Or another way to look at it is that Europeans realize that you must be prepared to stand by what you say and do, be prepared to face any consequences. You seem to be saying that Americans believe that you do not have to face the consequenes of your speech and actions.
As a principle I think that the right to reply is a good thing, I believe that it was probably part of what the authors of the US constitution had in mind (consciously or subconsciously) when they created the first ammendment. Freedom of speech much be universal else it is meaningless. This law, however, I believe is very poorly framed and is open to abuse.
The point is that with the freedom to say what you want comes the responsibility to only say what you are prepared to stand by and defend. Laws already exist that cover libel/slander, that's nothing to do with this law. In principle this law is giving those who feel that they were unfairly criticised a forum to put their arguement in a place where those who read the initial criticism are likely to see it. It neither extends nor constrains their right to sue for libel or slander. The principle is a good one, the law is a bad one.
That's rather a generalisation, isn't it? It would appear that not all Americans do grasp it. I assure you that many Europeans are fully aware of the level of freedom of speech on the internet.
Also, doesn't freedom of speech guarentee freedom not to listen. Kinda "You can say what you want but you can't stop me from walking away or sticking my fingers in my ears and going 'La la la. I can't hear you!'" or something like that. Wouldn't requiring someone to publish a rebuttal of somethign they said imply that they must 'hear' it?
Wandering off at a slight tangent, if you are made to publish a rebuttal then surely you can also rebutt that rebuttal? A sufficiently competant commentator could probably use any reply supplied to further denigrate the person they had originally criticised. By ripping apart the reply, exposing any falsehoods, dissembling or double-speak they could rip that person to shreds.
Typically, here in the UK, articles criticising some person or company who is out of favor will appear on the front few pages probably in 16 point print with a 36 point or more headline and a photo to draw attention to it. After the PCC has ruled any correction will typically be printed on page 37 with a 10 point headline, body text 4-6 point, and not graphic between an advert for haemerroid cream and an article about someone who has grown an amusingly shaped vegetable (usually a turnip or swede).
Why do they do this??
What's the point of saving this kind of information?
Marketing. Simply marketing. If you analyze the data you get and find that people who tend to download items of type A (say, Pr0n) also download items of type B (say, MP3s of Britney Spears) you can sell that information to the mainstream pr0n merchants for loads of money so they know they should get Britney to do a centre spread. To rehash an old joke:
Very often spammers do break the law. If you RTFA you'll see that the 53 spammers already prosecuted were prosecuted under existing fraud laws.
The FTC has used anti-fraud laws and a database of millions of spams to prosecute some 53 spammers over the past few years, but FTC commissioners said they need additional powers to go after the worst offenders.
Because many spammers close up shop and hide their assets once they realize they are being targeted, FTC agents should be allowed to investigate them in secret for a limited period of time, commissioners said, or at least delay notification. FTC agents should be able to review spam complaints amassed by Internet providers and given greater latitude to go after spammers who hijack others' accounts, they said.
I have recently heard that US legislation bars the sending of emails with spoofed From:/Sender: adderesses, i.e. you can only send emails with addresses that belong to you or where you have been given explicit permission to do so.
Police, FBI and other agencies already conduct secret investigations, constrained by the 4th ammendment. Why should the FTC not operate similarly in investigating crimes that fall under it's demesne?
A: The company hit a very rough time and it became apparent that there was little or no hope of a recovery. I felt it better to leave when I did than to stick it out to the bitter end.
Remember we're talking here about a situation where a large proportion of the income generating part of the company (I often wonder why sales people aren't listed as cost centre) are leaving at the same time. The odds are that that company is going to die fast and hard, anyone who stays on board is going to be dragged down with it. There's no shame or bad rep in taking to the life boats when the ship is sinking.
