> So, BushCo should just keep trucking the troops into every > non-democratic country to enforce democracy at gunpoint?
That wouldn't be very practical for obvious reasons of logistics, but in theory it would actually work. But it would be a very sub-optimal solution.
A much less costly course of action would be to finish the job in Afganistan and Iraq, then once they are far enough along to be free and prosperous enough to serve as role models, give the rest of the Middle East a wee bit of a nudge towards instability and let the dominos fall into place.
The rest of the world can most be helped by ceasing to cause harm by participating in marxist instituitions like the World Bank, the IMF and most of the UN agencies. Instead push policies to strengthen local private commerce and industry instead of making the despots and transnational corporations ruling most of the third world stronger.
Finally, the US and the Free World should become better at evangelism, sending not only the message of Freedom but the gritty details of HOW to establish a free society and the rule of law. Think Voice of America with a vengence.
Oh, and if it appears I support a violent solution in the Middle East and not elsewhere; there is no inconsistancy. They have decided the world isn't big enough for Islam and Western Civilization. I agree with them and wish them a speedy exit.
Think about it, a world free, prosperous and at peace. Ready at last to leave the cradle and reach for the stars. We could have it in our lifetime if we only believed in ourselves enough to think our values worthy enough to encourage others to emulate them.
Or more bluntly; as a practical matter all we have to do is totally defeat the last vestiges of Communism, who now only live in Red China, Cuba, Universities the world over and the top levels of the Democratic Party.
The submitter is suprised, but I'm not. Wealthy nations can AFFORD the luxury of enviromentalism, unlike poor ones like the former Soviet block and the third world. The solution is obvious, encourage more nations to become wealthy by helping them become free.
No serious student of current events can escape the reality that political freedom and economic prosperity are linked. The old soviet empire attempted to foster economic openness to gain it's productivity benefits while keeping political freedom in the hands of the Party. They failed. China is making the same attempt and the signs are they are also going to fail. Freedom is the natural state of affairs and you can't supress it in one sphere while keeping it in the others.
Rising standards of living solve most of the pressing problems facing the world today. Birth rates are lowest in the free/wealthy nations and highest in the poor/oppressed ones. Wealthy/Free nations don't tend to make war on each other. Wealthy nations don't tend to produce terrorists either.
> With this sort of sentiment so incredibly widespread, do you think the > time might be right for a fork to take place emphasizing the things > that people care about instead of these dumbing-down tendencies and > mono?
Not yet. To make a fork stick we will need it to come to a crisis (like XFree86 did) and we need a major sponsor. The.NET conversion should provide both when that idea goes from impending nightmare to current nightmare. Because Sun can't base their "Java Desktop" on.NET. That $900M from Microsoft bought a lot of dirty deeds aimed at us in the Free Software scene, but Sun has bet the company on Java and won't be knifeing that baby anytime soon.
That is when we will have at least one major player willing to step up to the plate and finance a fork. And we will need someone because Miguel won't be allowed to do a.NET rewrite without at least Novell's blessing. Then there are the other major players, where will they stand? I'd like to think Red Hat is bright enough to understand what a trap.NET is, but when the crunch comes which side are they going to be on? For that matter, where is the FSF? Remember that the G in GNOME is GNU and nothing as major as drinking the.NET koolaid will be allowed without RMS's blessing. Which would be a comfort if the FSF wasn't working on their own.NET implementation, so just how much of the kool-aid have they already been drinking?
As does Red Hat Entrprise Linux, which just released a beta of version 4 in four flavors:
Enterprise Server Advanced Server Workstation Desktop
So whoever submitted this article is either an ignorant slut or more likely a RedHat hating KDE zealot looking to spread a bit of FUD.
> look at what Novell & Sun base their linux
Exactly. RedHat has far too much invested in GNOME to give it up and Novel liked Ximian so much they bought em. So all you Suse fans better get ready to love GNOME as the default/only desktop.
> Kudos to the submitter for successfully trolling the editors
Not all that hard, especially on an otherwise dull weekend, guess they figured there isn't anything quite like a good old-fashioned GNOME/KDE flamefest to make the ad server go "cha-ching!".
So in the spirit of fanning the flames......
I'll state again that while I dislike several GNOME misfeatures and greatly dread Miguel's obsession for all things Microsoft, possibly leading to a nightmare scenario of a total.net rewrite, currently GNOME has a couple of killer advantages over KDE:
1. Language independence. Being written in C has lead to GTK being easilly wrapped in a metric buttload of languages. KDE, being based on Qt is pretty much limited to C++ and closely related OO crap.
2. Platform independence. You can port Gtk/GNOME apps to Windows without worrying about license issues. Not so for KDE/Qt. You can port FROM Windows to the Free world but never the other way. Windows ports of the major GNOME/Gtk apps means a large userbase to tap and when they convert to Linux/GNU/X they will have never seen a KDE app but will already be up to speed on Gimp, Gaim, OpenOffice and such.
