> Caroline Benner previously worked as policy researcher for Microsoft's Geopolitical > Policy and Strategy Group
Ya know, I knew something like that was coming before I clicked into this article. The summary alone smelled of astroturf. But they do it because they realize while we will spot the paid 'independent scholarship' almost instantly the intended audience either won't.
> Most people don't care that iTunes music is DRM'd because it has no practical affect on their lives.
You misspoke. You should have added "yet" to the end. That is the problem, we tech types see the problem looming and wisely avoid it, the masses don't and will be shocked but totally screwed in the years ahead when the stinger buried in the DRM with a nice face Apple is selling finally gets em. DRM music is leased not sold. Worse it is leased under terms which aren't fully spelled out and are going to change at random in the future.
> Being able to download tracks you want and keep for as long as you want for under a buck seems like a good deal to me.
You obviously don't think long term. I do. I have old LPs, I have twenty year old CDs and all of it is still accessable and I expect it to still be accessable in some form after I am dead and gone. I have serious doubts whether anything from iTMS will survive anywhere like that long.
But most of all I object to iTMS and the other online music stores for more basic reasons. I object to paying high prices for low quality. If I am going to buy music I expect CD quality (after all, the CD is based on thirty year old tech) as a minimum standard, no online store (excepting allofmp3.com of course) offers a lossless format. All online music unnaturally ties the music and the player/PC such that replacing the player depends on the original store still being in business and not having changed the terms of the original deal. This in an industry where the longevity of.com businesses are almost as short as the hardware replacement cycle. Ok, Apple has been 'dying' longer than Slashdot, Netcraft or the 'BSD is dying' troll have been around, but the cold reality is they aren't likely to still be in business in another twenty years. (Or at least in their present form, once His Steveness moves on or retires M&A activity is in their future.)
As for the iPod itself, I'm as unmoved as I am with all of Apple's products. Yes they are pretty, exhibit fairly good design, are reasonably easy to use and solidly midrange in features. Balanced by being overpriced and having a cult instead of normal customers.
Every time I have been tempted to purchase an Apple branded product the factor that changes my mind is not wanting to be associated with the the Cult of Mac. When most people see an Apple they tend to assume the owner is one or more of a) yuppie scum, b) smelly hippie, c) gay and almost certainly d) an Apple zealot.
With the iPod now being sold at WalMart, the iPod is going mainstream and starting to lose that taint. Which is why I'd bet the whole fad is about to end, you can't be an elitist snob about a product WalMart is selling and elitism seems to be a large part of what Apple is selling. It would be like BMW starting to sell to the masses, wouldn't matter if they were still the same quality cars, the status symbol value of owning a 'beemer' would be gone.
> Given that I spent the last four weeks designing and implementing a Plone intranet site
No, no, no. If it doesn't have per seat and per server licensing it isn't a solution. I also loved the way they mentioned the existence of other products (because they knew readers would know about them and wonder) then promply blew them off to concentrate on the two most expensive and infexible offerings on their way to a conclusion that was a no brainer.
One paragraph summary of the review:
If you are already in bed with IBM, stay there for now and if you are a Microsoft Slave(tm) buy their stuff without question. If you haven't picked yet you should probably buy Microsoft because IBM costs more (it does) and trained monkeys can operate it (the stock excuse for buying any of Microsoft's junk) and anyway, we all know Microsoft always crushes all opponents so skilled Lotus people are going to be rare exotic creatures (read expensive) in the future. But whatever you do, DO NOT look over at those free offerings, they will only lead you from the One True Path, paying out the ass for licenses and consultants.
> I'm sorry, but masquerading hate speech as news does not make it news. Calling 'Mein Kampf' a semi-factual > analysis of the growing inequities in post WW1 Germany does not make it news.
I'm sorry to see yet another product of public education. Mein Kampf sits on the shelves of every public library in the country, right beside Das Kapital, The Communist Manifesto and Chainman Mao's Little Red Book. I'd also bet you can find the text of all three on Google if you try just a little. And yes serious historians DO study Mein Kampf in their studies of Pre War Germany. Hitler's arguments have the annoying reality that they were successful (remember, he WAS popularly elected... once.) so a study of his writings are pretty much required to gain a full understanding of his times.
You can't have an open debate and free inquiry while slapping a 'hate speech' label on all opposing views and banning from the public square. Protecting the right of Free Speech is at it's most important when it is something you don't like. I think Daily Kos is an almost perfect example of 'hate speech' but I would never move to bad it, would oppose Google dropping it from their index and in fact pass by and check up on 'the disloyal opposition' every couple of days. An echo chamber reflecting only your own positions isn't useful for learning new things.
> This is a common myth - there was no CIA (or otherwise) support given to 'Al Queda'. Bin Laden certainly didn't > need financial support - he did, and still does, have large numbers of arab backers.
Poor deluded moonbat. All the money and arab backers in the world might have got Bin Laden a single Stinger missle. US (and CIA) backing got him Stingers by the truckload so he could shoot em at the Soviets til they couldn't sustain the losses anymore.
Please stop rewriting history to match the current party line. Facts ARE, we have not always been at war with Eastasia. I'm a conservative and I can deal with the fact we did indeed support Bin Laden once upon a time yet still understand the absolute need to destroy him now.
> The CIA supported muj that may have acted in tandem with UBL, but 'Al Queda' ('the database', colloqualiasm) > were not in receipt of any US aid.
No, it is pretty well established as historical fact that UBL was directly associated with groups receiving direct US aid. You are correct that "Al Queda" didn't exist yet since it was formed after the liberation of Afganistan (from the Soviets) to export jihad. It was UBL's way to take the practical knowledge gained on the battlefield and pass it on and grow a worldwide movement.
I define "computer literacy" as I would any other use of the word "literacy". A person who can listen or read a language but can't express an original thought in it isn't considered 'literate'. Yes, I mean programming is required to be considered computer literate. Computers are nothing more than a decoder for instructions, if all you can do is cause it to play back someone else's stored commands you are a passive user in exactly the same way as a child sticking Barney videos into the VCR in their bedroom.
