The answer is that he's from Texas, and that people in New York, Washington, and Los Angeles (that is to say, the press) don't really believe that someone from the heartland could be intelligent.
Bush has a bachelor's degree from Yale and an MBA from Harvard Business School, incidentally. He got better grades at Yale than former Vice-President Gore did.
What you were taught so many years ago is not correct. Each representative represents a specific geographical area, not the entire country. This is why 2.3 of the U.S. Constitution says "Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers..."
A Representative is free, justifiably, to ignore anything which does not come from his district; it therefore does not come from the people who elected him or to whom he is answerable. He is just as free to ignore complaints from Zanzibar or Spitzbergen.
For a country that takes such pride in an obviously screwed up government (your wonderfully undemocratic two-party system, the blatantly stupid electoral process, and so on), I'm amazed at how many Americans think the Government is the source of all evil.
And what proportion of the UK's population gets to vote for Tony Blair, as opposed to "whoever the victorious party ends up picking"?
Ah, but I forget... Britain has a *three*-party system, making it vastly more "democratic".
I would rather live in the UK and have cameras watching me and GPS stopping dangerous drivers than live in the US and have people mug me, or get killed by a drunk/dangerous driver.
And now you're telling me there's no street crime or drunken driving in Britain. Righty. The Scotsman must be making up all the reports I hear about every day.
Re:Time to move on from Intel?
on
OS X on x86?
·
· Score: 2
Damn' shame the "Cube" can only be hooked-up to a proprietary expansive monitor
The Cube has both ports for ADC (Apple's propietary power-and-USB connector) and an ordinary monitor. Check out the specs at http://www.apple.com.
According to what I have been told, these things are at least three times as fast per clock tick as the Intel range for "floats".
It depends a great deal on what task you're performing. If you like DnetC, I think I recall reading that one of the new 733 G4s cracks keys at the same rate as three 1.2 ghz Pentium IVs (!). This is because the DnetC client uses the Altivec units on the G4 to vastly boost its cracking ability. Tasks like graphics work (i.e. the almighty Photoshop) and video processing are likewise.
Incidentally, I saw another report that the 733 G4 with a Radeon will get about 110 fps in Quake III. Whew!
The term "to steal one's thunder" comes from a theatrical special-effects expert during the 19th century. Apparently he was famous for always coming up with cool sound effects to simulate the ocean, wind, battles, etc. as needed for the play.
Well, he was pretty pleased when he hit upon a great way to simulate thunder by shaking sheets of metal up and down in a waving motion (try it yourself if you like). But he was *not* pleased when the next day a competing theater was using his new technique in their productions!
And so he famously complained that they had "stolen his thunder". The phrase survives to this day.
PowerPC processors are not well known for their sobriety.
No kidding. My G3 gets tanked at least twice a week, and cleaning up after it is becoming a freakin' nuisance. Jose Cuervo and coolant paste makes a horrible reek, and don't even get me started on the effects of black coffee on a PowerBook's keyboard...
Well, this seems an excellent way for Europe to wall itself off from the rest of the world. Don't they get it *yet*?
What's with charging VAT on electronically delivered software, anyway? As I understand it, VAT taxes the "value added" at each step of a manufacturing/distribution process; exactly how many production steps does a piece of software go through? I would imagine just one, writing, especially if it isn't put into a box.
Given that, as it would appear, you're Sealand's largest industry, has the Sealander monarchy offered to give you any sort of "official" recognition of the intangible-but-neat sort? Are you the Lord High Webmaster, or High Chamberlain, or anything like that? Are you armigerous (i.e. do you get a coat of arms from the Prince of Sealand)?
Seriously, folks... you can get a job as a tech anywhere, but wouldn't it just be *cool* to get to be the Earl of something as a result? ----------------------------------------- --------------------------
OK, this one was just too hard to resist. I wonder what ERB would think. If NASA's making atmosphere plants, I wonder how long it'll be before we can ressurect Helium and pick a new Jeddak...
