This all brings up one of the central tenets of computer network security: If it is connected to the Internet, it can be accessed, and sometimes the probing computers that are looking leave their little IP footprints all over the place. For instance, I was rather surprised a couple of years ago watching some IP's scroll through while someone/a software bot was accessing my workstation. Whois revealed nothing, but traceroute revealed an IP that allowed me to do a little more poking around to find out the identity as something from a "Special Collections Service" in Maryland. A little more poking around revealed it to be something involving a state department program whereupon I rather quickly decided to stop investigating. I still don't know anything about them or what they do, but it is surprising how hard it can be to be anonymous on the web. Hey, I am sure even all those Slashdot anonymous coward posters are leaving IP's that can and are documented.:-)
Well, I would really like to give the profession more credit than this, but does not anyone see a conflict of interest here? The standard should be "avoiding even the appearance of impropriety", so how is it that the entire American Bar Association think this is a good idea? Are they that owned?
What confounds me is that there hasn't been a major virus with a real nasty payload, say a virus that spreads like MyDoom, but after sending itself out to all the email contacts found, it proceeds to nuke the drive by writing random junk through it all (preventing any way of recovering the data).
Like really virulent biological virii, computer virii that work this way will limit the extent to which they can spread......unless of course.......they work out slightly more sophisticated methods of damage, or they delay the damage for a period of time before "expressing" themselves.
If you consider computer security like the human immune system, then perhaps it may be seen that these people (while malicious) allow security to keep up with that hacks that can be done.
If you make the biological systems analogy, you will also have to acknowledge that a diverse operating system ecosystem is critical to the health and well being of things, especially as the Internet becomes more widely available. We need Linux, IRIX, Solaris, Windows, OS X and embedded OS's to maintain the health of things.
it takes a look at the world of malware scripters, virus writers and worm designers.
I guess my initial reaction was fsck 'em. Fsck 'em all. However, it could be suggested that they have made corporations and governments aware of many intrinsic insecurities in certain popular operating systems which may have prevented some larger potential catastrophe. The problem for these guys, is that we will never know and they will continue to be reviled and hated as losers. (That is unless they are talented enough to score a job with Symantec, the NSA or some other organization dealing with comp. security.)
In other words, to paraphrase "I am no.....Doctrine(tm): Apple.
You obviously did not do very well on reading comprehension exams, did you?:-) Actually, no this is not what I am saying. What I am saying is simply that my research commonly consumes about 80hrs/week. Therefore, I have to figure out where to optimize my time and if it comes at the expense of not wanting to support Solaris, IRIX, Windows and Linux, that is my choice. Not yours. The reason I have standardized on OS X is because it is powerful, I can run all my older *nix code with a recomplile and the OS does not get in my way allowing me to be productive.
Furthermore, I want to be helpful to family and friends, but if they want to purchase another computer other than a Mac, that is their business. They just cannot expect my support for it.
First off, does anyone else find it highly disturbing that a PhD is not only posting on Slashdot, but FIRST posting?
You might be surprised to know how many folks with doctorates do contribute to Slashdot. Of course noise has been going up in the last couple of years, but there are informative posts to be made and read on Slashdot. As far as first posting, what are you complaining about? You would rather read stuff like "FRIST POST"?!!?............ Please.
My solution for friends and family that ask for technical support is simply that I will help them out if they have a Macintosh. Otherwise, there is no way I have the time to troubleshoot and support Windows, Linux or other Unix operating systems. Macs don't have the virus or worm issues that Windows has, Macs work when you plug peripheral hardware into them with fewer complications than Windows or other OS's, they are more plug and play than Linux or other *nix, and they cost less to support both in terms of time and dollars.
I used to perform more support (even as a graduate student) of other operating systems (Windows, Macintosh, Solaris and IRIX) and their associated hardware for my parent business and other family and friends, but damn folks, I have a job that is not computer IT.
Seriously though. These guys (Click and Clack) are Macheads so why not quicktime? The Quicktime streaming server fundamentals are under the Darwin open source and free paradigms, there are no licensing fees as there are with Windows, and hey, it's so easy to use. So, what gives?