On the more general point of loyalty, that a few other people have mentioned. I'm prepared to be as loyal to my employer as they are to me. If they're good to me when times are good then I'll be good to them when times are bad. If they (to take an example from one of my previous employers, a certain multinational services and software group) claim there's no money available to pay employee bonuses in April but then give all managers a big bonus in June then they've just shot any chance of loyalty from me. And to take anohter example, if I'm doing a job then I expect a remuneration package comensurate to that post. If I'm temporarily covering a post whilst they recruit someone and am told that I don't have the relevant skill set to fill that post permanently so cannot apply, then I don't expect to have to train the person they do hire who is on a higher salary than me. In both cases I left the comapany shortly after the events.
The $600 is for 5 seats. So that works out at $120 per seat, and therefore cheaper than Windows XP even at enterprise discount prices.
Also bear in mind that to get those enterprise discounts from Microsoft you have to be buying at enterprise volumes, usually thousands of seats. If you're buying 5, 10, 20 seats then you're probably paying list prices. I'd be very suprised if Suse didn't also offer volume discounts to enterprise level buyers which makes it an even better proposition for the big customers
Being involved in a number of projects to integrate various systems in the largest unitary governmental authority in Europe, I think that this bill is a darned good idea. Having an entirely open way to move data from one system to another would make things a lot simpler.
On thing that I would like to see added, although at the moment I'm not sure on how to word it, would be to require open publishing of APIs and interfaces to allow other systems to access in real time the information held in a system utilising the data processing, security and data integrity processes of that system.
When I was at Uni (University of Keele in North Staffordshire, England, 89-93) the main problem I found was that fpor any texts set by the profs you could pretty much guarantee that the library would have 3 copies. One copy would be on loan to the prof, one to his research student and the remainder hasn't been seen for 2 years. The bookshop doesn't carry it but can order it for you at great expense and with a delivery date 2 days after the exam for the course. The library won't replace their lost copy due to budgetry constraints. Neither the prof nor the research student will let you have access to the copies they have on loan because they need them and the library cannot request they return them because profs and research students have unrestricted borrowing and priority over undergrads.
This was in the days before the web so you couldn't Google for the information. We had access to USENET and email, technically we had access to gopher and VERONICA as well but, unless you already knew a) that they existed and b) how to use them, you couldn't really use them.
The system that worked for me was to take notes in lectures, concentrating on getting the words down more than trying to understand them. Later read the relevent passages of what texts I could get hold of (and the handouts) then transcribe my notes cross referencing with the texts. The transcriberd notes would go into A4 lever arch folders, one per subject. Quite often I found that whilst the university library didn't have the books I needed the nearest town library did or at least could get a hold of a copy fairly quickly (within a week or two) for free or a nominal fee.
I also used to summarize my notes into mind maps and put them at the front of the folders as a combination of quick overview and contents page.
To address the original question. I think go with what you can afford and you're used to. Whilst laptops weren't really around when I was at uni I've tried using them to take notes since and still fall back on pen and paper as it's the quickest and most versatile. I'd go with take notes by hand and type them up later. YMMV.
And he probably wouldn't save that much travelling time. At peak times pavements can get so jammed it often takes 30 minutes or more to walk a couple of hundred yards.
I have a Nokia 6210. I found that with a little practice the keypad is fine for entering short messages. You just have to try it till you get the hang of it. For longer messages I do tend to use the SMS software on my Palm (m100 and m515, I'm migrating from the m100 to the m515) as it's slightly quicker.
I'm quite serious. I don't recall hearing that name before.
Personally I'm infavour of a degree of social anonymity (you will, however, notice that my username is my real name, I sign off with my first name and that my profile has links to sites where you could find out about me if you were so inclined). I'm also confident that if a major government (or body with similar resources) really wanted to they could crack virtually all if not all attempts at anonymity. It's just a case of whether you piss them off enough that they are prepared to exend that much effort.
But, which is which? If you say New World then most 'Western' focused thinkers will say that's the Americas, maybe including Austrlia, with Europe (and probably much of Eurasia and some of Asia) being the Old World. However much of Africa had advanced civilisations and agriculture back when Europeans were still figuring out that rocks weren't good to eat. So is Africa really the Old World? And what of Asia? Many Asian nations developed advanced military tactics and logistical systems, ones on which current military thinking is still based, well before the rise of Rome and it's legions. Are they the old world?
