> If the stroke of a bureaucrat's pen puts Speakeasy out of business, I > will go on a killing spree.
Should not have been modded funny. Speakeasy has just been given 270 days to put their affairs in order and wind down their business is an orderly fasion.
I'm ready to go on a killing spree just because the HOPE that Speakeasy might someday have been able to make its way to my area is now dead.
At this stage you are the only one who will see this, and then only if you check... but you are reasonable enough in your writings to actually take the time on.
> 3 is where your problem begins.
> In the case of Choice, the left is right. The individual should decide > whether to have one. The state's role is to regulate it for safety.
Actually both sides abuse language and commit the debating faux pas of "begging the question" To say "Pro choice" assumes the entity isn't human just like "Pro Life" assumes it is. But that IS the question and entering the argument asking the opposing side to begin their argument from your conclusion just doesn't lead to healthy discourse.
> Which brings me back to #3 and a set of questions for you. At what point:
> a) does the fetus/baby/not viable lifeform have rights that override > those of the person they reside in?
That IS the million dollar question now isn't it. Finding an answer that a comfortable majority can live with should be the goal, not making one extreme endpoint or the other THE only legal option.
While I don't claim to have any sort of revealed truth here, I'd like to propose some guidelines and see if you, as a fairly reasonable person of the other camp thinks I'm crazy.
Have the leading lights in medical science draw a line and say "From here, if the fetus were to be delivered it would have a better than 50% chance of surviving in the average neonatal intensive care unit." Beyond that mark it is a Citizen, entitled to Life Liberty and the Persuit of Happiness. Amend the Constituition accordingly, don't impose it by judicial fiat.
Ask the same leading lights in medical science, joined by leading thinkers in other fields (general biology for sure, probably others) to come to some consensus where the next bright line gets drawn. When does a fetus become begin to exhibit signs of being conscious. We know it begins before birth, but where? These are mostly unstudied subjects because most scientists are "pro choice" and don't want to know the answers because of where it would lead them politically. But answer it we must if we are to make reasoned decisions.
Once we have the line for mental activity it depends which side of the first line it fall on, if later it can be ignored. If before we probably have to have a big discussion on it. I suspect we might still allow abortion to preserve the life of the mother (self defense) but anything else would need to real justification.
> b) does the "viability" of a fetus/baby get defined as viable by > forced medical intervention?
Probably. After all we are already talking about a medical intervention now aren't we? All that would change is after the development point where Citizenship is bestowed we might require the doctor to force a live birth instead of a dilation and extraction if the mother is hellbent on being rid of it. Personally I'd also support requiring sterilization at the same time to prevent future child endangerment by an obviously unfit mother. (The usual medical exception but none for rape, etc. Should have decided that issue a few months earlier.)
> c) does the state force medical support upon such a "viable" baby? > (After all, we can do Ceasaerians or induce early labor at any point).
Yes. In exactly the same way we would force medical procedures on a baby one day after birth. By choosing to become pregnant (and if she didn't choose she should have aborted earlier) she has a parental responsibility for her child. It isn't about the mother, it is about the child's rights. She already exercised hers. Some decisions you just don't get to change your mind on, having a baby is one of them.
> d) should you answer anything other than "never" to c), at what point > can the state force any medical treatment on anyone?
Anytime they aren't competent to make the decision for themselves, and their legal guardian is determined by legal due process to either be incompetent themselves or making decisions obviously NOT in the best interest of their charge. This requires zero change to accepted legal theory.
> I don't think you can a) demonstrate that "liberals" are all intolerant > of all other political ideologies.
Try going to a random university campus, espouse an unabashedly conservative viewpoint (say support for W or the war in Iraq) and if you still believe this, I'll argue the point.
> b) demonstrate that "liberals" are any more intolerant of all other > political ideologies than conservatives.
Which proves how little you know of modern conservatism. We have the Religious conservatives (who often kinda scare me, but most are decent enough folk when thier hot button issue isn't being pushed) the Libertarian wing, a few old school blueblood Republicans of the George H W Bush sort, etc. We can even talk rationally with a lot of lefties and outright marxists. What we hate are the ones who are socialists and will deny it in public with their dying breath.
> Both liberals and conservatives participated in the Cold War, which > was, at its core, an ideological war.
Of course. The question was WHICH SIDE did the left fight on. I'd say that in the main they fought on the losing side of history and would challenge you to find a strong anti-communist in the Democratic Party post Kennedy. Kennedy might have been clueless HOW to fight them but at least he knew them to be the enemy. After him the last remnants of the anti-communist left were swept away to be replaced by those who didn't want to defeat the Soviet Union, they wanted to remake the US in its image.
> Likewise, both liberals and conservatives have been strong supporters > of 1st amendment rights to expression and belief.
Hate Speech laws and McCain Fiengold give the lie to this one. The difference is I don't want to silence David Duke or Noam Choamsky. I want to defeat them in the arena of ideas. The proper response to speech one finds disagreeable is to challenge it with more speech, not pass laws to supress it. In this the two philosophies differ markedly.
> Liberal: There are next to no words used in American political...
While it is true that words drift without an evil intent, it is clear this isn't the case here. Each time the general public begins to actually associate the socialists with their new word they pick another one that has positive meanings and begin abusing it. It is clear they a) understand that their positions wouldn't stand electoral muster were they espoused openly and b) have no moral qualms about disguising their true colors to get elected.
> Progressive: I'm afraid I simply don't understand your argument here. > Neither political party is shouting "STOP!".
Wrong. Bill Buckly invented Conservatism by saying exactly that. The idea being to stop the slide to socialism that was taking place at the time. Now that our side is dominant and impleneting it's policies (mostly rolling back socialism in favor of classical liberalism) it is now the Democratic party yelling STOP! in an attempt to preserve their gains. Which is anything but "Progressive" yet this is clearly the term they choose for themselves. They have no policy initiatives of their own currently, they are defined by what they are opposed to. NO on social security reform, NO on confirming judges. NO to fighting terrorism. NO to W continuing to exist. But what are they for? Nothing they are willing to speak of in public.
> Also, I'd like you to rethink your views on your opposition and try > to understand that, while they do not agree with your agenda or your > politics, they are no less human as a result, and as such, are driven > by human rationality and reason, just like you.
Of course. I'd never underestimate an enemy like that. What I will assert is that they lie, cheat and steal because they belive (correctly) that it is the only way they can win elective office and their Will to Power, arrogance and overweening belief in their moral superiority are used to justify these actions in their minds. I beli
> To me, the real question with regard to abortion is What is human?
Which is exactly why I was modded down and you probably will be as well. Because it is a question "Thou Shalt Not Ask." Abortion right up to the moment of natural birth is THE sacrement of the Left and there can be no questioning of it, period. To question is to exhibit a lack of the blind faith required of the heathen left.
