> In this case, the evidence would be a bunch of search engine logs, which (the DOJ hopes) would support the case they are trying to make.
More to the point, if this were some grad student doing 'serious' research as opposed to the Justice Dept trying to, horrors of horrors, obtain some actual numbers to support a position in court I seriously doubt there would be all this hullaballoo. Of course I doubt Google would have assisted a grad student either, but Yahoo! or MSN might have. Google didn't help here for the same reason they never release ANY information regarding their search engine, Google is a big opaque blob because that is the way they want it. It isn't good or bad, it just is how they do business.
>...it's hard to imagine that Germany would have lost WWII without a united America supporting the British...
Ah, but you are getting ahead of yourself in your what if scenarios. You first have to consider HOW the South would have managed a win and project forward. I see two realistic opportunities where Fortune could have flipped the other way.
1. Lee realized it wasn't a trap, Washington really could have been taken early on. This would have forced an early end with few total casualties. Reconcillation before the end of the century would have been possible. Even more probable would have been the territories preferring the CSA to join into. After all, it would have offered a pretty solid promise of preserving States Rights, having just put their money where their mouth was. They also had the bugfixed, version 2.0 if you will, Constituition correcting a half century's mistakes. (And of course adding a fresh new bug in explicitly instituitionizing the practice of Slavery. New versions always add some new bugs though, and an Amendment would have fixed that defect as Slavery ended naturally a few decades on.)
2. The Emancipation Proclamation could have failed in it's intended effect, namely putting the veneer of a high moral crusade on the North's venture in Empire such that France recognized the CSA. many historians believe France was on the verge of just such a recognition so this isnt too farfetched a notion. That would have brought a swift end to the North's blockade of Southern ports and given the Confederates a reasonable chance to either outright win or at least drag things out long enough for the growing anti-war faction in the North to force a negotiated solution on Lincoln. A win for the CSA after that much blood was spilled would have left both sides fairly weakened and too bitter to reconcile anytime soon, or to cooperate on much of anything, certainly not a war in Europe.
Now consider how either of these two scenarios would have impacted World War I and it is pretty clear that WWII would not have happened anything close to how it happened on our timeline, if it happened at all.
That is the problem with your sort of What If justification. Either the North's actions were correct or they were not, but either way you have to make your decision based solely on the events and the circumstances of that day.
> I would have thought that the GPLv3's notion of supplying 'complete corresponding source > code' -- the all the code and other data by which you can make your own exact-likeness > 'object code' binary package -- would mean any DRM system which also follows the GPLv3 > license will require your users also get its keys.
Yes, but think this through before thinking legalistic tricks can stop DRM.
Imagine. Buy a next generation DVD like player. It has a TCPM. It runs Linux and comes with complete source code. As supplied it will play unencrypted media. To play anything else you must plug it into an ethernet jack and register it. If you want to lock it to play your internal corporate material you can use the server software included on the CD in the box to permit the supplied binaries or any other you build yourself to play YOUR material. But amazingly the RIAA and MPAA will only hand out keys tied to binary imaged their goons have certified. And by seperating the purchase of the player and obtaining a player key it makes region coding a lot more enforcable.
Remember folks, a 100% correct hardware/software design could be released under the GPL3 and still be effective. So in a way this is just pushing forward the day such a system is deployed.
> That one had me rolling on the floor laughing....
Why? Name another candidate with even half the odds of success as Iraq. Iraq isn't going to be easy, but it IS possible and the geography and politics are nearly ideal. And if it were easy, our fair weather friends would be helping. But it directly borders on all of the worst cesspools, so Freedom can slop over the border once we get it going there. Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, does it get any better? Consider the plight of the poor maniacs in Iran now, with US forces in Iraq on their western flank, US forces in Afganistan on the East, nominal US ally Pakistan on the Southeast and NATO member Turkey on their Northwest. Getting a bomb is their only real hope for survival.
> The reason it's problematic is simple: Taking the gloves off fans the flames of the > anger which is at the root of the problem.
A serious objection. And one to keep in mind even in light of the objection I will now raise.
It depends what you assign as the 'root' cause of the conflict I suppose. I happen to believe UBL is correct in his basic assumption though, that Fundamentalist Islam is inherently incompatible with the basic tenents of modern Western Civilization in exactly the same way that 15th Century Catholic teaching would be. The difference is the Catholic Church, along with the rest of Christendom, could adapt as Western Civilization changed. Not only is Islam being forced to adapt much faster, there are fundamental differences in their religion's basic structure that makes it much less amendable to 'reinterpretation.' Where we differ is in which worldview is to be destroyed. If my more pessimistic interpretation holds we do the Middle East nor ourselves any kindness by dragging out what must happen overly long.
> In large part, the US approach of doing whatever was necessary during the Cold War > actually created the hatred that is causing us trouble now.
Well no, we did what was expedient and politically easy. Mostly because until Reagan a large portion of our establishement was rooting for the other team, leaving scant ground for us to take a strong morals based stand against the evil that was, is and shall always be Communinism/Socialism. This is what led to our morally questionable alliances with tyrants as bad as the ones we were opposing. But in the end it was mearely a Word that defeated the Evil Empire. The miracle was our electing someone with the courage to utter it.
Similar moral clarity would do wonders for our current struggle, especially if we could speak it with a single unified voice. But too many of our tribe refuse to call anything evil in these unenlightened days, Al Qaeda is just a bunch of patriots to Cindy Sheehan's moonbats.
> Any sensible approach to the terrorism policy must balance the actions we take to root > out current terrorists and thwart their plans against the potential effect those actions > may have in inflaming even more hatred.
Agreed, War has a certain power of persuasion along with thinning the enemies ranks, but this is a War of Ideas for the most part.
> The terrorists cannot defeat us.
Yet. A couple of WMD attacks would almost certainly tip the political balance to the moonbats. And if you don't believe UBL understands this you haven't been paying attention. UBL knows he can no more win on the battlefield in a straight up brawl than the Viet Cong could. But if you will recall your history, the Viet Cong lost every single battle in Vietnam but by winning the battle in Washington won the War. Their flag still flies over what used to be called Siagon to this very day. UBL understands the implications of that cold hard fact. Cindy Sheehan and Howard Dean stand ready and willing to perform the function of Jane Fonda and Co. as a Fifth Column for UBL. All he wants is for us to pull out of the Middle East and allow his followers to re-establish the caliphate (and then force teh whole world to submit to the followers of the Prophet, but that is long term). The American Left appear ever more willing to make common cause with UBL if they get Bush's hide as their part of the deal. Time is not on our side.
> Actually, IMO, Gitmo is one case where we *are* refusing to play the role the > terrorists have cast for us.
Not according to our moonbats, in fact Gitmo was the 'war crime' accusation that launched me on this tirade in the first place today.
> Abu Ghraib was a big help to the terrorists
For sure. Purely stupid, everyone who knew of it and said nothing should be given a prompt dishonorable discharge if military or an indictment if civilian.
> I wouldn't say the same about many provisions of the PATRIOT act,
> aren't all captured EPWs entitled to an Article V tribunal to determine their status?
Haven't read the whole thing, but I suspect that if we were being pendantic about it, that yes they are. But being realistic the first question would be "To which country do you claim to be a soldier fighting in a fashion that is compliant with the requirements of the Geneva Conventions?" At which point they either frown sullenly at their captors and are led away or they spout some nonsense and the named country adjectly denies the accusation within milliseconds. Not very useful in either case.
