well, it's a well-spent twenty bucks. it *was* insightful. not that i want to give up my free music.
something else to think about: did the moderator read my subsequent reply before he modded the post? go ahead. waste your precious time with that one. ^_^
Man. Since this whole 9/11 thing went down, there has been so much stuff about how the guv'mint is gonna be looking over the shoulders of everyone in America, maybe someone should change "Your Rights Online" to "Today's Update on the Complete Annihilation of Your Rights Online."
It amazes me (only a little bit) that the Feds would jump so quickly at an excuse to clamp down on interpersonal communication. Makes a body wonder if there were people just drooling on their keyboards in some dark NSA/FBI/[acronym we don't even know about] office when they saw the towers collapse. "thith ith our chanth, you guyth. *wipe*"
bullcrap./rant
oh, and why does peter van sant think he knows that life is better than the alternative?
The United States hasn't jumped the gun, and we should be careful not to either. So far all I've seen on sites like Slashdot is rambling about how the tyrannical U.S. government is trying to strip us of our rights. It's good that we're being vigilant (that's one of the requirements of a good citizenry), but we must take care not to make quick judgements based on preconceived notions.
Did you even read the article?
Rather than inaction and restraint, I think vigorous action is a much more responsible way to deal with this situation. Something needs to be done RIGHT NOW, or else more planes may fly into tall buildings, or nerve gas may be released in a stadium. We have to hit back quickly, because we're fighting a war unlike any other war we've ever fought. The United States is not fighting against an organized nation. Instead, the target is terrorism - something that is BY ITS VERY NATURE sneaky and underhanded. Terrorism will remain sneaky and underhanded no matter what laws we pass, and I think it would do many people in this country a lot of good to realize that.
Making laws that give investigators carte blanche to Carnivore our email won't stop Osama bin Laden. (A law that would give any investigator access to email records for three days without any sort of warrant other than the investigator's desire to have the information is being written into the appropriations bill that the Senate is pushing so hard to pass.) If we make it illegal to encrypt things that the government can't decode, then terrorists will simply be breaking one more law when they plan and execute their next attack...and I don't think they'll worry too much about it.
These laws cause ME a lot of worry, though - part of being in America is being able to walk around and talk without the fear that someone is listening and my words could come back in an entirely different context to haunt me. It's not that I'm against security... I just feel that the police should have to get a subpoena BEFORE they collect information about a person, no matter what medium the information is transmitted by. It's not an outlandish request, but it's one that the Senate has already decided is not important or not relevant... because they're not hearing the voices of we/.ers, the people who care about things like that.
I understand that the government needs to take action now to protect us. I also understand that I need to take action now to protect me. So, if you'll excuse me, I have to fax my Congressmen.
dust
Okay, let's assume that Mafiaboy is at least 17 years and 4 months old.
He gets out of juvenile detention after eight months, and is now an adult. Cognitively, he's not that much different than when he started. Sure, he's picked up some undesirable behaviors from being around a bunch of young punks, but other than that, he's still pretty intelligent, and he's aware enough to know that what he was doing is still wrong...otherwise he wouldn't be bragging about it on IRC.
So he goes back to DOS attacks. He gets caught. This time he's an adult. He does adult time for the same crime he committed a year ago. And since he's an adult, he does a lot of time. (comparatively) Now that he's been in REAL jail for upwards of a year, he's learned how to not only deface websites, but make knives out of chips of stone, sell crack, and rape burly men.
There's injustice here somewhere, but I have yet to figure out where it is. Should youth be subject to more stringent sentences? Well... not in general, no. Should adults, who are expected to be responsible for their own behavior at all times, be treated like children, who have a notable tendency to screw things up and are therefore not necessarily responsible for themselves? Of course not. So what do you do when you're faced with a youth who knows what he's doing is wrong, and still has a promising future ahead of him, but can't quite shake the rebellious streak ground into him by years and years of rejection by his schoolmates? (huge assumption, but hey, it works.)
I have to laugh like hell... I'm sure if the question "Should the United States devote thousands of man-hours and upwards of $20 billion dollars NEXT WEEK with the intent to eradicate terrorism?" were on the slashdot poll anytime before tuesday, maybe ten people would have voted "yes."
Now that America's borders have been violated and her people murdered in large numbers, such a question would garner a much more positive response.