> You're not too familiar with the PATRIOT Act are you?
And you aren't too familiar with the situation. The server was located in ENGLAND and last I heard, US laws didn't hold much power there.
Hell, we haven't even got around to annexing Canada yet, but I'm sure the Great Satan (G W Bush for those who haven't been following along) will get around to 'em eventually.
> Because it wasn't "some website raided by the FBI". It was an > independant media source that was taken down by the FBI for reasons > unknown....
Saying indymedia is a 'media' site is more absurd than claiming slashdot is part of the media. indymedia is a political site, and prides itself on riding as close to the edge of the law as they think they can get away with.
So lets lose the 'The Man is supressing the press.' angle. Rackspace wouldn't have coughed up the server without the proper legal paperwork so everyone just chill until the facts come out as to what sort of evidence they are looking for. Try to keep in mind that the FBI isn't usually one of the rogue elephant agencies and for this case several different governments probably all had to sign off on it.
> Better yet, let's close down everything that is not explicitly covered > by the Constitution.
Preach it brother! Can we get an Amen on that?
And I'll add in a great big Hell Yea for good measure.
Especially in the case of the SLC. The FCC had no business ever getting into that business in the first place and it has only caused problems since its inception. We wouldn't be fighting off the CIPA & COPA censors if it were not for those "federal monies" (read cash ripped screaming from end users by way of the telcos) introduced into the state and local schools and public libraries.
And you are exactly on target with where to attack this problem, and that is at the root. Doesn't matter whether the program is effective, whether you think it is a good idea or what. It isn't constituitional, like most of the current Federal government.
Nope, won't be making any real waves. Face it, BeOS is as dead as the Amiga and attempts to revive it are equally doomed.
Why?
Because there just isn't any burning need for it. Windows has all the users that money can buy, UNIX has the hearts and minds of all the elite power users and the research crowd while the Mac has the fashion police in it's camp. What demographic wants to be Be compatible? What major software base is unlocked by a Free implementation? None.
> okay, it's not the same thing as having one in the White House, but > it's a place to start.
More importantly, it is the proper place to start. Like the guy said, just getting elected would indicate the sort of groundswell of revolution that would indicate it was time to make the radical changes he advocates, Which won't happen until we have a People fit to govern themselves as their forefathers once did.
You lead by example. The average person no longer knows what it means to be Free and frankly, the idea scares them. We need Libertarians who have the "people skills" for it to get out and run for local offices, then start making a difference. Those of us who lack the skills to be a successfull pol can provide support. This will show the more mainstream voters that:
1. Libertarians aren't just drug legalizing notcases. This factor should not be underestimated. Those tend to be the loudest voices and the mainstream press makes sure they are the ones the average voter sees.
2. Libertarian policies can actually be implemented in the real world. (Although truthfully, a lot of what passes for "libertarian" thought won't actually work, but weeding that stuff out is a lot less painful in a county government setting than a governor or national office going off into la-la land.)
3. It builds a bench to recruit candidates for higher office from. Where do you thing the Dems and Repubs get most of their candidates? Yup, by watching for new young talent to emerge down in the lower offices.
4. That chaotic Libertarians can actually form a Party. This is important. Regardless of how effective one politician is, it means nothing without a party. See Ross Perot and the Reform Party. Once Ross tired of playing the Reform Party disintegrated because it wasn't a real party, just a cult of personality that couldn't agree on anything, because the only belief they shared was a blind faith in Ross Perot.
> If Apple, however, figured out how to play.rm, we'd sue their asses > off. They won't license to us, so we won't license to them. Nyah.
This one is wrong. It should be:
We would be happy to accept Apple's check to license our useless (to Apple) tech. But we all know that won't happen because Apple is all about keeping people as locked into Quicktime's own codecs as possible.
> Based on "independent" consultants on our payroll, people want > alternatives to iTunes.
This one is also wrong. The quote was:
"96% of portable device owner said they thought they should be able to move music they bought to any device,"
Suprised it was only 96%. That question is about as controversial as "Do you think puppies are cute." Of course you should be able to play purchased music on ANY player. Which is why you should not part with good money for crappy low-bitrate DRM encumbered music.
Don't really buy that 1,500 picture number, but it is in the right range. I have a 2.2GB Microdrive in my 5 Megapixel camera and can only shoot 550-600 pics. But really, how often do you need that many pics? I have shot a couple hundred when using the autodrive a lot, but I could cull those down in the field if I started running short on space. The problem with CF hard drives is they are a LOT slower than flash on playback, so wading through the contents is not fun.
Listen up, Moore is the biggest troll since GNAA and the best way to deal with a troll is to ignore him. They feed off of the controversy.
The only thing F911 has been useful for is as a quick test of political cluefullness. Just ask someone their opinion on F911 and if they show any reaction other than amusement you can safely ignore whatever else they say because they are clueless.
> I cannot fathom how even good Republicans can continue to support Bush.