As time passes I'm finding that the theory of Cylical History put forward in 'Voyage of the space beagle' by A. E. Van Vogt makes more and more sense. Each rise leads inevitably to a fall with different civilisations rising and falling out of sync so as one area rises another is falling and todays developing nation is tommorrows developed and todays first world is tommorrows thrid.
Perhaps the instant communications and integrated financial systems we now have will break the cycle. Or perhaps the current migration of jobs from Europe and the US to countries like India has already started us to the day when the people of Ethiopia will be watching TV adverts asking them to send food to the starving people of the US, and Somalia will be sending troops to arrest the warlords in France?
So, you are saying that a nation has the right to grant itself juristiction over another nation's people and territory with out the need for treaty agreement or UN resolution. Makes rather a mockery of the concept of soverign nation states, does it not?
As for the two cases you cite. The Isreali prosecution of Adolf Eichmann was, according to a programme I saw on on the History Channel a few weeks back (handy that), a continuation of the general allied war crimes tribunal carried out in the wake of WWII and therefore drew it's authority from that regardless of the nation prosecuting the trial. As for the case brought against Tommy Franks, well, I am lead to believe (isn't the History Channel great) that Belgium was granted various extra territorial powers for the prosecution of war crimes explicitly by resolution of the UN and Allied war command after WWII.
I'm not arguing against nations exertign extra territorial powers when they are granted by treaty or UN resolution. Inparticular when those powers are exerted to bring war criminals (a group in which I place Eichmann but not Franks or any of the coalition in recent conflict in Iraq) to justice. What worries me is when such powers are exerted, without treaty or UN resolution, for the commerical benefit of corporate or other fiscal entities to protect them doing something which is illegal in the greater part of the nation who's powers they are exerting.
See what I'm getting at?
Incidentally, when did the SBL get defined as a weapon of mass destruction?
Are you saying that a nation can pass a law giving itself legal juristiction in another nation?
OK. Supposing I buy an island somewhere and secede, with permission of course, from the nation it's part of at the time and declare myself absolute ruler (a 'one man, one vote' system, I am that man I have the vote). I then pass a law that annoying the absolute ruler it punishable by a fine not less than $1billion and public flogging. I further pass a law that in any crime where the punishment involves a fine greater than $1million MyNation legal system has jurisdiction.
Does that mean I can fine Dubbya $1billion for being someone I personally find annoying?
NB, I am quite aware that the US has overwhelming military might and would no doubt class any attempt to sue the President as 'Treason'. I'm questioning the legality of a nation giving itself legal jurisdiction over the citizens/subjects of another nation, other than where explicitly laid out by treaty or UN mandate.
Congresspeople start getting cut off from their constituency.
If politics in the US is anything like it is in the UK then junk mail bombing is not required, it's already happened. Politicians are already cut off from the electorate; isolated behind walls of secretaries, PAs and special interest group contributions.
Maybe things are better in the states? But here in the UK it's rare to find someone who can name their MP or local councillor, let alone remember any of their election promises. I've been eligable to vote for 15 years now, I've written to my MP about once every 18 months on average (5 different MPs) about various local and national issues. So far I've received only one reply, and that tried to dodge my questions.
Those who would trade freedom for security will lose both, and deserve neither.
Phrased that way it actually works both ways. The reality, as I see it, is that to maintain the greater freedom (to send and recieve the mails you want whilst avoiding being overwhelmed by the mass of junk you don't and your server.connection dying under the excessive load) you have to be prepared to sacrifice some of the more trivial freedoms (e.g. the freedom to send out the latest joke you heard or an advert for some product you created to 100,000,000 people who you are sure really want to know about it). I guess 'the rest of us' have to get out from our chairs and off the keyboards to educate the legislators and joe-sixpacks into how to deal with spam without saccrificing the freeedoms we feel are more important.
I think where the change will happen is where the cost and pain of switching to Linux (and other non-MS/non-Windows based products) is significantly less than the cost and pain of staying with Windows. At the moment the cost and pain is too high; many companies have got all these support techs who know how to support Windows but have probably never used a command prompt in their life (don't laugh, I know these people; I'm one of the people who gets called in to fix their mistakes). Retraining them to work with Linux (or any other non-Windows OS) is just too expensive right now.
