A lot of these problems can be avoided with a dual-boundary system. Instead of setting a single age, say 16, that you cannot cross, set two ages, say 15 and 18. It then becomes illegal for anyone over 18 to have sex with someone under 15. It gets rid of the problem of two people who were born a day apart being illegal for a day, when one is 17 and the other is 16.
My employer currently has a big problem predicting order shipment dates, due to many system- and process-related issues. There's a 3-year, multi-million dollar IT project underway to build our next-generation systems, which will hopefully solve this problem. Unfortunately, our customers can't wait that long.
So, management has put together a project team and given them 90 days to do as much as they can to improve this situation. The problem is that they don't even know the root causes of the problem yet. They need data to help determine that.
IT is so backlogged with the next-gen project that it would take them more than 90 days to scope this data assignment, much less develop anything.
Using Excel and Access, I was able to build an app in about 2 hours that provides the reports they need. Since they're still scoping out the problem, they need "tweaks" to the report every week, which I can do in minutes, without working through IT red-tape that would normally take weeks.
I haven't built a long-term solution. I've built a 90-day solution to help them scope a long-term problem.
The point is that the "best" solution usually takes a long time to develop -- sometimes longer than your customer can wait. "Hacked" solutions like Excel/Access, while definitely not final-state solutions, can fill the gap nicely.
Your car causes wear on the roads -- and the roads cause wear on your tires. Why not remove some/all of the gas tax, and replace it with a tire tax? Larger tires, for high-wear vehicles, would be taxed more than the mini-donuts of the Geo Metro.
Sorry, but for me, the "killer app" is Microsoft Access. I currently make a living developing Access databases, and while most of the rest of the Office apps are spoofed/ported to other platforms, I still have yet to find anything to read/write.mdb files.
Also, for Mac OS X, the other factor is money. I can't afford to drop more than $100-$200 per year into my system. If I could buy a better OS for that amount and use it on my current hardware, I'd consider it. But, I can't afford to lay down 4-figures on an experiment that won't run even run the software I need to earn a living.
Contrary to popular belief, not everyone on/. has hundreds of dollars in disposable income with which to build the "perfect" system. Some of us are just trying to piece together the best systems we can while still providing for our our families.
In my case, the only input my TV has is coax, so I run my DVD player through my VCR. The picture quality is better than VHS (although not as good as it CAN be), and, more importantly, it allows me to stop buying VHS tapes. So, when I finally have the money to buy a new TV, I won't have to re-purchase all of my movies in DVD format.
Better yet, get a NULL parallel cable and connect it to another PC. Set up the other PC to log anything coming over the cable. Your firewall can then "print" the logs to the other system, without ever mounting a file system!
This tax isn't an "Internet" tax... it's a "sales" tax.
An Internet tax is a tax on Internet usage (charging a tax on your dialup fees, for example).
Sales tax applies to sales, and it doesn't matter how the item is purchased. Interstate sales (such as those handled on the 'net) taxes are only different than "standard" sales taxes because they're not collected at the time of purchase.
I ran into this problem in the past when ordering items from (paper) catalogs. I live in Indiana, and was ordering items from other states (most from California). Few states require companies to collect sales tax for out-of-state purchases, and this was the case for me. Still, for every purchase that I made via catalog, I was required to pay Indiana sales tax.
Why is it any different when the catalog is on the 'net?
Actually, I would say that "piracy" is freeing (as in beer) something that you think should be freed (as in speech).
Ultimataly, piracy hurts the free (both) movements more than it hurts the corporations. Commercial software, by definition, dominates the commercial market. Unfortunately, "free-by-piracy" software dominates the free (as in beer) market, where "free-by-design" software should dominate.
Oh, I agree entirely. The point is that, as long as market B is satisfied by pirating the expensive music/software, there will never be a market for inexpensive music/software.
The recording industry has never been seriously hurt by piracy. Neither has the commercial software industry. The people that ARE hurt are the people trying to make their media affordable -- the cheap/free artists.
Consider the current cost of CDs -- $15-$20 a pop. There are two groups of people: (a) those who are willing to pay that price and (b) those who aren't. Group (a) gives the recording industry their profits. Group (b) usually resorts to piracy.