Yes, many people (especially in the uneducated nations of today's modern Western world) might be able to live a productive life only knowing how to operate a web browser but 'computer literate' they ain't. You can make exactly the same observation about someone who can't write a coherent paragraph, they too can often live a productive life in the lower classes of society, but illiteracy kills off most chances to better oneself.
And I can already hear some witless wonder getting ready to analogize about people not needing to be mechanics to use a car, blah blah. No everyone doesn't need to be able to strip an engine down but they should know where all the major parts are, the basic theory of operation, common failure modes, make a few emergency fixes, etc. You might not be able to write an office suite from scratch but you should be able to write a spreadsheet macro, a simple shell script or be able to at least have a shot at fixing a bug in a larger program that is really annoying you.
> So Robert Novak reporting leaked (by yet unnamed White House staff) information about Valerie Plame's identity > as a CIA agent fits into which category?
Yes, Bush & Co. tried playing by Democrats rules and didn't do all that well. Good thing I wasn't President though, you really wouldn't have liked my solution to Idiot Joe "My wife is a secret agent!" Wilson and his traitorous bitch wife.
When Wilson was at his worst annoyance level I'd have made a couple of calls and got the facts (like Mrs. Wilson was at the Agency and had indeed sent him to Niger) and then made a very short statement to the press myself. Something on the order of "Wilson? That lying traitor? Well before you guys spew jizz over that moron anymore you might want to know a couple of facts. One: Despite what he might think, his superiors reading his report concluded it lent strength to their belief that Saddam had indeed tried to buy uranium. Two: Despite his protests to the contrary, his wife sent him to Niger. Three: This was part of an organized effort by a nest of old deadender leftists at the Agency to effect a change in policy if not an outright coup against my government. Four: Mrs. Wilson hasn't been overseas in years but at any rate there are no fears for her safety in light of this disclosure of her empployment at the Agency because she will be perfectly safe in federal prison. Five: if we can make an accessory or conspiracy charge stick on Mr. Wilson he will also get some "Pound me in the ass Federal Prison bitch lovin'."
Sorry moonbats, part of the bargain in making agents off limits to the normal press & political cutthroat world is that they don't write articles in the NYT (or let their useful idiot husbands do it for them), they don't write books, they don't become overt political agents. Wilson & Plame (and it is now clear, a large contingent at the CIA) were as much a part of the 2004 elections as Dan Rather & Michael Moore and if they seriously thought their identy would remain secret they are fools as well as traitors.
Personally I hope the rumors are true and the Goss -> Hayden switch represents a policy change from trying to reform the CIA to simply culling the few worth saving to other agencies then cutting CIA out of the loop and allowing it to rot.
I saw one of the interviews Sunday adn Atty. General Gonzales was clearly uncomfortable discussing the issue and made a muddle of his otherwise clear case. Allow me to say some truths more bluntly than he did.
1. The Press isn't some sort of Church, with an annointed Priesthood set above the laws. Yes they may publish whatever they want without preclearing it with a government censor.... exactly the same as I am publishing this. But they have no more protection from the CONSEQUENCES of their actions than I do.
2. In exactly the same way as one must assume responsibility for their words when it comes to libel, slander and fraud, violating the secrecy laws should have consequences or those laws are meaningless and our society is no longer possible to maintain. So yes, a Free Press is essential to a Free People but there are some restrictions required to maintain the sort of advanced civilization needed to make a Free Press possible.
3. I have yet to see anything in these 'leaks' (I'd dare call it treason) that have advanced the cause of Freedom. Yes we bug the terrorists, even when they dial into or take a call from the US. And do you think we didn't bug German agents during WWII? Hell yes, inside and outside the US. That is War. Spying between nation states isn't the same as police work. Few also have a problem with the notion that the NSA might have done some interesting pattern analysis on calling records looking for stuff worth poking further into. If they went further without passing by a judge for a warrant I'd have a problem, but there isn't an accusation of that.
4. In light of 3, one must question the motives for making the leaks in the first place and whether it was for the express purpose of lending aid and comfort to an enemy in time of war is certainly a question worthy of asking. Because from where I sit it is either that or something that to my mind is even worse. That it was leaked in a base political effort to discredit the current administration. Now tearing at political enemies is normally ok, but there are limits. Endangering the national secutity in wartime to do it, and having way over half of the opposition party supporting such actions means we are probably too far lost to have much hope for survival. If the moonbats are simply being decieved by a few traitors we might can make it through, but if most of them are so far lost as to think losing the war would be an acceptable price of removing "Chimpy McBushHitler" from office and have thrown their lot in with Bin Laden we are doomed.
> Some people are paid various people with an agenda to say things that aren't true. You're right about it being sick > and twisted, even if you're a little naive to think that she's somehow unique.:)
No, MOG is in a different camp from the notables you listed. Michael Moore might be mad as a hatter but he isn't just a gun for hire. Regardless of whether you share his views, it is generally agreed by both friend and foe that he believes in the rightness of his cause and the truth of his arguments. Same for Limbaugh and Coulter. MOG doesn't actually believe the crap she spews, she is just a pen for hire. But as for Bill O'Reilly, I'm not so sure which group to place him.
> The fact that no American company has attempted to corner an American market through dumping in a long time is...
> However, check recent stories about Citgo giving heating oil away for reduced prices in northeast towns this past winter. > They did it to embarass the Bush administration, but their competitors started crying that they were dumping.
Yea, and 'they' is Hugo Chavez, a sworn foreign enemy of the US. Citgo is a foreign company dude, try buying a clue somewhere other than DailyKos next time.
> We can only hope that the real facts in this case are that the plaintiff merely bollixed the proof portion of his > claim of dumping, and not that the judge just said that dumping isn't anticompetitive.
