worthwhile, expensive to produce content off of the public airwaves and onto Cable/Satellite channels.
The same is true in Music and Software.
Where would Windows be today if tens of thousands of future MSCE's hadn't pirated the crap out of Windows 3.1 and MS Office? At least PART of Microsoft's success is due to the rampant piracy - especially with MS Office, where WordPerfect employed goofy copy protection, Microsoft did not, and people flocked AWAY from WordPerfect. When people went from home-hobbyist to legit, they bought licenses.
Where would Adobe be today without the rampant piracy of Photoshop by tens of thousands of graphic art students (don't tell me this is not happening).
They'd be the publisher of software that is so hard to use, an artist's costs are DOUBLED *JUST* to begin learning about how to use Photoshop. Photoshop has a HUGE learning-curve to do anything but the most basic operations. Their marketshare would be comparatively microscopic. But since people have pirated it, they can mess around with it, learn it, evaluate it's worth (find out that, hey, $600 really IS justified for this gem!).
And it's been said MANY times, (it's like a broken record - no pun intended) that music sales have INCREASED due to Napster - because Napster tended to act as a free-promotion mechanism, and people may have kept a lot of MP3's they never intended to buy, but they also purchased a lot more CDs that they wouldn't have otherwise been exposed to.
In a society of law and order, we can bitch and moan all we want about whether or not these companies have a RIGHT to protect their own IP in the face of provisions like Fair Use. That's all academic. But it's certainly not in most company's best interests to do so. It's so blatantly obvious - and yet time and again, we see companies who are competing, don't often CARE if their software is pirated. It's a convenient way to gain marketshare - it's dumping, without actually dumping.
But as soon as they achieve any kind of dominance (read: monopoly power!!!) they clamp down the screws. I think this is what bothers everyone deep down in the bottom of their hearts - people know right from wrong, they sense it, and it's easy to justify "stealing" IP from a monopolist who's abusing their position. The monopolists want their cake, and they want to eat it too, and us consumers along with it.
If they weren't monopolies, I would join the "libertarian" crowd and say: hey, just let the free-market punish these assholes for their crappy business practices.
But that would be the same as saying - gee, I hate the way my electric company raises my rates and I still get outages. Fuck it all, I'm going to move to another state.
Just think, if you were DRIVING that 7 miles at that time, it would probably take you twice as long because all the roads would be clogged with people getting off the trains, and trains stopped at crossings.
Sometimes, giving everyone a car isn't a much better solution.
Maybe they need to combine Star Trek with the X Files.
Do a series on an investigatory branch of Starfleet, where two agents travel to various planets around the Federation, solving mysteries, exposing Federation cover-ups. (like hidden Vulcan military spy-bases!)
Wasn't this the point of the introduction to the BattleTech board game? The whole thing started with the invention of a technology that could simulate human muscle tissue.
This is the what the whole thing hinges on, and until THAT particular technology is invented, this is never going to happen. And that's been the case for probably 10-15 years now, since the electronics and control and structural issues were pretty much "solved".
That's not really accurate.
Until the longbow saw regular use, battlefields were actually ruled by the sheild-wall and the spear.
Heavy cavalry troops WERE very effective in that era, but very rarely were they available in enough numbers due to the COST of outfitting them with enough armor. It's cheaper to get 500 guys with sheilds and spears and light armor than to outfit 10 heavy cavalry "knights". They were more significant as a psychological weapon, because one guy on a horse could breach a sheild-wall, mainly because he could carry a lance at high-speed that was longer than a spear (or pike, or glaive) that a footsoldier could carry, therefore he could strike with impunity. But once the mounted "knight" took out one pikeman, his buddy would come along and unhorse the knight, and that would be all she wrote. Attacking a phalanx was still a very risky venture.
Against poorly armed peasants is where the knight really shone though, because poorly armed peasants didn't have shield-walls and pikes. They'd pretty much turn and flee in the face of a charging horse, and get cut down as they ran.
How many of these suits can this army's supporting government afford to buy, supply with spare parts, and maintain?
If this thing is $4 million dollars a suit, it would be way too expensive to outfit an entire army with them. You'd end up with a few hundred special squads at best. Put 1000 powered troops up against 1 million enemies with AK-47's, and I'd say you still don't have a fair fight. Those 1000 soldiers might have the combat effectiveness of maybe 100,000, but the COST of 1 million.