Truth be told I wan't a big Bush supporter in the last cycle. I voted for Mr. Keyes in the primary on the grounds he was the only candidate that had the balls to say exactly where he stood on every major issue and his positions were all grounded on pure Constituitional references.
> He has ballooned the deficit and the size of government.
Agreed. I'm majorly pissed at not only President Bush but with Congress as well. After all, THEY voted on that spending that Bush signed off on. Were it not for more pressing issues of national survival I'd vote a straight Libertarian ticket in November in protest.
> He has made us more insecure and a bigger target while destroying > sympathy for our cause overseas.
Here I disagree. The French, Germans and Russians were colaberating with Saddam so their support was impossible to secure. Removing Saddam WAS the right thing to do, even Kerry agrees with that (I think that is on even days, on odd days he thinks leaving Saddam was the safer course).
But as for making us a bigger target, in the short term that is probably true. But we had four choices after Sep 11.
1. Apeasement. Turn on Israel, support the PLO, withdraw our presence from the Middle East (allowing Saddam to reannex Kuwait), etc. Totally unacceptable.
2. Ignore the provation. Treat Sept 11 as a law enforcement issue, continue trying to arrest UBL, but don't violate any country's soverignty in the process. The Kerry position, most days. (On days when he eats his Wheaties he gets a little more militant.) Totally unacceptable unless you are a Democrat.
3. Half assed War. Perhaps take on the Taliban, but blow plenty of smoke about how they oppress women, destroy priceless Buddist artwork, etc as well. Never admit US force is actually being used solely for our defense. Turn the whole thing over to the UN bluehelments to fuck up as soon as the shooting slows up to ensure the country becomes a basket case. What would have probably happened had Gore won. He would have declared victory vs terrorism. Then been totally shocked when something else went Foom! during his first term.
4. War. Total, this planet ain't big enough for the both of us, sucks you have elected to leave kinda war. Short term the enemy is going to be fighting for survival and we might take some hits. But if we stay the course we will crush them, leaving us more secure.
As for sympathy for our cause overseas, well they are either our friends and for us (even if they disagree with our current course of action, real friends can disagree) or they aren't. France has NEVER been our friend and never will be, they see us as a threat to French power and culture and would have sought to undermine us even without being in bed with Saddam. But in the end, nothing works in foreign policy like success. If we win they will all be loudly proclaiming how much they always loved us and were rooting (from safely in the rear) for us.
> He dragged us into a war which no one wanted but his inner circle, > and has cost the lives of tens of thousands of people.
Only cost us a thousand so far, compare to over 50K in Vietnam, which while it WAS a just war and in the US national interest, wasn't nearly as vital as the current struggle. Me, I don't count enemy dead in the equation and as for the innocents caught in the middle in Iraq, that is the price they are paying to be free. If we succeed they won't have died in vain. Freedom is not Free.
The only way to "Win" the war on terror is to change the rules. So long as the Middle East is a cesspool of ignorance, poverty and oppression, with the only bright spot in the region their hated enemy in Israel, UBL and his ilk will find no end of desperate young idiots willing to strap on a bomb. The only longterm solution is to solve the problem at the source and that means yanking those poor bastards at least into
> So the swifties are telling the truth, and President bush, Dick Cheney, > etc, are lying?
What Kerry did or did not do in Vietnam is debatable, and that debate is finally getting the coverage it deserves. There is certainly more "there" there than there ever was about Bush's National Guard records and it got covered out the wazoo. Kerry's admission of fraud in Purple Heart #1 certainly shows there is some fire behind the smoke screen they are throwing up.
What isn't subject to debate is what John Kerry did after he returned and joined the Viet Cong Irregulars (Hanoi Jane & Co.), and with full knowledge he was speaking falsehoods and that they were intended to support the cause of an enemy we were in combat against, engaged in several successful propaganda operations, including perjured testimony before the US Congress. Overt actions intended to lend aid and support to a enemy is the textbook definition of treason. It doesn't get more overt than live network TV coverage.
So no, John Kerry is not fit to serve as President. John Kerry isn't fit to sit in the United States Senate. John Kerry should have been given some hard choices; serving a very long prison term as a confessed (on live TV) war criminal, admitting he was lying and being shot as a traitor or rolling over and in a very public forum confess to his crimes and reveal the whole web of lies, naming all of the names and deeds of the VC third column. But no confession that didn't at least get Hanoi Jane & her VC/KGB handler against the wall would be sufficient. Unfortunately his side won the Vietnam War and got to write the official history, pardon the draft dodgers, recast themselves as Heros of the Revolution, etc.
No, the/. hivemind wants the government to leave the Internet alone. Except those who want laws against spammers. And most here are conflicted about copyrights. Well, not exactly, everyone SAYS they are for them, just not for enforcing them.
Everywhere else they LOVE the crushing hand of the State. Lets pass laws to stop outsourcing, build great protectionist walls to protect every industry, redistribute wealth, stop the 'evil' corporations. Hell, lets even keep WalMart out of the pristine workers paradise of California.