And yes, if you folks with the mod points choose to define the right as the Christian Right I assert the right to name you guys as the polar opposite and refer to you as the Heathen Left because if anything it fits better. Many in the Right's camp aren't even Christians, and certainly not the "Fundamentalists" the press is always prattling on about. While ALL who aspire to high office on the Left must endorse abortion on demand as an inviolate right, cannot be a "Practicing Catholic" or hold any Religious views that would require them to deviate from the official Party Religion of Secular Humanism.
> You're basically proving my point. "liberals" believe x, y and z about > "conservatives", whereas x, y and z are not true. "conservatives" > believe x, y and z about "liberals" and you assert that x, y and z must > be true?
No, I'm saing one side makes claims totally at varience with observed reality. Major candidates on other side actually says the stupid things we believe to be representive of them.
> Spoken like a true loser. You know, if you want to do it again, > we'll let you.
Ya know there is wisdom to be gained by thinking along these lines. Given a vision of the outcome, would each side still have gone ahead with things as they happened?
President Davis and General Lee probably would have, having no choice in the matter. The South ends in ruin either way, being old school he would have probably chose to follow his conscience and go down with all flags flying, defiant to the end yet always hopeful of finding a way to cheat his fate and win Freedom for his People.
President Lincoln on the other hand almost certainly wouldn't have followed the same course. He simply failed to properly understand the political situation. Almost all wars of begin this way, few (ok, there are some notable 20th Century exceptions) who would actually WANT a war as bloody as the one he ended up waging. But once the trigger was pulled he also had no choice but to see it through to the end.
Now lets continue the thought experiment and ponder what outcomes COULD have been:
1. A political compromise keeping the Confederacy from forming. I.e. Lay off the taxes and import/export duties strangling the South and some compromise to end slavery on a gradual enough timescale the economy in the South could survive.
End result, by the end of the 19th century slavery could be over, the economy booming enough to find meaningful employment for the freed people and happy joy for everybody. Without reconstruction as an excuse the Federal government would be nowhere as powerful as it now is. Whether you see this as a good thing depends on your political alignment.
2. Allow the Confederacy (and the states remaining in the Union for that matter) the Right to disassociate. We all had that Right until Might trumped Right and transformed a Republic into an Empire.
Both nations would have prospered and after Slavery was no longer an issue in the South, we might still have ended up as one Nation again much like the Republic of Texas was added at one point. Slavery wouldn't have lasted out the 19th century, the economics was rapidly turning against it. Again, everybody is alive and prosperous.
> do you think that this type of myth doesn't exist about the "left", > consistently believed by the "right"?
Important differences abound. Liberals believe the Right to be a bunch of idiotic sexist racist homophobic bigots but there is scant evidence of this.
Idiotic: For example W is a moron, RWR was a senile old fool. But W graduated Harvard with better grades than Mr. Kerry and I really doubt a drooling idiot could fly a jet fighter (without crashin) so say nothing of waxing the floor with two leading lights of the Democratic party in the ultimate endurance test of fitness, a Presidential election campaign.
Sexist: Right, we are sexists. How Phillis Shafley could be the beloved matron of the party is unexplained. As is how Ann Coulter has become THE pinup girl of convervatism, and I have a clue for ya, it ain't just because she has a hot bod, we actually DO respect her mind.
Racist: Right, the party of Lincoln is a bunch of racists. If the argument isn't laughable yet, allow me to continue. Remember Jim Crow? Remember Eisenhower? Who sent troops to enforce the first desegration order and which party did each protagonist belong to? Want more? When a fluke of Louisiana politics (always zany here) ended with David Duke the Republican nominee the State and National Party repudiated him. We had bumber stickers saying "This time, vote for the crook" in reference to the under investigation (now serving time in Federal prison) Democratic nominee Edwin Edwards. Oh, and just how many minorities served under the first "Black President"? And just how close to the halls of power were they? Compare and contrast to the current administration. While it might be true that Gen Powell never truly had the President's ear Miss Rice certainly qualifies as a "Senior Henchman" and has since was Governor of Texas.
Homophobic: Granted there is a bit of that, especially by the definition the MSM has imposed on the word. But personally I don't think believing homosexuality is a mental abberation is an undefendable position. And even if you don't go that far I can still see opposing allowing unelected judges rewriting the accepted definition of the word 'marriage' on Constituitional grounds having nothing to do with 'hatred' or 'homophobia.' Of course the MSM disagrees.
Now lets examine the popular view of the Left held by the Right that the otehr side is a bunch of hippy socialist rejects from the sixties, many of whom believe America so wicked that they seek it's destruction even if they have to make common cause with Bin Laden's Islamic nutcases.
For evidence that the Right is justified in this belief I give you the Democratic National Conventions of the last ten or so election cycles. From their own mouths.
> You'll note in these abortion debates that the man's position is never > considered.
Of course our position is considered. We are considered to be willing to take it up the wazoo if she decides to have the sucker, and are considered to be 100% in support (and again willing to pay) should she decide to abort. So yes, our position is considered.. and seeing that we meekly stood around while the feminists assumed total control over childbearing, I guess we pansies deserve what we got.
Now as to whether our opinions matter I'd say no, they couldn't care less what we think so long as we don't think it in the ballot box. They take the cild support payments from our paychecks before we ever see them if yo uever miss one payment and that is all our role is now, sperm and money. Start unelecting every feminist legislator and judge (those who don't have lifetime appointments at least) and THEN they will start listening to our opinion.
And no, I'm not an embittered ol fart eating bologna, I just kept mine in my pants or made damned sure -I- was protected. Never believe a woman on this issue guys. As soon as you do SHE is in total control with the full power of the State to back her decision. Your decision is made the second sperm goes in.
> The last time the fundamentalists couldn't let go of a moral crusade > and the liberals (classical) couldn't let go of the status quo we ended > up with millions dead and whole states laid waste.
> People often have a hard time setting aside their personal beliefs and > end to view things in a biased manner.
But this trend is universal on the Left. Like most issues the words they use mean exactly the opposite thing when it issues from their mouths. So when the speak of Tolerance it of course means "You must accept our views as correct and we shall not tolerate dissenting opinions."
In table form
Tolerance: Intolerace to all opposing viewpoints
Liberal: Opposed to everything 'liberal' meant before they hijacked it.
Progressive: When 'liberalism' (as we now call socialism here in the US, some other countries still use it in the original meaning) became unpopular, they rebranded themselves 'progressives'. Of course since this coincided with their being forced to play defense they have now perloined Bill Buckley's famous line and are now standing athwart history yelling "STOP!" Doesn't sound like progressive to me... sounds exactly opposite. Perhaps they should perloin "conservative" instead and force us classical liberals to rebrand ourselves yet again....