You seem to be making this a racial issue when it really is not. However, to understand why diversity is oftentimes better, you should read a little biology. Or since this is Slashdot, read about monoculture in computing and discover why we have so many problems with virii and worms. But if you are speaking culturally, lets talk food. Traditional Utah cuisine sucks. Vegetables are overdone, meats are cooked to within an inch of bone dry, there is no alcohol in foods to carry flavors to the olfactory system etc...etc...etc... I myself love a variety of foods and I cannot count on a bunch of white boys to provide them all the time. If you are talking arts, pioneer handicraft can only go so far. If you are talking music, come on now, get real. If you are talking science, progress without diversity of thought and scientific input goes nowhere.
Is there something wrong with having a primarily Mormon state that needs to be "improved" upon?
Apparently from Utah history, the Mormon church wanted to be a part of the United States and thus become a part of the greater union of states. This tells me they wanted other benefits associated with being a state and did not want a Mormon monoculture. (Also, from what I hear, the Mormon church is expanding quite rapidly in other nations around the world in cultures that are not necessarily white.) If you want to be a state and accept federal tax dollars, then you have to be willing to be a part of the greater diversity that has made the United States unique in the modern world.
Or is it that white people are not allowed to have their own place with their own distinct culture?
Sure they can. Nobody is saying that cannot occur. But if you live in the United States of America, there are some things that you need to be aware of: The Constitution of the United States, The Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independance should be the first three things you read. After that, read up on other aspects of democracy, issues of statehood, and some court cases such as Brown vs. Board.
Would you say that a place like Japan or India needs to be improved with diversity?
You have not been to Japan or India have you?............
You might be surprised at the diversity in those cultures, but more to the point, those countries do not have the same history of law as does the United States. Specifically, we (U.S. citizens) have a little amendment to our Constitution. The 15th to be precise that states "Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." And in Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation." This amendment specified a precedent that has carried through to other aspects of our culture besides voting to include issues of discrimination in the work place, in housing etc....
So, this has really kinda raised a stink here in Utah, and despite the states Homeland Security specialist stating that all of the information is already available to law enforcement, one issue is that all of this information is not currently available in one place and that many simply object to government accumulating so much personal information. The other issue is that the problem with databases is that once they are created, they really cannot be destroyed. The information in them tends to propagate into other projects or products and is also often used for generation of revenues by selling information to certain corporations.
For instance, from the article: Searchable databases allow law enforcement agents to probe for people using Social Security numbers, dates of birth, addresses, property records, motor vehicle information and credit history. The information is collected by states and forwarded to a database in Florida, where a private company, Seisint Inc., builds and manages the database.
The fact that credit history is included and is documented along with these other aspects of identity and is run and managed by a private company is disturbing leading me to wonder what connections Gov. Leavitt might have with this company.
Finally, as noted in the article our current Gov., Olene Walker (she was Gov. Leavitt's assistant governor before he headed off to become a Bush appointee to head the Environmental Protection Agency), apparently knew absolutely nothing about the project. As governor, Leavitt should have been representing the people of Utah, but what is it that he has done here?
(Yes, I'm half-joking, and no I'm not flaming. Utah folks are nice overall, but it's true that polygamy was practiced there up to 100 years ago mainly to populate Utah as quickly as possible from the small band of initial settlers.
Believe it or not, but there are communities here in Utah that still practice polygamy.
Those who've been to Utah know the proportion of white blond-haired blue-eyed people bearing the same last name there is quite staggering. Sweden looks cosmopolitan compared to Utah).
Things are getting better as far as diversity goes, and along with more diversity, the quality and types of food gets better as well not to mention the arts, music and science. But yeah, I'll tell you, moving from Texas to Utah was a bit of a shock. In fact, one of my friends did an epilepsy fellowship at the University here and was not so sure about it from a cultural standpoint. One of her first statements getting off the plane was "damn, look at all the white people".