The problem is that most of/. is close enough to the Internet to see how every attempt at government regulation either fails to make any difference or just makes the problem worse. But being products of modern education, and having less than zero knowledge of economics or real philosophy, they can't see how the same thing applies out here in meatspace. The "War on Poverty" made more poverty and created a perverted incentive for 'social workers' to make sure we always have it so they have job security.
> I think the normal moderation system should not apply for the politics > section.
Nah, politics isn't the worst abuse. Try saying something that isn't worshipful of Steve Jobs in an Apple related article and watch how fast you make -1 Troll. Moderation is what it is, what the/. hivemind thinks at that moment in time.
You just have to do what I do, save the Karma gained from slagging DMCA and all that crap and burn it slagging the sacred cows into burgers. Lost some saying Howard Dean was insane months before he "had a scream" and everyone else suddenly noticed. Lost more saying Kerry was a traitor, now the swift boat vets he served with are pushing that truth hard enough people stuck reading the mass media will figure that one out also... hopefully before election day.
A lot of Bush policy needed some hard questioning and a vigorous campaign is a good thing for the country, too bad neither of the candidates the Democrats put forward this season were fit for duty. It is about time for them to just shatter and reform as two or more parties and clean out the deadwood in the process because it is growing clear that they no longer know to get elected in a national race.
Of course! You guys run the whole spectrum. From outright Socialists through the Deaniacs ending at slightly left of center Democrats with a couple of Greens/Nader fans for added diversity. Beyond that is howling madness, no need to represent any of that, right?
Been reading here for years and I have never seen a hint of Republican or Libertarian views expressed in/. editorializing and there certainly isn't a lack of editorializing.
> The i915 GMA might not be very fast, but it is a fully DX9 compliant > chip. It has open-source drivers...
I didn't know about that one. Interesting, but not all that useful since I wouldn't be caught dead with an integrated video on a lowend board. Besides I like AMD64 and I doubt there is an Athlon64 MoBo with an Intel chipset. Just a suspicion, I was wrong once today though.
You do realize how cheap it is to register a domain, right? Unless you can RBL one in under an hour it probably won't raise their cost of doing business all that much.
> If you are using Linux and want properly designed drivers, you really > have no choice except to use an nVidia card.
Wrong. NO Nvidia card is supported. Buy a Radeon 9200 and use the OPen Source drivers in XFree86 for a good out of the box experience. And send both ATI and Nvidia an email explain to ATI why you put a 9200 in a top of the line machine instead of their newer closed crap and explain to Nvidia why NONE of their products can be considered for purchase.
If a few thousand of us did exactly what I just described we would have a modern 3D board with open drivers within a year from one of them.
> These drivers are binary because both companies do not want to publish > human readable details about their 3D acceleration.
Actually I suspect another culprit. ATI used to release complete hardware details under NDA to the XFree86 folks, which is why I have decent 3D support on my AMD64 machine with the last card with Open Source drivers, the Radeon 9200. DirectX9 is the dividing line. No card with DX9 support has specs available under any terms that permit an Open Source code release. So three guesses who is reponsible, especially since neither ATI nor NVidia will even discuss WHY they can't release specs. Only one entity can inspire that much fear.
> A billing error can be resolved directly with the company.
Depends on the company. Worldcon for example is totally clueless.
I had dialup with UUnet back around 1999-2000. When DSL hit the area I tried to drop the dialup. Seems there isn't a human there that can actually cancel your service. Finally got someone who said I had to dialup using the account and send an email. Since I didn't have the modem powered up anymore and deemed that a stupid way to do business I told em "whatever, but I ain't sending any more money." Figured it was like AOL, where the only way to cancel a subscription is to tell the credit card co to stop payments.
To this day they still think I am subscribed and call me every once in a while asking when I'm going to send the ever increasing back payment/penalties I "owe" them. But it doesn't seem to hurt my credit rating so I guess the agencies know all about worldcon and ignore bad reports from the asshats.
Just remember that sometimes good does triumph over evil. Someday, if we have the will to keep on fighting we will beat the DMCA and the RIAA as well. They have the money but we outnumber them. Wasn't it Stalin that said that Quantity has a Quality of its own? Of course our side happens to have the quality advantage as well when it comes to having more bright folks who can reverse engineer whatever crap they throw at us next.
But to fight them long term we have to make the politicians who give us crap like the DMCA fear us more than they want to make the MPAA/RIAA happy. As things stand BOTH major political power structures are against us. The Democrats supported DMCA, the Sonny Bono extension, etc because they depend on cold cash from the Hollywood left. The Republicans went right along because they like busineses like Time Warner and News Corp and the cash they pony up. Neither sees us as either a voting or donor block important enough to bother listening to.
Slashdot Mirror
> So, BushCo should just keep trucking the troops into every
> non-democratic country to enforce democracy at gunpoint?
That wouldn't be very practical for obvious reasons of logistics, but in theory it would actually work. But it would be a very sub-optimal solution.