If the recording industry came up with the theoretical "perfect" copy protection, and completely destroyed the pirate market, group (b) would lose their current supply of music, and would have to seek other options. They could join group (a) (not likely), or they could turn to artists who distribute cheaper music, or even free music.
Pirated music is the biggest competition that the cheap/free music makers face.
Software works the same way. MS Office is the de facto standard, but not because everyone is willing to pay $500+ for the software. It's the standard because just about anyone can get it. If you couldn't get it without paying $500, you'd probably be a LOT more willing to try something like StarOffice, even if it were an inferior product.
If this chip is aimed at the cost-effective end of the market, how would a motherboard upgrade (at the same time) be justified?
In the same way that it can be justified with the Celeron. The Celeron chip can't be used in old Socket-7 boards, or the old Pentium Pro Socket-8 boards. It requires its own motherboard. So does the Duron.
The point is that it's cheap to build a new system around either of these chips. That's why you'll find them in so many of the systems at Best Buy, Circuit City, or anywhere else that "normal" people go to buy PCs.
Personally, I'm looking forward to the Duron. I'm in need of upgrading my old Socket-7 K6 system, and, since I need a new motherboard and RAM anyway, I'm gonna be a bit low on cash when it comes to the processor.
That's where the issue becomes much, much uglier. Honestly, I can't tell you where that line is drawn, any more than I can tell you where the line is between art and pornography.
(A) If a convicted rapist tried to publish a book about how much fun it was to rape women, that should be stopped.
(B) If a convicted burgler made an instructional video on how to burgler-proof your home, that should be allowed.
Just about everything in the middle is up to interpretation. My interpretation of the Mitnick story is that it falls into category (B).
Should Kevin Mitnick have gone to jail? IMHO, yes. Should Kevin Mitnick be on probation? IMHO, yes. Should Kevin Mitnick be prevented from leading a productive life because of the mistakes he made in the past, after he has served his time for them? IMHO, no.
Our penal system in this country was founded on the idea of "rehabilitation", not "retribution". Ultimately, we want today's criminals to be productive, law-abiding citizens tomorrow. We're (hopefully) not in this solely for revenge. Unfortunately, that's what the Mitnick case is starting to look like.
Preventing Kevin Mitnick from making money off of his crimes is one thing; preventing him from making money off of his skills is another. Do we prevent rapists from talking to women while on probation? If I rob a bank, am I going to be prevented from banking while on probation? If I rob a grocery store, will I be prevented from shopping? No. Yet the courts are preventing Kevin Mitnick from using technology, or even talking about it. What sort of precedent are we setting? Will slanderers be prevented from writing? Will purgerers be prevented from speaking on record?
It's one thing to keep a murderer from owning a gun. Guns aren't an integral part of today's society. You can work in plenty of industries without owning a gun. But, honestly, I can't think of a single industry that Kevin Mitnick could work in. He couldn't work as a receptionist at my apartment complex (there's a TV in the lounge). He couldn't change my oil at Jiffy Lube (their systems are all computerized). He couldn't take my order at Burger King (computerized cash register). So how is this man supposed to become a productive, law-abiding citizen, when every means of being productive is illegal to him?
There have been several burglers, muggers, etc. who have gone on to live productive lives teaching people how to avoid being burglerized, mugged, etc. They have turned themselves around, and are using ALL of their skills (even the ones that they used illegally before) for the benefit of society.
What Kevin Mitnick did was wrong. If he did it again, I would be the first person demanding him back in jail. But, at the same time, he has to have the chance to get on with his life.
The fact of the matter is, you either believe that anyone who is a criminal should be allowed to make money off of their crimes, or you are a hypocrite. So what is it?
I believe that anyone who can profit from their crimes in a way that is (a) legal and (b) beneficial to society should be allowed to do so. If it's just for entertainment value, then, no, they should not. But, if someone has seen the error of his ways, and wants to help people defend themselves from the same sort of crimes that he used to commit, then it is in the best interest of all involved to let them do so.
Fortunately, I'm not a Dr. Dre fan, and haven't downloaded any of his "music", so I won't have to worry about this yet. Now, if someone with actual musical talent started sueing, I might have a problem on my hands, but, for now, I'm safe.