Speaking of which... does ERB ever explain exactly *who* was dumb enough to assassinate the keeper of the atmosphere plant in _Princess of Mars_? All I remember is that he was abruptly murdered, and John Carter had to go and save Mars (taking his sweet time about it, I might add).
The only thing I don't like about my 6100's case is that the Sonnet Crescendo upgrade card works fine, but I got suckered into buying an SCA hard drive, and it's slightly too long for the bay. The sled fits okay, but it won't lock into place, and the front bezel won't fit back on, making for a loose case fit.
Well, owing to its new UNIX underpinnings it won't "crash" (at least in the catastrophic, whole-computer-going-down way that the present Mac OS dies); an individual program can segfault, though, I suppose. I'd imagine a discreet dialog appears saying that application "XYZ" has quit unexpectedly, and asking if you'd like to restart it.
The "Classic" environment, however, being the present Mac OS running as an application (like an emulator), is free to have the emulated OS crash. In that case you'll probably see the "bomb" dialog within the Classic application, followed by the discreet dialog I mentioned above asking if you'd like to restart the emulator.
From the point of view of a sysadmin, it'll be a BSD box. You can telnet into it; it's an *NIX. It'll have all the standard ports for telnet, web activity, etc. Apparently Apple is not going to make a terminal application part of the standard OS install, but perhaps as an optional install on the Mac OS X CD-ROM or as an unsupported download utility. I expect there will be a metric ton of third-party terminal apps as well; this is kind of an obvious thing to write.
Incidentally, the reason for Apple not shipping a terminal app as part of the standard install is to prevent lazy developers from making CLI instructions part of the installation of any application. If you can't assume the user will have a virtual terminal available, you can't assume that they'll be able to configure anything that way. Better just do it in the GUI.
You are aware they're replacing the entire operating system, right? There's a web page full of OS X information at http://www.apple.com/macosx which contains the full developers' documentation for the new OS.
On their site it mentions the availability of A) a business-card-sized payload you can pay for and B) 8.5" x 11" worth of data, etched onto a nickel disk which you could also pay for.
Do you realize what this means? Using mechanical tools and chemicals on the one hand, and scanning graphics (and etching them) on the other hand, we could place on the moon BOTH steaming hot grits AND Natalie Portman, naked and petrified!
You're thinking of "Harrison Bergeron", a movie made in 1995 based off the short story of the same name by Kurt Vonnegut. --------------------------------------- ----------------------------
>>the U.S. had to bail France out of every war they've faught in the 20th century
>I don't remember Yankees fighting in Egypt or in Algeria...
Well, we fooled around with the Suez Crisis, and fought the Vichy French in Algeria during WWII. Does that count?:-) --------------------------------------------- ----------------------
I ought to make a more detailed response, but I'll limit it to generalities:
The first Holy Roman Emperor, Charlemagne, ruled over an Empire which consisted (loosely speaking) of what we would consider both France and Germany today. Charlemagne was crowned Emperor in 800 AD.
Upon the death of Charlemagne his kingdom was divided amongst his three sons. One got France, one got Germany, and one got the stuff in the middle. (Guess who got ganged up on.)
The three were occasionally reunited, reseparated, etc., but the pattern persisted. Eventually things settled down to the way they are now: separate France and Germany.
(People who actually know this stuff: I *said* it was limited to generalities.) ---------------------------------- ---------------------------------
Mr. Katz' capacity for childish rationalization is truly breathtaking.
The kids who download free music from a young age as a matter of course have little awareness that they are appropriating someone else's property. Most wouldn't dream of shoplifting in a store: they consider it stealing and they might face arrest, humiliation and punishment as a consequence. But acquiring movies, music, games or other intellectual property online is so simple, so ubiquitous, that it's become almost instinctive.
It's so simple, so ubiquitous, that it must be okay. Tune in next week for another installment of Dr. Katz' Practical Ethics To Justify Anything.
It's often irresistible -- how can one reasonably expect an adolescent (or older) music lover to refuse to acquire a 1,000-song playlist she couldn't possibly afford to buy in the manner the recording industry prefers to distribute it?