They also have some of the best mountain biking in the world. You best not be nukin' that stuff.
Very true. I suppose I could have included a link to Moab, but the whole state is covered with places to go mountain biking. Everything from stunning single track across the Wasatch range with unbelieveable mountain valley vistas to desert trecks through slickrock and high desert.
From the article: Spend Saturday soaking up the totally awesome graphics on the Stealth bomber flight simulators, and then obliterate most of Utah, sco.com name servers and all, on Sunday morning hours before the DDoS is due to hit Slashdot. SCO Execs still laughing themselves helpless about the/. Effect when the bomb hits.
Hey now, not everybody in Utah is a SCO exec or a polygamyist. I suppose this is the toll that association takes however, even if that association is geographic as opposed to ideological, political or religious. Believe it or not, there are good things to come out of Utah, such as much of the technology responsible for computer graphics, some kickin' genetics research, some of the best skiing in the world, good beer, and last but not least, is the home of computational molecular phenotyping.:-)
Re:Don't be led astray by things you don't need.
on
KISS
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· Score: 1
Unfortunately you have the KeepingUpWithTheJoneses factor to deal with: Jones(A) gets a new phone with games. Not to be outdone, Jones(B) gets a phone with games and a camera. Jones(C) gets a phone with games and a higher-resolution camera.. Repeat ad infinitum.
Yeah, but this Jones does not want a cell phone with all the crap. Give me Bluetooth and that's about it. No camera, no games, no MIDItones, no IM, no changeable faceplates, no etc.... The reason cell phone companies are putting all of these features in is because there is no reason for many folks to upgrade. I still have and use my Nokia 2160 because it works and the only thing that makes me want to think about upgrading is Bluetooth for automatic synching to the OS X boxes at work and home. Palm has the same problem as well as Wintel computers in that there in many cases is absolutely no reason to upgrade.
I am not really surprised that the FBI security guys use OS X boxes. Years ago I remember another government agency with a three letter acronym that used NeXT boxes it seemed almost exclusively from the situation rooms right down to the secretaries (at least in Langley).
I'm looking for a serious apology (or at least a retraction) for the 'alleged' link between this ugly little nasty and Open Source / Linux users."
Of note: Darl McBride was on local (Utah) television last night with a stinging quote. "What we are seeing here is the dark side of the open source movement" or something very close to that. I thought, no dude, you have it all backwards. SCO is the dark side of the open source movement.
Find a dedicated concept or conceptual area to exploit. How to do this? Simply ask folks what areas they are having problems with software needs.
I'll tell you that a number of folks are doing quite well at the interface between biotech and software. The amount of data that is being generated by biotech is truly mind boggling and we need software tools for analysis and visualization of that data. Software that is capable of analyzing multi-dimensional datasets is particularly in demand right now with gene chip analysis and the work we do in our lab on molecular phenotyping. For instance, we are adopting software used in the remote sensing community to analyze "multispectral" data sets in the retina and other tissues and the communities that this software came from (GIS, Remote sensing, Intelligence) are very interested in software that can help distill multispectral data real time to enable streamlined processing and analysis. Your link to DARPA is particularly informative for these potential projects, but don't forget about other resources as well like the National Institutes of Health.
The real issue is going to be "How to make these Unions work within the larger global music arena". Peter Gabriel has made strides in bringing global music to western ears, (among much other musical work, I first heard the Qawwali of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan thanks to Real World Records) but how to incorporate all that talent into an architecture that can help promote and disseminate funds to those artists around the world is daunting. I guess, like the model held forth with the small independent music stores, a healthy music industry (like the computer industry and most biological systems) needs diversity and the fewer huge corporations in music demanding defined profit margins the better.
If we get rid of the EC than small states will not get a say in the Presidental election which is why we have the EC.
But.....if everyone can vote individually, then it does not matter. States should not vote. Rather people should vote. You remember, "for the people, by the people"?
The electoral college system is not driven by the method votes are cast. The US doesn't count popular vote because a decision was made by most states that they wish to cast all their votes as one block for a particular candidate. There are a couple of states that divide their electoral votes on a percentage basis, but most choose to place all their electoral votes with the candidate that wins a simple majority in their state.