Dumping may or may not be illegal. Which is why people who know always accuse their foe of 'illegal dumping.' Dumping is merely selling below the cost of production and can happen in a Free Marketplace for a variety of reasons, only a couple of which are deemed illegal by current laws. Just as a quickie example, half the merchandise in Dollar Tree, Dollar General, Burke's Outlet, etc. is being sold at a price lower than their original cost of production and it is legal.
Ok, Intel is getting some game, 'bout freaking time. But this isn't an "AMD killer" by any means.
Notice how they only included ONE FPU intensive task and AMD (and several of the Intel products) schooled this mobile offering? Most reviews include a lot more balanced set of tests, this one obviously had their storyline written for them and was tailoring the tests to fit the plot.
And also, let us not forget that the STOCK benchmark numbers for this chip were anything but impressive, so they played up the overclocked numbers. However, while this chip does have some seriously intersting overclock potential it isn't the first chip to be massively overclocked. Just last week we were salivating over a budgie Intel chip that somebody overclocked into the world's fastest CPU. So why not include THAT firebreathing monster's numbers on the chart along with some seriously overclocked AMD parts? Perhaps that would't have had such a dramatic narrative? Ah.
Meanwhile, I'll keep comparing parts running at factory spec and waiting to see what AMD drops next week to compare current gen parts to current gen parts.
> No one with any technical savvy is going to believe that these systems pose a greater security risk, unless someone > independently confirms this and demonstrates how a backdoor exists.
I think you mean posers who think they have tech knowledge. People who actually know something realize that governments can do some pretty extreme shit to each other in the spying game. The US gov certainly spys hard and isn't so arrogant as to believe that they have some sort of monopoly on the skills so they assume their opposite numbers in potentially hostile potentially rogue states like China are also capable of some clever spy tricks. A notion that is almost certainly justified. Especially since all new Thinkpads have a fucking TCPA chip. Can you trust a chinese fabbed uber security module for critical national security purposes? It will be bad enough when the MPAA and Microsoft 0wnz all our asses with TCPA but to have Chinese Intelligence agencies backdooring the NSA with one is just an unacceptable risk.
It is just the way the game of international relations is played by the adults.
Of course since you can't actually find a laptop made in the USA with 100% domestic designs and all the chips fabbed in the USA I really would hate to be the head spook in charge of picking a laptop for secure work. I'd never sleep.
> I'd rather that we save such visible displays for when it matters (more). This matters, but perhaps not as much as > deliberate attack on larger or more public pieces of the infrastructure.
No reason to reveal sources & methods just that we DO have the ability to track the asshats back to their mansion/lair/cave/etc. Announce afterwards that while we aren't promising that level of protection to everyone everywhere, that we do intend to pick a few out for future tests AND to make some examples. Be right up front on the making examples angle. Put some fear into em up front and we might not ever have to endure a deliberate attack on major infrastructure. Remember that the best defense is often a good offense.
> What has been going on is essentially cyber-terrorism and from what has been reported so far the terrorist > clearly have the upper hand.
Yup, and I'd have loved to have seen the US gov use this as a perfect 'live fire' exercise. After all, if they can't stop a few punk spammers how can we have any confidence they could stop a determined attack by the usual terrorist suspects?
Perfect opportunity to test all the phases of response, from tracking the responsible parties all the way to eliminating them. Ok, in this case a SEAL team would probably have to be tasked to capture em instead of just dropping a few bombs on their sorry asses. Or if, as I suspect, the ringleaders are in the US or other western representive nations, just have em all arrested.
Seriously, at this late date in the game who cares anymore what Sun does? Those who care not for Freedom have already adopted Java and those who care are either using another language or are now firmly in the GCJ camp and, knowing Sun, won't leave for any bait & switch offer from Sun. I mean, raise your hand if you believe Sun's offer to "open source" Java will actually become a code dump under an OSI approved license. And the odds of it's license (and you can bet your last dollar it WILL be Yet Another License) being GPL compatible are null.
Even today's new initiative to loosen the binary license to permit distribution repackaging is being being greeted by a certain amount of scepticism just because it is Sun. Personally I'll believe it is for real (as opposed to a deal for certain select popular distros, much like the Firefox trademark bullcrap) if jpackage.org can finally ship a binary rpm.
> What the hell are you talking about? BOPL has been in Cincinnati for about a year now
No. You are getting broadband and the power company is supplying it and billing you, but other than them possibly getting it into your house with something akin to HomePlug the electrical grid isn't involved. Lots of pilot projects have been run, but to date nobody has actually managed to run high bitrates over long distances over POWER wires without causing craploads of RF interference. There is a reason most of the people pitching broadband over power do press events with sealed boxes and don't want to discuss the tech, because it is a scam.
You don't have to be an EE to understand at a most fundamental level that you can't send a complex modulated signal over unshielded wires without radiating it. The laws of physics are not required to change to make venture capitalists happy.
> Sure the technology to be able to do this well keeps improving...
No it doesn't. There are exactly two types of "Net over power lines"
1. Fiber running along the power poles with HomePlug bringing it down from the pole.
2. Snake oil from the same crooks and con men who push perpetual motion machines. You just can't push significant bandwidth down power lines for any real distance without causing interference. You just can't rewrite the laws of physics, but you can find a VC who doesn't know about them.
> 2) reliability is a serious culture within the power community; these guys have trucks and > know how to use them
Right. Guess that is why when Rita smacked us the phones and Internet stayed lit but the power & catv went dark for days. More rural areas went without power for weeks but most kept their phone.
> I have no idea of how Blue Security operate their network, but presuming that Tucows only provide the > domain registration and DNS services, they are probably earning what - $20 a year from Blue Security?
And how much can any of their remaining customers trust Tucows will protect US from the next idiot? So now all this asshat has to do is drop Tucows a note listing who he is pissed at this week and they will drop our domains too? No, millions for defense but never paying tribute is the only winning move. Tucows looked evil in the eye and they blinked. When my domain comes up again it will be going somewhere with just a little more courage. Network Solutions is a bunch of revolving assholes and they charge out the wazoo, but does anyone here think they would have caved? Not to mention they would have almost certainly been able to withstand an assault by one pissed off spammer.