What difference is there between this and the shoplifting you previously mentioned that kids would never, ever stoop to doing?
"How can one reasonably expect an adolescent (or older) to refuse to acquire expensive clothes she couldn't possibly afford to buy in the manner the garment industry prefers to distribute it?"
Gee, I guess kids just can't help themselves... how can we expect them not to shoplift? Oh, wait, but that's supposedly different... somehow.
Most important, and most troublesome about attempts to reign such informal trading in, is that it's also fun, and social.
Heaven forbid that the meanies who put up the money to create the music should take away something that's "fun and social". I see somebody worships at the Font of Perpetual Adolescence.
Does American society (or the people running the music industry, for that matter) really want to criminalize the passion for diverse forms of music that new technology makes possible? In effect, laws like the DMCA make it a crime -- and a meaningless one at that -- for kids to love and use technology, to access information freely and to share a passion for a particular culture.
Katz' affinity for hyperbole is truly breathtaking. The music industry isn't interested in "criminalizing" anything! They're interested in recouping their investment in their artists and their distribution network. Every last man-jack of them would be truly elated if everyone developed a passion for diverse forms of music. And every one of them is interested in being paid for what legitimately belongs to them, even if it's "fun and social" to steal it.
The DMCA makes it a crime to "love and use technology"? This doesn't even make any sense.
Younger Net users have been able to acquire free music and other culture for so long they understandably view it as a right, not a sudden opportunity to steal.
You know, here we have the crux of the matter. It's the same tired old game of declaring new "rights" to do whatever it is that you were going to do anyway. "Hmm... I want this album, but I don't want to pay for it. Wait, I know what, I have a right to it!"
So kids have a right to steal because they can, Katz? Oh, no, wait, they have this right because they've been stealing for a long time already, and it would interfere with their ability to be "fun and social" to take it away. That makes it all okay.
I fully agree with Mr. Katz that the concept of copyrights protecting an author's (or musician's, etc.) creation are obsolete.
In light of this idea, I've written a little essay on the subject.
In a Virtual World, Who Owns Ideas?
by ArsSineArtificio
In a world splitting increasingly into real and virtual geographies, who owns ideas? The free music wars are just the first in a series of political, cultural and legal struggles that are putting the very idea of copyright and intellectual property on the table for the first time.
History isn't over, neither is economics. In 1900, many intellectuals forsaw a future of peace and leisure, where everyone would be rich. It didn't happen for them, and it won't happen for us. Conflict is plentiful; markets still fail; governments still fail; there's no real movement towards better medicine for most, much less all, of the people; economists are still better at telling you what went wrong than at predicting what will go wrong next; and wealth still accumulates at the top (even more than it used to).
This shows an extremely serious lack of historical perspective. Consider this: We *do* live in a "future of peace and leisure".
At the turn of the century, the forty-hour workweek was a goal, not a norm. Virtually everyone works much less hard now than they would have had to a hundred years ago, to maintain an equivalent lifestyle. Do the majority of people work sun-up to sundown on farms or in coal mines? No... they clock their 40 sitting behind a desk or standing behind a counter (in a heated building, no less!) and go home to enjoy their leisure. As far as a world of peace is concerned, well, that didn't happen, although it should be noted that even a conflict of some important scope, the Persian Gulf War, involved a minute fraction of the population of the coalition nations. Compare that to the American Civil or Franco-Prussian wars, if you like.
It's also an amazingly pervasive myth that income is "accumulated" more unfairly today than before. In the United States, at least, virtually nobody remains in the lower class their entire life. According to BLS statistics, much of the bottom 20% can be counted on to reliably migrate to the top 20% like clockwork within twenty years. (I once wrote a graduate economics paper on the subject... it's amazing to actually look at the numbers. The potential for mobility in the modern world is literally unlimited.)