A much less costly course of action would be to finish the job in Afganistan and Iraq, then once they are far enough along to be free and prosperous enough to serve as role models, give the rest of the Middle East a wee bit of a nudge towards instability and let the dominos fall into place.
The rest of the world can most be helped by ceasing to cause harm by participating in marxist instituitions like the World Bank, the IMF and most of the UN agencies. Instead push policies to strengthen local private commerce and industry instead of making the despots and transnational corporations ruling most of the third world stronger.
Finally, the US and the Free World should become better at evangelism, sending not only the message of Freedom but the gritty details of HOW to establish a free society and the rule of law. Think Voice of America with a vengence.
Oh, and if it appears I support a violent solution in the Middle East and not elsewhere; there is no inconsistancy. They have decided the world isn't big enough for Islam and Western Civilization. I agree with them and wish them a speedy exit.
Think about it, a world free, prosperous and at peace. Ready at last to leave the cradle and reach for the stars. We could have it in our lifetime if we only believed in ourselves enough to think our values worthy enough to encourage others to emulate them.
Or more bluntly; as a practical matter all we have to do is totally defeat the last vestiges of Communism, who now only live in Red China, Cuba, Universities the world over and the top levels of the Democratic Party.
The submitter is suprised, but I'm not. Wealthy nations can AFFORD the luxury of enviromentalism, unlike poor ones like the former Soviet block and the third world. The solution is obvious, encourage more nations to become wealthy by helping them become free.
No serious student of current events can escape the reality that political freedom and economic prosperity are linked. The old soviet empire attempted to foster economic openness to gain it's productivity benefits while keeping political freedom in the hands of the Party. They failed. China is making the same attempt and the signs are they are also going to fail. Freedom is the natural state of affairs and you can't supress it in one sphere while keeping it in the others.
Rising standards of living solve most of the pressing problems facing the world today. Birth rates are lowest in the free/wealthy nations and highest in the poor/oppressed ones. Wealthy/Free nations don't tend to make war on each other. Wealthy nations don't tend to produce terrorists either.
> With this sort of sentiment so incredibly widespread, do you think the
.NET conversion should provide both when that idea goes from impending nightmare to current nightmare. Because Sun can't base their "Java Desktop" on .NET. That $900M from Microsoft bought a lot of dirty deeds aimed at us in the Free Software scene, but Sun has bet the company on Java and won't be knifeing that baby anytime soon.
.NET rewrite without at least Novell's blessing. Then there are the other major players, where will they stand? I'd like to think Red Hat is bright enough to understand what a trap .NET is, but when the crunch comes which side are they going to be on? For that matter, where is the FSF? Remember that the G in GNOME is GNU and nothing as major as drinking the .NET koolaid will be allowed without RMS's blessing. Which would be a comfort if the FSF wasn't working on their own .NET implementation, so just how much of the kool-aid have they already been drinking?
> time might be right for a fork to take place emphasizing the things
> that people care about instead of these dumbing-down tendencies and
> mono?
Not yet. To make a fork stick we will need it to come to a crisis (like XFree86 did) and we need a major sponsor. The
That is when we will have at least one major player willing to step up to the plate and finance a fork. And we will need someone because Miguel won't be allowed to do a
> And Redhat's Fedora uses GNOME by default!
.net rewrite, currently GNOME has a couple of killer advantages over KDE:
As does Red Hat Entrprise Linux, which just released a beta of version 4 in four flavors:
Enterprise Server
Advanced Server
Workstation
Desktop
So whoever submitted this article is either an ignorant slut or more likely a RedHat hating KDE zealot looking to spread a bit of FUD.
> look at what Novell & Sun base their linux
Exactly. RedHat has far too much invested in GNOME to give it up and Novel liked Ximian so much they bought em. So all you Suse fans better get ready to love GNOME as the default/only desktop.
> Kudos to the submitter for successfully trolling the editors
Not all that hard, especially on an otherwise dull weekend, guess they figured there isn't anything quite like a good old-fashioned GNOME/KDE flamefest to make the ad server go "cha-ching!".
So in the spirit of fanning the flames......
I'll state again that while I dislike several GNOME misfeatures and greatly dread Miguel's obsession for all things Microsoft, possibly leading to a nightmare scenario of a total
1. Language independence. Being written in C has lead to GTK being easilly wrapped in a metric buttload of languages. KDE, being based on Qt is pretty much limited to C++ and closely related OO crap.
2. Platform independence. You can port Gtk/GNOME apps to Windows without worrying about license issues. Not so for KDE/Qt. You can port FROM Windows to the Free world but never the other way. Windows ports of the major GNOME/Gtk apps means a large userbase to tap and when they convert to Linux/GNU/X they will have never seen a KDE app but will already be up to speed on Gimp, Gaim, OpenOffice and such.
> You're not too familiar with the PATRIOT Act are you?
And you aren't too familiar with the situation. The server was located in ENGLAND and last I heard, US laws didn't hold much power there.