Honestly, though... shutting down Napster will not stop the spread of MP3s. The can has been opened, and the worms are out. The music industry needs to learn to distribute their bait in new ways, or get out of the fishing business.
Coppermine is a river on the West Coast. Intel has been code-naming their CPUs after rivers since the "Klamath"... This trend will continue with the Williamette, etc.
>And just how exactly do the laws that punish you for having sex for money (or with members of the same sex or of other races, those laws are still on the books in some places), for growing or smoking the buds of certain plants, or for buying or selling pictures of naked people, protect me?
These laws reflect the moral opinions of the majority of society. If the moral opinions of the majority of society change, that majority should be able to vote people into office who will change those laws. Some of those laws you mentioned above are just. Others, if tested, would not stand up in today's courts.
>Laws are the will of the lawmakers, nothing more
I agree entirely! You could not have put it more simply.
I think the point that you are missing here, though, is that you can be a lawmaker in this country. That's what voting is for. Instead of complaining that laws suck, change them.
The laws of this country have been made, indirectly, by the voters of this country. (Whether or not those voters are idiots is another matter).
If every intelligent, free-thinking person had your attitude (and, unfortunately, many do), then none of them would involve themselves in the law-making process. That would leave the idiots and zealots to run the country. Is that honestly what you want?
Assuming that the story in the post I was responding to was correct, THEY didn't shoot anyone. The DEA didn't kill this man, and neither did the Forest Service. These are organizations. Organizations don't kill people -- people kill people.
The people at fault in this story are the Forest Service agent who was willing to take inappropriate (and probably illegal) measures to get the land, the DEA agent who was willing to bust the guy without proper evidence, and the "Feds" agents who raided his land without properly anouncing their presence.
Forest preservation was not the problem. Drug enforcement was not the problem. Law enforcement was not the problem. Faulty agents were the problem.
A member of the Open Source community once rudely flamed me for no good reason. Does that mean that the Open Source movement is at fault and should be ended?!?! NO!!! It means that one person was being a jackass.
If Bill Clinton is pushing legislation to make all redheads into slaves, Bill Clinton is to blame. If Bob Senator is pushing legislation to ban the use of all Open Source software, then Bob Senator is to blame. If Joe FedAgent is shooting people on the street, Joe FedAgent is to blame. Organizations are amoral. The people in them aren't. By pointing the finger at a vague THEM, you're helping the real culprits to hide behind the organizations.
Here's a little something to think about. You know that illusive THEY you guys keep talking about? "... if you have something THEY want... THEY will use all the power they have to get it...." Well, who in the heck is this THEY you keep talking about? If you take a closer look, you'll find that part of THEY is YOU.
You see, that's be think with a society. You're part of it. The laws exist to protect you. The law enforcement agencies exist to enforce the law, which protects you.
As long as a society realizes that, there will be no threat to privacy. As long as YOU and I make the laws, these threats won't be an issue. But when you give up, and let this THEY run your life, you become a prisoner in your own society.
You are a part of THEY. When someone cuts you off in traffic, and you complain that the cop sitting nearby won't stop eating his donuts long enough to do something about it, you're being one of THEM. When your mother gets raped, and you complain that it's been 2 months and the cops haven't been able to do anything about it, you're being one of THEM. Whenever you're trying to get the laws to protect you, you're being one of THEM.
You think that THEY are only looking out for THEM. You're right. And, if you're part of THEM, THEY'll be looking out for you, too. If you're not, then go move out into the middle of the jungle somewhere and give up on society. Because that's what society is, my friend. It's a bunch of mes and yous getting together to form a THEM.
>But these arguments will not work on you, I know. Because you're a good little sheep.
But these arguments will not work on you, I know. Because you're against the idea of people working together to protect one another. You're against anyone telling you that you don't have the right to put a bullet through my skull. Well, remember, that means that you don't have the right to complain when your neighbor puts a bullet through yours.
>Don't put your trust in people, as they can be corrupted. Trust instead solutions where it doesn't matter if the people are trustworthy or not.
I'd be happy to trust such a solution. What exactly did you have in mind? Personally, I haven't found one yet. Until you give us one, we'll go with what we've got.