Organisations are slowly switching over to open source. The public sector seem to be the ones leading the charge, this is probably due to their costing models which let them (in the UK at least) ignore staff retraining/recruitment costs in new software aquisitions. There will come a point where enough organisations have switched that it's economical for training companies to start opffering low cost mass training courses which will lower the bar for other organisations and the trickle stands a chance of becoming a flood.
I think the model that a lot of companies seem to be followiong these days in relation to open source is far more viable than your example of the "Free content with ads" model. It's more like:
Write Free Software (you can miss out this step and just ally with an existing free product).
Write non-free addons for free software that a lot of people are going to want
Offer support, documentation &c for free software and the non-free addons
Profit!!
People get hooked in by the free product and are usually fairly happy to pay a reasonable fee for support and addons that add functionality that they want/need. I object to paying 500ukp for Microsoft Office, partly, because I know I'm never going to use most of the functionality. I like OpenOffice.org but realize that it doesn't have quite all the functionality I want (before anyopne suggests it, I'm not a coder so probably couldn't write the functions I want myself), doesn't come with support and doesn't have a bound printed manual &c. I don't mind paying 60ukp in PCWorld (or Dixons or whereever), less in other places, for StarOffice so I can get the support from Sun and the extra addons that I'm actually going to use because I want them.
Stephen
Re:Legit Mass Mail Getting Screwed
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AOL Sues Spammers
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Can you prove that they subscribed? I mean really prove. That means either you have a physical piece of paper with their agreement to recieve your mail on it or - if it's an electronic sign up - the time, date, email address and IP address of them signing up; the time data and unique key value semnt to them in the confirmation email you sent to them (to the address subscribed); the time, date and IP address of when they used that unique key to confirm their subscription.
If you can't prove they subscribed then you can't prove you're not spamming.
Stephen
Re:May as well be the first to say it
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AOL Sues Spammers
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It certainly doesn't cost less to send a billion messages than it does to receive a billion messages. I'm sure it costs more.
The big difference is that the Spammer wants to send out those spams and has a choice in the matter. The recipient (and their connectivity supplier) does not want to recieve them but has no choice. Even if they are intercepted and filtered outside of the ISP's own network that still costs time and money, which could be used more productively elsewhere, and slows down legitmate mail.
And on the subject of AOL CDs, I don't think I can remember the last time I recieved one in the post was. Gotta be at least a couple of years since I last got one. Can't they be recycled in some way?
You can now, in 2003. This has been proven by watching the news reporting of the bombing of Bagdad, even now a few devices go astray. Back in the 1940s bombing was a much less exact art. You'd try to hit a dock (let alone a single building) and land up pasting the town around it.
Also, as has been said elsewhere but bears repeating, a large show of force was necessary to allow the Japanese emperor to surrender. Without the dropping of the bombs the war could have dragged on another 5, 10, 15 years of jungle fighting followed by street fighting on the Japanese mainland gutting the economies of both Japan and the US. In essense by dropping those bombs the US military traded a few thousand lives for several hundred thousand or even millions.
Let's try an analogy. Supposing you're in a bar and some drunken red neck decides he doesn't like you and attacks you. He's being egged on by his friends so the's no way he can back down but you know that if the fight continues you'll both end up very hurt, possbily even killed. Are you goign to hit him with progressively slightly harder blows until you eventually knock him out? Or are you going to hit him with your best and most powerful shot that is 100% guarenteed to put him down and out for the count?
Both cities were major production sites for weapons and military vehicles. If you say they shouldn't have been bombed (regardless of the device used) then you rule out all strategic bombing. You can't have it both ways, if you blame the US for dropping the nukes then you have to hang the entire Luftwaffe.
These were cities full of civilians that got nuked
Technically they were military support infrastructure.
If you want to get into 'tit-for-tat' arguement then perhaps you should crack open a history book. Especially the bits about how the Japanese were actively using bio-warfare in IndoChina, including experiments on civillians that were as brutal, if not more so, as those perpetrated by the Germans.