Hell, we haven't even got around to annexing Canada yet, but I'm sure the Great Satan (G W Bush for those who haven't been following along) will get around to 'em eventually.
> Because it wasn't "some website raided by the FBI". It was an
> independant media source that was taken down by the FBI for reasons
> unknown....
Saying indymedia is a 'media' site is more absurd than claiming slashdot is part of the media. indymedia is a political site, and prides itself on riding as close to the edge of the law as they think they can get away with.
So lets lose the 'The Man is supressing the press.' angle. Rackspace wouldn't have coughed up the server without the proper legal paperwork so everyone just chill until the facts come out as to what sort of evidence they are looking for. Try to keep in mind that the FBI isn't usually one of the rogue elephant agencies and for this case several different governments probably all had to sign off on it.
> Better yet, let's close down everything that is not explicitly covered
> by the Constitution.
Preach it brother! Can we get an Amen on that?
And I'll add in a great big Hell Yea for good measure.
Especially in the case of the SLC. The FCC had no business ever getting into that business in the first place and it has only caused problems since its inception. We wouldn't be fighting off the CIPA & COPA censors if it were not for those "federal monies" (read cash ripped screaming from end users by way of the telcos) introduced into the state and local schools and public libraries.
And you are exactly on target with where to attack this problem, and that is at the root. Doesn't matter whether the program is effective, whether you think it is a good idea or what. It isn't constituitional, like most of the current Federal government.
Nope, won't be making any real waves. Face it, BeOS is as dead as the Amiga and attempts to revive it are equally doomed.
Why?
Because there just isn't any burning need for it. Windows has all the users that money can buy, UNIX has the hearts and minds of all the elite power users and the research crowd while the Mac has the fashion police in it's camp. What demographic wants to be Be compatible? What major software base is unlocked by a Free implementation? None.
> okay, it's not the same thing as having one in the White House, but
> it's a place to start.
More importantly, it is the proper place to start. Like the guy said, just getting elected would indicate the sort of groundswell of revolution that would indicate it was time to make the radical changes he advocates, Which won't happen until we have a People fit to govern themselves as their forefathers once did.
You lead by example. The average person no longer knows what it means to be Free and frankly, the idea scares them. We need Libertarians who have the "people skills" for it to get out and run for local offices, then start making a difference. Those of us who lack the skills to be a successfull pol can provide support. This will show the more mainstream voters that:
1. Libertarians aren't just drug legalizing notcases. This factor should not be underestimated. Those tend to be the loudest voices and the mainstream press makes sure they are the ones the average voter sees.
2. Libertarian policies can actually be implemented in the real world. (Although truthfully, a lot of what passes for "libertarian" thought won't actually work, but weeding that stuff out is a lot less painful in a county government setting than a governor or national office going off into la-la land.)
3. It builds a bench to recruit candidates for higher office from. Where do you thing the Dems and Repubs get most of their candidates? Yup, by watching for new young talent to emerge down in the lower offices.
4. That chaotic Libertarians can actually form a Party. This is important. Regardless of how effective one politician is, it means nothing without a party. See Ross Perot and the Reform Party. Once Ross tired of playing the Reform Party disintegrated because it wasn't a real party, just a cult of personality that couldn't agree on anything, because the only belief they shared was a blind faith in Ross Perot.
If ever there was an example of why we need product liability laws, this is it. Unlease the attack lawyers on these bums.
> If Apple, however, figured out how to play .rm, we'd sue their asses
> off. They won't license to us, so we won't license to them. Nyah.
This one is wrong. It should be:
We would be happy to accept Apple's check to license our useless (to Apple) tech. But we all know that won't happen because Apple is all about keeping people as locked into Quicktime's own codecs as possible.
> Based on "independent" consultants on our payroll, people want
> alternatives to iTunes.
This one is also wrong. The quote was:
"96% of portable device owner said they thought they should be able to move music they bought to any device,"
Suprised it was only 96%. That question is about as controversial as "Do you think puppies are cute." Of course you should be able to play purchased music on ANY player. Which is why you should not part with good money for crappy low-bitrate DRM encumbered music.
Don't really buy that 1,500 picture number, but it is in the right range. I have a 2.2GB Microdrive in my 5 Megapixel camera and can only shoot 550-600 pics. But really, how often do you need that many pics? I have shot a couple hundred when using the autodrive a lot, but I could cull those down in the field if I started running short on space. The problem with CF hard drives is they are a LOT slower than flash on playback, so wading through the contents is not fun.
Listen up, Moore is the biggest troll since GNAA and the best way to deal with a troll is to ignore him. They feed off of the controversy.
The only thing F911 has been useful for is as a quick test of political cluefullness. Just ask someone their opinion on F911 and if they show any reaction other than amusement you can safely ignore whatever else they say because they are clueless.
> I cannot fathom how even good Republicans can continue to support Bush.