There's a problem. It's not possible to "can't let this happen." (a grammatical nightmare, but it illustrates my point. sorry.) The terrorists weren't following the rules when they hijacked commercial airliners with knives. This fact is being ignored by certain senators and essay-writers... and lots of other people, too. Some people seem to think the solution to terrorism is more rules - more hoops to jump through at airports, more prohibitions on encryption software that the government can't peek into. Perhaps that would work if terrorists cared about rules.
In "The Price of Freedom," the author's solution is to "make [the terrorists] afraid." Afraid of what? The 18 people who participated in Tuesday's events were so brainwashed that they thought the route to a joyous afterlife was by killing themselves and hundreds if not thousands of innocent people whom they did not know and who had done them no harm. We can kill the terrorists, or let them carry out their terrorist acts. Either way, they die.
I agree with a previous poster - I don't care how fanatics die, just so long as the number of innocent people that go with them is minimal. I just want them gone.
oh, jeremy, last thing -- your essay pre-empted what could have been an enlightening discussion about the evolution of privacy online, if such a thing exists... and it wasn't even that good.
First of all, MY analysis of two media. The integration of TV and the Internet has created a bizarre mutant child of online and offline media, where the repetitive imagery and propellerheads of television news are subject to the scrutiny and discussion of numerous newshounds with too much time on their hands... the result being that along with television's processed, plastic-packaged presentation of events, we have the opportunity to view with a few clicks of the mouse how hundreds, maybe thousands (we won't have specific numbers for possibly three weeks, so stop asking...... hmm, poor taste alert) of people feel about the presentation, and how other people feel about how people feel... and so on and so forth. This makes media uniquely responsible for what they present... not so much now, but as interactive forums become larger and more common, television will bend to the will of the message maniacs.
It's quite obvious that Mr. Katz didn't vote for President Bush. That's fine; I didn't, either. I think the president rose to the occasion quite nicely, though; his staff made sure that he was safe for the duration of the attacks (I bet Mr. Katz feels pretty silly now that the New York Times reports there was a credible and specific threat to the President), and he played his political cards right.
When our president addressed the nation, he had two options. He could read a teleprompter containing a script approved by his staff and listen to their advice on how to remain calm and deliver it so that he didn't identify with and therefore justify the violent feelings brewing in most of America and start a mass lynching of Arab-Americans... or he could just say whatever was on his mind at the moment. Given those two options, I think we were pretty lucky.
It's also rather obvious that Mr. Katz also shares my distaste for television network news. I think the news organizations of America performed far above and beyond the call of duty... the Three Horsemen (Rather, Jennings, and Brokaw) put in two back-to-back sixteen-hour days on the air. Aaron Brown and Shep Smith both remained with us, commercial-free, for the first two days after the attacks. Ashleigh Banfield herself narrowly escaped WTC 1, and was struggling to remain composed as she related the story of herself and her crew. No thought was given to the advertisers who weren't having their products or services displayed for us to buy; in fact, CNN was broadcast over nearly every Turner network instead of regular programming. In times of ongoing crisis such as this, the news becomes a grueling business. Everyone involved with every network displayed a tremendous amount of intestinal fortitude as they reported on this most, ah, unique event. Rather than dismiss them, I think they all deserve our praise... for a change.
With their usual hubris, reporters and politicians were promising us that everything was going to change.
I have late-breaking news for you, Mr. Katz. Everything HAS changed. The bar has been raised for Shocking Terrorist Acts. Americans everywhere are fortified with cellular phones and the memory of this incident, coupled with a firm resolve to never let it happen again. (I would like to see anyone try to hijack a plane with a knife now.) All of us have seen the powerful impact that the Internet and wireless communications can have and have had in this situation, and we will use this knowledge the next time disaster strikes.
...bringing me to my final point. Sadly, the change that will have the most impact on America is that despite increased security, despite carriers off the coasts, despite air marshals, despite military strikes around the world... there will no doubt be a next time.
I was a fool, and on the very edge of the PowerPC's release, purchased a Performa 575 - a one-piece '040-based Mac with a 13" monitor, a motherboard that slides out of the case on rails, and a big slot where I'm supposed to put a "PowerPC Upgrade Card" that Apple made for two weeks and scrapped.
