Easy, tell them it is a Green improvement. Nobody these days has the stones to refuse anything labeled as green.
> I so regret buying into a HOA-managed community.
Yup. Just makes you less of an owner than others. But don't feel too bad because nobody actually owns their home, never forget that. The Feds have primary claim on the place, then the State, County/Parish, and City government all have the right to seize it anytime they want or if you don't pay the 'rent'. And make no mistake, they see it that way; that they own it and you rent/lease it from them. And these days a lot of city governments are getting as obnoxious in the rules they impose on what you can do with 'your' house as any HOA.
Of course they see you income and accumulated wealth the same way, it is their money and they decide how much they have to 'spend' (read let you keep) to motivate you to keep working. Hence the current Washington Newspeak where a tax increase gets written of as a 'spending cut' in the legacy media.
Duh, we have had 64bit Firefox on Linux for years, it was stable enough to ship standard in RHEL3's 64 bit editions, yea that long ago. Of course I don't think Moz Corp actually had a lot to do with that, and the nspluginwrapper that made it practical to actually use came from a random outside source. So no, I didn't need to click through before letting the snark and sarcasm flow freely. Bah, Windows is pathetically behind the 64 bit curve. Remember the several years of new PCs shipping with 3GB to avoid the tech support calls asking where the extra GB was hiding?
I thought I had been running a 64bit Firefox for years. So I wasn't? Or is this about finally doing a 64-bit Windows build? Probably since Moz Corp is entirely focused on Windows and treats Linux as a red headed stepchild.
> Now I understand that he is to be stopped at all costs.
The horrible truth is there are no Linux developers who are trying to create a UNIX for the 21st Century. They are all of three types. There are the ones who develop for Linux in a VM on their Macbook who want to make Linux into a knockoff of OS X. Then there are the ones who develop Linux apps on their Dell or Thinkpad who lust after Microsoft's taillights, cloning every one of their new features and APIs. Then there are the ones who develop Linux on their Windows PC who are working on enterprise/server features who care not for the Linux desktop. Yes I have generalized a bit, but it serves frighteningly well as a first approximation of the current situation.
That leaves BSD, but there is no innovation happening there either, the small about of developer resources there are consumed trying to keep up with the churn in device drivers and keeping linux binaries running so they can have must have things like a web browser, flash player, etc. The old mainframe/timeshare UNIX model built around terminals does need updating for the 21st century world of multiple CPUs per user, dynamic hardware and pervasive networking. But nobody is even thinking about those problems except Plan9 and it only exists in emulators because of the driver problem. There is almost no thought going into preserving the UNIX culture because we took in to many immigrants from Windows/Mac and didn't make them natives before giving them commit access our key cultural artifacts. There is probably a lesson here for the larger political immigration arguments in the 1st world but that gets kinda offtopic.
> Darwin is the most popular version of UNIX as of today...
Nope. Android is already outselling the iPhone and it only gets worse from here on out. And for every iPod there are how many tablets, ebook readers, routers, tv sets, BD players, etc. running Linux? So that leaves desktop OS X vs Linux desktops and servers. Yes OS X has way more desktops/laptops in service but close to zero servers while Linux servers and appliances almost certainly outnumber hipsters with Macbooks. The OS wars are pretty much over and Linux has won. Microsoft owns the desktop, but realizes that doesn't matter much longer. Apple will be the choice for people who have more cash than common sense until Steve passes and ends the cult of Mac. Linux now rules the consumer electronic space and the (terrifying because of the DRM it promises) future of computing is its evolution into just some new categories of consumer electronics.
Apple had a brief shining moment of triumph when they surged to rule the mindshare of the decisionmakers and with their insanely great profit margins had so much cash flow it drove their stock into orbit, eclipsing Microsoft and challenging even Google. But that time is passing because it couldn't last. Apple, despite the current iPod exception, isn't a mass market business. It is an elite brand experience which is incompatible with volume success. The iPod slid out of focus as prices fell too low to support insane margins and it's functionality merged with the iPhone. The iPhone refused to compete with Android on price and thus is now #3 behind RIM and Google and will continue to decline until it hits the same ~10% as Macs historically exist at. If too many people start showing up with an elite brand it ceases to be an elite brand. If a shlub like me could swing a BMW the current doctors and lawyers would be forced to buy a Jag to display their higher status.
Nothing to see here, move along. The Republicans in the House are so cute, trying to pass budgets and stuff. The POTUS and Harry Reid (Senate leader) have said they see no reason to bring a budget up for debate so it is pointless. Sometime in the fall when the Repubs come to grips with that talk will turn yet again to another continuing resolution and every program will just auto pilot along.
> Why the weasel words, man? It's Linux. Accept it.
Learn to parse English. I clarified my objection my noting the dual use of the word Linux to mean both the OS kernel project headed up by Linus and the more generic Linux/GNU/X/etc UNIXish environment meaning. Try to keep up.
> lX.org/Gnome/KDE: Yeah, because those products have been so successful at driving Linux to the masses. Not.
Doesn't matter if you are correct in your slagging of the Free Software world's achievements or not. When you say "Linux" to the average person they aren't thinking of the kernel project but the whole stack they have probably at least seen a time or two. So in the popular meaning of the word android is no more "Linux" than their TV which also is probably running the Linux kernel.
> Moz Corp.: Check again, Skippy.
So there is. So what if it is a beta, they got it running. Web browser in Java bytecode running webpages chock-a-block full of javascript.... being interpreted in java.:) Now they just need a native X server instead of VNC and a full UNIXish environment would be practical. Would be interesting to then benchmark the java bytecode based Android port of Firefox against the native ARM Linux/X version.