Truth be told I wan't a big Bush supporter in the last cycle. I voted for Mr. Keyes in the primary on the grounds he was the only candidate that had the balls to say exactly where he stood on every major issue and his positions were all grounded on pure Constituitional references.
> He has ballooned the deficit and the size of government.
Agreed. I'm majorly pissed at not only President Bush but with Congress as well. After all, THEY voted on that spending that Bush signed off on. Were it not for more pressing issues of national survival I'd vote a straight Libertarian ticket in November in protest.
> He has made us more insecure and a bigger target while destroying
> sympathy for our cause overseas.
Here I disagree. The French, Germans and Russians were colaberating with Saddam so their support was impossible to secure. Removing Saddam WAS the right thing to do, even Kerry agrees with that (I think that is on even days, on odd days he thinks leaving Saddam was the safer course).
But as for making us a bigger target, in the short term that is probably true. But we had four choices after Sep 11.
1. Apeasement. Turn on Israel, support the PLO, withdraw our presence from the Middle East (allowing Saddam to reannex Kuwait), etc. Totally unacceptable.
2. Ignore the provation. Treat Sept 11 as a law enforcement issue, continue trying to arrest UBL, but don't violate any country's soverignty in the process. The Kerry position, most days. (On days when he eats his Wheaties he gets a little more militant.) Totally unacceptable unless you are a Democrat.
3. Half assed War. Perhaps take on the Taliban, but blow plenty of smoke about how they oppress women, destroy priceless Buddist artwork, etc as well. Never admit US force is actually being used solely for our defense. Turn the whole thing over to the UN bluehelments to fuck up as soon as the shooting slows up to ensure the country becomes a basket case. What would have probably happened had Gore won. He would have declared victory vs terrorism. Then been totally shocked when something else went Foom! during his first term.
4. War. Total, this planet ain't big enough for the both of us, sucks you have elected to leave kinda war. Short term the enemy is going to be fighting for survival and we might take some hits. But if we stay the course we will crush them, leaving us more secure.
As for sympathy for our cause overseas, well they are either our friends and for us (even if they disagree with our current course of action, real friends can disagree) or they aren't. France has NEVER been our friend and never will be, they see us as a threat to French power and culture and would have sought to undermine us even without being in bed with Saddam. But in the end, nothing works in foreign policy like success. If we win they will all be loudly proclaiming how much they always loved us and were rooting (from safely in the rear) for us.
> He dragged us into a war which no one wanted but his inner circle,
> and has cost the lives of tens of thousands of people.
Only cost us a thousand so far, compare to over 50K in Vietnam, which while it WAS a just war and in the US national interest, wasn't nearly as vital as the current struggle. Me, I don't count enemy dead in the equation and as for the innocents caught in the middle in Iraq, that is the price they are paying to be free. If we succeed they won't have died in vain. Freedom is not Free.
The only way to "Win" the war on terror is to change the rules. So long as the Middle East is a cesspool of ignorance, poverty and oppression, with the only bright spot in the region their hated enemy in Israel, UBL and his ilk will find no end of desperate young idiots willing to strap on a bomb. The only longterm solution is to solve the problem at the source and that means yanking those poor bastards at least into
> So the swifties are telling the truth, and President bush, Dick Cheney,
> etc, are lying?
What Kerry did or did not do in Vietnam is debatable, and that debate is finally getting the coverage it deserves. There is certainly more "there" there than there ever was about Bush's National Guard records and it got covered out the wazoo. Kerry's admission of fraud in Purple Heart #1 certainly shows there is some fire behind the smoke screen they are throwing up.
What isn't subject to debate is what John Kerry did after he returned and joined the Viet Cong Irregulars (Hanoi Jane & Co.), and with full knowledge he was speaking falsehoods and that they were intended to support the cause of an enemy we were in combat against, engaged in several successful propaganda operations, including perjured testimony before the US Congress. Overt actions intended to lend aid and support to a enemy is the textbook definition of treason. It doesn't get more overt than live network TV coverage.
So no, John Kerry is not fit to serve as President. John Kerry isn't fit to sit in the United States Senate. John Kerry should have been given some hard choices; serving a very long prison term as a confessed (on live TV) war criminal, admitting he was lying and being shot as a traitor or rolling over and in a very public forum confess to his crimes and reveal the whole web of lies, naming all of the names and deeds of the VC third column. But no confession that didn't at least get Hanoi Jane & her VC/KGB handler against the wall would be sufficient. Unfortunately his side won the Vietnam War and got to write the official history, pardon the draft dodgers, recast themselves as Heros of the Revolution, etc.
No, the /. hivemind wants the government to leave the Internet alone. Except those who want laws against spammers. And most here are conflicted about copyrights. Well, not exactly, everyone SAYS they are for them, just not for enforcing them.
/. is close enough to the Internet to see how every attempt at government regulation either fails to make any difference or just makes the problem worse. But being products of modern education, and having less than zero knowledge of economics or real philosophy, they can't see how the same thing applies out here in meatspace. The "War on Poverty" made more poverty and created a perverted incentive for 'social workers' to make sure we always have it so they have job security.