Incidentally, the term terrorism is only really applicable where actions are against civillians not involved in the prosecution of the war or supply to the troops and is perpetrated by irregular troops, or regulars out of uniform, where there has been no formal declaration of war. Factories involved in the production of armaments and ammunition are legitimate targets.
Slashdot Mirror
Or another way to look at it is that Europeans realize that you must be prepared to stand by what you say and do, be prepared to face any consequences. You seem to be saying that Americans believe that you do not have to face the consequenes of your speech and actions.
As a principle I think that the right to reply is a good thing, I believe that it was probably part of what the authors of the US constitution had in mind (consciously or subconsciously) when they created the first ammendment. Freedom of speech much be universal else it is meaningless. This law, however, I believe is very poorly framed and is open to abuse.
The point is that with the freedom to say what you want comes the responsibility to only say what you are prepared to stand by and defend. Laws already exist that cover libel/slander, that's nothing to do with this law. In principle this law is giving those who feel that they were unfairly criticised a forum to put their arguement in a place where those who read the initial criticism are likely to see it. It neither extends nor constrains their right to sue for libel or slander. The principle is a good one, the law is a bad one.
Stephen
That's rather a generalisation, isn't it? It would appear that not all Americans do grasp it. I assure you that many Europeans are fully aware of the level of freedom of speech on the internet.
Also, doesn't freedom of speech guarentee freedom not to listen. Kinda "You can say what you want but you can't stop me from walking away or sticking my fingers in my ears and going 'La la la. I can't hear you!'" or something like that. Wouldn't requiring someone to publish a rebuttal of somethign they said imply that they must 'hear' it?
Wandering off at a slight tangent, if you are made to publish a rebuttal then surely you can also rebutt that rebuttal? A sufficiently competant commentator could probably use any reply supplied to further denigrate the person they had originally criticised. By ripping apart the reply, exposing any falsehoods, dissembling or double-speak they could rip that person to shreds.
Stephen
Typically, here in the UK, articles criticising some person or company who is out of favor will appear on the front few pages probably in 16 point print with a 36 point or more headline and a photo to draw attention to it. After the PCC has ruled any correction will typically be printed on page 37 with a 10 point headline, body text 4-6 point, and not graphic between an advert for haemerroid cream and an article about someone who has grown an amusingly shaped vegetable (usually a turnip or swede).
Stephen
Marketing. Simply marketing. If you analyze the data you get and find that people who tend to download items of type A (say, Pr0n) also download items of type B (say, MP3s of Britney Spears) you can sell that information to the mainstream pr0n merchants for loads of money so they know they should get Britney to do a centre spread. To rehash an old joke:
Stephen
Very often spammers do break the law. If you RTFA you'll see that the 53 spammers already prosecuted were prosecuted under existing fraud laws.
I have recently heard that US legislation bars the sending of emails with spoofed From:/Sender: adderesses, i.e. you can only send emails with addresses that belong to you or where you have been given explicit permission to do so.
Police, FBI and other agencies already conduct secret investigations, constrained by the 4th ammendment. Why should the FTC not operate similarly in investigating crimes that fall under it's demesne?
Stephen
A: The company hit a very rough time and it became apparent that there was little or no hope of a recovery. I felt it better to leave when I did than to stick it out to the bitter end.
Remember we're talking here about a situation where a large proportion of the income generating part of the company (I often wonder why sales people aren't listed as cost centre) are leaving at the same time. The odds are that that company is going to die fast and hard, anyone who stays on board is going to be dragged down with it. There's no shame or bad rep in taking to the life boats when the ship is sinking.
On the more general point of loyalty, that a few other people have mentioned. I'm prepared to be as loyal to my employer as they are to me. If they're good to me when times are good then I'll be good to them when times are bad. If they (to take an example from one of my previous employers, a certain multinational services and software group) claim there's no money available to pay employee bonuses in April but then give all managers a big bonus in June then they've just shot any chance of loyalty from me. And to take anohter example, if I'm doing a job then I expect a remuneration package comensurate to that post. If I'm temporarily covering a post whilst they recruit someone and am told that I don't have the relevant skill set to fill that post permanently so cannot apply, then I don't expect to have to train the person they do hire who is on a higher salary than me. In both cases I left the comapany shortly after the events.