International law just hasn't caught up with terrorists yet, mostly because the "International Community" spends most of it's time appologizing for and coddling terrorists instead of fighting them. Until it does there really aren't any rules other than that of the jungle. They seem to prefer it this way. So be it then, no mercy given or received.
> You are now, as the phrase goes, morally bankrupt.
Believe what you like child, but we adults have to live in a world with shades of grey. In my first post on the subject I stated that torture, under some conditions, was legal but always a moral problem. Doesn't mean I wouldn't personally use it if the conditions warranted and I'd bet your morally superior ass would too.
The classic case is the ticking bomb problem. You tell me Mr. Morally Superior, how you would handle the ticking bomb problem in a worst case scenario. The scene: You have just entered the lair of a terrorist. You are in downtown Los Angeles (lets give the Big Apple a break today) and before you are two important things. One is a very large device with radation symbols all over it and a large cliche LED display counting down from 9:57. The other is a terrorist just rising from the controls cackling gleefully. You have a gun. After spending two minutes talking you have learned some things (he is happy to gloat):
1. The bomb is very tamper resistant, you get exactly one try to disarm it or it goes FOOM!
2. He knows the disarm code but is awaiting his ascention to Heaven, so has no plan to talk.
Do you still leave torture off the table? Not saying it would work in this case, actually fairly crappy odds. Which is intentional to make the moral choice even more murky.
> I don't think you have a real understanding of what torture actually is.
I know exactly what torture is. I also know there are things still worse. To truly combat evil you must first understand evil and manage not to become evil in the process. There exists evil so dark many men tremble and avert their gaze before it; deny it's existance rather than acknowledge that men can do such things; that men can BE such things. You are one who refuses to believe in the existance of transcendent evil so you can't believe Al Qaeda can possess that quality. So it makes sense that you believe them a mere criminal gang who have rights.
But that is not strength, it is cowardly. Gaze into the darkness, know it and then redouble your strength against it. And when you finally look straight into the heart of the darkness that lies in men you will see the long and sorry line of the champions of darkness, starting with the current standard bearer, UBL. Right behind him are the butchers of the 20th Century; Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro, Arafat, etc. They transcend normal words like "evil", "wicked", etc. I really don't care how they are taken out.
Put one of those monsters in the Scales of Justice and ask yourself; would it be OK to torture UBL's PGP keyring password from him and thereby round up most of Al Qaeda? I say yes. Personally I'd agnostic, but if I knew for a fact torturing Bin Laden's keyring from him would damn me to Hell this libertarian would still do it, reckoning it a fair trade; one life for many.
> Really.... I thought it was to stop them from using weapons of mass destruction on us... > no, wait, that was all a lie.
Good grief, you don't actually believe that drivel do you? So why do you expect me to debate it? The War had many reasons, all of them good ones:
1. Finally getting rid of Saddam. He was a perpetual pain in the butt and everyone knew he was only going to get worse over time. When all was said and done, Saddam just 'needed killin'.' Too bad our knuckle draggin, raping, killing, torturing machines in full body armor couldn't bring themselves to just put a bullet in his sorry ass when they drug him from his hole. Yup, we don't give a shit about human rights but we saved that piece of human filth.
2. WMD. Everybody thought he had em. There was zero doubt that he HAD them in the past. The UN inspectors believed he was holding out. Every intelligence agency on the planet believed he had some and was hellbent on increasing his inventory.
3. Afganistan just wasn't big enough or hard enough to defeat to send the message we wanted to send to the world. Somebody else just had to get thrown against the wall and if you were looking for a poster child for whipping boy, Saddam is yer guy and Iraq was the perfect country to make an 'example' of.
4. But the big one was the Drain the Swamp stategy. Iraq was and is ideally suited for remaking into a Republic at peace with itself and its neighbors. Give em a role model of what their own country could be without the Mullas and dictators running the place into the toilet. This one wasn't the one pushed in the mainstream media for reasons so blindingly obvious I won't bother stating them here, but all of us in the VRWC got the memo a year before the first shot was fired, guess you aren't on the mailing list.
> So you're fine with the treatment the French Restistance met at the hands of the Nazis?
I'm stating as a matter of Historical Fact that the Allies and the French themselves considered it a fact of War. By no means take that as French bashing or pro Germany, it simply was not, and is not today, considered a War Crime or treaty violation to execute spies and sabateurs captured 'behind the lines.' Of course I think the Resistance was on the 'right' side, but that isn't the point. They understood the extra sacrifice being asked of them and they did it anyway. More the Glory to their memory.
> By your accounting anyone who's army is defeated by a foreign power yet continues to > fight for the independence of their nation is a terrorist and open to any treatment the > occupying nation sees fit.
Within limits, yes. Remember the Geneva Conventions are fairly narrow in scope and are basically a 'gentleman's agreement' between essentially equals. Of course they would have a somewhat better claim if they were an insurgent army in the field engaging soldiers instead of mostly being sneaky bastards blowing up women and children in schools and marketplaces.
The established Rules of War only make sense between opposing armies of division strength or better defending and attacking from preestablished territory. Al Qaeda has the moral right to resort to the sword to settle their dispute with Western Civilivation and America in particular, but so do we. War, in its essence is a brutal no holds barred affair and since this sort of War has yet to evolve rules we would be idiots to play by rules established for a totally different circumstance. So yes, we kill them on the beaches, we kill them on the fields, we kill them in their cities, we kill them in our cities before they go foom!, we kill them in their caves and we go right on killing them until they surrender or we are defeated. (We are of course not going to lose on the front lines but our traitors here at home may lose it in Congress like they did for the Viet Cong. They care not who wins, they care only that we lose.)
> So the opening bits of the Declaration of Independence, and all that, is just really > wishful thinking.
Not at all. The centerpiece of our war effort is to bring the blessings of liberty to the oppressed peoples of the Middle East. But that is totally different from fighting a war by Queensbury rules. In a War people die, this is reality. I vastly prefer it be them doing the dying but better still we end this thing with all due haste so nobody else has to die.
> Some people are born US citizens, and others are just there for us to torture?
No, some people declare War upon us and THEN we make total war upon them until they unconditionally surrender. War means War, not law enforcement, not UN peacekeeping. In War you kill your enemies, break their things and generally make life so intolerable they prefer to make peace. Sorry if this is too much reality for you.
It doesn't mean we rape and pillage France, even if they are assholes. Assholes are not, they are generally civilized people and we don't make war on each other, we wank off in the UN and everybody lives another day. Al Qaeda is a different thing, they declared War and we have finally accepted it. That means until one of us surrenders we fight. Kinda different War since they don't have a firmly defined 'side' but we learn new ways to cope.
> You wouldn't be out of place as a camp guard at Auschwitz -- you find it so easy to > dehumanize those who don't fit into your 'truly human' categories.
No, I simply have more sympathy for the poor bastards in Iraq being killed for the crime of trying to bring law and order to their troubled nation than I do for the fucktard straping five pounds of plastic to some idiot kid and sending him into a police station.
Answer: Sometimes. Since, as explained at length in the original post, irregulars aren't entitled to protection under any Treaty I am aware of, and the Constituition's prohibition against "cruel and unusual punishment" only applies to US Citizens or guests legally invited into US controlled territory I see no legal obstruction to it's use. Morally it is dangerous so the benefits gained from it's use must vastly outweigh the loss of political high ground. This isn't just a sop to the moonbats either, if it were just their carping I'd say screw em and get on with it. Wars are almost never won as a straight up military victory, they are also equal parts political and psychological and the closer we can adhere to the moral high ground the better.