A Domain Name is the name of a BOX, a piece of hardware, an address. Just because it's more friendly to humans than an IP address, doesn't mean that it's the best way to get a WEB user to the right place. Having companies jump through hoops to 0wn "ibm.com" "ibm.edu" "ibm.org" "ibm.net" "ibmsucks.com" "international_business_machines.com" "international_business_machines.org" etc. ad infinitum makes NO fucking sense at all. Just as it makes no sense for some guy named John to get his "john.com" domain legally removed from his posession, because the international brotherhood of guys looking for prostitutes comes along a year later and decides they want a website.
.org, .com, or .edu. (not that anybody follows those rules anymore).
If I want to find Apple Computer's website, I should have a place on my browser where I can enter text: "Apple Computer" and get www.apple.com. And if I want Apple Records, I type in "Apple Records". If I type in "Apple" it gives me a choice, plus all the Apple advocacy and rumors sites, and both Apple Computer and Apple Records should be satisfied with that.
I, as the Joe Sixpack user of the net shouldn't have to know if the correct address is "www.apple.com" "www.applecomputer.com" or "www.apple_computer.com". Relying on these weird domain name permutations will often get you the WRONG site!
For you and I, the average clueful slashdot user, domain names are a fine way to find where you want to go - but even WE rely on bookmarks, favorites and shortcuts for many of our favorite sites. The typing of actual DNS names should be the resort of the technical though - and my mother should not have to know what an underscore is, or why a site should be a
Interesting observations.
Too bad it's offtopic. (ooh, if only I hadn't squandered all my moderation points on the penis bird!)
Well, this isn't so far from the truth.
There are some video games which have some pretty brain-dead AI - but you still lose in the end, to superior forces. Either they have more firepower, or are more maneuverable, or better armor, better "intelligence" (information), or numbers.
In any case - we're focussing on the wrong aspects of the "threat machine" - intelligence isn't really all that necessary. In fact, I think that the intelligence required to be a threat to humanity already exists.
Even the "power" aspect already exists. Automated warfare. ICBMs. Cruise Missiles.
What does not exist is self-sufficiency.
When someone can create the mechanical apparatus for current machine intelligence, that can build, repair, service, and power a suitable weapons platform, we (humanity) are toast.
Right now, it would definately take concerted deliberate innovation to develop a "threat" along these lines.
What the fear is - in the future, the intelligence will exist in the machine world, that can become self-sufficient in it's own right. THAT is where we'll need to start worrying.
I, for one, don't believe that we'll ever create AI. Not if the definition of "AI" is; a perfect duplication of the human mind - consciousness. I don't think it will ever be possible. Hell, thousands of years of philosophy, and we still can't really define what the human consciousness is.
On the other hand, I *do* believe that one day, computers will be "smart enough" to pose a threat to our existance. They won't even have to be "conscious".
... we came to the rather dissapointing conclusion that the only respect for human life common to all humanity was the protection of life for the preservation of the species; this might not even apply to some who we might call terrorists.
People who believe in "eternal life" don't really give a rat's ass about the preservation of the species. As far as they're concerned - we're all gonna die anyway. It's just a matter of which ones among us are going to heaven.
On the other hand, the elimination of the species wasn't much of a deterrent for Stalin, Pol Pot, and other well-known mass-murderers who also happened to be atheists.
Hm - doesn't GE build engines for military jets and tanks?
And doesn't GE also own some major newsmedia outlets - reporting on "attrocities" by 3rd-world dictators on their own people - etc, ad infinutm - trying to goad the US Govt into helping the poor innocent victems?
This has been the case in news since. . . since forever.
Pretty much any corporate "press release" is really an advertisement. isn't that about 90% of so-called "business news"?
um - wait, that's circular logic.
You're saying that "nonlethal" weapons allow an elite minority to deal with an unhappy majority by quelling revolt without "massive loss of life and it's consequent political fallout"?
I think that an opressed majority in of itself is going to yeild "political fallout" whether or not there is loss of life.
In fact, nonlethal means of quelling such rebellions will give you a lot of people who end up being MORE pissed off.