I never stopped regretting that decision, and now I can't buy an iMac 'cause of the same problem. no room to upgrade...at all. my current PC has no nubus slots, no PCI slots, and one SCSI port. and no room in the case for ANYTHING - more SIMMS, another HD...everything has to be external, because the case is too small. so I hate the one-piece computers with a passion; they're great for schools and families, but for people whose needs change as time passes, they just don't cut it.
now, LCD monitors are really expensive. I want one, but I want to be able to plug it into my blue g3 (ha!) or something. that way, if the monitor breaks or I decide I want a new box or something, the several hundred dollars that went into a 15, 16, or 17-inch active-matrix LCD screen won't go to waste when I get rid of my non-upgradeable, non-enhanceable little green box with flashing lights and super-clear monitor.
monitor you can hang on the wall? good. monitor that cost a ton of money that you can't replace and can't keep when you get rid of the old computer? very, very bad.
- the movie's humor relied on the NASTY, NASTY language...that really depressed me. what i like about south park is the social satire. sure, cockmaster is a funny word. but i timed my free Coke refill so that I wouldn't have to listen to that inane 'uncle fucker' song.
- the "parents should spend more time paying attention to their kids instead of fighting for their morality" thing has ALREADY BEEN DONE BY SOUTH PARK - remember when death killed kenny?
so. we've established in the thread that south park, although a hilarious movie, relies almost completely upon things that the "morality police" feel are wrong. jon katz glorifies this to no end in his article, and, understandably, certain people are made angry.
both geeks and right-wingers are inadvertently stereotyped (I'm assuming) by katz; i was hoping you kids would prove him wrong, but you didn't.
if you're this far in the thread, you probably saw how the older, more mature, more experienced folk discussed how they'd never let their kids see the movie. (incidentally, i told my mom to NOT let my 11-year-old brother see the movie...partly because i didn't want to be 'cockmaster' for eight months.) and this is fine.
however, some of us took it to the extreme...blaming adolescents for not living in an adult's world, getting gun control (GUN CONTROL!) into the thread somehow (but that's an issue I'm not gonna touch), and letting God get mixed up in this...an all-out mistake, considering the tongue-firmly-in-asscheek way that the movie handles God and Satan.
the geeks didn't make it any better. firmly banding together in support of themselves, the general feeling was that south park wasn't JUST about swearing. (i so badly wish that were true.) but then we have the extremists again, rattling on, echoing mr. katz's sentiments about how this was a stunning, amazing, mind-blowing political achievement, more powerful than woodstock in its fuck-the-man-i-have-my-rights-my-parents-can't-sto p-me mentality that us geeks so powerfully cling to.
this whole mess is an excellent microcosm of the way things really are - most people are pretty indifferent to the whole mess. "what's the big deal with the swearing?" "sure, it was funny, but I won't let my kids watch it." common statements echoed by many a slashdotter. the rest? well, every cause has its overzealous followers.
the point?
*ben stein's voice* stereotypes are not based on the common man. they're based on what we see on the evening news, and only the extremists get on the news.
*normal voice* so katz's stereotypes were more or less justifiable. the man took your average geek and pitted him against the morality industry. and what we got...is now ancient history.
it's a great idea - the newton and emate have really low power requirements, and the new C1 portable that apple is working on is (i guess) gonna be real similar to the emate in structure, with even simpler and cooler motherboard components.
it'll never work on intel equipment, but man...what i wouldn't give for a g3 with a crank.
1. can apple use Linux in OSX? No. that whole license thing gets in the way. (yay opensource...or whatever.)
2. would it be timely for apple to use Linux in OSX? No. for one, they'd have to *stop and rewrite* the *entire os*...which would be foolish, because from what little i've seen of the mach microkernel, it's cool enough as it is. (that whole free/openBSD thing...which works for me.) so if apple felt like wasting time and jerking their customers around (something which stopped after Amelio lost his job)...then they could stop working on betas of a perfectly good os and start writing a new one.
3. does the author know what he's talking about? apparently not. it seems he lacks a clear understanding of the difference between 'rumor' and 'announcement' (the references to IBM's announcements of things they never mentioned publicly), and i doubt that this guy has 'inside sources' at IBM.
i, personally, see nothing wrong with opensourcing. (incidentally, yes, most of the source from OSX is gonna be on the CD, and they use all sorts of open source in the kernel.) i don't think it should take over the world, though...i mean, do we really want to be commies? ha. well, anyways, that seems to be the take of the author...that, and "linux is good." unfortunatley, he's wrong - mach is good, too, and OSX should stay the way it is.
Slashdot Mirror
...dammit.
well, it's a well-spent twenty bucks. it *was* insightful. not that i want to give up my free music.
something else to think about: did the moderator read my subsequent reply before he modded the post? go ahead. waste your precious time with that one. ^_^
i got twenty bucks sayin' the parent of this comment will never, ever, ever, ever, ever be modded up.
word.