> nor on how our own POWs are treated in the future by enemy powers.
This was covered in my original post, guess you couldn't be bothered to actually read it all. We don't abuse POWs, period. If our word isn't good on a Treaty we are toast. But since they ain't POWs and their side already has a hankering to behead captured Americans I see no downside to treating captured Al Qaeda terrorists in any way that advances our purposes. Big difference. The Germans made a real effort to treat our POWs humanely, even towards the end when things were rough for em. Because they understood they would be held to account, personally, when the war was over, they cared even MORE as they were losing. See our harsh treatment of Japenese officers responsible for mistreatment of American POWs. If we had such recourse against Al Qaeda things would be different.
That is if we think we gain more politically keeping them alive than we would militarially from executing them promptly as a warning to their fellows then keep em alive. But if those in charge decide disembowling them and leaving the carcass in a shallow grave with pig entrails (no paradise, no virgins, go straight to Hell) will hasten the end of the war and save more of our soldiers in the long run than all I have to ask is "Want me to hold em down while ya get busy with that rusty knife?"
> We live in a world where Gitmo is not only tolerated,
Gitmo is more than tolerated by the sane people because we understand the difference between moonbat delusion and reality. For instance, we begin with the basic questions:
1. Are terrorists covered by the Geneva Conventions?
Answer: No. They are not uniformed soldiers serving under the flag of a signatory nation state of the Geneva Convention and are thus not entitled to any of it's protections. The fact we nevertheless treat our prisoners according to humane standards is a reflection of our Western Civilivation's values. Compare and contrast to their treatment of our captured soldiers/civilians/hostages/etc.
2. Should terrorists be covered by the Geneva Conventions?
Answer: No. Unless they at least make a minimal effort to act like a regular army with ranks, uniforms, etc. AND announce a policy to reciprocate with humane treatment for our POWs Otherwise it would make a mockery of the Geneva Conventions. They were a fairly successful attempt at defining some rules of warfare to minimize the horrors of war, and make surrender an option that was actually preferrable to death in an unwinnable situation. But the essential part of the Geneva Convention is that it was a mutual bargain, i.e. we all agreed that we would treat soldiers taken in battle humanely. However we also agreed that soldiers taken OUT of uniform, i.e. irregulars, spies, insurgents and such were OUTSIDE the scope of the Treaty.
If it was perfectly OK (from a legal p.o.v.) for the Germans to execute the French Resistance without mercy, explain why Al Queda deserves better treatement. I double dog dare you. During the initial invasion of Afganistan the Taliban was the defacto government, so if there were any uniformed Taliban soldiers, they should probably get POW status. But please, anyone, explain the legal or moral argument for these idiots blowing up stuff in Iraq getting anything more than a fast and nasty interrogation followed by a bullet in the brain.
3. Given the above, what DO we do with captured warriors from the legions of death?
Answer: The US legal system is currently insane. Executing them would be both legal and moral but a loss politically (our moonbats would raise the roof) so we keep em in US custody but off US soil until we can figure out a better solution. Hence Gitmo.
4. Given that we are at War with Al Qaeda(sp?) by both their declaration and as close to a real declaration of War as our modern Congress is ever likely to grant, ours; what should be the extent of our efforts to root out and destroy our sworn enemies?
Answer: Pretty much whatever it takes, so long as it isn't a permanent change. Which is why I support any extension of the Patriot Act so long as it isn't made permanent. The way to win a war, and win it with a minimal casualty count, is to get serious and play for keeps. Compare and contrast to WWII. Ok, in hindsight it was overkill to intern the Japanese Americans. But it shows the extent we were willing to go then. So far todays "Hate Bush" is about our spooks capturing phone lists and laptop computers and then tapping every phone number that turned up an fanning out from there even if one of those numbers called into the US or the circuit routed through the US. Big fat hairy deal.
This leak needs to end one of two ways. Either this asshat has some real dirt, of such that unambigious nature that Bush should be impeached or he needs to be tried, convicted and executed for treason. Any middle ground sends a bad message that we aren't serious about protecting sensitive national security assets.
> A company released hardware that makes it easy and convenient to run all your favorite > emulated copyright violations on portable hardware.
If you aren't Nintendo or Sony and want to launch a new handheld, your initial titles are going to be the easy ones, i.e. ports of existing titles. A port of MAME gets you a buttload of stuff for people to play with. If it is to survive beyond being a toy for a few leet types more content will be needed.
Sounds kinda interesting, but like the new Nokia gadget, not quite where I'm ready to drop the cash yet.
> AMD has the capacity. Apple's reasons are elsewhere.
You are failing to understand what Apple is. Apple is not a hardware maker, flextronics and co do that. Apple is not a software maker, if software were a profit center they would be selling it on Dells. Apple is selling a high end Brand Experience to the sort of people who wouldn't be caught dead in a brand of jeans also sold at Walmart. To do that, any other branded subcomponent must also be seen as a premium Brand Name. Intel is that and AMD is not.
What the longterm effect of Walmart selling iPods is going to be on the prestige of Apple's brand remains to be seen.
> I'm in complete agreement with you. Good stories are good stories.
You and Taco are missing the important flaw in that concept. Motivation does matter, and not for the reasons most here are spouting, which mostly seems to be an irrational hatred that somebody might be making a buck.
Examine the root of the problem, as stated by Taco himself, the unmanagable story submission queue. Why is it unmanagable? Because a small number of people, probably not regular slashdot readers themselves, have found that by stuffing the submission queue here they can generate Google PageRank(tm) for their unrelated sites. So they submit vast quantities of marginal quality stories on their, correct according to the testimony of Cmdr. Taco, assumption that a few will pass muster, be posted and make their site rise in PageRank.
The problem is that this defeats the entire point of user story submissions. I'm fairly certain Taco and Co could check Google News and digg themselves instead of waiting for Beatles Beatles or whoever will be the major link spammer this month to slop every single story from the other major tech news sites into the submission queue, probably multiple times. The point of user submissions is the users are supposed to cull out the unrelated (to the slashdot crowd) junk. By rewarding their network abuse it encourages more of the same and discourages actual users from submitting a story once they know it will be competing with huge volumes of machine generated crud. It is the reason you NEVER respond to UCE/SPAM of any of the other sorts, because if we relent from the zero tolerance position we are boned.
So in summary, Sorry Cmdr Taco, you are wrong. You really have to find some way to discourage submitters you are convinced are gaming the system for the longterm good of the system. And you can't solve people problems with technology, any system expressed in software can be gamed if there is enough to be gained from it. At some point you human editors are going to have to exercise some editorial control over the users or they are going to control you.
On the other hand if a prolific user started submitting a dozen or so really good stories with good descriptions on a daily basis that user would be a treasure and not to be blacklisted.
> The problem of jobs moving from high paid countries to low ones is endemic, and a good > example of a beggar thy neighbor approach to economic production. (You offer companies > more incentives to work in your place, and let them pay less for the work.) Eventually > everyone works for nothing;(
Sad, the state of economics education these days. Now class, take out your search engine and do some research. Remember Japan used to be known as the country that made crappy goods in vast quantities because they had near zero labor cost. Investigate the events of the previous fifty years and draw the only possible conclusion. Japan now has highly paid labor producing very high quality goods, so much so that they bitch and whine about cheap imported goods almost as much as Americans and Europeans do.