Diversity: This one is a little trickier. In thought it means exactly the opposite, i.e. absolute conformance to orthodoxy. It also means diversity of skin color, sexual organs.... so long as the minority is question votes for Democrats of course. Ever notice how racial and social subgroups who don't vote overwhelmingly Democratic find it hard to get 'minority status?'
Open Minded: Closed minded bigots, violently intolerant of any who dare speak a different view, especially any viewpoint directly opposing their enlightened visions.
Really, other than a cheap shot by small minds who obviously don't know better, why did the/. editors feel the need to use what should be a serious question to turn this into an abortion flamefest thread?
I say this because anyone who spends three seconds on it can see how someone can be anti abortion and pro capital punishment, while the main point is somewhat harder to reason through and would have made for a good thread. Instead we will all be wading through the same mindless twaddle about abortion that has been talked to death a thousand times.
And since I know someone will post asking the obvious....
You can be pro capital punishment and anti abortion if you think:
1. Killing the innocent is wrong.
2. Killing the irredeemably wicked is either just or at least the best option.
3. The right to Life Liberty and the Persuit of Happiness begins at any point between conception and birth.
Listen up folks, both sides are extremists, but Infanticide is as bad or worse as a position as that old Monty Python "Every Sperm is Sacred" song that seems to animate much of the pro-life crowd. And aborting viable children can't be called anything but Infanficide and science just keeps pushing back the date of viability outside the womb.
The only way out is to realize BOTH sides are wrong. Roe is wrong. So are most of the fundies. The only place for the State to be in this whole sorry mess is deciding where to draw the line where a Citizen, entitled to protection from the Law, begins. With the advances in science birth doesn't seem right to most folk anymore, but they recoil from "life begins at conception" also. We gotta find a way to 'split the baby' and stop this madness. The last time the fundamentalists couldn't let go of a moral crusade and the liberals (classical) couldn't let go of the status quo we ended up with millions dead and whole states laid waste.
Now gimme a minute and I'll post something on topic....
Should have known it was bogus, the ruling as hyped by that crappy little website would have been SO controversial that we would have all been seeing wall to wall coverage on every news net on every part of the political spectrum from NPR to FoxNews. Good to know this is just hysterical Democrats doing thier fundraising thing.
But folks, it wouldn't be the first time an employer has pulled a stunt like this, making demands of your off time, and there are even some cases I could envision where it would be justified. Off the top of my head would be a lot of highly classified work splits things up so that no worker bee sees the whole picture. Often they don't even know what the end product will even resemble. They often have rules in place to keep it that way.
But the proper response when an employer does something stupid isn't to go running for the Nanny State to some in and make that bad ol boss play nice. Are we not Free Men, the inheritors of the blessings of liberty bought at such horrific prices of blood and treasure by our mighty forefathers? Are their descendants such pussies that they can't handle such an easy problem themselves? Nay, the correct response would be for a dozen or so key employees to have banded together and marked riht into that pointy haired boss (probably in terror of liability from the sexual harrassment nazies) and made him an offer he couldn't refuse.
Demand he front the money to start a company softball team. In one swoop you accomplish several things:
1. His PHB manual says he has to agree so you win.
2. Putting his name on the purchase approval form pretty much voids his "no after work association rule" in writing.
3. Makes him may a token but real monatary penalty.
And if the employyes are such sheep they won't stand up for themselves then I judge that as sheep it is the boss's duty to shear their pathetic asses.
> There is no way that MS wrote that page. Let's look at why:
Yea they wrote it. Remember this is just a research project so they can use markup their current shipping client doesn't support. Before actually deploying it they would either change the markup or add what they need to IE. But something like this probably won't go production for a while so it would be daft to limit themselves to what is in their current browser.
> There's nothing wrong with MS adding some of their own markup to make > web design easier.
Yes, there is. Just like Netscape was wrong to do it when they were dominant. Write to IE only and you aren't writing for the Internet anymore, you are part of MSN and aren't even getting paid your share of the user fees.
Microsoft is free to PROPOSE new markup to make web design easier. If web designers actually like the idea they should support getting it into the appropriate standard.
> I use an IE bug to display a special message on my homepage.
Nice idea, but I doubt your site is big enough to make Microsoft fix a bug. Especially since I get "no route to host" when I try to see what you did.:)
> Have your webpages check to see what browser the client is using, and > if it is IE7 (or hey, ANY version of IE) refuse to render the page and > pop up a link to Mozilla....
No, that would just piss people off. But how about this:
Use a standards compliant feature that looks better on a proper browser but is readable on IE. The readable part is critical. Then put a little disclaimer or a "Problems with this page?" button that leads to text on the order of "This page uses standard CSS/DOM/BlahBlah. The current version of IE has some issues with it. If you are using IE we recommend either waiting for the next service release or installing one of the following browsers, all free downloads and known to be standards compliant. But rest assured that while some of our pages may render slightly wrong, we are testing our pages to ensure that the actual content remains readable while Microsoft addresses this issue."
Perhaps even have screen captures of the page rendered on several browsers, a fragment of code that breaks on IE alongside a link to or a snippet of text from the standard. But stick that level of detail on a link to avoid confusing the normals.
The correct tone is to make the IE users feel like that this is a Microsoft problem (which it is) that the site is aware of it and trying to mitigate the disruption to their browsing experience, that a solution is offered and that the site feels their pain. But to also subtly make them feel like second class web citizens for using a legacy browser. Perhaps even find a way to work that word in somewhere. All the big companies abuse that word to disparage anything that is a) more than a year old and b) not on THEIR technology roadmap. Lets turn it back on em.
The trick here is that Microsoft has no plans to actually fix their bugs, but if a couple of medium to high profile sites pulled this stunt they WOULD fix them. Because the last thing they want IE users to realize is that they are using the crappiest browser on the Internet. When they do fix the bug, wash rinse and repeat with another feature developers would really like to be able to use.
> Uh, dude, it's not 1999. Most respectable distros do all for you > now anyhow....
No, it's worse now. Lets take RHEL4, RedHat's latest and shinest stable release. Other distributions have different bugs, but all stable releases seem to have about the same quantity it seems. Unstable releases like Fedora are even worse of course.
Download something to the desktop with Firefox. Bet you don't see it do you. Now navigate to the Desktop directory with Nautilus and do a refresh. Oh, there it is, in both places now.
Now try attaching an external drive. Firewire isn't supported at all and if you build it yourself are as likely to lock the machine as get a drive to work. USB is documented NOT to work but I sometimes get lucky.
Printing has been random ever since Cups appeared in the Linux world. Sometimes things print, then they stop, start working again. No rhyme or reason. Some print jobs just disappear into thin air.
Launch gnomemeeting. Watch it hang when you test audio. OSS or ALSA, doesn't matter. Video works for me if you build a custom kernel. Guess after all these years the bttv driver is still not 'enterprise ready'. xmms, mplayer and such work just fine btw.