Stephen
The $600 is for 5 seats. So that works out at $120 per seat, and therefore cheaper than Windows XP even at enterprise discount prices.
Also bear in mind that to get those enterprise discounts from Microsoft you have to be buying at enterprise volumes, usually thousands of seats. If you're buying 5, 10, 20 seats then you're probably paying list prices. I'd be very suprised if Suse didn't also offer volume discounts to enterprise level buyers which makes it an even better proposition for the big customers
Stephen
Stephen
Being involved in a number of projects to integrate various systems in the largest unitary governmental authority in Europe, I think that this bill is a darned good idea. Having an entirely open way to move data from one system to another would make things a lot simpler.
On thing that I would like to see added, although at the moment I'm not sure on how to word it, would be to require open publishing of APIs and interfaces to allow other systems to access in real time the information held in a system utilising the data processing, security and data integrity processes of that system.
Stephen
When I was at Uni (University of Keele in North Staffordshire, England, 89-93) the main problem I found was that fpor any texts set by the profs you could pretty much guarantee that the library would have 3 copies. One copy would be on loan to the prof, one to his research student and the remainder hasn't been seen for 2 years. The bookshop doesn't carry it but can order it for you at great expense and with a delivery date 2 days after the exam for the course. The library won't replace their lost copy due to budgetry constraints. Neither the prof nor the research student will let you have access to the copies they have on loan because they need them and the library cannot request they return them because profs and research students have unrestricted borrowing and priority over undergrads.
This was in the days before the web so you couldn't Google for the information. We had access to USENET and email, technically we had access to gopher and VERONICA as well but, unless you already knew a) that they existed and b) how to use them, you couldn't really use them.
The system that worked for me was to take notes in lectures, concentrating on getting the words down more than trying to understand them. Later read the relevent passages of what texts I could get hold of (and the handouts) then transcribe my notes cross referencing with the texts. The transcriberd notes would go into A4 lever arch folders, one per subject. Quite often I found that whilst the university library didn't have the books I needed the nearest town library did or at least could get a hold of a copy fairly quickly (within a week or two) for free or a nominal fee.
I also used to summarize my notes into mind maps and put them at the front of the folders as a combination of quick overview and contents page.
To address the original question. I think go with what you can afford and you're used to. Whilst laptops weren't really around when I was at uni I've tried using them to take notes since and still fall back on pen and paper as it's the quickest and most versatile. I'd go with take notes by hand and type them up later. YMMV.
Stephen
And he probably wouldn't save that much travelling time. At peak times pavements can get so jammed it often takes 30 minutes or more to walk a couple of hundred yards.
Stephen
I have a Nokia 6210. I found that with a little practice the keypad is fine for entering short messages. You just have to try it till you get the hang of it. For longer messages I do tend to use the SMS software on my Palm (m100 and m515, I'm migrating from the m100 to the m515) as it's slightly quicker.
Stephen
Who?
I'm quite serious. I don't recall hearing that name before.
Personally I'm infavour of a degree of social anonymity (you will, however, notice that my username is my real name, I sign off with my first name and that my profile has links to sites where you could find out about me if you were so inclined). I'm also confident that if a major government (or body with similar resources) really wanted to they could crack virtually all if not all attempts at anonymity. It's just a case of whether you piss them off enough that they are prepared to exend that much effort.
Stephen
Yeah, just look at what happened to the people who bitched about Jay and Silent Bob!
Stephen
But, which is which? If you say New World then most 'Western' focused thinkers will say that's the Americas, maybe including Austrlia, with Europe (and probably much of Eurasia and some of Asia) being the Old World. However much of Africa had advanced civilisations and agriculture back when Europeans were still figuring out that rocks weren't good to eat. So is Africa really the Old World? And what of Asia? Many Asian nations developed advanced military tactics and logistical systems, ones on which current military thinking is still based, well before the rise of Rome and it's legions. Are they the old world?