For law enforcement to be able to do their jobs, they occasionally have to "invade" your "privacy". If the cops found my wife cut to pieces with a butcher knife, and thought that I hid the butcher knife in my sock drawer, they had better have means of searching my sock drawer. Searching the data on my computer is no different.
If you're convinced that the warrant system sucks, then give us a viable alternative.
The "Irongate" does the job that it was meant to do -- it fills the gap until better chipsets come out. AMD has never intended to dominate the Athlon chipset market with the "Irongate". They just needed a chipset on the market when the Athlon was released, so they build a quick and dirty one.
When VIA, SiS, Opti, etc. come out with better chipsets, I'm sure AMD will step out of the market. That's what they've intended to do all along.
Wow! That amazes me. After reading a huge thread here about what to do with a 486 besides let it collect dust, I'm reading posts saying that year-old PCs are "roadkillsville".
Personally, I'm currently running a K6-200 and a Cyrix 6x86-P200+. I don't have the money to stay on the bleeding edge. I'm always at least a year behind it. So sites like Tom's are quite useful information to people like me.
Tom's Hardware Guide is not always the best site for bleeding-edge information. But it's a great reference site for the market that I'm in.
Personally, I rather like Tom's site. Sure, he doesn't update it every day, but that's because he's not just repeating the same crap that everyone else is. When your new bits of information include such things as a review of 32 video cards or a review of 17 slot 1 motherboards, you can't crank out a new page every day.
I ignore most of the quickie news web sites (I get all I need from/.) and hunt down sites with meat. And if that means that they're only updated once a month, so be it. I'd rather read one quality review than 500 fluff news releases any day.
Eventually, if motherboard and chipset manufacturers support it. The EV6 bus is well designed for multiprocessor.
That's the big question, though. Will motherboard manufacturers support it? Whether or not Intel is doing anything "wrong", motherboard manufacturers seem wary of releasing Athlon boards. Personally, I think that'll change when VIA gets their chipset out. The AMD "Irongate" chipset blows, and AMD knows it.
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A lot of these problems can be avoided with a dual-boundary system. Instead of setting a single age, say 16, that you cannot cross, set two ages, say 15 and 18. It then becomes illegal for anyone over 18 to have sex with someone under 15. It gets rid of the problem of two people who were born a day apart being illegal for a day, when one is 17 and the other is 16.
Well, they've been common enough here to keep me employed (with lots of overtime) for the last 6 years....
Ok... how 'bout this real world example:
My employer currently has a big problem predicting order shipment dates, due to many system- and process-related issues. There's a 3-year, multi-million dollar IT project underway to build our next-generation systems, which will hopefully solve this problem. Unfortunately, our customers can't wait that long.
So, management has put together a project team and given them 90 days to do as much as they can to improve this situation. The problem is that they don't even know the root causes of the problem yet. They need data to help determine that.
IT is so backlogged with the next-gen project that it would take them more than 90 days to scope this data assignment, much less develop anything.
Using Excel and Access, I was able to build an app in about 2 hours that provides the reports they need. Since they're still scoping out the problem, they need "tweaks" to the report every week, which I can do in minutes, without working through IT red-tape that would normally take weeks.
I haven't built a long-term solution. I've built a 90-day solution to help them scope a long-term problem.
The point is that the "best" solution usually takes a long time to develop -- sometimes longer than your customer can wait. "Hacked" solutions like Excel/Access, while definitely not final-state solutions, can fill the gap nicely.
Your car causes wear on the roads -- and the roads cause wear on your tires. Why not remove some/all of the gas tax, and replace it with a tire tax? Larger tires, for high-wear vehicles, would be taxed more than the mini-donuts of the Geo Metro.
Sorry, but for me, the "killer app" is Microsoft Access. I currently make a living developing Access databases, and while most of the rest of the Office apps are spoofed/ported to other platforms, I still have yet to find anything to read/write .mdb files.
Also, for Mac OS X, the other factor is money. I can't afford to drop more than $100-$200 per year into my system. If I could buy a better OS for that amount and use it on my current hardware, I'd consider it. But, I can't afford to lay down 4-figures on an experiment that won't run even run the software I need to earn a living.