Of course you don't get 3D because the X.org drivers for ATI hardware still cause random lockups (not just X, push the reset button time because ssh doesn't work) so that support is wisely compiled out since I know I have been seeing this bug since at least 2000.
The reason I say things are worse than they were in 1999 is that before most stuff was primitive but once you wrestled it into shape it Just Works. Now we have fscking registries and stuff that are opaque blobs. Now you install an app and accept it as normal to have to log out and back in before it will run.
> Content providers will never, ever, target the Mac to the exclusion of > windows.
Of course not. But they understand the situation and will play their role. Microsoft already proposed this same thing as the "Palladium" initiave and were rightly flamed to a crisp by the civil libertarians and the anti-trust types. So now they found a "Useful Idiot" to put a nicer face on the same evil.
This is all a planned campaign. Microsoft is still eager to implement TCPA/Palladium but the idea is to be 'forced' into doing it. Classic "Please don't toss me in that briar patch!" gambit. Of course in the end the plan is that Jobs and Apple gets discarded like a used condom and Microsoft Ubber Alles. NOBODY ever deals with Microsoft and comes out ahead in the end. Steve's Ego won't allow him to even consider the possibility of course.
> oh and to crush their enemies, see them driven before them and to hear > the lamentations of the women.
Oh yea, since there aren't enough FS/OSS women to count I guess the above average gay population in the slashdot community will have to play the lamenting women part if we actually lose the coming "Gotta DRM the precious IP or the Terrorists Have Won" war.
[ducking the incoming mod bombs.... a borderline tasteless gaybaiting joke and calling Holy Steve a fucktard in one thread... Just a bit pissed tonite.]
> Seriously, I see your point - if everyone was running OSX on non-Apple > hardware, Apple would need to do something.
You are right that Apple couldn't care less if OSX runs on some geek's Dell. But to make that possible will mean finding a way to defeat TCPA and HOLLYWOOD will care about that. These are the same bastards that are mandating encrypted video as close to the CRT's electron guns (LCD controller, etc) as they can get it. They don't want the next generation of HiDef content to EVER be viewed without them being paid and will move heaven and earth to get that. Microsoft can just skulk along behind that movement and achieve everything IT wants, which is to maintain their monopoly and find ever more revenue sources to keep the stockholders happy and BillG's ego stoked... oh and to crush their enemies, see them driven before them and to hear the lamentations of the women.
> This silly conspiracy theory is getting tiring. Why would Dell & HP > prevent paying customers from running Linux or DOS or whatever the fuck > they wanted to run? Both companies sell Linux and brag about how much > money it makes them.
Simple. Same reason you can't buy a PC from Dell without an OS except for a couple of Optiplex lines they target at the corporate users who already have site licenses. And even for those they have to toss FreeDOS in the box to make Microsoft happy.
Now imagine a world where Microsoft requires a locked TCPA chip to boot a future version of Windows. Basically they will speak unto Dell thusly: "If you want to sell Windows you will stick this chip on each and every motherboard. And if you don't want to pay the whitebox chopshop price for licenses you will join our co-op marketing program which requires you stick this chip on ALL motherboards you sell. No exceptions. Hey bitch, you already give Intel the same 100% loyalty so now you serve TWO masters. Starting today you no longer sell Dells, you sell Windows Workstations with Intel Inside and if you don't like that I have the same contract manufacturers you job your actual work out to ready to make em for me direct and a bunch of Indians ready to roll on deploying an ecommerce site to sell them through."
> Uh, Apple has already said you could install Windows (and obviously > Linux) on their machines.
These preview boards are just generic Intel kit. Of course they can run Windows. And they might allow it on the first batch of production machines. Right up until the original poster proves to be right and it can be cracked. Then step one in resecuring the system is to lock out the ability to boot Windows/Linux where one can poke around with the hardware. Much harder to get a grasp on what is happening if you can never get a debugger or test program to run in ring0. And from Apple's pov (and from the Apple fanboys it appears) the only purpose of Apple hardware is to run OSX so it isn't a problem to exclude everything else. We have even seen the game lamer fanboys make the same arguments defending the lockdown of the xbox.
Let that mindset get traction in the general public and who could possibly object when the tcpa chips were married to a Windows license at point of manufacture and wouldn't boot anything else. Why of course you could special order a motherboard with an empty chip or none, but only a pirate would do that so lets put you on a watch list. Or even better, since the ol Microsoft exclusion game they promised TWICE in federal court to cease and desist from is still going strong how about they simply not allow MB makers to make some of a line without the Windows chip. Or even none at all. Nope, if you want to be a Microsoft Premium Partner and get get the co-market dollars you ship a Windows licensed (only) TCPA chip on every motherboard.
And of course Dell and HP would still be selling SERVERS able to run whatever a paying customer wanted. Yup, if you want RHEL or SUSE they will marry that to a TCPA chip and have it to you tomorrow. But where do devels come from in that world and where do they develop?
> i know what you'll say. "microsoft managed it with the xbox". which is > bogus, microsoft's problem is the complete opposite as this one. > microsoft is trying to prevent unsigned code from running on "their" > hardware.
This situation isn't a lot different except they will allow unsigned code (WinXP or Linux) to boot instead of OSX. But once loaded it is a variant of the same thing, don't allow any unsigned code into ring0. And it wouldn't be all that much of a stretch for them to go total X-Box and lock any unsigned OS out.
But I sure hope you are right about it being cracked soon because if it isn't we are hosed. The initial posts here confirm that the Apple fanboys are more than willing to drink the Kool-Aid if Apple is serving it up.
Which means Microsoft will be forced to push up the rollout of similar lockdowns for Shorthorn because if they don't Apple will have all the video over net business locked up and Hollywood won't let Bill play.
And of course while they are at it they can lock out bootleg Windows licenses forever, win-win for them. And if not outright outlaw Linux, at least make sure only generic whitebox motherboards from Taiwan run it. The Dell and HPs will all be locked to the copy of Windows married to their TCPA module during manufacturing. And when the non-crazed Apple Fanboy civil libertarians complain they can, with a totally straight face, claim they HAD to.
Yep, Standard Oil got zorched into little bits. And the little ones are already losing numbers.
Exxon and Mobil did the merger mambo. Looks like the new entity is strong enough to last a bit.
Conoco is done, merged with Phillips, along with Amoco.
Esso... Are they still operating elsewhere? Google hints they are now part of Exxon in some places, or at least Greenpeace thinks so. I'd guess they are toast except for the name lingering on.
A little more Google.... Looks like even more bits of Standard Oil are now borged into BP.
Need I continue?
Of course they rarely go totally bust, all those resources aren't going to be wasted. But let em get weakened and somebody will absorb them.
Slashdot Mirror
> If the stroke of a bureaucrat's pen puts Speakeasy out of business, I
> will go on a killing spree.
Should not have been modded funny. Speakeasy has just been given 270 days to put their affairs in order and wind down their business is an orderly fasion.