I know why/how the electoral college system works, I am saying it does not adequately represent the voting public of this country (USA) and I (and others) would prefer a more democratic method for exercising our choice and voice in the political system.
aldheorte writes "In either a brilliant move or a sick commentary on politics (or both), Amazon is now selling U.S. Presidential candidates, or at least contributions to such."
Well, I suppose if you were completely cynical this is how one might view this, but to me, this is a great way to make political contributions, because this is about making contributions to your politician of choice.
However, I would prefer to see an Internet based voting system that gets rid of the electoral college system....
From the article: "I've been pounding the table here for a year or so saying there's no free lunch, and there is going to be a day of reckoning for every company that thinks they are going to try and sell a free model."
What is with this messianic attitude? Perhaps what Darl does not realize is that folks contribute to Linux and other open source projects through a variety of reasons. Notably, some contributions to open source have happened via tax-payer funded projects from a variety of nations throughout the world. Other contributions are made from the generous and charitable contributions of others who simply want to make a difference. Darl wants to exploit those contributions and leverage his band of merry lawyers to "liberate" Linux from the rest of us. Only his liberation is not for anything other than selfish desires (like any criminal who sees nothing wrong with theft) with no respect to the common good.
Perhaps the questions should have been a little more precise. To my mind, I hate other peoples cell phones. My cell phone (when it is on), I like.
This is all really social engineering to some extent. Devices that are engineered to minimize their effects on others will not impinge on the "space" of others. For instance, boom boxes were commonly reviled in the 80's, but when Apple designed the iPod, there was no internal speaker to annoy others with personal choices in music. The audio was left to headphones. With cell phones now, we have people's damned MIDI tones broadcasting all sorts of loud invasive tones in theaters, bistros and lectures. What's worse it the social engineering that has not had negative feedback like getting smacked for actually answering said MIDI-toned cell phone call.
Slashdot Mirror
This all brings up one of the central tenets of computer network security: If it is connected to the Internet, it can be accessed, and sometimes the probing computers that are looking leave their little IP footprints all over the place. For instance, I was rather surprised a couple of years ago watching some IP's scroll through while someone/a software bot was accessing my workstation. Whois revealed nothing, but traceroute revealed an IP that allowed me to do a little more poking around to find out the identity as something from a "Special Collections Service" in Maryland. A little more poking around revealed it to be something involving a state department program whereupon I rather quickly decided to stop investigating. I still don't know anything about them or what they do, but it is surprising how hard it can be to be anonymous on the web. Hey, I am sure even all those Slashdot anonymous coward posters are leaving IP's that can and are documented. :-)
Well, I would really like to give the profession more credit than this, but does not anyone see a conflict of interest here? The standard should be "avoiding even the appearance of impropriety", so how is it that the entire American Bar Association think this is a good idea? Are they that owned?
What confounds me is that there hasn't been a major virus with a real nasty payload, say a virus that spreads like MyDoom, but after sending itself out to all the email contacts found, it proceeds to nuke the drive by writing random junk through it all (preventing any way of recovering the data).
Like really virulent biological virii, computer virii that work this way will limit the extent to which they can spread......unless of course.......they work out slightly more sophisticated methods of damage, or they delay the damage for a period of time before "expressing" themselves.
If you consider computer security like the human immune system, then perhaps it may be seen that these people (while malicious) allow security to keep up with that hacks that can be done.
If you make the biological systems analogy, you will also have to acknowledge that a diverse operating system ecosystem is critical to the health and well being of things, especially as the Internet becomes more widely available. We need Linux, IRIX, Solaris, Windows, OS X and embedded OS's to maintain the health of things.
it takes a look at the world of malware scripters, virus writers and worm designers.
I guess my initial reaction was fsck 'em. Fsck 'em all. However, it could be suggested that they have made corporations and governments aware of many intrinsic insecurities in certain popular operating systems which may have prevented some larger potential catastrophe. The problem for these guys, is that we will never know and they will continue to be reviled and hated as losers. (That is unless they are talented enough to score a job with Symantec, the NSA or some other organization dealing with comp. security.)