-Rob
Contrary to popular belief, not everyone on /. has hundreds of dollars in disposable income with which to build the "perfect" system. Some of us are just trying to piece together the best systems we can while still providing for our our families.
In my case, the only input my TV has is coax, so I run my DVD player through my VCR. The picture quality is better than VHS (although not as good as it CAN be), and, more importantly, it allows me to stop buying VHS tapes. So, when I finally have the money to buy a new TV, I won't have to re-purchase all of my movies in DVD format.
Better yet, get a NULL parallel cable and connect it to another PC. Set up the other PC to log anything coming over the cable. Your firewall can then "print" the logs to the other system, without ever mounting a file system!
This tax isn't an "Internet" tax... it's a "sales" tax.
An Internet tax is a tax on Internet usage (charging a tax on your dialup fees, for example).
Sales tax applies to sales, and it doesn't matter how the item is purchased. Interstate sales (such as those handled on the 'net) taxes are only different than "standard" sales taxes because they're not collected at the time of purchase.
I ran into this problem in the past when ordering items from (paper) catalogs. I live in Indiana, and was ordering items from other states (most from California). Few states require companies to collect sales tax for out-of-state purchases, and this was the case for me. Still, for every purchase that I made via catalog, I was required to pay Indiana sales tax.
Why is it any different when the catalog is on the 'net?
Actually, I would say that "piracy" is freeing (as in beer) something that you think should be freed (as in speech).
Ultimataly, piracy hurts the free (both) movements more than it hurts the corporations. Commercial software, by definition, dominates the commercial market. Unfortunately, "free-by-piracy" software dominates the free (as in beer) market, where "free-by-design" software should dominate.
Oh, I agree entirely. The point is that, as long as market B is satisfied by pirating the expensive music/software, there will never be a market for inexpensive music/software.
The recording industry has never been seriously hurt by piracy. Neither has the commercial software industry. The people that ARE hurt are the people trying to make their media affordable -- the cheap/free artists.
Consider the current cost of CDs -- $15-$20 a pop. There are two groups of people: (a) those who are willing to pay that price and (b) those who aren't. Group (a) gives the recording industry their profits. Group (b) usually resorts to piracy.
If the recording industry came up with the theoretical "perfect" copy protection, and completely destroyed the pirate market, group (b) would lose their current supply of music, and would have to seek other options. They could join group (a) (not likely), or they could turn to artists who distribute cheaper music, or even free music.
Pirated music is the biggest competition that the cheap/free music makers face.
Software works the same way. MS Office is the de facto standard, but not because everyone is willing to pay $500+ for the software. It's the standard because just about anyone can get it. If you couldn't get it without paying $500, you'd probably be a LOT more willing to try something like StarOffice, even if it were an inferior product.
If this chip is aimed at the cost-effective end of the market, how would a motherboard upgrade (at the same time) be justified?
In the same way that it can be justified with the Celeron. The Celeron chip can't be used in old Socket-7 boards, or the old Pentium Pro Socket-8 boards. It requires its own motherboard. So does the Duron.
The point is that it's cheap to build a new system around either of these chips. That's why you'll find them in so many of the systems at Best Buy, Circuit City, or anywhere else that "normal" people go to buy PCs.
Personally, I'm looking forward to the Duron. I'm in need of upgrading my old Socket-7 K6 system, and, since I need a new motherboard and RAM anyway, I'm gonna be a bit low on cash when it comes to the processor.
Wow! That gives quite a new meaning to "point and click", don't you think?
That's where the issue becomes much, much uglier. Honestly, I can't tell you where that line is drawn, any more than I can tell you where the line is between art and pornography.
(A) If a convicted rapist tried to publish a book about how much fun it was to rape women, that should be stopped.
(B) If a convicted burgler made an instructional video on how to burgler-proof your home, that should be allowed.
Just about everything in the middle is up to interpretation. My interpretation of the Mitnick story is that it falls into category (B).
Should Kevin Mitnick have gone to jail?
IMHO, yes.
Should Kevin Mitnick be on probation?
IMHO, yes.
Should Kevin Mitnick be prevented from leading a productive life because of the mistakes he made in the past, after he has served his time for them?
IMHO, no.
That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.