I'm ready to go on a killing spree just because the HOPE that Speakeasy might someday have been able to make its way to my area is now dead.
At this stage you are the only one who will see this, and then only if you check... but you are reasonable enough in your writings to actually take the time on.
> 3 is where your problem begins.
> In the case of Choice, the left is right. The individual should decide
> whether to have one. The state's role is to regulate it for safety.
Actually both sides abuse language and commit the debating faux pas of "begging the question" To say "Pro choice" assumes the entity isn't human just like "Pro Life" assumes it is. But that IS the question and entering the argument asking the opposing side to begin their argument from your conclusion just doesn't lead to healthy discourse.
> Which brings me back to #3 and a set of questions for you. At what point:
> a) does the fetus/baby/not viable lifeform have rights that override
> those of the person they reside in?
That IS the million dollar question now isn't it. Finding an answer that a comfortable majority can live with should be the goal, not making one extreme endpoint or the other THE only legal option.
While I don't claim to have any sort of revealed truth here, I'd like to propose some guidelines and see if you, as a fairly reasonable person of the other camp thinks I'm crazy.
Have the leading lights in medical science draw a line and say "From here, if the fetus were to be delivered it would have a better than 50% chance of surviving in the average neonatal intensive care unit." Beyond that mark it is a Citizen, entitled to Life Liberty and the Persuit of Happiness. Amend the Constituition accordingly, don't impose it by judicial fiat.
Ask the same leading lights in medical science, joined by leading thinkers in other fields (general biology for sure, probably others) to come to some consensus where the next bright line gets drawn. When does a fetus become begin to exhibit signs of being conscious. We know it begins before birth, but where? These are mostly unstudied subjects because most scientists are "pro choice" and don't want to know the answers because of where it would lead them politically. But answer it we must if we are to make reasoned decisions.
Once we have the line for mental activity it depends which side of the first line it fall on, if later it can be ignored. If before we probably have to have a big discussion on it. I suspect we might still allow abortion to preserve the life of the mother (self defense) but anything else would need to real justification.
> b) does the "viability" of a fetus/baby get defined as viable by
> forced medical intervention?
Probably. After all we are already talking about a medical intervention now aren't we? All that would change is after the development point where Citizenship is bestowed we might require the doctor to force a live birth instead of a dilation and extraction if the mother is hellbent on being rid of it. Personally I'd also support requiring sterilization at the same time to prevent future child endangerment by an obviously unfit mother. (The usual medical exception but none for rape, etc. Should have decided that issue a few months earlier.)
> c) does the state force medical support upon such a "viable" baby?
> (After all, we can do Ceasaerians or induce early labor at any point).
Yes. In exactly the same way we would force medical procedures on a baby one day after birth. By choosing to become pregnant (and if she didn't choose she should have aborted earlier) she has a parental responsibility for her child. It isn't about the mother, it is about the child's rights. She already exercised hers. Some decisions you just don't get to change your mind on, having a baby is one of them.
> d) should you answer anything other than "never" to c), at what point
> can the state force any medical treatment on anyone?
Anytime they aren't competent to make the decision for themselves, and their legal guardian is determined by legal due process to either be incompetent themselves or making decisions obviously NOT in the best interest of their charge. This requires zero change to accepted legal theory.
> I don't think you can a) demonstrate that "liberals" are all intolerant
> of all other political ideologies.
Try going to a random university campus, espouse an unabashedly conservative viewpoint (say support for W or the war in Iraq) and if you still believe this, I'll argue the point.
> b) demonstrate that "liberals" are any more intolerant of all other
> political ideologies than conservatives.
Which proves how little you know of modern conservatism. We have the Religious conservatives (who often kinda scare me, but most are decent enough folk when thier hot button issue isn't being pushed) the Libertarian wing, a few old school blueblood Republicans of the George H W Bush sort, etc. We can even talk rationally with a lot of lefties and outright marxists. What we hate are the ones who are socialists and will deny it in public with their dying breath.
> Both liberals and conservatives participated in the Cold War, which
> was, at its core, an ideological war.
Of course. The question was WHICH SIDE did the left fight on. I'd say that in the main they fought on the losing side of history and would challenge you to find a strong anti-communist in the Democratic Party post Kennedy. Kennedy might have been clueless HOW to fight them but at least he knew them to be the enemy. After him the last remnants of the anti-communist left were swept away to be replaced by those who didn't want to defeat the Soviet Union, they wanted to remake the US in its image.
> Likewise, both liberals and conservatives have been strong supporters
> of 1st amendment rights to expression and belief.
Hate Speech laws and McCain Fiengold give the lie to this one. The difference is I don't want to silence David Duke or Noam Choamsky. I want to defeat them in the arena of ideas. The proper response to speech one finds disagreeable is to challenge it with more speech, not pass laws to supress it. In this the two philosophies differ markedly.
> Liberal: There are next to no words used in American political...
While it is true that words drift without an evil intent, it is clear this isn't the case here. Each time the general public begins to actually associate the socialists with their new word they pick another one that has positive meanings and begin abusing it. It is clear they a) understand that their positions wouldn't stand electoral muster were they espoused openly and b) have no moral qualms about disguising their true colors to get elected.
> Progressive: I'm afraid I simply don't understand your argument here.
> Neither political party is shouting "STOP!".
Wrong. Bill Buckly invented Conservatism by saying exactly that. The idea being to stop the slide to socialism that was taking place at the time. Now that our side is dominant and impleneting it's policies (mostly rolling back socialism in favor of classical liberalism) it is now the Democratic party yelling STOP! in an attempt to preserve their gains. Which is anything but "Progressive" yet this is clearly the term they choose for themselves. They have no policy initiatives of their own currently, they are defined by what they are opposed to. NO on social security reform, NO on confirming judges. NO to fighting terrorism. NO to W continuing to exist. But what are they for? Nothing they are willing to speak of in public.
> Also, I'd like you to rethink your views on your opposition and try
> to understand that, while they do not agree with your agenda or your
> politics, they are no less human as a result, and as such, are driven
> by human rationality and reason, just like you.
Of course. I'd never underestimate an enemy like that. What I will assert is that they lie, cheat and steal because they belive (correctly) that it is the only way they can win elective office and their Will to Power, arrogance and overweening belief in their moral superiority are used to justify these actions in their minds. I beli
> To me, the real question with regard to abortion is What is human?
Which is exactly why I was modded down and you probably will be as well. Because it is a question "Thou Shalt Not Ask." Abortion right up to the moment of natural birth is THE sacrement of the Left and there can be no questioning of it, period. To question is to exhibit a lack of the blind faith required of the heathen left.