As time passes I'm finding that the theory of Cylical History put forward in 'Voyage of the space beagle' by A. E. Van Vogt makes more and more sense. Each rise leads inevitably to a fall with different civilisations rising and falling out of sync so as one area rises another is falling and todays developing nation is tommorrows developed and todays first world is tommorrows thrid.
Perhaps the instant communications and integrated financial systems we now have will break the cycle. Or perhaps the current migration of jobs from Europe and the US to countries like India has already started us to the day when the people of Ethiopia will be watching TV adverts asking them to send food to the starving people of the US, and Somalia will be sending troops to arrest the warlords in France?
Stephen
So, you are saying that a nation has the right to grant itself juristiction over another nation's people and territory with out the need for treaty agreement or UN resolution. Makes rather a mockery of the concept of soverign nation states, does it not?
As for the two cases you cite. The Isreali prosecution of Adolf Eichmann was, according to a programme I saw on on the History Channel a few weeks back (handy that), a continuation of the general allied war crimes tribunal carried out in the wake of WWII and therefore drew it's authority from that regardless of the nation prosecuting the trial. As for the case brought against Tommy Franks, well, I am lead to believe (isn't the History Channel great) that Belgium was granted various extra territorial powers for the prosecution of war crimes explicitly by resolution of the UN and Allied war command after WWII.
I'm not arguing against nations exertign extra territorial powers when they are granted by treaty or UN resolution. Inparticular when those powers are exerted to bring war criminals (a group in which I place Eichmann but not Franks or any of the coalition in recent conflict in Iraq) to justice. What worries me is when such powers are exerted, without treaty or UN resolution, for the commerical benefit of corporate or other fiscal entities to protect them doing something which is illegal in the greater part of the nation who's powers they are exerting.
See what I'm getting at?
Incidentally, when did the SBL get defined as a weapon of mass destruction?
Stephen
I'm confused
Are you saying that a nation can pass a law giving itself legal juristiction in another nation?
OK. Supposing I buy an island somewhere and secede, with permission of course, from the nation it's part of at the time and declare myself absolute ruler (a 'one man, one vote' system, I am that man I have the vote). I then pass a law that annoying the absolute ruler it punishable by a fine not less than $1billion and public flogging. I further pass a law that in any crime where the punishment involves a fine greater than $1million MyNation legal system has jurisdiction.
Does that mean I can fine Dubbya $1billion for being someone I personally find annoying?
NB, I am quite aware that the US has overwhelming military might and would no doubt class any attempt to sue the President as 'Treason'. I'm questioning the legality of a nation giving itself legal jurisdiction over the citizens/subjects of another nation, other than where explicitly laid out by treaty or UN mandate.
Stephen
If politics in the US is anything like it is in the UK then junk mail bombing is not required, it's already happened. Politicians are already cut off from the electorate; isolated behind walls of secretaries, PAs and special interest group contributions.
Maybe things are better in the states? But here in the UK it's rare to find someone who can name their MP or local councillor, let alone remember any of their election promises. I've been eligable to vote for 15 years now, I've written to my MP about once every 18 months on average (5 different MPs) about various local and national issues. So far I've received only one reply, and that tried to dodge my questions.
Stephen
Phrased that way it actually works both ways. The reality, as I see it, is that to maintain the greater freedom (to send and recieve the mails you want whilst avoiding being overwhelmed by the mass of junk you don't and your server.connection dying under the excessive load) you have to be prepared to sacrifice some of the more trivial freedoms (e.g. the freedom to send out the latest joke you heard or an advert for some product you created to 100,000,000 people who you are sure really want to know about it). I guess 'the rest of us' have to get out from our chairs and off the keyboards to educate the legislators and joe-sixpacks into how to deal with spam without saccrificing the freeedoms we feel are more important.
Any ideas?