Apple is acting like Apple always does... like an asshole. They are caught out in a fairly major QA problem and trying to lawyer their way around it. Same as every other large company. Mac fanbois will of course totally defend their noble defense of their 'intellectual property' even though this case is a textbook example of fair use. The fanbois will also 'like totally defend the quality of Apple hardware against that Dell crap.' And while they have cause for that in general it will stink of slavish devotion because of just how busted Apple is on this case.
> The fact is, the UN is useful for its intended purposes. In a nutshell: debate of issues > affecting the whole of humanity and establishing consensus toward maintaining peace and > economic and social development. Oooh, scaarrry.
Except that isn't what everyone claims it is. If it were generally acknowledged that the UN was only a debating society it would actually be useful for that purpose; it is headquartered in a fairly nice building equipped for transators and such. But we both know better than that. "All right thinking people" (meaning tyrants and their enablers) claim loudly that the UN now holds a monopoly on the legitimate use of force in relations between nations. i.e. that the UN is soverign over all nations. Since the villians of the world hold a majority of the votes and even wield veto power in the Security Council this notion is insanity. You can't sit quietly in a chamber and vote on matters of War while your proposed enemy is sitting there and even voting on the proposal to make War upon them.
Even if I could be sold on the idea of a World Government there is no chance in Hell I'd ever consent to be governed by the UN.
> WTF are you talking about? About 120 of the 191 member states of the UN are democracies.
Please put down the crack pipe and slowly walk away from it.
You only get to 120 if you believe that Mugabe's Zimbabwe and the rest of the African kleptocrats are really Representive Forms of Government, the Middle Eastern theocracies and monarchies aren't tyranies (your list included Iran for example). But then the typical UN fetishist usually DOES try to claim exactly that sort of irrational thing. In reality you have to count a lot of really marginal countries (the ones that have actually started having sorta real elections) to hit 100 and that is always subject to sudden reversals. Russia has been a real disappointment for example. They had almost made it and slipped back into tyranny. As for real Representive governments with a tradition of popularly elected governments and a fairly reliable Rule of Law the number is pretty small. Growing decade by decade, but still outnumbered.
This is a real problem. We have to fend off the US Congress, the FCC (they will be back, Congressional authority or no), the EU, the UN, etc. and as soon as we defeat one attempt another is introduced. We have to win every battle, they to win once. One step is to cut the number of fronts. Just oen more reason to burn the UN building to the ground and send those idiots home.
The UN is useless anyway so it isn't like it wouldn't be a good thing all around. The indisputable fact that it is a 'Parliment of Tyrants' where the unfree votes outnumber the Free by a goodly margin is only mitigated slightly by the fact that the instituition is incapable of action on major issues. But as this attempt makes clear they do have a great potential for mischief on less visible issues, especially when you get a perfect storm of agreement between third world pestholes wanting to control their people and the 1st world wanting to let their **AA organizations control their subjects.
> As an example, the entire concept of laissez-faire (free-market) economics (thank you, Adam > Smith!) is based upon assumptions that do not hold in the real world. If we want an economy > that even approximates a 'free-market', then we need legislation.
No we don't. We need a government to do the job it was tasked with. That means a Federal Givernment about 10-20% of it's present size.
> Look at Microsoft, or AT&T.
Yes, look at them. Both are monopolies which were mostly CREATED by the government. AT&T was explicitly given a government monopoy grant because it was believed (perhaps with some merit) that only a single monopoly could solve the problem of the chaos that existed at the time with dozens of phone companies none of which could interoperate with the others.
The whole present problem has a very simple solution, which is why no politician will consider it. (solve the problem permanently and you lose the 'campaign contributions' from both sides every couple of years as you pass band-aid fixes, much like what would happen to Microsoft if they ever published a version of Windows that 'just worked'.)
The problem is the government. Specifically their grants of monopoly to the telcos and cable companies. Even if we could say it was a bad idea to do it it is now done, they have billions of plant & equipment which was subsidized by the power of the State so a level playing field can't exist. But there is a solution. The AT&T breakup was stupid, as all should now realize, because it didn't attack the problem; the government subsidized monopolies on the local loops. So force the phone company into one more government mandated reorg. Company A gets the local loops and the monopoly that goes with them. They (and the Public service commissions in each state) set a rate for a loop but can't so much as run a current through one other than for testing. They don't charge the subscriber, they charge carriers. Company B is that part of their current business. So long as they buy at the same rate as any other carrier they (and the other carriers) would be 100% free of ALL government interferrence. Not subject to public service commissions, the FCC or Congress.
As for your example of Microsoft, notice that the Government couldn't fix that problem. And no it wasn't Bush's fault. The case had pretty much collapsed by election day 2000. David Bois (of SCO fame) had already managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory months before Bush & Ashcroft were in office. And if Microsoft is going to be dislodged it will be by the Free Software movement, not some farcical court case. And anyway, Microsoft derives most of their power from the government. Office is the government standard, which pretty much forces anyone doing business (and nowadays that is almost everyone, the government's tentacles are everywhere) with the government to run Office which pretty much means Windows. And it is the government Copyright monopoly, DMCA and other crap that makes anyone afraid of cloning Windows.
This farce of a network neutrality bill will solve nothing and almost certainly make matters worse. Watch how many evil things slither in with it even if it passes. And if we allow the government to start regulating how ISPs run their network I can promise you it won't stop where you guys supporting this idea would like it to.
Just wait. No, you can't throttle VoIP traffic..... so long as it is unencrypted and the long distance tariffs are being paid. No you can't throttle traffic.... unless it is P2P and the RIAA doesn't like it.. oh wait they don't like ANY of it so block it. No you can't block VPN traffic..... well ok you can require 'business grade service'. And once the regulation genie is out of the bottle just wait until the state public service commissions get into it. If you think Congress is clueless just wait until the REAL idiots start micromanaging the infrastructure.