And yes, if you folks with the mod points choose to define the right as the Christian Right I assert the right to name you guys as the polar opposite and refer to you as the Heathen Left because if anything it fits better. Many in the Right's camp aren't even Christians, and certainly not the "Fundamentalists" the press is always prattling on about. While ALL who aspire to high office on the Left must endorse abortion on demand as an inviolate right, cannot be a "Practicing Catholic" or hold any Religious views that would require them to deviate from the official Party Religion of Secular Humanism.
> You're basically proving my point. "liberals" believe x, y and z about
> "conservatives", whereas x, y and z are not true. "conservatives"
> believe x, y and z about "liberals" and you assert that x, y and z must
> be true?
No, I'm saing one side makes claims totally at varience with observed reality. Major candidates on other side actually says the stupid things we believe to be representive of them.
> Spoken like a true loser. You know, if you want to do it again,
> we'll let you.
Ya know there is wisdom to be gained by thinking along these lines. Given a vision of the outcome, would each side still have gone ahead with things as they happened?
President Davis and General Lee probably would have, having no choice in the matter. The South ends in ruin either way, being old school he would have probably chose to follow his conscience and go down with all flags flying, defiant to the end yet always hopeful of finding a way to cheat his fate and win Freedom for his People.
President Lincoln on the other hand almost certainly wouldn't have followed the same course. He simply failed to properly understand the political situation. Almost all wars of begin this way, few (ok, there are some notable 20th Century exceptions) who would actually WANT a war as bloody as the one he ended up waging. But once the trigger was pulled he also had no choice but to see it through to the end.
Now lets continue the thought experiment and ponder what outcomes COULD have been:
1. A political compromise keeping the Confederacy from forming. I.e. Lay off the taxes and import/export duties strangling the South and some compromise to end slavery on a gradual enough timescale the economy in the South could survive.
End result, by the end of the 19th century slavery could be over, the economy booming enough to find meaningful employment for the freed people and happy joy for everybody. Without reconstruction as an excuse the Federal government would be nowhere as powerful as it now is. Whether you see this as a good thing depends on your political alignment.
2. Allow the Confederacy (and the states remaining in the Union for that matter) the Right to disassociate. We all had that Right until Might trumped Right and transformed a Republic into an Empire.
Both nations would have prospered and after Slavery was no longer an issue in the South, we might still have ended up as one Nation again much like the Republic of Texas was added at one point. Slavery wouldn't have lasted out the 19th century, the economics was rapidly turning against it. Again, everybody is alive and prosperous.
> do you think that this type of myth doesn't exist about the "left",
> consistently believed by the "right"?
Important differences abound. Liberals believe the Right to be a bunch of idiotic sexist racist homophobic bigots but there is scant evidence of this.
Idiotic: For example W is a moron, RWR was a senile old fool. But W graduated Harvard with better grades than Mr. Kerry and I really doubt a drooling idiot could fly a jet fighter (without crashin) so say nothing of waxing the floor with two leading lights of the Democratic party in the ultimate endurance test of fitness, a Presidential election campaign.
Sexist: Right, we are sexists. How Phillis Shafley could be the beloved matron of the party is unexplained. As is how Ann Coulter has become THE pinup girl of convervatism, and I have a clue for ya, it ain't just because she has a hot bod, we actually DO respect her mind.
Racist: Right, the party of Lincoln is a bunch of racists. If the argument isn't laughable yet, allow me to continue. Remember Jim Crow? Remember Eisenhower? Who sent troops to enforce the first desegration order and which party did each protagonist belong to? Want more? When a fluke of Louisiana politics (always zany here) ended with David Duke the Republican nominee the State and National Party repudiated him. We had bumber stickers saying "This time, vote for the crook" in reference to the under investigation (now serving time in Federal prison) Democratic nominee Edwin Edwards. Oh, and just how many minorities served under the first "Black President"? And just how close to the halls of power were they? Compare and contrast to the current administration. While it might be true that Gen Powell never truly had the President's ear Miss Rice certainly qualifies as a "Senior Henchman" and has since was Governor of Texas.
Homophobic: Granted there is a bit of that, especially by the definition the MSM has imposed on the word. But personally I don't think believing homosexuality is a mental abberation is an undefendable position. And even if you don't go that far I can still see opposing allowing unelected judges rewriting the accepted definition of the word 'marriage' on Constituitional grounds having nothing to do with 'hatred' or 'homophobia.' Of course the MSM disagrees.
Now lets examine the popular view of the Left held by the Right that the otehr side is a bunch of hippy socialist rejects from the sixties, many of whom believe America so wicked that they seek it's destruction even if they have to make common cause with Bin Laden's Islamic nutcases.
For evidence that the Right is justified in this belief I give you the Democratic National Conventions of the last ten or so election cycles. From their own mouths.
> You'll note in these abortion debates that the man's position is never
> considered.
Of course our position is considered. We are considered to be willing to take it up the wazoo if she decides to have the sucker, and are considered to be 100% in support (and again willing to pay) should she decide to abort. So yes, our position is considered.. and seeing that we meekly stood around while the feminists assumed total control over childbearing, I guess we pansies deserve what we got.
Now as to whether our opinions matter I'd say no, they couldn't care less what we think so long as we don't think it in the ballot box. They take the cild support payments from our paychecks before we ever see them if yo uever miss one payment and that is all our role is now, sperm and money. Start unelecting every feminist legislator and judge (those who don't have lifetime appointments at least) and THEN they will start listening to our opinion.
And no, I'm not an embittered ol fart eating bologna, I just kept mine in my pants or made damned sure -I- was protected. Never believe a woman on this issue guys. As soon as you do SHE is in total control with the full power of the State to back her decision. Your decision is made the second sperm goes in.
> The last time the fundamentalists couldn't let go of a moral crusade
> and the liberals (classical) couldn't let go of the status quo we ended
> up with millions dead and whole states laid waste.
: Umm, like what, exactly?
1861-1865 War of Northern Agression
> People often have a hard time setting aside their personal beliefs and
> end to view things in a biased manner.
But this trend is universal on the Left. Like most issues the words they use mean exactly the opposite thing when it issues from their mouths. So when the speak of Tolerance it of course means "You must accept our views as correct and we shall not tolerate dissenting opinions."
In table form
Tolerance: Intolerace to all opposing viewpoints
Liberal: Opposed to everything 'liberal' meant before they hijacked it.
Progressive: When 'liberalism' (as we now call socialism here in the US, some other countries still use it in the original meaning) became unpopular, they rebranded themselves 'progressives'. Of course since this coincided with their being forced to play defense they have now perloined Bill Buckley's famous line and are now standing athwart history yelling "STOP!" Doesn't sound like progressive to me... sounds exactly opposite. Perhaps they should perloin "conservative" instead and force us classical liberals to rebrand ourselves yet again....
Diversity: This one is a little trickier. In thought it means exactly the opposite, i.e. absolute conformance to orthodoxy. It also means diversity of skin color, sexual organs.... so long as the minority is question votes for Democrats of course. Ever notice how racial and social subgroups who don't vote overwhelmingly Democratic find it hard to get 'minority status?'