Besides, the definition of "poverty" would be unrecognizable to people of a hundred years ago. Today's poor all own automobiles? They eat meat in almost every meal? Forget universal radios... color televisions? Clean, heated, running water? What about access to "better medicine for all the people"? You mean practically nobody dies in childbirth anymore, no matter how poor they are? You can buy a bottle of painkillers at the store for half an hour's wage? We don't even have polio or smallpox?
I could go on and on. The fact is, folks, the twentieth century was a smashing success for increasing the lot of the common man. It's not too much of an exaggeration to say that we don't have poor people anymore, at least by 1900 standards. Of course I'm only referring to the West, and of course there are still those who live in subhuman conditions (e.g. the homeless). But misery ain't what it used to be. And those intellectuals of 1900 weren't very far off the mark.
This is completely random speculation, but Kevin Mitnick just got released from prison. Mightn't the actions of a lone, extremely talented man, lashing out against the world, solve the problem of "why would somebody want to do this"?
Slashdot Mirror
Bush has a bachelor's degree from Yale and an MBA from Harvard Business School, incidentally. He got better grades at Yale than former Vice-President Gore did.
ASA
-----------------------------------------------
A Representative is free, justifiably, to ignore anything which does not come from his district; it therefore does not come from the people who elected him or to whom he is answerable. He is just as free to ignore complaints from Zanzibar or Spitzbergen.
ASA
-----------------------------------------------
And what proportion of the UK's population gets to vote for Tony Blair, as opposed to "whoever the victorious party ends up picking"?
Ah, but I forget... Britain has a *three*-party system, making it vastly more "democratic".
I would rather live in the UK and have cameras watching me and GPS stopping dangerous drivers than live in the US and have people mug me, or get killed by a drunk/dangerous driver.
And now you're telling me there's no street crime or drunken driving in Britain. Righty. The Scotsman must be making up all the reports I hear about every day.
ASA, hoping to leave Britain ASAP...
- -- -----------------
-----------------------------------------------
The Cube has both ports for ADC (Apple's propietary power-and-USB connector) and an ordinary monitor. Check out the specs at http://www.apple.com.
According to what I have been told, these things are at least three times as fast per clock tick as the Intel range for "floats".
It depends a great deal on what task you're performing. If you like DnetC, I think I recall reading that one of the new 733 G4s cracks keys at the same rate as three 1.2 ghz Pentium IVs (!). This is because the DnetC client uses the Altivec units on the G4 to vastly boost its cracking ability. Tasks like graphics work (i.e. the almighty Photoshop) and video processing are likewise.
Incidentally, I saw another report that the 733 G4 with a Radeon will get about 110 fps in Quake III. Whew!
ASA- ----- -----------------
--------------------------------------------
Well, he was pretty pleased when he hit upon a great way to simulate thunder by shaking sheets of metal up and down in a waving motion (try it yourself if you like). But he was *not* pleased when the next day a competing theater was using his new technique in their productions!
And so he famously complained that they had "stolen his thunder". The phrase survives to this day.
ASA- ----------------------
--------------------------------------------
No kidding. My G3 gets tanked at least twice a week, and cleaning up after it is becoming a freakin' nuisance. Jose Cuervo and coolant paste makes a horrible reek, and don't even get me started on the effects of black coffee on a PowerBook's keyboard...
-----------------------------------------------
What's with charging VAT on electronically delivered software, anyway? As I understand it, VAT taxes the "value added" at each step of a manufacturing/distribution process; exactly how many production steps does a piece of software go through? I would imagine just one, writing, especially if it isn't put into a box.
-----------------------------------------------
Seriously, folks... you can get a job as a tech anywhere, but wouldn't it just be *cool* to get to be the Earl of something as a result?
----------------------------------------
Speaking of which... does ERB ever explain exactly *who* was dumb enough to assassinate the keeper of the atmosphere plant in _Princess of Mars_? All I remember is that he was abruptly murdered, and John Carter had to go and save Mars (taking his sweet time about it, I might add).