Slashdot Mirror
> Caroline Benner previously worked as policy researcher for Microsoft's Geopolitical
> Policy and Strategy Group
Ya know, I knew something like that was coming before I clicked into this article. The summary alone smelled of astroturf. But they do it because they realize while we will spot the paid 'independent scholarship' almost instantly the intended audience either won't.
> Most people don't care that iTunes music is DRM'd because it has no practical affect on their lives.
You misspoke. You should have added "yet" to the end. That is the problem, we tech types see the problem looming and wisely avoid it, the masses don't and will be shocked but totally screwed in the years ahead when the stinger buried in the DRM with a nice face Apple is selling finally gets em. DRM music is leased not sold. Worse it is leased under terms which aren't fully spelled out and are going to change at random in the future.
> Being able to download tracks you want and keep for as long as you want for under a buck seems like a good deal to me.
.com businesses are almost as short as the hardware replacement cycle. Ok, Apple has been 'dying' longer than Slashdot, Netcraft or the 'BSD is dying' troll have been around, but the cold reality is they aren't likely to still be in business in another twenty years. (Or at least in their present form, once His Steveness moves on or retires M&A activity is in their future.)
You obviously don't think long term. I do. I have old LPs, I have twenty year old CDs and all of it is still accessable and I expect it to still be accessable in some form after I am dead and gone. I have serious doubts whether anything from iTMS will survive anywhere like that long.
But most of all I object to iTMS and the other online music stores for more basic reasons. I object to paying high prices for low quality. If I am going to buy music I expect CD quality (after all, the CD is based on thirty year old tech) as a minimum standard, no online store (excepting allofmp3.com of course) offers a lossless format. All online music unnaturally ties the music and the player/PC such that replacing the player depends on the original store still being in business and not having changed the terms of the original deal. This in an industry where the longevity of
As for the iPod itself, I'm as unmoved as I am with all of Apple's products. Yes they are pretty, exhibit fairly good design, are reasonably easy to use and solidly midrange in features. Balanced by being overpriced and having a cult instead of normal customers.
Every time I have been tempted to purchase an Apple branded product the factor that changes my mind is not wanting to be associated with the the Cult of Mac. When most people see an Apple they tend to assume the owner is one or more of a) yuppie scum, b) smelly hippie, c) gay and almost certainly d) an Apple zealot.
With the iPod now being sold at WalMart, the iPod is going mainstream and starting to lose that taint. Which is why I'd bet the whole fad is about to end, you can't be an elitist snob about a product WalMart is selling and elitism seems to be a large part of what Apple is selling. It would be like BMW starting to sell to the masses, wouldn't matter if they were still the same quality cars, the status symbol value of owning a 'beemer' would be gone.
> Given that I spent the last four weeks designing and implementing a Plone intranet site
No, no, no. If it doesn't have per seat and per server licensing it isn't a solution. I also loved the way they mentioned the existence of other products (because they knew readers would know about them and wonder) then promply blew them off to concentrate on the two most expensive and infexible offerings on their way to a conclusion that was a no brainer.
One paragraph summary of the review:
If you are already in bed with IBM, stay there for now and if you are a Microsoft Slave(tm) buy their stuff without question. If you haven't picked yet you should probably buy Microsoft because IBM costs more (it does) and trained monkeys can operate it (the stock excuse for buying any of Microsoft's junk) and anyway, we all know Microsoft always crushes all opponents so skilled Lotus people are going to be rare exotic creatures (read expensive) in the future. But whatever you do, DO NOT look over at those free offerings, they will only lead you from the One True Path, paying out the ass for licenses and consultants.
> I'm sorry, but masquerading hate speech as news does not make it news. Calling 'Mein Kampf' a semi-factual
> analysis of the growing inequities in post WW1 Germany does not make it news.
I'm sorry to see yet another product of public education. Mein Kampf sits on the shelves of every public library in the country, right beside Das Kapital, The Communist Manifesto and Chainman Mao's Little Red Book. I'd also bet you can find the text of all three on Google if you try just a little. And yes serious historians DO study Mein Kampf in their studies of Pre War Germany. Hitler's arguments have the annoying reality that they were successful (remember, he WAS popularly elected... once.) so a study of his writings are pretty much required to gain a full understanding of his times.
You can't have an open debate and free inquiry while slapping a 'hate speech' label on all opposing views and banning from the public square. Protecting the right of Free Speech is at it's most important when it is something you don't like. I think Daily Kos is an almost perfect example of 'hate speech' but I would never move to bad it, would oppose Google dropping it from their index and in fact pass by and check up on 'the disloyal opposition' every couple of days. An echo chamber reflecting only your own positions isn't useful for learning new things.
> This is a common myth - there was no CIA (or otherwise) support given to 'Al Queda'. Bin Laden certainly didn't
> need financial support - he did, and still does, have large numbers of arab backers.
Poor deluded moonbat. All the money and arab backers in the world might have got Bin Laden a single Stinger missle. US (and CIA) backing got him Stingers by the truckload so he could shoot em at the Soviets til they couldn't sustain the losses anymore.
Please stop rewriting history to match the current party line. Facts ARE, we have not always been at war with Eastasia. I'm a conservative and I can deal with the fact we did indeed support Bin Laden once upon a time yet still understand the absolute need to destroy him now.
> The CIA supported muj that may have acted in tandem with UBL, but 'Al Queda' ('the database', colloqualiasm)
> were not in receipt of any US aid.
No, it is pretty well established as historical fact that UBL was directly associated with groups receiving direct US aid. You are correct that "Al Queda" didn't exist yet since it was formed after the liberation of Afganistan (from the Soviets) to export jihad. It was UBL's way to take the practical knowledge gained on the battlefield and pass it on and grow a worldwide movement.
I define "computer literacy" as I would any other use of the word "literacy". A person who can listen or read a language but can't express an original thought in it isn't considered 'literate'. Yes, I mean programming is required to be considered computer literate. Computers are nothing more than a decoder for instructions, if all you can do is cause it to play back someone else's stored commands you are a passive user in exactly the same way as a child sticking Barney videos into the VCR in their bedroom.