Open Minded: Closed minded bigots, violently intolerant of any who dare speak a different view, especially any viewpoint directly opposing their enlightened visions.
Really, other than a cheap shot by small minds who obviously don't know better, why did the /. editors feel the need to use what should be a serious question to turn this into an abortion flamefest thread?
I say this because anyone who spends three seconds on it can see how someone can be anti abortion and pro capital punishment, while the main point is somewhat harder to reason through and would have made for a good thread. Instead we will all be wading through the same mindless twaddle about abortion that has been talked to death a thousand times.
And since I know someone will post asking the obvious....
You can be pro capital punishment and anti abortion if you think:
1. Killing the innocent is wrong.
2. Killing the irredeemably wicked is either just or at least the best option.
3. The right to Life Liberty and the Persuit of Happiness begins at any point between conception and birth.
Listen up folks, both sides are extremists, but Infanticide is as bad or worse as a position as that old Monty Python "Every Sperm is Sacred" song that seems to animate much of the pro-life crowd. And aborting viable children can't be called anything but Infanficide and science just keeps pushing back the date of viability outside the womb.
The only way out is to realize BOTH sides are wrong. Roe is wrong. So are most of the fundies. The only place for the State to be in this whole sorry mess is deciding where to draw the line where a Citizen, entitled to protection from the Law, begins. With the advances in science birth doesn't seem right to most folk anymore, but they recoil from "life begins at conception" also. We gotta find a way to 'split the baby' and stop this madness. The last time the fundamentalists couldn't let go of a moral crusade and the liberals (classical) couldn't let go of the status quo we ended up with millions dead and whole states laid waste.
Now gimme a minute and I'll post something on topic....
Should have known it was bogus, the ruling as hyped by that crappy little website would have been SO controversial that we would have all been seeing wall to wall coverage on every news net on every part of the political spectrum from NPR to FoxNews. Good to know this is just hysterical Democrats doing thier fundraising thing.
But folks, it wouldn't be the first time an employer has pulled a stunt like this, making demands of your off time, and there are even some cases I could envision where it would be justified. Off the top of my head would be a lot of highly classified work splits things up so that no worker bee sees the whole picture. Often they don't even know what the end product will even resemble. They often have rules in place to keep it that way.
But the proper response when an employer does something stupid isn't to go running for the Nanny State to some in and make that bad ol boss play nice. Are we not Free Men, the inheritors of the blessings of liberty bought at such horrific prices of blood and treasure by our mighty forefathers? Are their descendants such pussies that they can't handle such an easy problem themselves? Nay, the correct response would be for a dozen or so key employees to have banded together and marked riht into that pointy haired boss (probably in terror of liability from the sexual harrassment nazies) and made him an offer he couldn't refuse.
Demand he front the money to start a company softball team. In one swoop you accomplish several things:
1. His PHB manual says he has to agree so you win.
2. Putting his name on the purchase approval form pretty much voids his "no after work association rule" in writing.
3. Makes him may a token but real monatary penalty.
And if the employyes are such sheep they won't stand up for themselves then I judge that as sheep it is the boss's duty to shear their pathetic asses.
> There is no way that MS wrote that page. Let's look at why:
Yea they wrote it. Remember this is just a research project so they can use markup their current shipping client doesn't support. Before actually deploying it they would either change the markup or add what they need to IE. But something like this probably won't go production for a while so it would be daft to limit themselves to what is in their current browser.
> There's nothing wrong with MS adding some of their own markup to make
> web design easier.
Yes, there is. Just like Netscape was wrong to do it when they were dominant. Write to IE only and you aren't writing for the Internet anymore, you are part of MSN and aren't even getting paid your share of the user fees.
Microsoft is free to PROPOSE new markup to make web design easier. If web designers actually like the idea they should support getting it into the appropriate standard.
> I use an IE bug to display a special message on my homepage.
:)
Nice idea, but I doubt your site is big enough to make Microsoft fix a bug. Especially since I get "no route to host" when I try to see what you did.
> Have your webpages check to see what browser the client is using, and
> if it is IE7 (or hey, ANY version of IE) refuse to render the page and
> pop up a link to Mozilla....
No, that would just piss people off. But how about this:
Use a standards compliant feature that looks better on a proper browser but is readable on IE. The readable part is critical. Then put a little disclaimer or a "Problems with this page?" button that leads to text on the order of "This page uses standard CSS/DOM/BlahBlah. The current version of IE has some issues with it. If you are using IE we recommend either waiting for the next service release or installing one of the following browsers, all free downloads and known to be standards compliant. But rest assured that while some of our pages may render slightly wrong, we are testing our pages to ensure that the actual content remains readable while Microsoft addresses this issue."
Perhaps even have screen captures of the page rendered on several browsers, a fragment of code that breaks on IE alongside a link to or a snippet of text from the standard. But stick that level of detail on a link to avoid confusing the normals.
The correct tone is to make the IE users feel like that this is a Microsoft problem (which it is) that the site is aware of it and trying to mitigate the disruption to their browsing experience, that a solution is offered and that the site feels their pain. But to also subtly make them feel like second class web citizens for using a legacy browser. Perhaps even find a way to work that word in somewhere. All the big companies abuse that word to disparage anything that is a) more than a year old and b) not on THEIR technology roadmap. Lets turn it back on em.
The trick here is that Microsoft has no plans to actually fix their bugs, but if a couple of medium to high profile sites pulled this stunt they WOULD fix them. Because the last thing they want IE users to realize is that they are using the crappiest browser on the Internet. When they do fix the bug, wash rinse and repeat with another feature developers would really like to be able to use.
> Uh, dude, it's not 1999. Most respectable distros do all for you
> now anyhow....
No, it's worse now. Lets take RHEL4, RedHat's latest and shinest stable release. Other distributions have different bugs, but all stable releases seem to have about the same quantity it seems. Unstable releases like Fedora are even worse of course.
Download something to the desktop with Firefox. Bet you don't see it do you. Now navigate to the Desktop directory with Nautilus and do a refresh. Oh, there it is, in both places now.
Now try attaching an external drive. Firewire isn't supported at all and if you build it yourself are as likely to lock the machine as get a drive to work. USB is documented NOT to work but I sometimes get lucky.
Printing has been random ever since Cups appeared in the Linux world. Sometimes things print, then they stop, start working again. No rhyme or reason. Some print jobs just disappear into thin air.
Launch gnomemeeting. Watch it hang when you test audio. OSS or ALSA, doesn't matter. Video works for me if you build a custom kernel. Guess after all these years the bttv driver is still not 'enterprise ready'. xmms, mplayer and such work just fine btw.
Of course you don't get 3D because the X.org drivers for ATI hardware still cause random lockups (not just X, push the reset button time because ssh doesn't work) so that support is wisely compiled out since I know I have been seeing this bug since at least 2000.