> None of which are necessary for a fully functional Android system.
Which I suppose is why there are close to zero OEM products that do not include them, meaning they all are official licensees of Google and thus just as bound to obey the Google mothership as any Microsoft OEM. For that matter, find an install of Android that isn't an OEM install. Free Software my arse.
> Wow, you have a fucking crystal ball?
Yup. You don't have to be Kreskin to see that a UI that works on phones an tablets isn't likely to also be usable on a large desktop with a mouse instead of a touchscreen. See GNOME3. You can't be all things to all people. And people expect more performance on a desktop than is likely to be possible in an environment where everything is java. While a fun puzzle game, Angry birds isn't exactly state of the art. And would you want to run OO.o compiled to Java bytecode? So no, android isn't likely to ever threaten the traditional desktop/workstation market, especially the sort of user who runs a current Linux distro.
Gaining the ability to run Android apps on a Linux/X desktop would be nice and I'm suprised it hasn't already happened. Even if some wouldn't be useful because of the touchscreen/mouse divide many would be good to have available. That it hasn't already happened leads me to suspect there is an IP trap preventing it.
> Calling Android a linux desktop is also a stretch.
Calling it Linux is technically correct in that it does use the Linux kernel down under layers of Google and Java cruft. But it is only used as a place for the OEMs to hang device drivers because they already were familiar with it from their other ARM embedded projects. In the more familiar usage of the word 'Linux' to mean a distribution of familiar UNIXish tools from GNU, X.org, Moz Corp, GNOME/KDE, etc. Android is totally alien and about as closed of a walled garden as OS X or iOS. Yes most of it is technically released under an FSF approved license but there is zero community involvement in what Google tosses over the wall from time to time. And because they keep a couple of key bits closed they can dictate terms to OEMs (almost) exactly like it was a totally closed source environment.
And yes there is the issue that Android is not and probably never will be ready for the desktop. It is a phone OS growing to the tablet space. Kinda hard to envision it scaling to multiple large displays.
So yea, DiBona takes Google's shilling so he has to promote their stuff. But we are free to laugh and call him a silly person for expecting us to believe this line of BS.
> George Bush got into Yale. Anything is possible.
One can argue he got into Yale as a legacy because of Bush Sr., however that doesn't explain also getting a degree from Harvard and having grades on par with "super smart" Al Gore or Kerry. Btw, when are we going to actually see the grades of the 'smartest man to ever sit in the Oval Office?' Time to face up to reality, W isn't stupid and making fun of a minor speech impediment on anyone else would get you sent to the reeducation camp because making jokes about the disabled is a major no-no these days. Disagree with his policies all you want (I certainly do.... although probably different ones than you do) but the joke is old.
You do know that the fifty year seal on the Senate records from the McCarthy hearings finally expired and that between that and the other reveals from the end of the Cold War we now know (Not believe, know. There is a difference.) that Joe McCarthy's only real sin was in failing to realize just how far the rabbit hole went. It wasn't just an infestation of Communists in the State Dept., the rot went all the way to the heart of our government, including the US Senate.
One can argue whether the FBI's tactics were effective, one can argue whether they were moral or legal. What can't be argued any more is that they were fighting a real enemy within and losing.
Go get _Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies_ by M. Stanton Evans and prepare for the scales to fall from your eyes. Backed by lots of actual documents from the era, now declassified by our government or released by Soviet archives.
> What if someone wrote malware that would run a VM from the boot sector, and > then ran your existing OS from the VM?
You would notice when your 3D performance began to suck ass. And when either all of your devices became virtual ones or all other performance (net, disk, etc) also began to suck ass. Unless you assume a genius who can create a VM environment that works perfectly transparently, has almost zero overhead and otherwise breaks major new ground in the science; and that they waste their time on a virus instead of kicking VMWare, RedHat, QEMU, etcs ass and seizing a multi-billion dollar red hot market segment.
> And how about that Pope? And thousands of Catholic priests! Don't forget them.
Wouldn't want to harsh your moral equivalence rant or nothing but there is an important difference. Yes, Christians, Popes on down, Catholic or Protestant, whatever, have buggered kiddies in the past. Straight and gay, whatever; guilty as charged. Difference is Christians, along with just about every other religious/philosophical system, teach that it is wrong; while Muslims, following the 'perfect example' of their prophet don't. Contemplate that for a bit and see if you can see the difference between the two systems of belief and how there just might be a problem.... unless you are a NAMBLA supporter or something.
Feh. Glenn is trying but I'm usually a year or two ahead of him. Oh course even what he did say was enough to get him sacked, something he himself predicted early in his run. Not that that was a hard prediction to make, being an outspoken proponent of Israel and speaking hard truths about Islam on a network where the House of Saud owns a large minority stake couldn't end well. He might could have gotten away with lifting the kimono on the progressives a little longer, it being FNS and all, but he bit the hand.
> He claims all leftists -- all! -- want to overthrow the Constitution:
Almost all leftists do. All Progressives believe the Constitution is an impediment to their goals, correctly. Why do I say such a thing? Because I read what they write and listen to what they say and they have been saying it pretty clearly for a hundred years. But don't believe me, might I refer you to the cover of the current Time magazine (where the burning question in the newsroom is whether they will fetch more than the $1 Newsweek recently sold for, but that is a snark best unleashed at another time) where the cover consists of a photo of the U.S. Constitution with the words "Does the Constitution still matter?" emblazened across it. If you bothered with the clueless prose of the article the answer hasn't changed since Woodrow Wilson's day.
