He also comes across as being competent in foreign affairs.
He tried escalation, realized he couldn't go further without war with China (whose demonstrated willingness was demonstrated in the Korean War), cut a deal, bolted, and pulled off detente (which matters far more than the whole of the Vietnam War).
"Lobbyists have no power when the electorate is well informed and active"
Informed and very active electorate make the National Rifle Association an effective advocate of our right to bear arms, without which there is essentially no right to self-defense. That lobby spans more than a century, is not tied to any political party (they rate pols by performance), and thrives on the support of motivated citizens.
The challenge is a good reason, and an eventual form-and-fit robot replacement for humans could facilitate development of human-compatible systems.
Humans are currently a burden to launch, support, and return. As a result, the manned space program interferes with actual exploration (as opposed to tourism) of space.
We want humans in space so they can enjoy themselves, but the utterly hostile environment dictates that they will do most of their interaction with it remotely. Perfect robots (which we need on and off Earth), perfect the technology to support tourists, then send them at leisure. The personal yearning to visit space should be catered to by commercial ventures, but it should not be confused with exploration.
While industrial accidents in a wind farm can certainly maim and kill, wind farms are less likely to produce mass casualties.
Oil infrastructure can burn and explode, coal mines can cave in and explode, and both produce toxins that poison workers and the public. Fewer casualties and a less poisonous outcome is no bad thing.
I've booted Linux, Windows install, and WinPE-ish CD/DVDs successfully (many times, with the SAME CD/DVDs), yet some machines don't play well even with warm booting, inserting the CD during POST so it's spinning when detected, etc.
I'm thinking it might be some brands of CD drive, but I'd not checked the brands to be sure.
Oddly, many machines that _should_ boot off CD when selected in BIOS don't want to cooperate with (properly burned at slowest speed/good media, yadda yadda) CD/DVD booting.
"It's hilarious that American troops, who are supposedly from a culture that emphasized "freedom" and who are supposedly fighting for the "freedom" of other people, basically have all of their freedom stripped away"
Operation security means denying the enemy information. While communication and warm-fizzy exchange with the home folks is important, real-time chatter about trifling subjects is not.
There are two kinds of conversations from a military theater, "Emergency" and "Bullshit". Bullshit can wait.
Modern commo rocks (and is MUCH nicer than snail mail and moral telephone calls of old, been there and done all the above) but if you can't temporarily disconnect the electronic umbilical cord now and then, GTFO the military and let someone else get that sweet career path and tasty benefit package.
I stash good quality floppy drives when I part out systems, as well as motherboards (incl CPU and RAM) with ISA slots. My friends who have machine shops can use the spares.
Protip: Floppy drives from old HP servers are excellent, and likely only used for drivers during OS reloads.
"Why assume that they either have a concept of ethics, that their ethics might apply to us, or that taking resources would be unethical in their view?"
Because it fits our desperate yearning for that sort of friendly alien, our craving for love is more important than logic, and we are fools.
A sufficiently advanced race may just want to get the annoying bugs off of Earth before putting up condos, but that's not PC.
War is an appropriate reply to war. Note that peaceful opposition is utterly ineffective against Islam. The only methods that work at all are those of secularists like Kemal Ataturk.
Modern revolutionary movements appreciated the toxicity and backwardness of religion. Indeed, the praiseworthy quality of the Bolsheviks and ChiComs was/is that they were willing to fight the backwardness of religion by killing off the religious. If important change cannot be done peacefully and must be done, there is no reason not to use force. If you cannot reason with an extreme political opponent, kill him and take power.
No matter what else the Commies did, attacking and destroying old, rotten, religious systems helped move Russia and China into the modern age. Chinese have never been better off (China was a ruin in 1948), and Communism there served a useful transitional function paving the way for Chinese economic and social success. It freed China from foreign domination. Russia was saved from conquest by Bolshevism and turned into a modern industrial power. That was well worth offing the Czar and his superstitionist supporters.
We in the modern West forget the violence required to pry the fingers of religionists from the levers of power. The current vision of superstitionists as tame ignores what it took to tame them and de-link "imaginary friend cultists" from government. The rebellious youth of Iran, OTOH, look the ogre of religion in the face every day.
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He also comes across as being competent in foreign affairs.
He tried escalation, realized he couldn't go further without war with China (whose demonstrated willingness was demonstrated in the Korean War), cut a deal, bolted, and pulled off detente (which matters far more than the whole of the Vietnam War).
"Who cares? Seriously, what percentage of computer owners do you think ever upgrades their computer by any mechanism other than buying a new one?"
Enough to drive the large enthusiast market that funds much early adoption of high-performance PC components.
"Lobbyists have no power when the electorate is well informed and active"
Informed and very active electorate make the National Rifle Association an effective advocate of our right to bear arms, without which there is essentially no right to self-defense. That lobby spans more than a century, is not tied to any political party (they rate pols by performance), and thrives on the support of motivated citizens.
The challenge is a good reason, and an eventual form-and-fit robot replacement for humans could facilitate development of human-compatible systems.
Humans are currently a burden to launch, support, and return. As a result, the manned space program interferes with actual exploration (as opposed to tourism) of space.
We want humans in space so they can enjoy themselves, but the utterly hostile environment dictates that they will do most of their interaction with it remotely. Perfect robots (which we need on and off Earth), perfect the technology to support tourists, then send them at leisure. The personal yearning to visit space should be catered to by commercial ventures, but it should not be confused with exploration.
Budget restrictions prevented that, so they will use Roseanne Barr in a finned sharkskin bikini.