The reason I say things are worse than they were in 1999 is that before most stuff was primitive but once you wrestled it into shape it Just Works. Now we have fscking registries and stuff that are opaque blobs. Now you install an app and accept it as normal to have to log out and back in before it will run.
> Content providers will never, ever, target the Mac to the exclusion of
> windows.
Of course not. But they understand the situation and will play their role. Microsoft already proposed this same thing as the "Palladium" initiave and were rightly flamed to a crisp by the civil libertarians and the anti-trust types. So now they found a "Useful Idiot" to put a nicer face on the same evil.
This is all a planned campaign. Microsoft is still eager to implement TCPA/Palladium but the idea is to be 'forced' into doing it. Classic "Please don't toss me in that briar patch!" gambit. Of course in the end the plan is that Jobs and Apple gets discarded like a used condom and Microsoft Ubber Alles. NOBODY ever deals with Microsoft and comes out ahead in the end. Steve's Ego won't allow him to even consider the possibility of course.
> oh and to crush their enemies, see them driven before them and to hear
> the lamentations of the women.
Oh yea, since there aren't enough FS/OSS women to count I guess the above average gay population in the slashdot community will have to play the lamenting women part if we actually lose the coming "Gotta DRM the precious IP or the Terrorists Have Won" war.
[ducking the incoming mod bombs.... a borderline tasteless gaybaiting joke and calling Holy Steve a fucktard in one thread... Just a bit pissed tonite.]
> Seriously, I see your point - if everyone was running OSX on non-Apple
> hardware, Apple would need to do something.
You are right that Apple couldn't care less if OSX runs on some geek's Dell. But to make that possible will mean finding a way to defeat TCPA and HOLLYWOOD will care about that. These are the same bastards that are mandating encrypted video as close to the CRT's electron guns (LCD controller, etc) as they can get it. They don't want the next generation of HiDef content to EVER be viewed without them being paid and will move heaven and earth to get that. Microsoft can just skulk along behind that movement and achieve everything IT wants, which is to maintain their monopoly and find ever more revenue sources to keep the stockholders happy and BillG's ego stoked... oh and to crush their enemies, see them driven before them and to hear the lamentations of the women.
> This silly conspiracy theory is getting tiring. Why would Dell & HP
> prevent paying customers from running Linux or DOS or whatever the fuck
> they wanted to run? Both companies sell Linux and brag about how much
> money it makes them.
Simple. Same reason you can't buy a PC from Dell without an OS except for a couple of Optiplex lines they target at the corporate users who already have site licenses. And even for those they have to toss FreeDOS in the box to make Microsoft happy.
Now imagine a world where Microsoft requires a locked TCPA chip to boot a future version of Windows. Basically they will speak unto Dell thusly: "If you want to sell Windows you will stick this chip on each and every motherboard. And if you don't want to pay the whitebox chopshop price for licenses you will join our co-op marketing program which requires you stick this chip on ALL motherboards you sell. No exceptions. Hey bitch, you already give Intel the same 100% loyalty so now you serve TWO masters. Starting today you no longer sell Dells, you sell Windows Workstations with Intel Inside and if you don't like that I have the same contract manufacturers you job your actual work out to ready to make em for me direct and a bunch of Indians ready to roll on deploying an ecommerce site to sell them through."
> i happen to be more fond of those after buying a fancier motherboard
:)
> and realising that it wasn't really worth it for me.
Well in my case I'm running a fancier MB that was made in Taiwan. Gigabyte GA-K8VNXP. Very studly board.
> Uh, Apple has already said you could install Windows (and obviously
> Linux) on their machines.
These preview boards are just generic Intel kit. Of course they can run Windows. And they might allow it on the first batch of production machines. Right up until the original poster proves to be right and it can be cracked. Then step one in resecuring the system is to lock out the ability to boot Windows/Linux where one can poke around with the hardware. Much harder to get a grasp on what is happening if you can never get a debugger or test program to run in ring0. And from Apple's pov (and from the Apple fanboys it appears) the only purpose of Apple hardware is to run OSX so it isn't a problem to exclude everything else. We have even seen the game lamer fanboys make the same arguments defending the lockdown of the xbox.
Let that mindset get traction in the general public and who could possibly object when the tcpa chips were married to a Windows license at point of manufacture and wouldn't boot anything else. Why of course you could special order a motherboard with an empty chip or none, but only a pirate would do that so lets put you on a watch list. Or even better, since the ol Microsoft exclusion game they promised TWICE in federal court to cease and desist from is still going strong how about they simply not allow MB makers to make some of a line without the Windows chip. Or even none at all. Nope, if you want to be a Microsoft Premium Partner and get get the co-market dollars you ship a Windows licensed (only) TCPA chip on every motherboard.
And of course Dell and HP would still be selling SERVERS able to run whatever a paying customer wanted. Yup, if you want RHEL or SUSE they will marry that to a TCPA chip and have it to you tomorrow. But where do devels come from in that world and where do they develop?
> i know what you'll say. "microsoft managed it with the xbox". which is
> bogus, microsoft's problem is the complete opposite as this one.
> microsoft is trying to prevent unsigned code from running on "their"
> hardware.
This situation isn't a lot different except they will allow unsigned code (WinXP or Linux) to boot instead of OSX. But once loaded it is a variant of the same thing, don't allow any unsigned code into ring0. And it wouldn't be all that much of a stretch for them to go total X-Box and lock any unsigned OS out.
But I sure hope you are right about it being cracked soon because if it isn't we are hosed. The initial posts here confirm that the Apple fanboys are more than willing to drink the Kool-Aid if Apple is serving it up.
Which means Microsoft will be forced to push up the rollout of similar lockdowns for Shorthorn because if they don't Apple will have all the video over net business locked up and Hollywood won't let Bill play.
And of course while they are at it they can lock out bootleg Windows licenses forever, win-win for them. And if not outright outlaw Linux, at least make sure only generic whitebox motherboards from Taiwan run it. The Dell and HPs will all be locked to the copy of Windows married to their TCPA module during manufacturing. And when the non-crazed Apple Fanboy civil libertarians complain they can, with a totally straight face, claim they HAD to.
Thank you Steve Jobs. Fucktard.
Yep, Standard Oil got zorched into little bits. And the little ones are already losing numbers.
Exxon and Mobil did the merger mambo. Looks like the new entity is strong enough to last a bit.
Conoco is done, merged with Phillips, along with Amoco.
Esso... Are they still operating elsewhere? Google hints they are now part of Exxon in some places, or at least Greenpeace thinks so. I'd guess they are toast except for the name lingering on.
A little more Google.... Looks like even more bits of Standard Oil are now borged into BP.
Need I continue?
Of course they rarely go totally bust, all those resources aren't going to be wasted. But let em get weakened and somebody will absorb them.