Progressives want to 'progress' beyond the Constitution and can't be bothered with waiting for We The People to catch up to their wisdom so as to muster the supermajority of votes to amend it/rewrite it so they just decided to ignore it. When people wouldn't stand for that they invented the 'living Constitution' so they could claim they were obeying it.. i.e. they lied. They kept the familar forms of the old republic while discarding the meaning and used their control of the 'towering heights of the culture' to make it stick.... until the Internet, talk radio and cable TV smashed the progressive monopoly on mass media.
> He says the Nazis were left-wingers:
Yup, total insanity to think the National Socialist German Workers' Party is related to Progressives, Socialism and Communism. Most people here can read, yourself included. Some of us use the ability, you should try it. You might want to start with the Nazi Party platform. Compare and contrast to the current Democratic Party's platform and you might find enlightenment. The American Progressives (Wilson, FDR, the NYT et. al.) were totally in love with Italian Fascism and early Nazism. Most stayed in love with Hitler until the day he betrayed the pact with Stalin and attacked the Soviets. The Nazis didn't invent propaganda, they learned it from our own Progressives.
None of the above is opinion, it is historical fact. Fascism, Nazism, Socialism, Communism and our Progressive movement are all closely tied together by sharing most of their assumptions about human nature, the proper relation between man and the state, totalitarian, most of their moral code, etc. And if allowed to be fully implemented all lead to ruin and mass graves. We got to see it in Germany, the Soviet Union, etc. Thankfully we haven't seen the end state of Progressive ideas... yet.
> I would be happy to entertain the idea that misguided environmentalism is partially > to blame for one disaster or another, but I would like to hear a reasoned argument > from someone who's not a nut.
Did you read the article before the attacking the author and/or the publisher? Unless the quote is fabricated the government's own operations manual itself makes that claim in the highlighted boxed text I'll requote for you:
MWCM (Sec 7-07.2.6): "Releases at higher-than-normal rates early in the season that cannot be supported by runoff forecasting techniques is inconsistent with all System purposes other than flood control. All of the other authorized purposes depend upon the accumulation of water in the System rather than the availability of vacant storage space."
Translated to English it says flood control was sacrificed to 'other authorized purposes.' Any questions?
> I suppose the fishing and tourism industry have largely similar interest as the > "environmentalists" as far as the water levels.
Somebody didn't read the article before opening their hole. The shipping industry hates the green river management because it makes the river unsafe for navigation for large parts of the year. The original design called for enough flow to allow shipping year around. The greens want the river to flood in the spring (just not enough to bust levees, that was a mistake caused by their policy not the policy itself... at least as stated) and run low later in the year to follow natural patterns closer. To ensure a spring flood they held back too much water during the winter and when the spring rains and snow melt came stronger than expected they lacked the capacity to hold all of the water, forcing them to release at rates the levees could not hold back from the towns downstream. That is the charge against the Corps in a single sentence and it is pretty sound.
The mission of the system was changed in ways it was not designed for and no attempt was made to remake it to handle the new mission it was given. Failure was a given at that point just as certainly as when NASA ignored the manufacturers warnings about the thermal specs on Challenger's O-Rings.
What a tard. Didn't you know that the free market pulled out of the flood insurance decades ago when the Feds took over? Yup, the only source of flood insurance is the US Federal Government's Flood Insurance program. Guess they only run those PSAs in areas where flooding is a problem or you don't have a TV? We get em all the time where they explain that no homeowner's policy covers flood damage, that only the Federal Flood Insurance program does that and that your policy must be in force thirty days before a disaster.
Seriously, selling flood insurance in the current US is a fools game which is why only the Government is stupid enough to do it. You have areas that flood several times per decade and the people just rebuild because Uncle Sugar will come through. Hell, even if they don't buy the flood insurance Uncle Sugar will probably come through with at least a zero (or so low as to not matter) interest loan. After Katrina/Rita they have finally started telling some of the most risky areas they have to either move or greatly beef up their rebuilding to elevate the structure above the 100 year flood level.
Except that they didn't. They looked at a random build. Remember that Sagans of KLoCs were written for Longhorn and then abandoned. That wasn't the first time and it won't be the last. People wrote articles based on those leaked copies too, because they were intentionally leaked for just that purpose. It has always been thus, everyone else's shipping products are compared to what Microsoft says it will ship 'RSN.' Then it eventually ships and isn't anything like what was promised. Rinse and repeat every couple of years.
About all that can be stated with any certainty is that Windows 8 will probably ship sometime between 12 and 24 months from now and will add support for ARM and a tabletish touch interface. The tablets are a done deal because they would totally piss off OEMs who are already putting product into the pipeline that they would ship Android or Meego if Microsoft changed course on em.
Windows 7 is the only product that resembled the prerelease hype and that was because the goals were so minimal, Make a Windows Vista that doesn't suck donkey balls. Since they had eliminated most of the worst suckage by Vista SP1 (and people generally were buying it on new hardware instead of upgrading by then) about all that was left was to reskin it so people who had heard that "Vista Sucks" wouldn't look at 7 and instantly associate it with Vista.
> Sounds great, until the news media hears about how somebody said "Fuck YOU!" > to those who demand random in e.g. Somalia (Real pirates there) and people get > actually killed because of it.
Better to spend ten times the demand on mercenaries and attempt a rescue than pay ransom. Better still if to develop a reputation for disproportional reprisals.