Yes, many people (especially in the uneducated nations of today's modern Western world) might be able to live a productive life only knowing how to operate a web browser but 'computer literate' they ain't. You can make exactly the same observation about someone who can't write a coherent paragraph, they too can often live a productive life in the lower classes of society, but illiteracy kills off most chances to better oneself.
And I can already hear some witless wonder getting ready to analogize about people not needing to be mechanics to use a car, blah blah. No everyone doesn't need to be able to strip an engine down but they should know where all the major parts are, the basic theory of operation, common failure modes, make a few emergency fixes, etc. You might not be able to write an office suite from scratch but you should be able to write a spreadsheet macro, a simple shell script or be able to at least have a shot at fixing a bug in a larger program that is really annoying you.
> So Robert Novak reporting leaked (by yet unnamed White House staff) information about Valerie Plame's identity
> as a CIA agent fits into which category?
Yes, Bush & Co. tried playing by Democrats rules and didn't do all that well. Good thing I wasn't President though, you really wouldn't have liked my solution to Idiot Joe "My wife is a secret agent!" Wilson and his traitorous bitch wife.
When Wilson was at his worst annoyance level I'd have made a couple of calls and got the facts (like Mrs. Wilson was at the Agency and had indeed sent him to Niger) and then made a very short statement to the press myself. Something on the order of "Wilson? That lying traitor? Well before you guys spew jizz over that moron anymore you might want to know a couple of facts. One: Despite what he might think, his superiors reading his report concluded it lent strength to their belief that Saddam had indeed tried to buy uranium. Two: Despite his protests to the contrary, his wife sent him to Niger. Three: This was part of an organized effort by a nest of old deadender leftists at the Agency to effect a change in policy if not an outright coup against my government. Four: Mrs. Wilson hasn't been overseas in years but at any rate there are no fears for her safety in light of this disclosure of her empployment at the Agency because she will be perfectly safe in federal prison. Five: if we can make an accessory or conspiracy charge stick on Mr. Wilson he will also get some "Pound me in the ass Federal Prison bitch lovin'."
Sorry moonbats, part of the bargain in making agents off limits to the normal press & political cutthroat world is that they don't write articles in the NYT (or let their useful idiot husbands do it for them), they don't write books, they don't become overt political agents. Wilson & Plame (and it is now clear, a large contingent at the CIA) were as much a part of the 2004 elections as Dan Rather & Michael Moore and if they seriously thought their identy would remain secret they are fools as well as traitors.
Personally I hope the rumors are true and the Goss -> Hayden switch represents a policy change from trying to reform the CIA to simply culling the few worth saving to other agencies then cutting CIA out of the loop and allowing it to rot.
I saw one of the interviews Sunday adn Atty. General Gonzales was clearly uncomfortable discussing the issue and made a muddle of his otherwise clear case. Allow me to say some truths more bluntly than he did.
1. The Press isn't some sort of Church, with an annointed Priesthood set above the laws. Yes they may publish whatever they want without preclearing it with a government censor.... exactly the same as I am publishing this. But they have no more protection from the CONSEQUENCES of their actions than I do.
2. In exactly the same way as one must assume responsibility for their words when it comes to libel, slander and fraud, violating the secrecy laws should have consequences or those laws are meaningless and our society is no longer possible to maintain. So yes, a Free Press is essential to a Free People but there are some restrictions required to maintain the sort of advanced civilization needed to make a Free Press possible.
3. I have yet to see anything in these 'leaks' (I'd dare call it treason) that have advanced the cause of Freedom. Yes we bug the terrorists, even when they dial into or take a call from the US. And do you think we didn't bug German agents during WWII? Hell yes, inside and outside the US. That is War. Spying between nation states isn't the same as police work. Few also have a problem with the notion that the NSA might have done some interesting pattern analysis on calling records looking for stuff worth poking further into. If they went further without passing by a judge for a warrant I'd have a problem, but there isn't an accusation of that.
4. In light of 3, one must question the motives for making the leaks in the first place and whether it was for the express purpose of lending aid and comfort to an enemy in time of war is certainly a question worthy of asking. Because from where I sit it is either that or something that to my mind is even worse. That it was leaked in a base political effort to discredit the current administration. Now tearing at political enemies is normally ok, but there are limits. Endangering the national secutity in wartime to do it, and having way over half of the opposition party supporting such actions means we are probably too far lost to have much hope for survival. If the moonbats are simply being decieved by a few traitors we might can make it through, but if most of them are so far lost as to think losing the war would be an acceptable price of removing "Chimpy McBushHitler" from office and have thrown their lot in with Bin Laden we are doomed.
> Some people are paid various people with an agenda to say things that aren't true. You're right about it being sick :)
> and twisted, even if you're a little naive to think that she's somehow unique.
No, MOG is in a different camp from the notables you listed. Michael Moore might be mad as a hatter but he isn't just a gun for hire. Regardless of whether you share his views, it is generally agreed by both friend and foe that he believes in the rightness of his cause and the truth of his arguments. Same for Limbaugh and Coulter. MOG doesn't actually believe the crap she spews, she is just a pen for hire. But as for Bill O'Reilly, I'm not so sure which group to place him.
> The fact that no American company has attempted to corner an American market through dumping in a long time is...
> However, check recent stories about Citgo giving heating oil away for reduced prices in northeast towns this past winter.
> They did it to embarass the Bush administration, but their competitors started crying that they were dumping.
Yea, and 'they' is Hugo Chavez, a sworn foreign enemy of the US. Citgo is a foreign company dude, try buying a clue somewhere other than DailyKos next time.
> We can only hope that the real facts in this case are that the plaintiff merely bollixed the proof portion of his
> claim of dumping, and not that the judge just said that dumping isn't anticompetitive.