South Korea is experiencing much the same, as is Tawain. India is already producing a large middle class, which is starting to consume material goods in growing quantities. China will follow along in at most a generation. Then, having nowhere else to find really cheap labor, the world will be forced to reform Africa. Once they come up to a minimum standard of living we will have to move on to some other way to keep the flow of cheap comsumer goods going, probably robots. But the point is that global trade raises the standard of living for both sides in the trade. Unequally at first, but it does balance out in the end.
I really want to like this thing. Good idea, but I ain't buying yet.
Pros:
As close to an open hardware platform as currently possible. It appears to be at least as open as Linksys access points.
The screen is majorly hot. Just reading the specs on the screen makes me want one. Perfect would have been putting in the extra 52 pixels to allow DVD quality playback without scaling, but I'm not greedy. I suspect overscanning 26 pixels off each side would work pretty well anyway.
The fact that it ISN'T a cell phone. A cell phone in that form factor would suck as hard as Palm/Handspring's earlier attempts at unifying a handheld computer and a phone. Bluetooth is the way to go, if for no other reason than replacing the phone to get new services is far less annoying than replacing a computer. Plus if the phone were integrated the cell companies would lock the son of a bitch down.
Cons:
Seriously underpowered. To run a full web browser needs more CPU and memory than a handheld computer, they should have raised the specs a bit. 64MB ram is woefully small. More flash wouldn't hurt either.
Nobody reviewing the unit has found the handwriting recognition faster than the onscreen keyboard. Major problem.
I don't know about everyone else, but I already have a handheld (Handspring) so I'd be carrying it along with this gadget plus a cellphone. It needs PDA functionality even if some folks will be leaving it at home and not need it.
I know space was getting cramped so they went with the RS-MMC slot. But unless that format is going to get plentiful, cheap and high capacity really soon they should consider reworking things to get at least a full SD/MMC card in the next rev. Personally I like CF but realize that format is big and power hungry. It needs to be able to carry around enough to be able to cover the MP3 player role though. Again, just because people have finite gadget carrying capacity and otherwise it will be competing for pocket space with a music player. And bundle a good player program with features to compete with standalone players.
Good start though, when they rev the design I'll be watching carefully.
> I believe Microsoft's article is reasonable, to a certain extent. They haven't been comparing apples with oranges, but > instead are showing that computers running similar application suites behave similarly, whether running on Linux or NT.
Exactly correct. With the bloated applications stacks typical on both platforms any OS advantage is lost on the desktop. Firefox is a pig. Openoffice.org is beyond that to fscking huge, and that is before the JVM loads.
Plus they compared current 'enterprise' offerings. I want to know how they coaxed anaconda into booting on a machine with only 64MB. RedHat recommends 256 and it will run in 192 but 128MB isn't safe unless you install in text mode.
> If you aren't running desktop apps Linux will run well on small amounts of RAM - even less than the 64MB they quote > as the minimum limit
Dunno about that these days. Anything other than a very small router appliance and 64MB will be pushing it unless you install a less bloated distribution than RedHat/Suse/etc. Which of course is an advantage our side has and Microsoft doesn't, but that is beyond the scope of the sort of comparison that are making. And it is a semi valid one. The AVERAGE small site probably won't have the skills to deal with Slackware or Damn Small Linux.
> They're also neglecting to mention that you'd need to spend hundreds to obtain a licensed copy of XP for your > legacy hardware, as opposed to downloading a Linux CD image.
The licensing issue was sorta brought up and shined on with a "to be addressed later" sort of comment. Which I expect they WILL address at some point, especially in the developing world. They have to realize by now that if they can't come up with some answer to it a whole generation will switch from warezed Windows to legal Linux. Be afraid.
Duh! The blurb says he is a) a Democrat and b) trying to unseat Senator Hatch. The odds of a Democrat taking an OPEN senate seat in Utah is so poor as to be only useful for gaining experience in a statewide campaign or using the run as a pulpit to force an issue into the spotlight. Running against Hatch isn't even good for that since NOBODY is going to take the candidacy serious enough to even listen to the pitch.
The Republicans would have better odds taking down Kleagle^WSenator Byrd of West Virginia. And there are far better odds of monkeys suddenly flying out of my butt than for Byrd being voted out of office.
So drop the word economic and lets just say he an idiot. Besides which, any Democrat will sound like an idiot speaking of things economic because they can't actually speak their positions yet have to hint enough to get the base out.
> He needs to take freshman inrto to economics then.
Wouldn't help, these are liberals at work. Facts bounce right off of em.
> Instead of trying to create a social stigma, he should just make them as widely available as possible. > He's a smart guy, so he must understand that. So one must wonder what his motives really are.
Of course he is a smart guy. But he is also a liberal so, since his lips are moving he is lying. So lets use logic and break it down and see WHERE the lie is, shall we?
Ok. He says volume drives down the price, which is totally correct. So if he had 50,000 made with a different colored case (to make them easy to spot as not stolen from 'starving children' and let a third party take em in at $150 and sell em however they want for say $200 we would all buy em up and do cool stuff which, as mostly Free Software, would be able to be pulled back into his project. Not to mention the distict possibility of making some profit that could subsidize the project. This is so logical that him not doing it means the lie is buried in there somewhere.
I'd guess it is that $100 pricetag. Classic liberal smoke and mirrors with the pricing, he is using some sort of grant, tax rebates or something to put more than $100 into the hands of the contract manufacturer at the expense of the taxpayers of the Western Democracies and the truth would come out if he allows anyone outside his cabal of UN crooks to get near the deal.
Your copy has some obvious problems. Allow me to propose some revisions.
> From Chapter 7 of the Karma Whorer's Manual: > In order of precedence, and to maximize your karma-whoring potential, you should always speak out against the > first thing you find on the list:
1. Microsoft 2. The US Government
No, most slashdotters LOVE government. What they HATE is President Bush. If Kerry were President, for example, this current story would be one continious love fest over the Enlightened European Intellectual seeing reason and bringing in more countries to share control over the Internet and cutting out those wicked corporations.
So #2 has to be President Bush
3. The military
But most slashdotters would never admit this. Like most other Democrats they preface any attack on the Military Industrial Complex (code for Haliburton) with expressions of their profound patriotism and love for the troops.
4. The patent system 5. The republicans 6. Any government agency collecting information via the internet
7. emacs
Nope, the vi/emacs flamewar is 'just for fun' and has nothing to do with the political 'daily hate' threads that slashdot tries to ensure flare up on a daily basis.
8. karma-whores
Well make that karma-whores, trolls and conservatives.
> Now we have an article thats mad at the US for giving up control of the internet to other nations?! WTF?
If Bill Clinton or John Kerry were President this would be hailed as a new age of International control of the Internet. This 'story' is just today's open thread for the daily Hate Bush rally. Once you realize that it all makes perfect sense.
> While I'm sad to see him go, I realize why he did it, and understand the need to step aside > so the argument isn't about him.
Yea, good he resigned so that everyone else will realize that not buying Microsoft is a career limiting decision. Sure will inspire a whole new batch of martyrs to leap forth and do battle with the forces of darkness.
Yes, for the slashbots without much clue, that was sarcasm.
> Granted, OpenGL is mostly used for screen savers on these boxes, but still.
That is what usually scuttles me, the GL screensavers lock the box solid within a day or so of normal use.
For 2D the XFree86 driver is fairly good, except on one of my Thinkpads which will quite reliably lock up if I reverse scroll a gnometerminal too fast.
Slashdot Mirror
> In this case, the evidence would be a bunch of search engine logs, which (the DOJ hopes) would support the case they are trying to make.