I.e. Do something like what the (possibly apocryphal story) Russians did in the M.E. back in the 80's when some of the fools wearing a diaper on their empty noggin didn't understand the difference between the US and the Soviet Union and kidnapped one of their people. Russian intelligence hunted down a relative of the leader of the terror group and mailed the terrorists the guy's nuts in a jar. Hostage was promptly released and the lesson was learned. Russians were not to be held for ransom.
In the case of Somalia, if America still had a spine we would just tell the pirates the US Navy would be hunting them at sea on general principle but that if they were ever stupid enough to touch an American flag vessel or anyone bearing US papers that we would hurt them so bad they would be screaming "war crime" in Geneva. As in sink everything that looked like it COULD float, knock down any and every building that might possibly be related to the pirates, etc. on a first offense. If the warlords still didn't take the hint and police themselves go in on the ground and kill anyone armed on a second offense. Make a proper example once and the problem never recurs.
> They will get asked for money on a yearly basis.
Which is why you never pay Danegeld. It never gets rid of the Dane.
Trillions for defense, not a penny in tribute is the only long term strategy for dealing with aggression. And these threats are aggression and weakness in the face of aggression always invites fresh demands. We should be tracking down these 'hacking' groups with the same vigor we go after other organized crime and terrorism. If that means dropping a Hellfire missile down on a few houses in countries where the local authorities won't take this stuff serious I'm not going to lose sleep over it. Can we bomb the spammer/phishers too while we are at it?
> But if there's a simple nudge that helps people eat more vegetables and less sweets, > then who can honestly be against that.
I'm all for people making the argument you should eat more vegetables, hell if I'd eaten a few more and chugged a few less Cokes I might not have been diagnosed with diabetes this month. We should be openly debating ideas. Where I get creeped out is when the do gooders don't want to reason anymore, they want to do the jedi mind trick. Same for marketers who don't do straight up ads extoling the product, they do these brand identity ads that slither into yer mind while you aren't paying attention. What especially sucks is that stuff actually works and not just on 'weak minds' but even stronger ones if you aren't alert and watching for the crap, which was what the Brawndo reference was about. Even if you think you are too smart to fall for that marketing hooey you will probably fall for one you didn't notice and wind up not only drinking Brawndo but using the slogan in ordinary conversation.
> How about asking whether -advertising- is ethical?
Exactly the right question. Strip away the tech angle and this is just basic marketing being practiced. And that ship has sailed, for good or ill we aren't getting rid of advertising and marketing... even if it were possible to do so.
> At least these 'nudging technologies' are intended to -help- the person affected.
Said he who considers himself superior to the lesser beings being nudged. I'll be the judge of what is good for me and you figure out what is best for you. Now toss me another Brawndo will ya.
Yup. But/. had to counter that bad story earlier that might have caused a few of the faithful to stray from the One True Religion and rags like Discover can be relied upon to provide rebuttal to any evidence that might bring AGW into question. Real scientists studying the the Sun come out with a "This is unusual, we didn't expect to see this. This might have consequences so we are putting out a press release so others can come look at our data." type report and a few days later we are reassured by purkinje that "any cooling that might come from this would be less than the global warming that's been going on."
We aren't told who purkinj is though, what his degree is in, who is financing him, etc. How many carbon credits or solar projects he is invested in, nothin. But we can trust him because he is Faithful. Also note that this guy seems to have a straight pipe to the submission queue and never participates in the comments.
Meanwhile the IPCC is in yet another fresh scandal where it is learned that they allowed a Greanpeace activist to be the lead author on a section of their report on alternative energy and repackage his own earlier work with zero peer review or oversight.
Which is why the US Founding Fathers rejected democracy as a terrible idea. They understood the idea, knew the problems with it and designed us a system of a Constitutional Republic instead. The Constitution is intentionally hard to change but not impossible. This protects against temporary insanity in the other balances of government. The People are at the core of the system (all just power derives from the consent of the governed, etc) but the rest of the government is designed to act as a check against them because We the People can be just as stupid as the politicians.
Democracy is a group of 100 people wherein 51 vote to piss in the corn flakes of the minority. And if everyone believes in democracy the 49 can only demand proof the vote was fair before being obligated to chug the piss. That is why the US system has checks and balances including notions like inalienable rights that neither Congress nor the People have the right to abridge.
> and you're not exactly know for your understanding of higher education pricing. If Harvard > wants you, they'll find a way to make it affordable
Which would be interesting in its own right if true. Why did they want this particular student? His grades were not good. Columbia won't release his transcript or grades but has confirmed the basics of his diploma. They will say they granted him a degree in Political Science and that he did not graduate with any honors. So why was Harvard Law so hot to have this oh so average at best scholar that they gave him a free ride? Really? Is that your theory?
Harvard Law has about 500 seats per year and thousands of applications, almost all of which are going to have better transcripts that Barry probably had. But Harvard not only wanted this guy they wanted him so bad they were willing to give a free ride?
> He was magna cum laude. Verified by Harvard. Not as high as summa, but the point > remains that he was top 10% of his class at Harvard.
Not so fast. Back when Zero was in Harvard they were going through terrible grade inflation. I have on another tab a 1999 LA Times piece announcing a new system at Harvard where only 10% will get magna cum laude. It says that under the previous system 76% of Harvard Law grads got honors. Granted that he DID get a law degree from Harvard and that ain't easy peasy. But isn't it interesting that we don't know what sort of classes he took? Did he take the easy stuff or take classes under the profs that give the hard work?
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> And what about my frikkin' HOA?
Easy, tell them it is a Green improvement. Nobody these days has the stones to refuse anything labeled as green.
> I so regret buying into a HOA-managed community.