"screw concurrent sentencing."
Concurrent sentencing is actually "sentence nullification" and should be banned.
While industrial accidents in a wind farm can certainly maim and kill, wind farms are less likely to produce mass casualties.
Oil infrastructure can burn and explode, coal mines can cave in and explode, and both produce toxins that poison workers and the public. Fewer casualties and a less poisonous outcome is no bad thing.
I've booted Linux, Windows install, and WinPE-ish CD/DVDs successfully (many times, with the SAME CD/DVDs), yet some machines don't play well even with warm booting, inserting the CD during POST so it's spinning when detected, etc.
I'm thinking it might be some brands of CD drive, but I'd not checked the brands to be sure.
Oddly, many machines that _should_ boot off CD when selected in BIOS don't want to cooperate with (properly burned at slowest speed/good media, yadda yadda) CD/DVD booting.
I keep a Smart Boot Manager
http://btmgr.sourceforge.net/about.html
floppy for those, and they'll often boot from CD/DVD when selected in the Smart Boot Manager (which can also be loaded to hard disk) menu.
Why? Beats the shit out of me, but it has worked on many machines over the years.
Don't buy their products.
Granted, those products are fun, but you pay the price for their proprietary nature when support goes away.
"I've saved a lot of systems from having to be formatted/reinstalled and reconfigured."
I don't save shit, just nuke-and-pave. Those who back up their stuff will have stuff, those who don't will learn.
Anything less is coddling. I'll do that too, but it's expensive.
"You are a very narrow minded and prejudiced SOB if you are going to hold stuff against people 25 years after they did the crime."
Depends very much on the crime. Smoking weed? No victim. No problem.
Doing a "Cool Hand Luke" on some parking meters with no subsequent offenses? Probably rehabilitated.
Pedophilia? Bespeaks a permanent scumbag the rest of us have zero reason to care about. Time doesn't change everyone.
Paying your debt to society doesn't mean logical humans should consider "getting out of stir" to equal "swell guy, worthy of trust".
"We used to have the Rule of Law."
This "alternate universe" idea intrigues me. In which one did men not rule over law and merely invoke it when convenient to their purpose?
The military has policies in place, but spontaneous, synchronous commo lends itself to errant blabbing more than, for example, email.
"It's hilarious that American troops, who are supposedly from a culture that emphasized "freedom" and who are supposedly fighting for the "freedom" of other people, basically have all of their freedom stripped away"
Operation security means denying the enemy information. While communication and warm-fizzy exchange with the home folks is important, real-time chatter about trifling subjects is not.
There are two kinds of conversations from a military theater, "Emergency" and "Bullshit". Bullshit can wait.
Modern commo rocks (and is MUCH nicer than snail mail and moral telephone calls of old, been there and done all the above) but if you can't temporarily disconnect the electronic umbilical cord now and then, GTFO the military and let someone else get that sweet career path and tasty benefit package.
"This is why apple is so leak paranoid:"
If they were leak paranoid they wouldn't hand out test samples for people to carry outside company property.
Where that is practical, it works just fine. See Carthage for an example.
Protip protip:
Acquire a sense of humor regarding the term.
http://encyclopediadramatica.com/PROTIP
This is 2010, run your VM off a live CD!
http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/LiveCD
I stash good quality floppy drives when I part out systems, as well as motherboards (incl CPU and RAM) with ISA slots. My friends who have machine shops can use the spares.
Protip:
Floppy drives from old HP servers are excellent, and likely only used for drivers during OS reloads.
"Why assume that they either have a concept of ethics, that their ethics might apply to us, or that taking resources would be unethical in their view?"
Because it fits our desperate yearning for that sort of friendly alien, our craving for love is more important than logic, and we are fools.
A sufficiently advanced race may just want to get the annoying bugs off of Earth before putting up condos, but that's not PC.
"When a vulnerabily is found on your LiveCD you won't be able to patch it."
Slashdotters should know better...
You can boot from a live Linux CD and remaster it, which is very cool.
http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Knoppix_Remastering_Howto
You can also keep a variety of live OS including custom WinPE versions.
http://www.911cd.net/forums/
"Ever tried to get a driver for your HD controller into Windows during setup?"
Once, years ago, at which point I discovered slipstreaming (much love for nlite) and never looked back.
"Sure; but the human population in the region is MORE worth preserving."
Citation needed.
"Because they're all so violent, right?"
War is an appropriate reply to war. Note that peaceful opposition is utterly ineffective against Islam. The only methods that work at all are those of secularists like Kemal Ataturk.
Modern revolutionary movements appreciated the toxicity and backwardness of religion. Indeed, the praiseworthy quality of the Bolsheviks and ChiComs was/is that they were willing to fight the backwardness of religion by killing off the religious. If important change cannot be done peacefully and must be done, there is no reason not to use force. If you cannot reason with an extreme political opponent, kill him and take power.
No matter what else the Commies did, attacking and destroying old, rotten, religious systems helped move Russia and China into the modern age. Chinese have never been better off (China was a ruin in 1948), and Communism there served a useful transitional function paving the way for Chinese economic and social success. It freed China from foreign domination. Russia was saved from conquest by Bolshevism and turned into a modern industrial power. That was well worth offing the Czar and his superstitionist supporters.
We in the modern West forget the violence required to pry the fingers of religionists from the levers of power. The current vision of superstitionists as tame ignores what it took to tame them and de-link "imaginary friend cultists" from government. The rebellious youth of Iran, OTOH, look the ogre of religion in the face every day.