Man. Since this whole 9/11 thing went down, there has been so much stuff about how the guv'mint is gonna be looking over the shoulders of everyone in America, maybe someone should change "Your Rights Online" to "Today's Update on the Complete Annihilation of Your Rights Online."
/rant
It amazes me (only a little bit) that the Feds would jump so quickly at an excuse to clamp down on interpersonal communication. Makes a body wonder if there were people just drooling on their keyboards in some dark NSA/FBI/[acronym we don't even know about] office when they saw the towers collapse. "thith ith our chanth, you guyth. *wipe*"
bullcrap.
oh, and why does peter van sant think he knows that life is better than the alternative?
The United States hasn't jumped the gun, and we should be careful not to either. So far all I've seen on sites like Slashdot is rambling about how the tyrannical U.S. government is trying to strip us of our rights. It's good that we're being vigilant (that's one of the requirements of a good citizenry), but we must take care not to make quick judgements based on preconceived notions.
Did you even read the article?
Rather than inaction and restraint, I think vigorous action is a much more responsible way to deal with this situation. Something needs to be done RIGHT NOW, or else more planes may fly into tall buildings, or nerve gas may be released in a stadium. We have to hit back quickly, because we're fighting a war unlike any other war we've ever fought. The United States is not fighting against an organized nation. Instead, the target is terrorism - something that is BY ITS VERY NATURE sneaky and underhanded. Terrorism will remain sneaky and underhanded no matter what laws we pass, and I think it would do many people in this country a lot of good to realize that.
Making laws that give investigators carte blanche to Carnivore our email won't stop Osama bin Laden. (A law that would give any investigator access to email records for three days without any sort of warrant other than the investigator's desire to have the information is being written into the appropriations bill that the Senate is pushing so hard to pass.) If we make it illegal to encrypt things that the government can't decode, then terrorists will simply be breaking one more law when they plan and execute their next attack...and I don't think they'll worry too much about it.
These laws cause ME a lot of worry, though - part of being in America is being able to walk around and talk without the fear that someone is listening and my words could come back in an entirely different context to haunt me. It's not that I'm against security... I just feel that the police should have to get a subpoena BEFORE they collect information about a person, no matter what medium the information is transmitted by. It's not an outlandish request, but it's one that the Senate has already decided is not important or not relevant... because they're not hearing the voices of we /.ers, the people who care about things like that.
I understand that the government needs to take action now to protect us. I also understand that I need to take action now to protect me. So, if you'll excuse me, I have to fax my Congressmen. dust
Okay, let's assume that Mafiaboy is at least 17 years and 4 months old.
He gets out of juvenile detention after eight months, and is now an adult. Cognitively, he's not that much different than when he started. Sure, he's picked up some undesirable behaviors from being around a bunch of young punks, but other than that, he's still pretty intelligent, and he's aware enough to know that what he was doing is still wrong...otherwise he wouldn't be bragging about it on IRC.
So he goes back to DOS attacks. He gets caught. This time he's an adult. He does adult time for the same crime he committed a year ago. And since he's an adult, he does a lot of time. (comparatively) Now that he's been in REAL jail for upwards of a year, he's learned how to not only deface websites, but make knives out of chips of stone, sell crack, and rape burly men.
There's injustice here somewhere, but I have yet to figure out where it is. Should youth be subject to more stringent sentences? Well... not in general, no. Should adults, who are expected to be responsible for their own behavior at all times, be treated like children, who have a notable tendency to screw things up and are therefore not necessarily responsible for themselves? Of course not. So what do you do when you're faced with a youth who knows what he's doing is wrong, and still has a promising future ahead of him, but can't quite shake the rebellious streak ground into him by years and years of rejection by his schoolmates? (huge assumption, but hey, it works.)
I have to laugh like hell... I'm sure if the question "Should the United States devote thousands of man-hours and upwards of $20 billion dollars NEXT WEEK with the intent to eradicate terrorism?" were on the slashdot poll anytime before tuesday, maybe ten people would have voted "yes."
Now that America's borders have been violated and her people murdered in large numbers, such a question would garner a much more positive response.