More to the point, if this were some grad student doing 'serious' research as opposed to the Justice Dept trying to, horrors of horrors, obtain some actual numbers to support a position in court I seriously doubt there would be all this hullaballoo. Of course I doubt Google would have assisted a grad student either, but Yahoo! or MSN might have. Google didn't help here for the same reason they never release ANY information regarding their search engine, Google is a big opaque blob because that is the way they want it. It isn't good or bad, it just is how they do business.
> ...it's hard to imagine that Germany would have lost WWII without a united America supporting the British...
Ah, but you are getting ahead of yourself in your what if scenarios. You first have to consider HOW the South would have managed a win and project forward. I see two realistic opportunities where Fortune could have flipped the other way.
1. Lee realized it wasn't a trap, Washington really could have been taken early on. This would have forced an early end with few total casualties. Reconcillation before the end of the century would have been possible. Even more probable would have been the territories preferring the CSA to join into. After all, it would have offered a pretty solid promise of preserving States Rights, having just put their money where their mouth was. They also had the bugfixed, version 2.0 if you will, Constituition correcting a half century's mistakes. (And of course adding a fresh new bug in explicitly instituitionizing the practice of Slavery. New versions always add some new bugs though, and an Amendment would have fixed that defect as Slavery ended naturally a few decades on.)
2. The Emancipation Proclamation could have failed in it's intended effect, namely putting the veneer of a high moral crusade on the North's venture in Empire such that France recognized the CSA. many historians believe France was on the verge of just such a recognition so this isnt too farfetched a notion. That would have brought a swift end to the North's blockade of Southern ports and given the Confederates a reasonable chance to either outright win or at least drag things out long enough for the growing anti-war faction in the North to force a negotiated solution on Lincoln. A win for the CSA after that much blood was spilled would have left both sides fairly weakened and too bitter to reconcile anytime soon, or to cooperate on much of anything, certainly not a war in Europe.
Now consider how either of these two scenarios would have impacted World War I and it is pretty clear that WWII would not have happened anything close to how it happened on our timeline, if it happened at all.
That is the problem with your sort of What If justification. Either the North's actions were correct or they were not, but either way you have to make your decision based solely on the events and the circumstances of that day.
> I would have thought that the GPLv3's notion of supplying 'complete corresponding source
> code' -- the all the code and other data by which you can make your own exact-likeness
> 'object code' binary package -- would mean any DRM system which also follows the GPLv3
> license will require your users also get its keys.
Yes, but think this through before thinking legalistic tricks can stop DRM.
Imagine. Buy a next generation DVD like player. It has a TCPM. It runs Linux and comes with complete source code. As supplied it will play unencrypted media. To play anything else you must plug it into an ethernet jack and register it. If you want to lock it to play your internal corporate material you can use the server software included on the CD in the box to permit the supplied binaries or any other you build yourself to play YOUR material. But amazingly the RIAA and MPAA will only hand out keys tied to binary imaged their goons have certified. And by seperating the purchase of the player and obtaining a player key it makes region coding a lot more enforcable.
Remember folks, a 100% correct hardware/software design could be released under the GPL3 and still be effective. So in a way this is just pushing forward the day such a system is deployed.
> That one had me rolling on the floor laughing....
Why? Name another candidate with even half the odds of success as Iraq. Iraq isn't going to be easy, but it IS possible and the geography and politics are nearly ideal. And if it were easy, our fair weather friends would be helping. But it directly borders on all of the worst cesspools, so Freedom can slop over the border once we get it going there. Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, does it get any better? Consider the plight of the poor maniacs in Iran now, with US forces in Iraq on their western flank, US forces in Afganistan on the East, nominal US ally Pakistan on the Southeast and NATO member Turkey on their Northwest. Getting a bomb is their only real hope for survival.
> The reason it's problematic is simple: Taking the gloves off fans the flames of the
> anger which is at the root of the problem.
A serious objection. And one to keep in mind even in light of the objection I will now raise.
It depends what you assign as the 'root' cause of the conflict I suppose. I happen to believe UBL is correct in his basic assumption though, that Fundamentalist Islam is inherently incompatible with the basic tenents of modern Western Civilization in exactly the same way that 15th Century Catholic teaching would be. The difference is the Catholic Church, along with the rest of Christendom, could adapt as Western Civilization changed. Not only is Islam being forced to adapt much faster, there are fundamental differences in their religion's basic structure that makes it much less amendable to 'reinterpretation.' Where we differ is in which worldview is to be destroyed. If my more pessimistic interpretation holds we do the Middle East nor ourselves any kindness by dragging out what must happen overly long.
> In large part, the US approach of doing whatever was necessary during the Cold War
> actually created the hatred that is causing us trouble now.
Well no, we did what was expedient and politically easy. Mostly because until Reagan a large portion of our establishement was rooting for the other team, leaving scant ground for us to take a strong morals based stand against the evil that was, is and shall always be Communinism/Socialism. This is what led to our morally questionable alliances with tyrants as bad as the ones we were opposing. But in the end it was mearely a Word that defeated the Evil Empire. The miracle was our electing someone with the courage to utter it.
Similar moral clarity would do wonders for our current struggle, especially if we could speak it with a single unified voice. But too many of our tribe refuse to call anything evil in these unenlightened days, Al Qaeda is just a bunch of patriots to Cindy Sheehan's moonbats.
> Any sensible approach to the terrorism policy must balance the actions we take to root
> out current terrorists and thwart their plans against the potential effect those actions
> may have in inflaming even more hatred.
Agreed, War has a certain power of persuasion along with thinning the enemies ranks, but this is a War of Ideas for the most part.
> The terrorists cannot defeat us.
Yet. A couple of WMD attacks would almost certainly tip the political balance to the moonbats. And if you don't believe UBL understands this you haven't been paying attention. UBL knows he can no more win on the battlefield in a straight up brawl than the Viet Cong could. But if you will recall your history, the Viet Cong lost every single battle in Vietnam but by winning the battle in Washington won the War. Their flag still flies over what used to be called Siagon to this very day. UBL understands the implications of that cold hard fact. Cindy Sheehan and Howard Dean stand ready and willing to perform the function of Jane Fonda and Co. as a Fifth Column for UBL. All he wants is for us to pull out of the Middle East and allow his followers to re-establish the caliphate (and then force teh whole world to submit to the followers of the Prophet, but that is long term). The American Left appear ever more willing to make common cause with UBL if they get Bush's hide as their part of the deal. Time is not on our side.
> Actually, IMO, Gitmo is one case where we *are* refusing to play the role the
> terrorists have cast for us.
Not according to our moonbats, in fact Gitmo was the 'war crime' accusation that launched me on this tirade in the first place today.
> Abu Ghraib was a big help to the terrorists
For sure. Purely stupid, everyone who knew of it and said nothing should be given a prompt dishonorable discharge if military or an indictment if civilian.
> I wouldn't say the same about many provisions of the PATRIOT act,
> aren't all captured EPWs entitled to an Article V tribunal to determine their status?
Haven't read the whole thing, but I suspect that if we were being pendantic about it, that yes they are. But being realistic the first question would be "To which country do you claim to be a soldier fighting in a fashion that is compliant with the requirements of the Geneva Conventions?" At which point they either frown sullenly at their captors and are led away or they spout some nonsense and the named country adjectly denies the accusation within milliseconds. Not very useful in either case.
International law just hasn't caught up with terrorists yet, mostly because the "International Community" spends most of it's time appologizing for and coddling terrorists instead of fighting them. Until it does there really aren't any rules other than that of the jungle. They seem to prefer it this way. So be it then, no mercy given or received.