Yup. Just makes you less of an owner than others. But don't feel too bad because nobody actually owns their home, never forget that. The Feds have primary claim on the place, then the State, County/Parish, and City government all have the right to seize it anytime they want or if you don't pay the 'rent'. And make no mistake, they see it that way; that they own it and you rent/lease it from them. And these days a lot of city governments are getting as obnoxious in the rules they impose on what you can do with 'your' house as any HOA.
Of course they see you income and accumulated wealth the same way, it is their money and they decide how much they have to 'spend' (read let you keep) to motivate you to keep working. Hence the current Washington Newspeak where a tax increase gets written of as a 'spending cut' in the legacy media.
Fwoosh!
Duh, we have had 64bit Firefox on Linux for years, it was stable enough to ship standard in RHEL3's 64 bit editions, yea that long ago. Of course I don't think Moz Corp actually had a lot to do with that, and the nspluginwrapper that made it practical to actually use came from a random outside source. So no, I didn't need to click through before letting the snark and sarcasm flow freely. Bah, Windows is pathetically behind the 64 bit curve. Remember the several years of new PCs shipping with 3GB to avoid the tech support calls asking where the extra GB was hiding?
I thought I had been running a 64bit Firefox for years. So I wasn't? Or is this about finally doing a 64-bit Windows build? Probably since Moz Corp is entirely focused on Windows and treats Linux as a red headed stepchild.
> Now I understand that he is to be stopped at all costs.
The horrible truth is there are no Linux developers who are trying to create a UNIX for the 21st Century. They are all of three types. There are the ones who develop for Linux in a VM on their Macbook who want to make Linux into a knockoff of OS X. Then there are the ones who develop Linux apps on their Dell or Thinkpad who lust after Microsoft's taillights, cloning every one of their new features and APIs. Then there are the ones who develop Linux on their Windows PC who are working on enterprise/server features who care not for the Linux desktop. Yes I have generalized a bit, but it serves frighteningly well as a first approximation of the current situation.
That leaves BSD, but there is no innovation happening there either, the small about of developer resources there are consumed trying to keep up with the churn in device drivers and keeping linux binaries running so they can have must have things like a web browser, flash player, etc. The old mainframe/timeshare UNIX model built around terminals does need updating for the 21st century world of multiple CPUs per user, dynamic hardware and pervasive networking. But nobody is even thinking about those problems except Plan9 and it only exists in emulators because of the driver problem. There is almost no thought going into preserving the UNIX culture because we took in to many immigrants from Windows/Mac and didn't make them natives before giving them commit access our key cultural artifacts. There is probably a lesson here for the larger political immigration arguments in the 1st world but that gets kinda offtopic.
> Darwin is the most popular version of UNIX as of today...
Nope. Android is already outselling the iPhone and it only gets worse from here on out. And for every iPod there are how many tablets, ebook readers, routers, tv sets, BD players, etc. running Linux? So that leaves desktop OS X vs Linux desktops and servers. Yes OS X has way more desktops/laptops in service but close to zero servers while Linux servers and appliances almost certainly outnumber hipsters with Macbooks. The OS wars are pretty much over and Linux has won. Microsoft owns the desktop, but realizes that doesn't matter much longer. Apple will be the choice for people who have more cash than common sense until Steve passes and ends the cult of Mac. Linux now rules the consumer electronic space and the (terrifying because of the DRM it promises) future of computing is its evolution into just some new categories of consumer electronics.
Apple had a brief shining moment of triumph when they surged to rule the mindshare of the decisionmakers and with their insanely great profit margins had so much cash flow it drove their stock into orbit, eclipsing Microsoft and challenging even Google. But that time is passing because it couldn't last. Apple, despite the current iPod exception, isn't a mass market business. It is an elite brand experience which is incompatible with volume success. The iPod slid out of focus as prices fell too low to support insane margins and it's functionality merged with the iPhone. The iPhone refused to compete with Android on price and thus is now #3 behind RIM and Google and will continue to decline until it hits the same ~10% as Macs historically exist at. If too many people start showing up with an elite brand it ceases to be an elite brand. If a shlub like me could swing a BMW the current doctors and lawyers would be forced to buy a Jag to display their higher status.
Nothing to see here, move along. The Republicans in the House are so cute, trying to pass budgets and stuff. The POTUS and Harry Reid (Senate leader) have said they see no reason to bring a budget up for debate so it is pointless. Sometime in the fall when the Repubs come to grips with that talk will turn yet again to another continuing resolution and every program will just auto pilot along.
> Why the weasel words, man? It's Linux. Accept it.
Learn to parse English. I clarified my objection my noting the dual use of the word Linux to mean both the OS kernel project headed up by Linus and the more generic Linux/GNU/X/etc UNIXish environment meaning. Try to keep up.
> lX.org/Gnome/KDE: Yeah, because those products have been so successful at driving Linux to the masses. Not.
Doesn't matter if you are correct in your slagging of the Free Software world's achievements or not. When you say "Linux" to the average person they aren't thinking of the kernel project but the whole stack they have probably at least seen a time or two. So in the popular meaning of the word android is no more "Linux" than their TV which also is probably running the Linux kernel.
> Moz Corp.: Check again, Skippy.
So there is. So what if it is a beta, they got it running. Web browser in Java bytecode running webpages chock-a-block full of javascript.... being interpreted in java. :) Now they just need a native X server instead of VNC and a full UNIXish environment would be practical. Would be interesting to then benchmark the java bytecode based Android port of Firefox against the native ARM Linux/X version.
> None of which are necessary for a fully functional Android system.