There's a problem. It's not possible to "can't let this happen." (a grammatical nightmare, but it illustrates my point. sorry.) The terrorists weren't following the rules when they hijacked commercial airliners with knives. This fact is being ignored by certain senators and essay-writers... and lots of other people, too. Some people seem to think the solution to terrorism is more rules - more hoops to jump through at airports, more prohibitions on encryption software that the government can't peek into. Perhaps that would work if terrorists cared about rules.
In "The Price of Freedom," the author's solution is to "make [the terrorists] afraid." Afraid of what? The 18 people who participated in Tuesday's events were so brainwashed that they thought the route to a joyous afterlife was by killing themselves and hundreds if not thousands of innocent people whom they did not know and who had done them no harm. We can kill the terrorists, or let them carry out their terrorist acts. Either way, they die.
I agree with a previous poster - I don't care how fanatics die, just so long as the number of innocent people that go with them is minimal. I just want them gone.
oh, jeremy, last thing -- your essay pre-empted what could have been an enlightening discussion about the evolution of privacy online, if such a thing exists... and it wasn't even that good.
Urgh. I don't even know where to start.
First of all, MY analysis of two media. The integration of TV and the Internet has created a bizarre mutant child of online and offline media, where the repetitive imagery and propellerheads of television news are subject to the scrutiny and discussion of numerous newshounds with too much time on their hands... the result being that along with television's processed, plastic-packaged presentation of events, we have the opportunity to view with a few clicks of the mouse how hundreds, maybe thousands (we won't have specific numbers for possibly three weeks, so stop asking... ... hmm, poor taste alert) of people feel about the presentation, and how other people feel about how people feel... and so on and so forth. This makes media uniquely responsible for what they present... not so much now, but as interactive forums become larger and more common, television will bend to the will of the message maniacs.
It's quite obvious that Mr. Katz didn't vote for President Bush. That's fine; I didn't, either. I think the president rose to the occasion quite nicely, though; his staff made sure that he was safe for the duration of the attacks (I bet Mr. Katz feels pretty silly now that the New York Times reports there was a credible and specific threat to the President), and he played his political cards right.
When our president addressed the nation, he had two options. He could read a teleprompter containing a script approved by his staff and listen to their advice on how to remain calm and deliver it so that he didn't identify with and therefore justify the violent feelings brewing in most of America and start a mass lynching of Arab-Americans... or he could just say whatever was on his mind at the moment. Given those two options, I think we were pretty lucky.
It's also rather obvious that Mr. Katz also shares my distaste for television network news. I think the news organizations of America performed far above and beyond the call of duty... the Three Horsemen (Rather, Jennings, and Brokaw) put in two back-to-back sixteen-hour days on the air. Aaron Brown and Shep Smith both remained with us, commercial-free, for the first two days after the attacks. Ashleigh Banfield herself narrowly escaped WTC 1, and was struggling to remain composed as she related the story of herself and her crew. No thought was given to the advertisers who weren't having their products or services displayed for us to buy; in fact, CNN was broadcast over nearly every Turner network instead of regular programming. In times of ongoing crisis such as this, the news becomes a grueling business. Everyone involved with every network displayed a tremendous amount of intestinal fortitude as they reported on this most, ah, unique event. Rather than dismiss them, I think they all deserve our praise... for a change.
With their usual hubris, reporters and politicians were promising us that everything was going to change.
I have late-breaking news for you, Mr. Katz. Everything HAS changed. The bar has been raised for Shocking Terrorist Acts. Americans everywhere are fortified with cellular phones and the memory of this incident, coupled with a firm resolve to never let it happen again. (I would like to see anyone try to hijack a plane with a knife now.) All of us have seen the powerful impact that the Internet and wireless communications can have and have had in this situation, and we will use this knowledge the next time disaster strikes.
...bringing me to my final point. Sadly, the change that will have the most impact on America is that despite increased security, despite carriers off the coasts, despite air marshals, despite military strikes around the world... there will no doubt be a next time.
i totally agree with the "stupid" thing.
I was a fool, and on the very edge of the PowerPC's release, purchased a Performa 575 - a one-piece '040-based Mac with a 13" monitor, a motherboard that slides out of the case on rails, and a big slot where I'm supposed to put a "PowerPC Upgrade Card" that Apple made for two weeks and scrapped.