> > > 5. Is torture OK?
> > Answer: Sometimes.
> You are now, as the phrase goes, morally bankrupt.
Believe what you like child, but we adults have to live in a world with shades of grey. In my first post on the subject I stated that torture, under some conditions, was legal but always a moral problem. Doesn't mean I wouldn't personally use it if the conditions warranted and I'd bet your morally superior ass would too.
The classic case is the ticking bomb problem. You tell me Mr. Morally Superior, how you would handle the ticking bomb problem in a worst case scenario. The scene: You have just entered the lair of a terrorist. You are in downtown Los Angeles (lets give the Big Apple a break today) and before you are two important things. One is a very large device with radation symbols all over it and a large cliche LED display counting down from 9:57. The other is a terrorist just rising from the controls cackling gleefully. You have a gun. After spending two minutes talking you have learned some things (he is happy to gloat):
1. The bomb is very tamper resistant, you get exactly one try to disarm it or it goes FOOM!
2. He knows the disarm code but is awaiting his ascention to Heaven, so has no plan to talk.
Do you still leave torture off the table? Not saying it would work in this case, actually fairly crappy odds. Which is intentional to make the moral choice even more murky.
> I don't think you have a real understanding of what torture actually is.
I know exactly what torture is. I also know there are things still worse. To truly combat evil you must first understand evil and manage not to become evil in the process. There exists evil so dark many men tremble and avert their gaze before it; deny it's existance rather than acknowledge that men can do such things; that men can BE such things. You are one who refuses to believe in the existance of transcendent evil so you can't believe Al Qaeda can possess that quality. So it makes sense that you believe them a mere criminal gang who have rights.
But that is not strength, it is cowardly. Gaze into the darkness, know it and then redouble your strength against it. And when you finally look straight into the heart of the darkness that lies in men you will see the long and sorry line of the champions of darkness, starting with the current standard bearer, UBL. Right behind him are the butchers of the 20th Century; Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro, Arafat, etc. They transcend normal words like "evil", "wicked", etc. I really don't care how they are taken out.
Put one of those monsters in the Scales of Justice and ask yourself; would it be OK to torture UBL's PGP keyring password from him and thereby round up most of Al Qaeda? I say yes. Personally I'd agnostic, but if I knew for a fact torturing Bin Laden's keyring from him would damn me to Hell this libertarian would still do it, reckoning it a fair trade; one life for many.
> Really.... I thought it was to stop them from using weapons of mass destruction on us...
> no, wait, that was all a lie.
Good grief, you don't actually believe that drivel do you? So why do you expect me to debate it? The War had many reasons, all of them good ones:
1. Finally getting rid of Saddam. He was a perpetual pain in the butt and everyone knew he was only going to get worse over time. When all was said and done, Saddam just 'needed killin'.' Too bad our knuckle draggin, raping, killing, torturing machines in full body armor couldn't bring themselves to just put a bullet in his sorry ass when they drug him from his hole. Yup, we don't give a shit about human rights but we saved that piece of human filth.
2. WMD. Everybody thought he had em. There was zero doubt that he HAD them in the past. The UN inspectors believed he was holding out. Every intelligence agency on the planet believed he had some and was hellbent on increasing his inventory.
3. Afganistan just wasn't big enough or hard enough to defeat to send the message we wanted to send to the world. Somebody else just had to get thrown against the wall and if you were looking for a poster child for whipping boy, Saddam is yer guy and Iraq was the perfect country to make an 'example' of.
4. But the big one was the Drain the Swamp stategy. Iraq was and is ideally suited for remaking into a Republic at peace with itself and its neighbors. Give em a role model of what their own country could be without the Mullas and dictators running the place into the toilet. This one wasn't the one pushed in the mainstream media for reasons so blindingly obvious I won't bother stating them here, but all of us in the VRWC got the memo a year before the first shot was fired, guess you aren't on the mailing list.
> So you're fine with the treatment the French Restistance met at the hands of the Nazis?
I'm stating as a matter of Historical Fact that the Allies and the French themselves considered it a fact of War. By no means take that as French bashing or pro Germany, it simply was not, and is not today, considered a War Crime or treaty violation to execute spies and sabateurs captured 'behind the lines.' Of course I think the Resistance was on the 'right' side, but that isn't the point. They understood the extra sacrifice being asked of them and they did it anyway. More the Glory to their memory.
> By your accounting anyone who's army is defeated by a foreign power yet continues to
> fight for the independence of their nation is a terrorist and open to any treatment the
> occupying nation sees fit.
Within limits, yes. Remember the Geneva Conventions are fairly narrow in scope and are basically a 'gentleman's agreement' between essentially equals. Of course they would have a somewhat better claim if they were an insurgent army in the field engaging soldiers instead of mostly being sneaky bastards blowing up women and children in schools and marketplaces.
The established Rules of War only make sense between opposing armies of division strength or better defending and attacking from preestablished territory. Al Qaeda has the moral right to resort to the sword to settle their dispute with Western Civilivation and America in particular, but so do we. War, in its essence is a brutal no holds barred affair and since this sort of War has yet to evolve rules we would be idiots to play by rules established for a totally different circumstance. So yes, we kill them on the beaches, we kill them on the fields, we kill them in their cities, we kill them in our cities before they go foom!, we kill them in their caves and we go right on killing them until they surrender or we are defeated. (We are of course not going to lose on the front lines but our traitors here at home may lose it in Congress like they did for the Viet Cong. They care not who wins, they care only that we lose.)
> So the opening bits of the Declaration of Independence, and all that, is just really
> wishful thinking.
Not at all. The centerpiece of our war effort is to bring the blessings of liberty to the oppressed peoples of the Middle East. But that is totally different from fighting a war by Queensbury rules. In a War people die, this is reality. I vastly prefer it be them doing the dying but better still we end this thing with all due haste so nobody else has to die.
> Some people are born US citizens, and others are just there for us to torture?
No, some people declare War upon us and THEN we make total war upon them until they unconditionally surrender. War means War, not law enforcement, not UN peacekeeping. In War you kill your enemies, break their things and generally make life so intolerable they prefer to make peace. Sorry if this is too much reality for you.
It doesn't mean we rape and pillage France, even if they are assholes. Assholes are not, they are generally civilized people and we don't make war on each other, we wank off in the UN and everybody lives another day. Al Qaeda is a different thing, they declared War and we have finally accepted it. That means until one of us surrenders we fight. Kinda different War since they don't have a firmly defined 'side' but we learn new ways to cope.
> You wouldn't be out of place as a camp guard at Auschwitz -- you find it so easy to
> dehumanize those who don't fit into your 'truly human' categories.
No, I simply have more sympathy for the poor bastards in Iraq being killed for the crime of trying to bring law and order to their troubled nation than I do for the fucktard straping five pounds of plastic to some idiot kid and sending him into a police station.
> 5. Is torture OK?
Answer: Sometimes. Since, as explained at length in the original post, irregulars aren't entitled to protection under any Treaty I am aware of, and the Constituition's prohibition against "cruel and unusual punishment" only applies to US Citizens or guests legally invited into US controlled territory I see no legal obstruction to it's use. Morally it is dangerous so the benefits gained from it's use must vastly outweigh the loss of political high ground. This isn't just a sop to the moonbats either, if it were just their carping I'd say screw em and get on with it. Wars are almost never won as a straight up military victory, they are also equal parts political and psychological and the closer we can adhere to the moral high ground the better.