Stephen
I think where the change will happen is where the cost and pain of switching to Linux (and other non-MS/non-Windows based products) is significantly less than the cost and pain of staying with Windows. At the moment the cost and pain is too high; many companies have got all these support techs who know how to support Windows but have probably never used a command prompt in their life (don't laugh, I know these people; I'm one of the people who gets called in to fix their mistakes). Retraining them to work with Linux (or any other non-Windows OS) is just too expensive right now.
Organisations are slowly switching over to open source. The public sector seem to be the ones leading the charge, this is probably due to their costing models which let them (in the UK at least) ignore staff retraining/recruitment costs in new software aquisitions. There will come a point where enough organisations have switched that it's economical for training companies to start opffering low cost mass training courses which will lower the bar for other organisations and the trickle stands a chance of becoming a flood.
Stephen
I think the model that a lot of companies seem to be followiong these days in relation to open source is far more viable than your example of the "Free content with ads" model. It's more like:
People get hooked in by the free product and are usually fairly happy to pay a reasonable fee for support and addons that add functionality that they want/need. I object to paying 500ukp for Microsoft Office, partly, because I know I'm never going to use most of the functionality. I like OpenOffice.org but realize that it doesn't have quite all the functionality I want (before anyopne suggests it, I'm not a coder so probably couldn't write the functions I want myself), doesn't come with support and doesn't have a bound printed manual &c. I don't mind paying 60ukp in PCWorld (or Dixons or whereever), less in other places, for StarOffice so I can get the support from Sun and the extra addons that I'm actually going to use because I want them.
Stephen
Can you prove that they subscribed? I mean really prove. That means either you have a physical piece of paper with their agreement to recieve your mail on it or - if it's an electronic sign up - the time, date, email address and IP address of them signing up; the time data and unique key value semnt to them in the confirmation email you sent to them (to the address subscribed); the time, date and IP address of when they used that unique key to confirm their subscription.
If you can't prove they subscribed then you can't prove you're not spamming.
Stephen
The big difference is that the Spammer wants to send out those spams and has a choice in the matter. The recipient (and their connectivity supplier) does not want to recieve them but has no choice. Even if they are intercepted and filtered outside of the ISP's own network that still costs time and money, which could be used more productively elsewhere, and slows down legitmate mail.
And on the subject of AOL CDs, I don't think I can remember the last time I recieved one in the post was. Gotta be at least a couple of years since I last got one. Can't they be recycled in some way?
Stephen
You can now, in 2003. This has been proven by watching the news reporting of the bombing of Bagdad, even now a few devices go astray. Back in the 1940s bombing was a much less exact art. You'd try to hit a dock (let alone a single building) and land up pasting the town around it.
Also, as has been said elsewhere but bears repeating, a large show of force was necessary to allow the Japanese emperor to surrender. Without the dropping of the bombs the war could have dragged on another 5, 10, 15 years of jungle fighting followed by street fighting on the Japanese mainland gutting the economies of both Japan and the US. In essense by dropping those bombs the US military traded a few thousand lives for several hundred thousand or even millions.
Let's try an analogy. Supposing you're in a bar and some drunken red neck decides he doesn't like you and attacks you. He's being egged on by his friends so the's no way he can back down but you know that if the fight continues you'll both end up very hurt, possbily even killed. Are you goign to hit him with progressively slightly harder blows until you eventually knock him out? Or are you going to hit him with your best and most powerful shot that is 100% guarenteed to put him down and out for the count?
Stephen
Both cities were major production sites for weapons and military vehicles. If you say they shouldn't have been bombed (regardless of the device used) then you rule out all strategic bombing. You can't have it both ways, if you blame the US for dropping the nukes then you have to hang the entire Luftwaffe.
Stephen
Technically they were military support infrastructure.
If you want to get into 'tit-for-tat' arguement then perhaps you should crack open a history book. Especially the bits about how the Japanese were actively using bio-warfare in IndoChina, including experiments on civillians that were as brutal, if not more so, as those perpetrated by the Germans.
Incidentally, the term terrorism is only really applicable where actions are against civillians not involved in the prosecution of the war or supply to the troops and is perpetrated by irregular troops, or regulars out of uniform, where there has been no formal declaration of war. Factories involved in the production of armaments and ammunition are legitimate targets.
Stephen