When you get a mob pissed off at you, you either have to give in to their demands, or kill every last one of the fuckers, because when a mob is pissed off at you, you're already suffering "political fallout". Look at what happened to the 5th president of Argentina last month. He hosed down rioters with boiling water from water cannons. He still ended up resigning.
The only PROVEN EFFECTIVE method of quelling the mob is to create a fat, happy middle-class, who are more interested in creating their own success than potentially losing it all by getting arrested in a protest.
The Afghan "villages" we bombed were a case of enemy propaganda. When information indicates that we have an Al Qaida ammo dump, or Al Qaida gunmen hiding out in buildings, we bomb it. If it was a village harboring the gunmen, then they've been warned, and should consider themselves combatants, not civillians.
You say that the eyewitnesses are "credible" and "neutral" - well, how do you know that? up to 60% of the current Northern Alliance forces are "tribal forces" that switched sides when they saw which direction the wind is blowing. We've seen high-level Taliban ministers released from captivity by the Afghan government, rather than handed over to the US. Obviously there are some elements to the new government, as well as their fighters, who harbor secret loyalties to the Taliban. So of course there are going to be apparent civillians who will gladly set up in front of a CNN camera and claim wild stories about the US's evil bombing of unarmed innocent civillians. Propaganda is the only effective weapon that the Taliban and Al Qaida have left. It was really their only weapon to begin with. Don't you think that the WTC wasn't selected for it's propaganda value? They want to paint us as the criminals, they want this war characterized as "Faith versus Atheism" (their words) and that it's "Crusader hatred" out to wipe out Islam.
And the Chinese embassy in Belgrade was *not* an accident. Depending on what you may believe.
I'm not saying that "smart weapons" and modern automated warfare is flawless. Of course there are instances where bombs don't detonate, and years later, explode when a farmer tills the field. There are lg bombs that go off course when intermittent cloud cover interrupts the guiding laser beam. GPS-guided bombs are actually known to be rather innacurate, and nobody's claiming they are accurate. Plus, you can't tell from 70,000 feet whether a target on the ground is a good guy, or a bad guy, or a civillian. Especially when the bad guys wear civillian clothing, and hide amongst civillian buildings. I think that none of that means that the war-effort is immoral. You have a choice. Either DON'T prosecute the war, or prosecute it as carefully as possible. Right now, I think it's being done as carefully as possible. Are our soldiers' lives more valuable to us than their civillians? Damn straight! Their civillians don't protect us. Our soldiers do. Some of those civillians danced and partied on September 11th. If any innocents get killed, they really ought to be blaming the people who brought the bombing on them - their own precious Taliban and the religious leaders who wanted to war with the west in the name of their own religious glory.
If some right-wing Christian nut from the US goes to Baghdad and blows up an apartment building, and Bush decides to shelter him instead of turning him over to the Iraqi government, I'd be pissed at Bush if it started a war. Especially if my home and family got bombed because of it. I certainly wouldn't blame the Iraqis for defending themselves.
yeah, but I like the part about smoking pot though.
Why don't we all smoke pot and design some nuclear weapons? We can use computers now to do all the hard number crunching. . .
I think that most serious IT managers will listen to the analysts like Gartner, etc.
Who we *know* are 100% honest, trustworthy, and unbiased. Completely uninfluenced by vendor lobbyists or other sources of information.
I tried eDexter, and it works great.
Honestly, I can't tell if the problem happens on the Mac, because I haven't been able to successfully implement HOSTS file. No matter what I do to the damn file, it always errors out being imported. I know it's probably a formating problem, but I can't seem to figure out how to fix it.
actually, plain boring ascii pop3 email is what brought grandma, grandpa, my niece and Ubu the dog onto the internet.
The Web has long ceased to be a place of any interest for most people - at least outside of ebay.
The problem with that is, the way Netscape 4.77 (Windows) seems to load pages, is, it won't fully render the page until these ad banners have timed out. This problem is particularly noticable on MyYahoo.
For this reason, I switched to IE and IE does not do this - I get to see the content sooner. Sucks, because, otherwise, I would continue to use Netscape.
However, Netscape (Macintosh) does not seem to have this problem.