Dumping may or may not be illegal. Which is why people who know always accuse their foe of 'illegal dumping.' Dumping is merely selling below the cost of production and can happen in a Free Marketplace for a variety of reasons, only a couple of which are deemed illegal by current laws. Just as a quickie example, half the merchandise in Dollar Tree, Dollar General, Burke's Outlet, etc. is being sold at a price lower than their original cost of production and it is legal.
Ok, Intel is getting some game, 'bout freaking time. But this isn't an "AMD killer" by any means.
Notice how they only included ONE FPU intensive task and AMD (and several of the Intel products) schooled this mobile offering? Most reviews include a lot more balanced set of tests, this one obviously had their storyline written for them and was tailoring the tests to fit the plot.
And also, let us not forget that the STOCK benchmark numbers for this chip were anything but impressive, so they played up the overclocked numbers. However, while this chip does have some seriously intersting overclock potential it isn't the first chip to be massively overclocked. Just last week we were salivating over a budgie Intel chip that somebody overclocked into the world's fastest CPU. So why not include THAT firebreathing monster's numbers on the chart along with some seriously overclocked AMD parts? Perhaps that would't have had such a dramatic narrative? Ah.
Meanwhile, I'll keep comparing parts running at factory spec and waiting to see what AMD drops next week to compare current gen parts to current gen parts.
> No one with any technical savvy is going to believe that these systems pose a greater security risk, unless someone
> independently confirms this and demonstrates how a backdoor exists.
I think you mean posers who think they have tech knowledge. People who actually know something realize that governments can do some pretty extreme shit to each other in the spying game. The US gov certainly spys hard and isn't so arrogant as to believe that they have some sort of monopoly on the skills so they assume their opposite numbers in potentially hostile potentially rogue states like China are also capable of some clever spy tricks. A notion that is almost certainly justified. Especially since all new Thinkpads have a fucking TCPA chip. Can you trust a chinese fabbed uber security module for critical national security purposes? It will be bad enough when the MPAA and Microsoft 0wnz all our asses with TCPA but to have Chinese Intelligence agencies backdooring the NSA with one is just an unacceptable risk.
It is just the way the game of international relations is played by the adults.
Of course since you can't actually find a laptop made in the USA with 100% domestic designs and all the chips fabbed in the USA I really would hate to be the head spook in charge of picking a laptop for secure work. I'd never sleep.
> I'd rather that we save such visible displays for when it matters (more). This matters, but perhaps not as much as
> deliberate attack on larger or more public pieces of the infrastructure.
No reason to reveal sources & methods just that we DO have the ability to track the asshats back to their mansion/lair/cave/etc. Announce afterwards that while we aren't promising that level of protection to everyone everywhere, that we do intend to pick a few out for future tests AND to make some examples. Be right up front on the making examples angle. Put some fear into em up front and we might not ever have to endure a deliberate attack on major infrastructure. Remember that the best defense is often a good offense.
> What has been going on is essentially cyber-terrorism and from what has been reported so far the terrorist
> clearly have the upper hand.
Yup, and I'd have loved to have seen the US gov use this as a perfect 'live fire' exercise. After all, if they can't stop a few punk spammers how can we have any confidence they could stop a determined attack by the usual terrorist suspects?
Perfect opportunity to test all the phases of response, from tracking the responsible parties all the way to eliminating them. Ok, in this case a SEAL team would probably have to be tasked to capture em instead of just dropping a few bombs on their sorry asses. Or if, as I suspect, the ringleaders are in the US or other western representive nations, just have em all arrested.
Seriously, at this late date in the game who cares anymore what Sun does? Those who care not for Freedom have already adopted Java and those who care are either using another language or are now firmly in the GCJ camp and, knowing Sun, won't leave for any bait & switch offer from Sun. I mean, raise your hand if you believe Sun's offer to "open source" Java will actually become a code dump under an OSI approved license. And the odds of it's license (and you can bet your last dollar it WILL be Yet Another License) being GPL compatible are null.
Even today's new initiative to loosen the binary license to permit distribution repackaging is being being greeted by a certain amount of scepticism just because it is Sun. Personally I'll believe it is for real (as opposed to a deal for certain select popular distros, much like the Firefox trademark bullcrap) if jpackage.org can finally ship a binary rpm.
> What the hell are you talking about? BOPL has been in Cincinnati for about a year now
No. You are getting broadband and the power company is supplying it and billing you, but other than them possibly getting it into your house with something akin to HomePlug the electrical grid isn't involved. Lots of pilot projects have been run, but to date nobody has actually managed to run high bitrates over long distances over POWER wires without causing craploads of RF interference. There is a reason most of the people pitching broadband over power do press events with sealed boxes and don't want to discuss the tech, because it is a scam.
You don't have to be an EE to understand at a most fundamental level that you can't send a complex modulated signal over unshielded wires without radiating it. The laws of physics are not required to change to make venture capitalists happy.
> Sure the technology to be able to do this well keeps improving...
No it doesn't. There are exactly two types of "Net over power lines"
1. Fiber running along the power poles with HomePlug bringing it down from the pole.
2. Snake oil from the same crooks and con men who push perpetual motion machines. You just can't push significant bandwidth down power lines for any real distance without causing interference. You just can't rewrite the laws of physics, but you can find a VC who doesn't know about them.
> 2) reliability is a serious culture within the power community; these guys have trucks and
> know how to use them
Right. Guess that is why when Rita smacked us the phones and Internet stayed lit but the power & catv went dark for days. More rural areas went without power for weeks but most kept their phone.
> I have no idea of how Blue Security operate their network, but presuming that Tucows only provide the
> domain registration and DNS services, they are probably earning what - $20 a year from Blue Security?
And how much can any of their remaining customers trust Tucows will protect US from the next idiot? So now all this asshat has to do is drop Tucows a note listing who he is pissed at this week and they will drop our domains too? No, millions for defense but never paying tribute is the only winning move. Tucows looked evil in the eye and they blinked. When my domain comes up again it will be going somewhere with just a little more courage. Network Solutions is a bunch of revolving assholes and they charge out the wazoo, but does anyone here think they would have caved? Not to mention they would have almost certainly been able to withstand an assault by one pissed off spammer.