-----------------------------------------------
The only thing I don't like about my 6100's case is that the Sonnet Crescendo upgrade card works fine, but I got suckered into buying an SCA hard drive, and it's slightly too long for the bay. The sled fits okay, but it won't lock into place, and the front bezel won't fit back on, making for a loose case fit.
-----------------------------------------------
Is it just me, or is this terribly, terribly ironic?
-----------------------------------------------
No, sir! We're not allowed to open the cases. That would let the radioactive steam out.
I wish I owned a Wintel PC. They don't even let us have screwdrivers.
Sheesh.
--------------------------------------
The "Classic" environment, however, being the present Mac OS running as an application (like an emulator), is free to have the emulated OS crash. In that case you'll probably see the "bomb" dialog within the Classic application, followed by the discreet dialog I mentioned above asking if you'd like to restart the emulator.
-----------------------------------------------
Incidentally, the reason for Apple not shipping a terminal app as part of the standard install is to prevent lazy developers from making CLI instructions part of the installation of any application. If you can't assume the user will have a virtual terminal available, you can't assume that they'll be able to configure anything that way. Better just do it in the GUI.
-----------------------------------------------
ASA
------------------------------------------
50-headed? Cerberus (or Kerberos) had THREE heads.
-----------------------------------------------
Do you realize what this means? Using mechanical tools and chemicals on the one hand, and scanning graphics (and etching them) on the other hand, we could place on the moon BOTH steaming hot grits AND Natalie Portman, naked and petrified!
Slashdot would be immortal!
-----------------------------------------------
You're thinking of "Harrison Bergeron", a movie made in 1995 based off the short story of the same name by Kurt Vonnegut.- ----------------------------
--------------------------------------
the ultra-conservative racist bigoted right wing in the United States
The only bigotry I see here is coming from you, AC.
Oh, wait, I forgot... it isn't "hate speech" when liberals do it. My mistake.
-----------------------------------------------
>>the U.S. had to bail France out of every war they've faught in the 20th century
:-)- ----------------------
>I don't remember Yankees fighting in Egypt or in Algeria...
Well, we fooled around with the Suez Crisis, and fought the Vichy French in Algeria during WWII. Does that count?
--------------------------------------------
I ought to make a more detailed response, but I'll limit it to generalities:
- ---------------------------------
The first Holy Roman Emperor, Charlemagne, ruled over an Empire which consisted (loosely speaking) of what we would consider both France and Germany today. Charlemagne was crowned Emperor in 800 AD.
Upon the death of Charlemagne his kingdom was divided amongst his three sons. One got France, one got Germany, and one got the stuff in the middle. (Guess who got ganged up on.)
The three were occasionally reunited, reseparated, etc., but the pattern persisted. Eventually things settled down to the way they are now: separate France and Germany.
(People who actually know this stuff: I *said* it was limited to generalities.)
---------------------------------
Mr. Katz' capacity for childish rationalization is truly breathtaking.
- -------------------
The kids who download free music from a young age as a matter of course have little awareness that they are appropriating someone else's property. Most wouldn't dream of shoplifting in a store: they consider it stealing and they might face arrest, humiliation and punishment as a consequence. But acquiring movies, music, games or other intellectual property online is so simple, so ubiquitous, that it's become almost instinctive.
It's so simple, so ubiquitous, that it must be okay. Tune in next week for another installment of Dr. Katz' Practical Ethics To Justify Anything.
It's often irresistible -- how can one reasonably expect an adolescent (or older) music lover to refuse to acquire a 1,000-song playlist she couldn't possibly afford to buy in the manner the recording industry prefers to distribute it?
What difference is there between this and the shoplifting you previously mentioned that kids would never, ever stoop to doing?
"How can one reasonably expect an adolescent (or older) to refuse to acquire expensive clothes she couldn't possibly afford to buy in the manner the garment industry prefers to distribute it?"
Gee, I guess kids just can't help themselves... how can we expect them not to shoplift? Oh, wait, but that's supposedly different... somehow.
Most important, and most troublesome about attempts to reign such informal trading in, is that it's also fun, and social.