> nor on how our own POWs are treated in the future by enemy powers.
This was covered in my original post, guess you couldn't be bothered to actually read it all. We don't abuse POWs, period. If our word isn't good on a Treaty we are toast. But since they ain't POWs and their side already has a hankering to behead captured Americans I see no downside to treating captured Al Qaeda terrorists in any way that advances our purposes. Big difference. The Germans made a real effort to treat our POWs humanely, even towards the end when things were rough for em. Because they understood they would be held to account, personally, when the war was over, they cared even MORE as they were losing. See our harsh treatment of Japenese officers responsible for mistreatment of American POWs. If we had such recourse against Al Qaeda things would be different.
That is if we think we gain more politically keeping them alive than we would militarially from executing them promptly as a warning to their fellows then keep em alive. But if those in charge decide disembowling them and leaving the carcass in a shallow grave with pig entrails (no paradise, no virgins, go straight to Hell) will hasten the end of the war and save more of our soldiers in the long run than all I have to ask is "Want me to hold em down while ya get busy with that rusty knife?"
> We live in a world where Gitmo is not only tolerated,
Gitmo is more than tolerated by the sane people because we understand the difference between moonbat delusion and reality. For instance, we begin with the basic questions:
1. Are terrorists covered by the Geneva Conventions?
Answer: No. They are not uniformed soldiers serving under the flag of a signatory nation state of the Geneva Convention and are thus not entitled to any of it's protections. The fact we nevertheless treat our prisoners according to humane standards is a reflection of our Western Civilivation's values. Compare and contrast to their treatment of our captured soldiers/civilians/hostages/etc.
2. Should terrorists be covered by the Geneva Conventions?
Answer: No. Unless they at least make a minimal effort to act like a regular army with ranks, uniforms, etc. AND announce a policy to reciprocate with humane treatment for our POWs Otherwise it would make a mockery of the Geneva Conventions. They were a fairly successful attempt at defining some rules of warfare to minimize the horrors of war, and make surrender an option that was actually preferrable to death in an unwinnable situation. But the essential part of the Geneva Convention is that it was a mutual bargain, i.e. we all agreed that we would treat soldiers taken in battle humanely. However we also agreed that soldiers taken OUT of uniform, i.e. irregulars, spies, insurgents and such were OUTSIDE the scope of the Treaty.
If it was perfectly OK (from a legal p.o.v.) for the Germans to execute the French Resistance without mercy, explain why Al Queda deserves better treatement. I double dog dare you. During the initial invasion of Afganistan the Taliban was the defacto government, so if there were any uniformed Taliban soldiers, they should probably get POW status. But please, anyone, explain the legal or moral argument for these idiots blowing up stuff in Iraq getting anything more than a fast and nasty interrogation followed by a bullet in the brain.
3. Given the above, what DO we do with captured warriors from the legions of death?
Answer: The US legal system is currently insane. Executing them would be both legal and moral but a loss politically (our moonbats would raise the roof) so we keep em in US custody but off US soil until we can figure out a better solution. Hence Gitmo.
4. Given that we are at War with Al Qaeda(sp?) by both their declaration and as close to a real declaration of War as our modern Congress is ever likely to grant, ours; what should be the extent of our efforts to root out and destroy our sworn enemies?
Answer: Pretty much whatever it takes, so long as it isn't a permanent change. Which is why I support any extension of the Patriot Act so long as it isn't made permanent. The way to win a war, and win it with a minimal casualty count, is to get serious and play for keeps. Compare and contrast to WWII. Ok, in hindsight it was overkill to intern the Japanese Americans. But it shows the extent we were willing to go then. So far todays "Hate Bush" is about our spooks capturing phone lists and laptop computers and then tapping every phone number that turned up an fanning out from there even if one of those numbers called into the US or the circuit routed through the US. Big fat hairy deal.
This leak needs to end one of two ways. Either this asshat has some real dirt, of such that unambigious nature that Bush should be impeached or he needs to be tried, convicted and executed for treason. Any middle ground sends a bad message that we aren't serious about protecting sensitive national security assets.
> A company released hardware that makes it easy and convenient to run all your favorite
> emulated copyright violations on portable hardware.
If you aren't Nintendo or Sony and want to launch a new handheld, your initial titles are going to be the easy ones, i.e. ports of existing titles. A port of MAME gets you a buttload of stuff for people to play with. If it is to survive beyond being a toy for a few leet types more content will be needed.
Sounds kinda interesting, but like the new Nokia gadget, not quite where I'm ready to drop the cash yet.
> AMD has the capacity. Apple's reasons are elsewhere.
You are failing to understand what Apple is. Apple is not a hardware maker, flextronics and co do that. Apple is not a software maker, if software were a profit center they would be selling it on Dells. Apple is selling a high end Brand Experience to the sort of people who wouldn't be caught dead in a brand of jeans also sold at Walmart. To do that, any other branded subcomponent must also be seen as a premium Brand Name. Intel is that and AMD is not.
What the longterm effect of Walmart selling iPods is going to be on the prestige of Apple's brand remains to be seen.
> I'm in complete agreement with you. Good stories are good stories.
You and Taco are missing the important flaw in that concept. Motivation does matter, and not for the reasons most here are spouting, which mostly seems to be an irrational hatred that somebody might be making a buck.
Examine the root of the problem, as stated by Taco himself, the unmanagable story submission queue. Why is it unmanagable? Because a small number of people, probably not regular slashdot readers themselves, have found that by stuffing the submission queue here they can generate Google PageRank(tm) for their unrelated sites. So they submit vast quantities of marginal quality stories on their, correct according to the testimony of Cmdr. Taco, assumption that a few will pass muster, be posted and make their site rise in PageRank.
The problem is that this defeats the entire point of user story submissions. I'm fairly certain Taco and Co could check Google News and digg themselves instead of waiting for Beatles Beatles or whoever will be the major link spammer this month to slop every single story from the other major tech news sites into the submission queue, probably multiple times. The point of user submissions is the users are supposed to cull out the unrelated (to the slashdot crowd) junk. By rewarding their network abuse it encourages more of the same and discourages actual users from submitting a story once they know it will be competing with huge volumes of machine generated crud. It is the reason you NEVER respond to UCE/SPAM of any of the other sorts, because if we relent from the zero tolerance position we are boned.
So in summary, Sorry Cmdr Taco, you are wrong. You really have to find some way to discourage submitters you are convinced are gaming the system for the longterm good of the system. And you can't solve people problems with technology, any system expressed in software can be gamed if there is enough to be gained from it. At some point you human editors are going to have to exercise some editorial control over the users or they are going to control you.
On the other hand if a prolific user started submitting a dozen or so really good stories with good descriptions on a daily basis that user would be a treasure and not to be blacklisted.
> The problem of jobs moving from high paid countries to low ones is endemic, and a good
> example of a beggar thy neighbor approach to economic production. (You offer companies
> more incentives to work in your place, and let them pay less for the work.) Eventually
> everyone works for nothing;(
Sad, the state of economics education these days. Now class, take out your search engine and do some research. Remember Japan used to be known as the country that made crappy goods in vast quantities because they had near zero labor cost. Investigate the events of the previous fifty years and draw the only possible conclusion. Japan now has highly paid labor producing very high quality goods, so much so that they bitch and whine about cheap imported goods almost as much as Americans and Europeans do.