Which I suppose is why there are close to zero OEM products that do not include them, meaning they all are official licensees of Google and thus just as bound to obey the Google mothership as any Microsoft OEM. For that matter, find an install of Android that isn't an OEM install. Free Software my arse.
> Wow, you have a fucking crystal ball?
Yup. You don't have to be Kreskin to see that a UI that works on phones an tablets isn't likely to also be usable on a large desktop with a mouse instead of a touchscreen. See GNOME3. You can't be all things to all people. And people expect more performance on a desktop than is likely to be possible in an environment where everything is java. While a fun puzzle game, Angry birds isn't exactly state of the art. And would you want to run OO.o compiled to Java bytecode? So no, android isn't likely to ever threaten the traditional desktop/workstation market, especially the sort of user who runs a current Linux distro.
Gaining the ability to run Android apps on a Linux/X desktop would be nice and I'm suprised it hasn't already happened. Even if some wouldn't be useful because of the touchscreen/mouse divide many would be good to have available. That it hasn't already happened leads me to suspect there is an IP trap preventing it.
> Calling Android a linux desktop is also a stretch.
Calling it Linux is technically correct in that it does use the Linux kernel down under layers of Google and Java cruft. But it is only used as a place for the OEMs to hang device drivers because they already were familiar with it from their other ARM embedded projects. In the more familiar usage of the word 'Linux' to mean a distribution of familiar UNIXish tools from GNU, X.org, Moz Corp, GNOME/KDE, etc. Android is totally alien and about as closed of a walled garden as OS X or iOS. Yes most of it is technically released under an FSF approved license but there is zero community involvement in what Google tosses over the wall from time to time. And because they keep a couple of key bits closed they can dictate terms to OEMs (almost) exactly like it was a totally closed source environment.
And yes there is the issue that Android is not and probably never will be ready for the desktop. It is a phone OS growing to the tablet space. Kinda hard to envision it scaling to multiple large displays.
So yea, DiBona takes Google's shilling so he has to promote their stuff. But we are free to laugh and call him a silly person for expecting us to believe this line of BS.
> George Bush got into Yale. Anything is possible.
One can argue he got into Yale as a legacy because of Bush Sr., however that doesn't explain also getting a degree from Harvard and having grades on par with "super smart" Al Gore or Kerry. Btw, when are we going to actually see the grades of the 'smartest man to ever sit in the Oval Office?' Time to face up to reality, W isn't stupid and making fun of a minor speech impediment on anyone else would get you sent to the reeducation camp because making jokes about the disabled is a major no-no these days. Disagree with his policies all you want (I certainly do.... although probably different ones than you do) but the joke is old.
> mccarthy era hysteria and witch hunts
You do know that the fifty year seal on the Senate records from the McCarthy hearings finally expired and that between that and the other reveals from the end of the Cold War we now know (Not believe, know. There is a difference.) that Joe McCarthy's only real sin was in failing to realize just how far the rabbit hole went. It wasn't just an infestation of Communists in the State Dept., the rot went all the way to the heart of our government, including the US Senate.
One can argue whether the FBI's tactics were effective, one can argue whether they were moral or legal. What can't be argued any more is that they were fighting a real enemy within and losing.
Go get _Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies_ by M. Stanton Evans and prepare for the scales to fall from your eyes. Backed by lots of actual documents from the era, now declassified by our government or released by Soviet archives.
> What if someone wrote malware that would run a VM from the boot sector, and
> then ran your existing OS from the VM?
You would notice when your 3D performance began to suck ass. And when either all of your devices became virtual ones or all other performance (net, disk, etc) also began to suck ass. Unless you assume a genius who can create a VM environment that works perfectly transparently, has almost zero overhead and otherwise breaks major new ground in the science; and that they waste their time on a virus instead of kicking VMWare, RedHat, QEMU, etcs ass and seizing a multi-billion dollar red hot market segment.
> > Fuck that pedo The Prophet Muhammad.
> And how about that Pope? And thousands of Catholic priests! Don't forget them.
Wouldn't want to harsh your moral equivalence rant or nothing but there is an important difference. Yes, Christians, Popes on down, Catholic or Protestant, whatever, have buggered kiddies in the past. Straight and gay, whatever; guilty as charged. Difference is Christians, along with just about every other religious/philosophical system, teach that it is wrong; while Muslims, following the 'perfect example' of their prophet don't. Contemplate that for a bit and see if you can see the difference between the two systems of belief and how there just might be a problem.... unless you are a NAMBLA supporter or something.
> Hey - A Glenn Beck sighting!
Feh. Glenn is trying but I'm usually a year or two ahead of him. Oh course even what he did say was enough to get him sacked, something he himself predicted early in his run. Not that that was a hard prediction to make, being an outspoken proponent of Israel and speaking hard truths about Islam on a network where the House of Saud owns a large minority stake couldn't end well. He might could have gotten away with lifting the kimono on the progressives a little longer, it being FNS and all, but he bit the hand.
> He claims all leftists -- all! -- want to overthrow the Constitution:
Almost all leftists do. All Progressives believe the Constitution is an impediment to their goals, correctly. Why do I say such a thing? Because I read what they write and listen to what they say and they have been saying it pretty clearly for a hundred years. But don't believe me, might I refer you to the cover of the current Time magazine (where the burning question in the newsroom is whether they will fetch more than the $1 Newsweek recently sold for, but that is a snark best unleashed at another time) where the cover consists of a photo of the U.S. Constitution with the words "Does the Constitution still matter?" emblazened across it. If you bothered with the clueless prose of the article the answer hasn't changed since Woodrow Wilson's day.