Heaven forbid that the meanies who put up the money to create the music should take away something that's "fun and social". I see somebody worships at the Font of Perpetual Adolescence.
Does American society (or the people running the music industry, for that matter) really want to criminalize the passion for diverse forms of music that new technology makes possible? In effect, laws like the DMCA make it a crime -- and a meaningless one at that -- for kids to love and use technology, to access information freely and to share a passion for a particular culture.
Katz' affinity for hyperbole is truly breathtaking. The music industry isn't interested in "criminalizing" anything! They're interested in recouping their investment in their artists and their distribution network. Every last man-jack of them would be truly elated if everyone developed a passion for diverse forms of music. And every one of them is interested in being paid for what legitimately belongs to them, even if it's "fun and social" to steal it.
The DMCA makes it a crime to "love and use technology"? This doesn't even make any sense.
Younger Net users have been able to acquire free music and other culture for so long they understandably view it as a right, not a sudden opportunity to steal.
You know, here we have the crux of the matter. It's the same tired old game of declaring new "rights" to do whatever it is that you were going to do anyway. "Hmm... I want this album, but I don't want to pay for it. Wait, I know what, I have a right to it!"
So kids have a right to steal because they can, Katz? Oh, no, wait, they have this right because they've been stealing for a long time already, and it would interfere with their ability to be "fun and social" to take it away. That makes it all okay.
-----------------------------------------------
In light of this idea, I've written a little essay on the subject.
In a Virtual World, Who Owns Ideas?
by ArsSineArtificio
In a world splitting increasingly into real and virtual geographies, who owns ideas? The free music wars are just the first in a series of
political, cultural and legal struggles that are putting the very idea of copyright and intellectual property on the table for the first time.
Read more.
Note:This is the first of a two-part analysis.
Who owns ideas?
It isn't an abstract or academic question...
-----------------------------------------------
This shows an extremely serious lack of historical perspective. Consider this:
We *do* live in a "future of peace and leisure".
At the turn of the century, the forty-hour workweek was a goal, not a norm. Virtually everyone works much less hard now than they would have had to a hundred years ago, to maintain an equivalent lifestyle. Do the majority of people work sun-up to sundown on farms or in coal mines? No... they clock their 40 sitting behind a desk or standing behind a counter (in a heated building, no less!) and go home to enjoy their leisure.
As far as a world of peace is concerned, well, that didn't happen, although it should be noted that even a conflict of some important scope, the Persian Gulf War, involved a minute fraction of the population of the coalition nations. Compare that to the American Civil or Franco-Prussian wars, if you like.
It's also an amazingly pervasive myth that income is "accumulated" more unfairly today than before. In the United States, at least, virtually nobody remains in the lower class their entire life. According to BLS statistics, much of the bottom 20% can be counted on to reliably migrate to the top 20% like clockwork within twenty years. (I once wrote a graduate economics paper on the subject... it's amazing to actually look at the numbers. The potential for mobility in the modern world is literally unlimited.)
Besides, the definition of "poverty" would be unrecognizable to people of a hundred years ago. Today's poor all own automobiles? They eat meat in almost every meal? Forget universal radios... color televisions? Clean, heated, running water?
What about access to "better medicine for all the people"? You mean practically nobody dies in childbirth anymore, no matter how poor they are? You can buy a bottle of painkillers at the store for half an hour's wage? We don't even have polio or smallpox?
I could go on and on. The fact is, folks, the twentieth century was a smashing success for increasing the lot of the common man. It's not too much of an exaggeration to say that we don't have poor people anymore, at least by 1900 standards. Of course I'm only referring to the West, and of course there are still those who live in subhuman conditions (e.g. the homeless). But misery ain't what it used to be. And those intellectuals of 1900 weren't very far off the mark.
------ ----------------------
ASA
--------------------------------------------
This is completely random speculation, but Kevin Mitnick just got released from prison.
Mightn't the actions of a lone, extremely talented man, lashing out against the world, solve the problem of "why would somebody want to do this"?