Let me save everyone the trouble...
Apple is acting like Apple always does... like an asshole. They are caught out in a fairly major QA problem and trying to lawyer their way around it. Same as every other large company. Mac fanbois will of course totally defend their noble defense of their 'intellectual property' even though this case is a textbook example of fair use. The fanbois will also 'like totally defend the quality of Apple hardware against that Dell crap.' And while they have cause for that in general it will stink of slavish devotion because of just how busted Apple is on this case.
That 'bout cover everything?
> The fact is, the UN is useful for its intended purposes. In a nutshell: debate of issues
> affecting the whole of humanity and establishing consensus toward maintaining peace and
> economic and social development. Oooh, scaarrry.
Except that isn't what everyone claims it is. If it were generally acknowledged that the UN was only a debating society it would actually be useful for that purpose; it is headquartered in a fairly nice building equipped for transators and such. But we both know better than that. "All right thinking people" (meaning tyrants and their enablers) claim loudly that the UN now holds a monopoly on the legitimate use of force in relations between nations. i.e. that the UN is soverign over all nations. Since the villians of the world hold a majority of the votes and even wield veto power in the Security Council this notion is insanity. You can't sit quietly in a chamber and vote on matters of War while your proposed enemy is sitting there and even voting on the proposal to make War upon them.
Even if I could be sold on the idea of a World Government there is no chance in Hell I'd ever consent to be governed by the UN.
> WTF are you talking about? About 120 of the 191 member states of the UN are democracies.
Please put down the crack pipe and slowly walk away from it.
You only get to 120 if you believe that Mugabe's Zimbabwe and the rest of the African kleptocrats are really Representive Forms of Government, the Middle Eastern theocracies and monarchies aren't tyranies (your list included Iran for example). But then the typical UN fetishist usually DOES try to claim exactly that sort of irrational thing. In reality you have to count a lot of really marginal countries (the ones that have actually started having sorta real elections) to hit 100 and that is always subject to sudden reversals. Russia has been a real disappointment for example. They had almost made it and slipped back into tyranny. As for real Representive governments with a tradition of popularly elected governments and a fairly reliable Rule of Law the number is pretty small. Growing decade by decade, but still outnumbered.
This is a real problem. We have to fend off the US Congress, the FCC (they will be back, Congressional authority or no), the EU, the UN, etc. and as soon as we defeat one attempt another is introduced. We have to win every battle, they to win once. One step is to cut the number of fronts. Just oen more reason to burn the UN building to the ground and send those idiots home.
The UN is useless anyway so it isn't like it wouldn't be a good thing all around. The indisputable fact that it is a 'Parliment of Tyrants' where the unfree votes outnumber the Free by a goodly margin is only mitigated slightly by the fact that the instituition is incapable of action on major issues. But as this attempt makes clear they do have a great potential for mischief on less visible issues, especially when you get a perfect storm of agreement between third world pestholes wanting to control their people and the 1st world wanting to let their **AA organizations control their subjects.
> As an example, the entire concept of laissez-faire (free-market) economics (thank you, Adam
> Smith!) is based upon assumptions that do not hold in the real world. If we want an economy
> that even approximates a 'free-market', then we need legislation.
No we don't. We need a government to do the job it was tasked with. That means a Federal Givernment about 10-20% of it's present size.
> Look at Microsoft, or AT&T.
Yes, look at them. Both are monopolies which were mostly CREATED by the government. AT&T was explicitly given a government monopoy grant because it was believed (perhaps with some merit) that only a single monopoly could solve the problem of the chaos that existed at the time with dozens of phone companies none of which could interoperate with the others.
The whole present problem has a very simple solution, which is why no politician will consider it. (solve the problem permanently and you lose the 'campaign contributions' from both sides every couple of years as you pass band-aid fixes, much like what would happen to Microsoft if they ever published a version of Windows that 'just worked'.)
The problem is the government. Specifically their grants of monopoly to the telcos and cable companies. Even if we could say it was a bad idea to do it it is now done, they have billions of plant & equipment which was subsidized by the power of the State so a level playing field can't exist. But there is a solution. The AT&T breakup was stupid, as all should now realize, because it didn't attack the problem; the government subsidized monopolies on the local loops. So force the phone company into one more government mandated reorg. Company A gets the local loops and the monopoly that goes with them. They (and the Public service commissions in each state) set a rate for a loop but can't so much as run a current through one other than for testing. They don't charge the subscriber, they charge carriers. Company B is that part of their current business. So long as they buy at the same rate as any other carrier they (and the other carriers) would be 100% free of ALL government interferrence. Not subject to public service commissions, the FCC or Congress.
As for your example of Microsoft, notice that the Government couldn't fix that problem. And no it wasn't Bush's fault. The case had pretty much collapsed by election day 2000. David Bois (of SCO fame) had already managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory months before Bush & Ashcroft were in office. And if Microsoft is going to be dislodged it will be by the Free Software movement, not some farcical court case. And anyway, Microsoft derives most of their power from the government. Office is the government standard, which pretty much forces anyone doing business (and nowadays that is almost everyone, the government's tentacles are everywhere) with the government to run Office which pretty much means Windows. And it is the government Copyright monopoly, DMCA and other crap that makes anyone afraid of cloning Windows.
This farce of a network neutrality bill will solve nothing and almost certainly make matters worse. Watch how many evil things slither in with it even if it passes. And if we allow the government to start regulating how ISPs run their network I can promise you it won't stop where you guys supporting this idea would like it to.
Just wait. No, you can't throttle VoIP traffic..... so long as it is unencrypted and the long distance tariffs are being paid. No you can't throttle traffic.... unless it is P2P and the RIAA doesn't like it.. oh wait they don't like ANY of it so block it. No you can't block VPN traffic..... well ok you can require 'business grade service'. And once the regulation genie is out of the bottle just wait until the state public service commissions get into it. If you think Congress is clueless just wait until the REAL idiots start micromanaging the infrastructure.