I never stopped regretting that decision, and now I can't buy an iMac 'cause of the same problem. no room to upgrade...at all. my current PC has no nubus slots, no PCI slots, and one SCSI port. and no room in the case for ANYTHING - more SIMMS, another HD...everything has to be external, because the case is too small. so I hate the one-piece computers with a passion; they're great for schools and families, but for people whose needs change as time passes, they just don't cut it.
now, LCD monitors are really expensive. I want one, but I want to be able to plug it into my blue g3 (ha!) or something. that way, if the monitor breaks or I decide I want a new box or something, the several hundred dollars that went into a 15, 16, or 17-inch active-matrix LCD screen won't go to waste when I get rid of my non-upgradeable, non-enhanceable little green box with flashing lights and super-clear monitor.
monitor you can hang on the wall? good.
monitor that cost a ton of money that you can't replace and can't keep when you get rid of the old computer? very, very bad.
vector
(...did he just say "make fuck?")
my thoughts:
o p-me mentality that us geeks so powerfully cling to.
- the movie's humor relied on the NASTY, NASTY language...that really depressed me. what i like about south park is the social satire. sure, cockmaster is a funny word. but i timed my free Coke refill so that I wouldn't have to listen to that inane 'uncle fucker' song.
- the "parents should spend more time paying attention to their kids instead of fighting for their morality" thing has ALREADY BEEN DONE BY SOUTH PARK - remember when death killed kenny?
so. we've established in the thread that south park, although a hilarious movie, relies almost completely upon things that the "morality police" feel are wrong. jon katz glorifies this to no end in his article, and, understandably, certain people are made angry.
both geeks and right-wingers are inadvertently stereotyped (I'm assuming) by katz; i was hoping you kids would prove him wrong, but you didn't.
if you're this far in the thread, you probably saw how the older, more mature, more experienced folk discussed how they'd never let their kids see the movie. (incidentally, i told my mom to NOT let my 11-year-old brother see the movie...partly because i didn't want to be 'cockmaster' for eight months.) and this is fine.
however, some of us took it to the extreme...blaming adolescents for not living in an adult's world, getting gun control (GUN CONTROL!) into the thread somehow (but that's an issue I'm not gonna touch), and letting God get mixed up in this...an all-out mistake, considering the tongue-firmly-in-asscheek way that the movie handles God and Satan.
the geeks didn't make it any better. firmly banding together in support of themselves, the general feeling was that south park wasn't JUST about swearing. (i so badly wish that were true.) but then we have the extremists again, rattling on, echoing mr. katz's sentiments about how this was a stunning, amazing, mind-blowing political achievement, more powerful than woodstock in its fuck-the-man-i-have-my-rights-my-parents-can't-st
this whole mess is an excellent microcosm of the way things really are - most people are pretty indifferent to the whole mess. "what's the big deal with the swearing?" "sure, it was funny, but I won't let my kids watch it." common statements echoed by many a slashdotter. the rest? well, every cause has its overzealous followers.
the point?
*ben stein's voice* stereotypes are not based on the common man. they're based on what we see on the evening news, and only the extremists get on the news.
*normal voice* so katz's stereotypes were more or less justifiable. the man took your average geek and pitted him against the morality industry. and what we got...is now ancient history.
i promise i'll never do that again.
vector
like the topic says.
it's a great idea - the newton and emate have really low power requirements, and the new C1 portable that apple is working on is (i guess) gonna be real similar to the emate in structure, with even simpler and cooler motherboard components.
it'll never work on intel equipment, but man...what i wouldn't give for a g3 with a crank.
vector
okay, let's look at this logically.
1. can apple use Linux in OSX? No. that whole license thing gets in the way. (yay opensource...or whatever.)
2. would it be timely for apple to use Linux in OSX? No. for one, they'd have to *stop and rewrite* the *entire os*...which would be foolish, because from what little i've seen of the mach microkernel, it's cool enough as it is. (that whole free/openBSD thing...which works for me.) so if apple felt like wasting time and jerking their customers around (something which stopped after Amelio lost his job)...then they could stop working on betas of a perfectly good os and start writing a new one.
3. does the author know what he's talking about? apparently not. it seems he lacks a clear understanding of the difference between 'rumor' and 'announcement' (the references to IBM's announcements of things they never mentioned publicly), and i doubt that this guy has 'inside sources' at IBM.
i, personally, see nothing wrong with opensourcing. (incidentally, yes, most of the source from OSX is gonna be on the CD, and they use all sorts of open source in the kernel.) i don't think it should take over the world, though...i mean, do we really want to be commies? ha. well, anyways, that seems to be the take of the author...that, and "linux is good." unfortunatley, he's wrong - mach is good, too, and OSX should stay the way it is.