South Korea is experiencing much the same, as is Tawain. India is already producing a large middle class, which is starting to consume material goods in growing quantities. China will follow along in at most a generation. Then, having nowhere else to find really cheap labor, the world will be forced to reform Africa. Once they come up to a minimum standard of living we will have to move on to some other way to keep the flow of cheap comsumer goods going, probably robots. But the point is that global trade raises the standard of living for both sides in the trade. Unequally at first, but it does balance out in the end.
I really want to like this thing. Good idea, but I ain't buying yet.
Pros:
As close to an open hardware platform as currently possible. It appears to be at least as open as Linksys access points.
The screen is majorly hot. Just reading the specs on the screen makes me want one. Perfect would have been putting in the extra 52 pixels to allow DVD quality playback without scaling, but I'm not greedy. I suspect overscanning 26 pixels off each side would work pretty well anyway.
The fact that it ISN'T a cell phone. A cell phone in that form factor would suck as hard as Palm/Handspring's earlier attempts at unifying a handheld computer and a phone. Bluetooth is the way to go, if for no other reason than replacing the phone to get new services is far less annoying than replacing a computer. Plus if the phone were integrated the cell companies would lock the son of a bitch down.
Cons:
Seriously underpowered. To run a full web browser needs more CPU and memory than a handheld computer, they should have raised the specs a bit. 64MB ram is woefully small. More flash wouldn't hurt either.
Nobody reviewing the unit has found the handwriting recognition faster than the onscreen keyboard. Major problem.
I don't know about everyone else, but I already have a handheld (Handspring) so I'd be carrying it along with this gadget plus a cellphone. It needs PDA functionality even if some folks will be leaving it at home and not need it.
I know space was getting cramped so they went with the RS-MMC slot. But unless that format is going to get plentiful, cheap and high capacity really soon they should consider reworking things to get at least a full SD/MMC card in the next rev. Personally I like CF but realize that format is big and power hungry. It needs to be able to carry around enough to be able to cover the MP3 player role though. Again, just because people have finite gadget carrying capacity and otherwise it will be competing for pocket space with a music player. And bundle a good player program with features to compete with standalone players.
Good start though, when they rev the design I'll be watching carefully.
> I believe Microsoft's article is reasonable, to a certain extent. They haven't been comparing apples with oranges, but
> instead are showing that computers running similar application suites behave similarly, whether running on Linux or NT.
Exactly correct. With the bloated applications stacks typical on both platforms any OS advantage is lost on the desktop. Firefox is a pig. Openoffice.org is beyond that to fscking huge, and that is before the JVM loads.
Plus they compared current 'enterprise' offerings. I want to know how they coaxed anaconda into booting on a machine with only 64MB. RedHat recommends 256 and it will run in 192 but 128MB isn't safe unless you install in text mode.
> If you aren't running desktop apps Linux will run well on small amounts of RAM - even less than the 64MB they quote
> as the minimum limit
Dunno about that these days. Anything other than a very small router appliance and 64MB will be pushing it unless you install a less bloated distribution than RedHat/Suse/etc. Which of course is an advantage our side has and Microsoft doesn't, but that is beyond the scope of the sort of comparison that are making. And it is a semi valid one. The AVERAGE small site probably won't have the skills to deal with Slackware or Damn Small Linux.
> They're also neglecting to mention that you'd need to spend hundreds to obtain a licensed copy of XP for your
> legacy hardware, as opposed to downloading a Linux CD image.
The licensing issue was sorta brought up and shined on with a "to be addressed later" sort of comment. Which I expect they WILL address at some point, especially in the developing world. They have to realize by now that if they can't come up with some answer to it a whole generation will switch from warezed Windows to legal Linux. Be afraid.
> Mr. Ashdown appears to be AN ECONOMIC IDIOT.
Duh! The blurb says he is a) a Democrat and b) trying to unseat Senator Hatch. The odds of a Democrat taking an OPEN senate seat in Utah is so poor as to be only useful for gaining experience in a statewide campaign or using the run as a pulpit to force an issue into the spotlight. Running against Hatch isn't even good for that since NOBODY is going to take the candidacy serious enough to even listen to the pitch.
The Republicans would have better odds taking down Kleagle^WSenator Byrd of West Virginia. And there are far better odds of monkeys suddenly flying out of my butt than for Byrd being voted out of office.
So drop the word economic and lets just say he an idiot. Besides which, any Democrat will sound like an idiot speaking of things economic because they can't actually speak their positions yet have to hint enough to get the base out.
> He needs to take freshman inrto to economics then.
Wouldn't help, these are liberals at work. Facts bounce right off of em.
> Instead of trying to create a social stigma, he should just make them as widely available as possible.
> He's a smart guy, so he must understand that. So one must wonder what his motives really are.
Of course he is a smart guy. But he is also a liberal so, since his lips are moving he is lying. So lets use logic and break it down and see WHERE the lie is, shall we?
Ok. He says volume drives down the price, which is totally correct. So if he had 50,000 made with a different colored case (to make them easy to spot as not stolen from 'starving children' and let a third party take em in at $150 and sell em however they want for say $200 we would all buy em up and do cool stuff which, as mostly Free Software, would be able to be pulled back into his project. Not to mention the distict possibility of making some profit that could subsidize the project. This is so logical that him not doing it means the lie is buried in there somewhere.
I'd guess it is that $100 pricetag. Classic liberal smoke and mirrors with the pricing, he is using some sort of grant, tax rebates or something to put more than $100 into the hands of the contract manufacturer at the expense of the taxpayers of the Western Democracies and the truth would come out if he allows anyone outside his cabal of UN crooks to get near the deal.
Your copy has some obvious problems. Allow me to propose some revisions.
> From Chapter 7 of the Karma Whorer's Manual:
> In order of precedence, and to maximize your karma-whoring potential, you should always speak out against the
> first thing you find on the list:
1. Microsoft
2. The US Government
No, most slashdotters LOVE government. What they HATE is President Bush. If Kerry were President, for example, this current story would be one continious love fest over the Enlightened European Intellectual seeing reason and bringing in more countries to share control over the Internet and cutting out those wicked corporations.
So #2 has to be President Bush
3. The military
But most slashdotters would never admit this. Like most other Democrats they preface any attack on the Military Industrial Complex (code for Haliburton) with expressions of their profound patriotism and love for the troops.
4. The patent system
5. The republicans
6. Any government agency collecting information via the internet
7. emacs
Nope, the vi/emacs flamewar is 'just for fun' and has nothing to do with the political 'daily hate' threads that slashdot tries to ensure flare up on a daily basis.
8. karma-whores
Well make that karma-whores, trolls and conservatives.
9. Jack Thompson
Oh yess, Damn him straight to hell (or Redmond).
10. CowboyNeal
> Now we have an article thats mad at the US for giving up control of the internet to other nations?! WTF?
If Bill Clinton or John Kerry were President this would be hailed as a new age of International control of the Internet. This 'story' is just today's open thread for the daily Hate Bush rally. Once you realize that it all makes perfect sense.
> While I'm sad to see him go, I realize why he did it, and understand the need to step aside
> so the argument isn't about him.
Yea, good he resigned so that everyone else will realize that not buying Microsoft is a career limiting decision. Sure will inspire a whole new batch of martyrs to leap forth and do battle with the forces of darkness.
Yes, for the slashbots without much clue, that was sarcasm.
> Granted, OpenGL is mostly used for screen savers on these boxes, but still.
That is what usually scuttles me, the GL screensavers lock the box solid within a day or so of normal use.
For 2D the XFree86 driver is fairly good, except on one of my Thinkpads which will quite reliably lock up if I reverse scroll a gnometerminal too fast.