In other words, to paraphrase "I am no.....Doctrine(tm): Apple.
:-) Actually, no this is not what I am saying. What I am saying is simply that my research commonly consumes about 80hrs/week. Therefore, I have to figure out where to optimize my time and if it comes at the expense of not wanting to support Solaris, IRIX, Windows and Linux, that is my choice. Not yours. The reason I have standardized on OS X is because it is powerful, I can run all my older *nix code with a recomplile and the OS does not get in my way allowing me to be productive.
You obviously did not do very well on reading comprehension exams, did you?
Furthermore, I want to be helpful to family and friends, but if they want to purchase another computer other than a Mac, that is their business. They just cannot expect my support for it.
First off, does anyone else find it highly disturbing that a PhD is not only posting on Slashdot, but FIRST posting?
You might be surprised to know how many folks with doctorates do contribute to Slashdot. Of course noise has been going up in the last couple of years, but there are informative posts to be made and read on Slashdot. As far as first posting, what are you complaining about? You would rather read stuff like "FRIST POST"?!!?............ Please.
My solution for friends and family that ask for technical support is simply that I will help them out if they have a Macintosh. Otherwise, there is no way I have the time to troubleshoot and support Windows, Linux or other Unix operating systems. Macs don't have the virus or worm issues that Windows has, Macs work when you plug peripheral hardware into them with fewer complications than Windows or other OS's, they are more plug and play than Linux or other *nix, and they cost less to support both in terms of time and dollars.
I used to perform more support (even as a graduate student) of other operating systems (Windows, Macintosh, Solaris and IRIX) and their associated hardware for my parent business and other family and friends, but damn folks, I have a job that is not computer IT.
Seriously though. These guys (Click and Clack) are Macheads so why not quicktime? The Quicktime streaming server fundamentals are under the Darwin open source and free paradigms, there are no licensing fees as there are with Windows, and hey, it's so easy to use. So, what gives?
Exactly why is diversity better?
You seem to be making this a racial issue when it really is not. However, to understand why diversity is oftentimes better, you should read a little biology. Or since this is Slashdot, read about monoculture in computing and discover why we have so many problems with virii and worms. But if you are speaking culturally, lets talk food. Traditional Utah cuisine sucks. Vegetables are overdone, meats are cooked to within an inch of bone dry, there is no alcohol in foods to carry flavors to the olfactory system etc...etc...etc... I myself love a variety of foods and I cannot count on a bunch of white boys to provide them all the time. If you are talking arts, pioneer handicraft can only go so far. If you are talking music, come on now, get real. If you are talking science, progress without diversity of thought and scientific input goes nowhere.
Is there something wrong with having a primarily Mormon state that needs to be "improved" upon?
Apparently from Utah history, the Mormon church wanted to be a part of the United States and thus become a part of the greater union of states. This tells me they wanted other benefits associated with being a state and did not want a Mormon monoculture. (Also, from what I hear, the Mormon church is expanding quite rapidly in other nations around the world in cultures that are not necessarily white.) If you want to be a state and accept federal tax dollars, then you have to be willing to be a part of the greater diversity that has made the United States unique in the modern world.
Or is it that white people are not allowed to have their own place with their own distinct culture?
Sure they can. Nobody is saying that cannot occur. But if you live in the United States of America, there are some things that you need to be aware of: The Constitution of the United States, The Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independance should be the first three things you read. After that, read up on other aspects of democracy, issues of statehood, and some court cases such as Brown vs. Board.
Would you say that a place like Japan or India needs to be improved with diversity?
You have not been to Japan or India have you?............
You might be surprised at the diversity in those cultures, but more to the point, those countries do not have the same history of law as does the United States. Specifically, we (U.S. citizens) have a little amendment to our Constitution. The 15th to be precise that states "Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." And in Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation." This amendment specified a precedent that has carried through to other aspects of our culture besides voting to include issues of discrimination in the work place, in housing etc....