Our penal system in this country was founded on the idea of "rehabilitation", not "retribution". Ultimately, we want today's criminals to be productive, law-abiding citizens tomorrow. We're (hopefully) not in this solely for revenge. Unfortunately, that's what the Mitnick case is starting to look like.
Preventing Kevin Mitnick from making money off of his crimes is one thing; preventing him from making money off of his skills is another. Do we prevent rapists from talking to women while on probation? If I rob a bank, am I going to be prevented from banking while on probation? If I rob a grocery store, will I be prevented from shopping? No. Yet the courts are preventing Kevin Mitnick from using technology, or even talking about it. What sort of precedent are we setting? Will slanderers be prevented from writing? Will purgerers be prevented from speaking on record?
It's one thing to keep a murderer from owning a gun. Guns aren't an integral part of today's society. You can work in plenty of industries without owning a gun. But, honestly, I can't think of a single industry that Kevin Mitnick could work in. He couldn't work as a receptionist at my apartment complex (there's a TV in the lounge). He couldn't change my oil at Jiffy Lube (their systems are all computerized). He couldn't take my order at Burger King (computerized cash register). So how is this man supposed to become a productive, law-abiding citizen, when every means of being productive is illegal to him?
There have been several burglers, muggers, etc. who have gone on to live productive lives teaching people how to avoid being burglerized, mugged, etc. They have turned themselves around, and are using ALL of their skills (even the ones that they used illegally before) for the benefit of society.
What Kevin Mitnick did was wrong. If he did it again, I would be the first person demanding him back in jail. But, at the same time, he has to have the chance to get on with his life.
The fact of the matter is, you either believe that anyone who is a criminal should be allowed to make money off of their crimes, or you are a hypocrite. So what is it?
I believe that anyone who can profit from their crimes in a way that is (a) legal and (b) beneficial to society should be allowed to do so. If it's just for entertainment value, then, no, they should not. But, if someone has seen the error of his ways, and wants to help people defend themselves from the same sort of crimes that he used to commit, then it is in the best interest of all involved to let them do so.
Fortunately, I'm not a Dr. Dre fan, and haven't downloaded any of his "music", so I won't have to worry about this yet. Now, if someone with actual musical talent started sueing, I might have a problem on my hands, but, for now, I'm safe.
Honestly, though... shutting down Napster will not stop the spread of MP3s. The can has been opened, and the worms are out. The music industry needs to learn to distribute their bait in new ways, or get out of the fishing business.
Coppermine is a river on the West Coast. Intel has been code-naming their CPUs after rivers since the "Klamath"... This trend will continue with the Williamette, etc.
>And just how exactly do the laws that punish you for having sex for money (or with members of the same sex or of other races, those laws are still on the books in some places), for growing or smoking the buds of certain plants, or for buying or selling pictures of naked people, protect me?
These laws reflect the moral opinions of the majority of society. If the moral opinions of the majority of society change, that majority should be able to vote people into office who will change those laws. Some of those laws you mentioned above are just. Others, if tested, would not stand up in today's courts.
>Laws are the will of the lawmakers, nothing more
I agree entirely! You could not have put it more simply.
I think the point that you are missing here, though, is that you can be a lawmaker in this country. That's what voting is for. Instead of complaining that laws suck, change them.
The laws of this country have been made, indirectly, by the voters of this country. (Whether or not those voters are idiots is another matter).
If every intelligent, free-thinking person had your attitude (and, unfortunately, many do), then none of them would involve themselves in the law-making process. That would leave the idiots and zealots to run the country. Is that honestly what you want?
Assuming that the story in the post I was responding to was correct, THEY didn't shoot anyone. The DEA didn't kill this man, and neither did the Forest Service. These are organizations. Organizations don't kill people -- people kill people.
The people at fault in this story are the Forest Service agent who was willing to take inappropriate (and probably illegal) measures to get the land, the DEA agent who was willing to bust the guy without proper evidence, and the "Feds" agents who raided his land without properly anouncing their presence.
Forest preservation was not the problem. Drug enforcement was not the problem. Law enforcement was not the problem. Faulty agents were the problem.
A member of the Open Source community once rudely flamed me for no good reason. Does that mean that the Open Source movement is at fault and should be ended?!?! NO!!! It means that one person was being a jackass.