Progressives want to 'progress' beyond the Constitution and can't be bothered with waiting for We The People to catch up to their wisdom so as to muster the supermajority of votes to amend it/rewrite it so they just decided to ignore it. When people wouldn't stand for that they invented the 'living Constitution' so they could claim they were obeying it.. i.e. they lied. They kept the familar forms of the old republic while discarding the meaning and used their control of the 'towering heights of the culture' to make it stick.... until the Internet, talk radio and cable TV smashed the progressive monopoly on mass media.
> He says the Nazis were left-wingers:
Yup, total insanity to think the National Socialist German Workers' Party is related to Progressives, Socialism and Communism. Most people here can read, yourself included. Some of us use the ability, you should try it. You might want to start with the Nazi Party platform. Compare and contrast to the current Democratic Party's platform and you might find enlightenment. The American Progressives (Wilson, FDR, the NYT et. al.) were totally in love with Italian Fascism and early Nazism. Most stayed in love with Hitler until the day he betrayed the pact with Stalin and attacked the Soviets. The Nazis didn't invent propaganda, they learned it from our own Progressives.
None of the above is opinion, it is historical fact. Fascism, Nazism, Socialism, Communism and our Progressive movement are all closely tied together by sharing most of their assumptions about human nature, the proper relation between man and the state, totalitarian, most of their moral code, etc. And if allowed to be fully implemented all lead to ruin and mass graves. We got to see it in Germany, the Soviet Union, etc. Thankfully we haven't seen the end state of Progressive ideas. .. yet.
> I would be happy to entertain the idea that misguided environmentalism is partially
> to blame for one disaster or another, but I would like to hear a reasoned argument
> from someone who's not a nut.
Did you read the article before the attacking the author and/or the publisher? Unless the quote is fabricated the government's own operations manual itself makes that claim in the highlighted boxed text I'll requote for you:
MWCM (Sec 7-07.2.6):
"Releases at higher-than-normal rates early in the season that cannot be supported by runoff forecasting techniques is inconsistent with all System purposes other than flood control. All of the other authorized purposes depend upon the accumulation of water in the System rather than the availability of vacant storage space."
Translated to English it says flood control was sacrificed to 'other authorized purposes.' Any questions?
> I suppose the fishing and tourism industry have largely similar interest as the
> "environmentalists" as far as the water levels.
Somebody didn't read the article before opening their hole. The shipping industry hates the green river management because it makes the river unsafe for navigation for large parts of the year. The original design called for enough flow to allow shipping year around. The greens want the river to flood in the spring (just not enough to bust levees, that was a mistake caused by their policy not the policy itself... at least as stated) and run low later in the year to follow natural patterns closer. To ensure a spring flood they held back too much water during the winter and when the spring rains and snow melt came stronger than expected they lacked the capacity to hold all of the water, forcing them to release at rates the levees could not hold back from the towns downstream. That is the charge against the Corps in a single sentence and it is pretty sound.
The mission of the system was changed in ways it was not designed for and no attempt was made to remake it to handle the new mission it was given. Failure was a given at that point just as certainly as when NASA ignored the manufacturers warnings about the thermal specs on Challenger's O-Rings.
What a tard. Didn't you know that the free market pulled out of the flood insurance decades ago when the Feds took over? Yup, the only source of flood insurance is the US Federal Government's Flood Insurance program. Guess they only run those PSAs in areas where flooding is a problem or you don't have a TV? We get em all the time where they explain that no homeowner's policy covers flood damage, that only the Federal Flood Insurance program does that and that your policy must be in force thirty days before a disaster.
Seriously, selling flood insurance in the current US is a fools game which is why only the Government is stupid enough to do it. You have areas that flood several times per decade and the people just rebuild because Uncle Sugar will come through. Hell, even if they don't buy the flood insurance Uncle Sugar will probably come through with at least a zero (or so low as to not matter) interest loan. After Katrina/Rita they have finally started telling some of the most risky areas they have to either move or greatly beef up their rebuilding to elevate the structure above the 100 year flood level.
> No, because they looked at Windows 8.
Except that they didn't. They looked at a random build. Remember that Sagans of KLoCs were written for Longhorn and then abandoned. That wasn't the first time and it won't be the last. People wrote articles based on those leaked copies too, because they were intentionally leaked for just that purpose. It has always been thus, everyone else's shipping products are compared to what Microsoft says it will ship 'RSN.' Then it eventually ships and isn't anything like what was promised. Rinse and repeat every couple of years.
About all that can be stated with any certainty is that Windows 8 will probably ship sometime between 12 and 24 months from now and will add support for ARM and a tabletish touch interface. The tablets are a done deal because they would totally piss off OEMs who are already putting product into the pipeline that they would ship Android or Meego if Microsoft changed course on em.
Windows 7 is the only product that resembled the prerelease hype and that was because the goals were so minimal, Make a Windows Vista that doesn't suck donkey balls. Since they had eliminated most of the worst suckage by Vista SP1 (and people generally were buying it on new hardware instead of upgrading by then) about all that was left was to reskin it so people who had heard that "Vista Sucks" wouldn't look at 7 and instantly associate it with Vista.
> Sounds great, until the news media hears about how somebody said "Fuck YOU!"
> to those who demand random in e.g. Somalia (Real pirates there) and people get
> actually killed because of it.
Better to spend ten times the demand on mercenaries and attempt a rescue than pay ransom. Better still if to develop a reputation for disproportional reprisals.