So, this has really kinda raised a stink here in Utah, and despite the states Homeland Security specialist stating that all of the information is already available to law enforcement, one issue is that all of this information is not currently available in one place and that many simply object to government accumulating so much personal information. The other issue is that the problem with databases is that once they are created, they really cannot be destroyed. The information in them tends to propagate into other projects or products and is also often used for generation of revenues by selling information to certain corporations.
For instance, from the article: Searchable databases allow law enforcement agents to probe for people using Social Security numbers, dates of birth, addresses, property records, motor vehicle information and credit history. The information is collected by states and forwarded to a database in Florida, where a private company, Seisint Inc., builds and manages the database.
The fact that credit history is included and is documented along with these other aspects of identity and is run and managed by a private company is disturbing leading me to wonder what connections Gov. Leavitt might have with this company.
Finally, as noted in the article our current Gov., Olene Walker (she was Gov. Leavitt's assistant governor before he headed off to become a Bush appointee to head the Environmental Protection Agency), apparently knew absolutely nothing about the project. As governor, Leavitt should have been representing the people of Utah, but what is it that he has done here?
(Yes, I'm half-joking, and no I'm not flaming. Utah folks are nice overall, but it's true that polygamy was practiced there up to 100 years ago mainly to populate Utah as quickly as possible from the small band of initial settlers.
Believe it or not, but there are communities here in Utah that still practice polygamy.
Those who've been to Utah know the proportion of white blond-haired blue-eyed people bearing the same last name there is quite staggering. Sweden looks cosmopolitan compared to Utah).
Things are getting better as far as diversity goes, and along with more diversity, the quality and types of food gets better as well not to mention the arts, music and science. But yeah, I'll tell you, moving from Texas to Utah was a bit of a shock. In fact, one of my friends did an epilepsy fellowship at the University here and was not so sure about it from a cultural standpoint. One of her first statements getting off the plane was "damn, look at all the white people".
They also have some of the best mountain biking in the world. You best not be nukin' that stuff.
Very true. I suppose I could have included a link to Moab, but the whole state is covered with places to go mountain biking. Everything from stunning single track across the Wasatch range with unbelieveable mountain valley vistas to desert trecks through slickrock and high desert.
From the article: Spend Saturday soaking up the totally awesome graphics on the Stealth bomber flight simulators, and then obliterate most of Utah, sco.com name servers and all, on Sunday morning hours before the DDoS is due to hit Slashdot. SCO Execs still laughing themselves helpless about the /. Effect when the bomb hits.
:-)
Hey now, not everybody in Utah is a SCO exec or a polygamyist. I suppose this is the toll that association takes however, even if that association is geographic as opposed to ideological, political or religious. Believe it or not, there are good things to come out of Utah, such as much of the technology responsible for computer graphics, some kickin' genetics research, some of the best skiing in the world, good beer, and last but not least, is the home of computational molecular phenotyping.
Unfortunately you have the KeepingUpWithTheJoneses factor to deal with: Jones(A) gets a new phone with games. Not to be outdone, Jones(B) gets a phone with games and a camera. Jones(C) gets a phone with games and a higher-resolution camera.. Repeat ad infinitum.
Yeah, but this Jones does not want a cell phone with all the crap. Give me Bluetooth and that's about it. No camera, no games, no MIDItones, no IM, no changeable faceplates, no etc.... The reason cell phone companies are putting all of these features in is because there is no reason for many folks to upgrade. I still have and use my Nokia 2160 because it works and the only thing that makes me want to think about upgrading is Bluetooth for automatic synching to the OS X boxes at work and home. Palm has the same problem as well as Wintel computers in that there in many cases is absolutely no reason to upgrade.
I am not really surprised that the FBI security guys use OS X boxes. Years ago I remember another government agency with a three letter acronym that used NeXT boxes it seemed almost exclusively from the situation rooms right down to the secretaries (at least in Langley).