If Bill Clinton is pushing legislation to make all redheads into slaves, Bill Clinton is to blame. If Bob Senator is pushing legislation to ban the use of all Open Source software, then Bob Senator is to blame. If Joe FedAgent is shooting people on the street, Joe FedAgent is to blame. Organizations are amoral. The people in them aren't. By pointing the finger at a vague THEM, you're helping the real culprits to hide behind the organizations.
Here's a little something to think about. You know that illusive THEY you guys keep talking about? "... if you have something THEY want... THEY will use all the power they have to get it...." Well, who in the heck is this THEY you keep talking about? If you take a closer look, you'll find that part of THEY is YOU.
You see, that's be think with a society. You're part of it. The laws exist to protect you. The law enforcement agencies exist to enforce the law, which protects you.
As long as a society realizes that, there will be no threat to privacy. As long as YOU and I make the laws, these threats won't be an issue. But when you give up, and let this THEY run your life, you become a prisoner in your own society.
You are a part of THEY. When someone cuts you off in traffic, and you complain that the cop sitting nearby won't stop eating his donuts long enough to do something about it, you're being one of THEM. When your mother gets raped, and you complain that it's been 2 months and the cops haven't been able to do anything about it, you're being one of THEM. Whenever you're trying to get the laws to protect you, you're being one of THEM.
You think that THEY are only looking out for THEM. You're right. And, if you're part of THEM, THEY'll be looking out for you, too. If you're not, then go move out into the middle of the jungle somewhere and give up on society. Because that's what society is, my friend. It's a bunch of mes and yous getting together to form a THEM.
>But these arguments will not work on you, I know. Because you're a good little sheep.
But these arguments will not work on you, I know. Because you're against the idea of people working together to protect one another. You're against anyone telling you that you don't have the right to put a bullet through my skull. Well, remember, that means that you don't have the right to complain when your neighbor puts a bullet through yours.
>Don't put your trust in people, as they can be corrupted. Trust instead solutions where it doesn't matter if the people are trustworthy or not.
I'd be happy to trust such a solution. What exactly did you have in mind? Personally, I haven't found one yet. Until you give us one, we'll go with what we've got.
For law enforcement to be able to do their jobs, they occasionally have to "invade" your "privacy". If the cops found my wife cut to pieces with a butcher knife, and thought that I hid the butcher knife in my sock drawer, they had better have means of searching my sock drawer. Searching the data on my computer is no different.
If you're convinced that the warrant system sucks, then give us a viable alternative.
The "Irongate" does the job that it was meant to do -- it fills the gap until better chipsets come out. AMD has never intended to dominate the Athlon chipset market with the "Irongate". They just needed a chipset on the market when the Athlon was released, so they build a quick and dirty one.
When VIA, SiS, Opti, etc. come out with better chipsets, I'm sure AMD will step out of the market. That's what they've intended to do all along.
Wow! That amazes me. After reading a huge thread here about what to do with a 486 besides let it collect dust, I'm reading posts saying that year-old PCs are "roadkillsville".
Personally, I'm currently running a K6-200 and a Cyrix 6x86-P200+. I don't have the money to stay on the bleeding edge. I'm always at least a year behind it. So sites like Tom's are quite useful information to people like me.
Tom's Hardware Guide is not always the best site for bleeding-edge information. But it's a great reference site for the market that I'm in.
Personally, I rather like Tom's site. Sure, he doesn't update it every day, but that's because he's not just repeating the same crap that everyone else is. When your new bits of information include such things as a review of 32 video cards or a review of 17 slot 1 motherboards, you can't crank out a new page every day.
/.) and hunt down sites with meat. And if that means that they're only updated once a month, so be it. I'd rather read one quality review than 500 fluff news releases any day.
I ignore most of the quickie news web sites (I get all I need from
Eventually, if motherboard and chipset manufacturers support it. The EV6 bus is well designed for multiprocessor.
That's the big question, though. Will motherboard manufacturers support it? Whether or not Intel is doing anything "wrong", motherboard manufacturers seem wary of releasing Athlon boards. Personally, I think that'll change when VIA gets their chipset out. The AMD "Irongate" chipset blows, and AMD knows it.
Rob