I.e. Do something like what the (possibly apocryphal story) Russians did in the M.E. back in the 80's when some of the fools wearing a diaper on their empty noggin didn't understand the difference between the US and the Soviet Union and kidnapped one of their people. Russian intelligence hunted down a relative of the leader of the terror group and mailed the terrorists the guy's nuts in a jar. Hostage was promptly released and the lesson was learned. Russians were not to be held for ransom.
In the case of Somalia, if America still had a spine we would just tell the pirates the US Navy would be hunting them at sea on general principle but that if they were ever stupid enough to touch an American flag vessel or anyone bearing US papers that we would hurt them so bad they would be screaming "war crime" in Geneva. As in sink everything that looked like it COULD float, knock down any and every building that might possibly be related to the pirates, etc. on a first offense. If the warlords still didn't take the hint and police themselves go in on the ground and kill anyone armed on a second offense. Make a proper example once and the problem never recurs.
> They will get asked for money on a yearly basis.
Which is why you never pay Danegeld. It never gets rid of the Dane.
Trillions for defense, not a penny in tribute is the only long term strategy for dealing with aggression. And these threats are aggression and weakness in the face of aggression always invites fresh demands. We should be tracking down these 'hacking' groups with the same vigor we go after other organized crime and terrorism. If that means dropping a Hellfire missile down on a few houses in countries where the local authorities won't take this stuff serious I'm not going to lose sleep over it. Can we bomb the spammer/phishers too while we are at it?
> But if there's a simple nudge that helps people eat more vegetables and less sweets,
> then who can honestly be against that.
I'm all for people making the argument you should eat more vegetables, hell if I'd eaten a few more and chugged a few less Cokes I might not have been diagnosed with diabetes this month. We should be openly debating ideas. Where I get creeped out is when the do gooders don't want to reason anymore, they want to do the jedi mind trick. Same for marketers who don't do straight up ads extoling the product, they do these brand identity ads that slither into yer mind while you aren't paying attention. What especially sucks is that stuff actually works and not just on 'weak minds' but even stronger ones if you aren't alert and watching for the crap, which was what the Brawndo reference was about. Even if you think you are too smart to fall for that marketing hooey you will probably fall for one you didn't notice and wind up not only drinking Brawndo but using the slogan in ordinary conversation.
> How about asking whether -advertising- is ethical?
Exactly the right question. Strip away the tech angle and this is just basic marketing being practiced. And that ship has sailed, for good or ill we aren't getting rid of advertising and marketing... even if it were possible to do so.
> At least these 'nudging technologies' are intended to -help- the person affected.
Said he who considers himself superior to the lesser beings being nudged. I'll be the judge of what is good for me and you figure out what is best for you. Now toss me another Brawndo will ya.
Yup. But /. had to counter that bad story earlier that might have caused a few of the faithful to stray from the One True Religion and rags like Discover can be relied upon to provide rebuttal to any evidence that might bring AGW into question. Real scientists studying the the Sun come out with a "This is unusual, we didn't expect to see this. This might have consequences so we are putting out a press release so others can come look at our data." type report and a few days later we are reassured by purkinje that "any cooling that might come from this would be less than the global warming that's been going on."
We aren't told who purkinj is though, what his degree is in, who is financing him, etc. How many carbon credits or solar projects he is invested in, nothin. But we can trust him because he is Faithful. Also note that this guy seems to have a straight pipe to the submission queue and never participates in the comments.
Meanwhile the IPCC is in yet another fresh scandal where it is learned that they allowed a Greanpeace activist to be the lead author on a section of their report on alternative energy and repackage his own earlier work with zero peer review or oversight.
> but it is their democratic right
Which is why the US Founding Fathers rejected democracy as a terrible idea. They understood the idea, knew the problems with it and designed us a system of a Constitutional Republic instead. The Constitution is intentionally hard to change but not impossible. This protects against temporary insanity in the other balances of government. The People are at the core of the system (all just power derives from the consent of the governed, etc) but the rest of the government is designed to act as a check against them because We the People can be just as stupid as the politicians.
Democracy is a group of 100 people wherein 51 vote to piss in the corn flakes of the minority. And if everyone believes in democracy the 49 can only demand proof the vote was fair before being obligated to chug the piss. That is why the US system has checks and balances including notions like inalienable rights that neither Congress nor the People have the right to abridge.
> and you're not exactly know for your understanding of higher education pricing. If Harvard
> wants you, they'll find a way to make it affordable
Which would be interesting in its own right if true. Why did they want this particular student? His grades were not good. Columbia won't release his transcript or grades but has confirmed the basics of his diploma. They will say they granted him a degree in Political Science and that he did not graduate with any honors. So why was Harvard Law so hot to have this oh so average at best scholar that they gave him a free ride? Really? Is that your theory?
Harvard Law has about 500 seats per year and thousands of applications, almost all of which are going to have better transcripts that Barry probably had. But Harvard not only wanted this guy they wanted him so bad they were willing to give a free ride?
> He was magna cum laude. Verified by Harvard. Not as high as summa, but the point
> remains that he was top 10% of his class at Harvard.
Not so fast. Back when Zero was in Harvard they were going through terrible grade inflation. I have on another tab a 1999 LA Times piece announcing a new system at Harvard where only 10% will get magna cum laude. It says that under the previous system 76% of Harvard Law grads got honors. Granted that he DID get a law degree from Harvard and that ain't easy peasy. But isn't it interesting that we don't know what sort of classes he took? Did he take the easy stuff or take classes under the profs that give the hard work?
http://articles.latimes.com/1999/jun/10/news/mn-46135