Everywhere else they LOVE the crushing hand of the State. Lets pass laws to stop outsourcing, build great protectionist walls to protect every industry, redistribute wealth, stop the 'evil' corporations. Hell, lets even keep WalMart out of the pristine workers paradise of California.
The problem is that most of
> I think the normal moderation system should not apply for the politics
/. hivemind thinks at that moment in time.
> section.
Nah, politics isn't the worst abuse. Try saying something that isn't worshipful of Steve Jobs in an Apple related article and watch how fast you make -1 Troll. Moderation is what it is, what the
You just have to do what I do, save the Karma gained from slagging DMCA and all that crap and burn it slagging the sacred cows into burgers. Lost some saying Howard Dean was insane months before he "had a scream" and everyone else suddenly noticed. Lost more saying Kerry was a traitor, now the swift boat vets he served with are pushing that truth hard enough people stuck reading the mass media will figure that one out also... hopefully before election day.
A lot of Bush policy needed some hard questioning and a vigorous campaign is a good thing for the country, too bad neither of the candidates the Democrats put forward this season were fit for duty. It is about time for them to just shatter and reform as two or more parties and clean out the deadwood in the process because it is growing clear that they no longer know to get elected in a national race.
See how easy it is to make that Karma BURN!
> uhhm dood, pudge is a conservative man...
Journals don't count, the frontpage does. Find ONE incident of a editor on their soapbox on the frontpage who isn't taking a left of center position.
Of course! You guys run the whole spectrum. From outright Socialists through the Deaniacs ending at slightly left of center Democrats with a couple of Greens/Nader fans for added diversity. Beyond that is howling madness, no need to represent any of that, right?
/. editorializing and there certainly isn't a lack of editorializing.
Been reading here for years and I have never seen a hint of Republican or Libertarian views expressed in
> The i915 GMA might not be very fast, but it is a fully DX9 compliant
> chip. It has open-source drivers...
I didn't know about that one. Interesting, but not all that useful since I wouldn't be caught dead with an integrated video on a lowend board. Besides I like AMD64 and I doubt there is an Athlon64 MoBo with an Intel chipset. Just a suspicion, I was wrong once today though.
You do realize how cheap it is to register a domain, right? Unless you can RBL one in under an hour it probably won't raise their cost of doing business all that much.
> If you are using Linux and want properly designed drivers, you really
> have no choice except to use an nVidia card.
Wrong. NO Nvidia card is supported. Buy a Radeon 9200 and use the OPen Source drivers in XFree86 for a good out of the box experience. And send both ATI and Nvidia an email explain to ATI why you put a 9200 in a top of the line machine instead of their newer closed crap and explain to Nvidia why NONE of their products can be considered for purchase.
If a few thousand of us did exactly what I just described we would have a modern 3D board with open drivers within a year from one of them.
> These drivers are binary because both companies do not want to publish
> human readable details about their 3D acceleration.
Actually I suspect another culprit. ATI used to release complete hardware details under NDA to the XFree86 folks, which is why I have decent 3D support on my AMD64 machine with the last card with Open Source drivers, the Radeon 9200. DirectX9 is the dividing line. No card with DX9 support has specs available under any terms that permit an Open Source code release. So three guesses who is reponsible, especially since neither ATI nor NVidia will even discuss WHY they can't release specs. Only one entity can inspire that much fear.
> A billing error can be resolved directly with the company.
Depends on the company. Worldcon for example is totally clueless.
I had dialup with UUnet back around 1999-2000. When DSL hit the area I tried to drop the dialup. Seems there isn't a human there that can actually cancel your service. Finally got someone who said I had to dialup using the account and send an email. Since I didn't have the modem powered up anymore and deemed that a stupid way to do business I told em "whatever, but I ain't sending any more money." Figured it was like AOL, where the only way to cancel a subscription is to tell the credit card co to stop payments.
To this day they still think I am subscribed and call me every once in a while asking when I'm going to send the ever increasing back payment/penalties I "owe" them. But it doesn't seem to hurt my credit rating so I guess the agencies know all about worldcon and ignore bad reports from the asshats.
Just remember that sometimes good does triumph over evil. Someday, if we have the will to keep on fighting we will beat the DMCA and the RIAA as well. They have the money but we outnumber them. Wasn't it Stalin that said that Quantity has a Quality of its own? Of course our side happens to have the quality advantage as well when it comes to having more bright folks who can reverse engineer whatever crap they throw at us next.
But to fight them long term we have to make the politicians who give us crap like the DMCA fear us more than they want to make the MPAA/RIAA happy. As things stand BOTH major political power structures are against us. The Democrats supported DMCA, the Sonny Bono extension, etc because they depend on cold cash from the Hollywood left. The Republicans went right along because they like busineses like Time Warner and News Corp and the cash they pony up. Neither sees us as either a voting or donor block important enough to bother listening to.