I'm looking for a serious apology (or at least a retraction) for the 'alleged' link between this ugly little nasty and Open Source / Linux users."
Of note: Darl McBride was on local (Utah) television last night with a stinging quote. "What we are seeing here is the dark side of the open source movement" or something very close to that. I thought, no dude, you have it all backwards. SCO is the dark side of the open source movement.
Find a dedicated concept or conceptual area to exploit. How to do this? Simply ask folks what areas they are having problems with software needs.
I'll tell you that a number of folks are doing quite well at the interface between biotech and software. The amount of data that is being generated by biotech is truly mind boggling and we need software tools for analysis and visualization of that data. Software that is capable of analyzing multi-dimensional datasets is particularly in demand right now with gene chip analysis and the work we do in our lab on molecular phenotyping. For instance, we are adopting software used in the remote sensing community to analyze "multispectral" data sets in the retina and other tissues and the communities that this software came from (GIS, Remote sensing, Intelligence) are very interested in software that can help distill multispectral data real time to enable streamlined processing and analysis. Your link to DARPA is particularly informative for these potential projects, but don't forget about other resources as well like the National Institutes of Health.
The real issue is going to be "How to make these Unions work within the larger global music arena". Peter Gabriel has made strides in bringing global music to western ears, (among much other musical work, I first heard the Qawwali of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan thanks to Real World Records) but how to incorporate all that talent into an architecture that can help promote and disseminate funds to those artists around the world is daunting. I guess, like the model held forth with the small independent music stores, a healthy music industry (like the computer industry and most biological systems) needs diversity and the fewer huge corporations in music demanding defined profit margins the better.
Where's an MS patch when we really need one?
:-)
These solutions will solve your problem.
If we get rid of the EC than small states will not get a say in the Presidental election which is why we have the EC.
But.....if everyone can vote individually, then it does not matter. States should not vote. Rather people should vote. You remember, "for the people, by the people"?
The electoral college system is not driven by the method votes are cast. The US doesn't count popular vote because a decision was made by most states that they wish to cast all their votes as one block for a particular candidate. There are a couple of states that divide their electoral votes on a percentage basis, but most choose to place all their electoral votes with the candidate that wins a simple majority in their state.
I know why/how the electoral college system works, I am saying it does not adequately represent the voting public of this country (USA) and I (and others) would prefer a more democratic method for exercising our choice and voice in the political system.
aldheorte writes "In either a brilliant move or a sick commentary on politics (or both), Amazon is now selling U.S. Presidential candidates, or at least contributions to such."
Well, I suppose if you were completely cynical this is how one might view this, but to me, this is a great way to make political contributions, because this is about making contributions to your politician of choice.
However, I would prefer to see an Internet based voting system that gets rid of the electoral college system....
From the article: "I've been pounding the table here for a year or so saying there's no free lunch, and there is going to be a day of reckoning for every company that thinks they are going to try and sell a free model."
What is with this messianic attitude? Perhaps what Darl does not realize is that folks contribute to Linux and other open source projects through a variety of reasons. Notably, some contributions to open source have happened via tax-payer funded projects from a variety of nations throughout the world. Other contributions are made from the generous and charitable contributions of others who simply want to make a difference. Darl wants to exploit those contributions and leverage his band of merry lawyers to "liberate" Linux from the rest of us. Only his liberation is not for anything other than selfish desires (like any criminal who sees nothing wrong with theft) with no respect to the common good.
Perhaps the questions should have been a little more precise. To my mind, I hate other peoples cell phones. My cell phone (when it is on), I like.
This is all really social engineering to some extent. Devices that are engineered to minimize their effects on others will not impinge on the "space" of others. For instance, boom boxes were commonly reviled in the 80's, but when Apple designed the iPod, there was no internal speaker to annoy others with personal choices in music. The audio was left to headphones. With cell phones now, we have people's damned MIDI tones broadcasting all sorts of loud invasive tones in theaters, bistros and lectures. What's worse it the social engineering that has not had negative feedback like getting smacked for actually answering said MIDI-toned cell phone call.