I applaud these efforts. US organizations tend to throw a lot of money to companies for software solutions, but licensing/support costs are ridiculous and recurring. I hope that first rate open source solutions appear.
Northwestern University recently upgraded their web email client from the unpopular Emumail to the open source Internet Messaging Program. Unfortunately the servers crashed on the first day of service and NUIT was forced to switch back.
I don't know if it was because of bad server administration or bad software, but I feel bad for the people who stuck their heads out to try an open source solution. They got publicly embarrassed when they messed up, but they did The Right Thing.
Sure, they can pass any law they want. I just wish they would bother with upholding the constitution on their own more often instead of letting the courts do it.
That's exactly what I was thinking. I downloaded Solaris last summer and set it up for fun on a quad boot machine. Solaris systems administration definitely has a steep learning curve for nonprofessional Linux users like me. Murdock should try to catch up with OpenBSD. In oBSD the user isn't coddled as much as with say Ubuntu's gui admin tools, but the answers are always on hand with the great documentation. I'm sure Solaris is nearly well-documented, but not in an easily accessible form like OpenBSD. Just visit Solaris.com and see how many things are in PDF.
Historically, train accuracy was just a way of saying to your subjects and the world that "Our bureaucratic system is so well scientifically designed, and our trains are so reliably engineered and built, that we can boast accurate schedules down to the second." Trains were a very prominent symbol of national power, both representing the national train company [an arm of the state] and also the nation's industrial power. Industrial power became equated with national wealth as Britain (followed later by Germany, France, Japan, and the US) became able to project military and economic power around the world.
Today, trains are a rather insignificant symbol in the US, because although they are an incredibly efficient way to transport bulk goods, they are too slow to move people. In Europe, they are still a critical means of personal transportation for the masses who don't have cars, so of course it is a hot button issue.
I would argue that the fascist-train connection is really the fascist-industrial connection, because governments became a lot richer and more militarily powerful. It only indirectly involves trains themselves.
The Islamic civilization is as much a successor to Graeco-Roman Antiquity as Western Christendom. Ayatollah Khomeini's theological doctorate was in -- guess what? -- Aristotelian logic. Where are the glorious cities of Alexandria and the second capital itself, Constantinople? In medieval times these two cities had the population close to one million each; by comparison, Paris had around forty thousand, London had ten thousand.
But of course, being a 'brother' does not mean a twin. The crucial difference between the eastern and western parts of the greater Mediterranean realm was in the patterns of their political economy. In the West, it was serfdom (a part-time and contractual bondage) with peasants subordinated to mostly small and local lords or monasteries -- rather than to a big central government like in the formidable empires of the East. The best book on this subject matter remains to this day Marc Bloch's classic Société féodale, or Feudal society in English translation. This
great book gives you a good sense of how the feudal system worked in reality and in its legal theory.
In the more prosperous Eastern Roman Empire, in the much longer established and far longer cultivated (since before the pyramids) Egypt, Fertile Crescent (mostly Syria) and Mesopotamia a different economy endured from one civilization to another, and almost to our days (to the 1950s). It was based on village peasant communities heavily taxed by the central state and where the taxes comfortably sustained the sophisticated urban elite (think Egypt and Alexandria; or Constantinople/Istanbul drawing resources from the rest of Anatolia, the Balkans, and Syria; or
Baghdad in the Mesopotamia; or Persepolis and much later the great city of Isfahan in Persia). The land is so fertile, the peasants have nowhere to run, and few resources or opportunities ever to rebel (unless somebody hit from without, like the advancing Muslim armies), and so generation after generation they keep on paying very substantial taxes. Then, the Near East is also a very active commercial zone - think the Silk Road from China to Constantinople, or the Spice and Incense road across Arabia and the Red sea leading to the great bazaars of Alexandria. The trade was predominantly in luxuries, as you see, and guess who consumed those silks, spices, perfumes - and where did they get the money? Remember the "crisis of overaccumulation" and the imperial edifices
becoming top-heavy as time went by. Read in Perry Anderson's Passages from Antiquity the very last sections: "Crisis in the East" and "South of the Danube".
Some sort of a crisis (climate catastrophe) unsettled the power arrangements and thus security in Arabia a generation before the Prophet. Any economy directly dependent on the yield from plants and animals would be vulnerable to climate fluctuations, wouldn't it? Remember the concept of "carrying capacity": how many humans could be sustained in a given ecological niche? Then, of course, politics is how people negotiate their problems, sometimes very violently. Pay attention to the special role played by Mecca once the region was engulfed in feuds and how from this role flowed the special peace-making role of the Prophet himself: his adoption of radical monotheism (one God for all humans to worship), the idea of salvation (it has to be one's own moral responsibility to behave properly in this life in order to be saved, and thus following the Law of much higher order than tribal adat or king's law), the sense of brotherhood of all believers, the obligation to defend all fellow Muslims as if they were one's family, and the idea of social justice -- the rich must share with the poor by give away and charities.
Cavalry played a very big role in the military victories of Muslim Arab armies. I have spent a lot of time on that, and McNeill has an excellent discussion in this regard, and Perry Anderson wrote a whole section on "The Nomadic Brake". But beware! It is not cavalry alone - the Zoroastrian (flame-worship
One of my favorite writers posted about this a few years back. After reflecting upon his thoughts, I concluded that assembling mass support for an issue depends on individuals' personal/emotional involvement. That interest and enthusiasm can be multiplied by getting people together in physical proximity, which energizes them. Having a lot of loud, energized people in the capital city is a lot more compelling to the rest of society than an "e-protest".
Recently, I read an article in the paper that related the growing trend of "Digital Demonstrators" (Wall Street Journal, Dec. 3, 1998). It said that "virtual marches" could be an effective way to bring about social change. It stated that "activists can demonstrate with a mouse click...
This really pissed me off! First of all, it is a gross misrepresentation of what motivates social and political change. Ultimately, social change comes from an emotionally based behavior pattern. The reason people change in unison is because we are united by a similar emotional response. We are not moved to change the laws if we don't have an emotional experience that connects us to the political issue.
Well, I'm still using a 2.0 GHz celeron with 256 MB ram, and it runs a stripped down version of XP quite well, not to mention Ubuntu.
I think the main reason people "have to" upgrade is because Windows gets bloated registries. Even without viruses, things crawl on a poorly maintained machine with a lot of crappy apps like AOL installed.
Not me. When I realized that a cut rate Cingular plan could save me over a hundred dollars, I seriously began to consider the iPhone.
This after I initially balked at the lack of 3G and proprietary features.
The reason is that with a subsidy, I can then afford to buy the updated 3G model later. I don't care whether the subsidy comes as a big rebate up front, or as a long term discount to service, because, you know, I'm rational.
The US is a republic composed of individual states which have more power and authority than our federal government. As a result of this 99% of all the vices (gambling, alcohol, etc..) are controlled at the state level.
I can't judge the rest of your post, but this isn't quite true. The US federal government can exercise power over local gambling when it chooses. This is why sports betting is banned in 49 states by the federal government, although they allow sports betting in Nevada.
We love the Yangtse, Yangtse Kiang
Flowing from Yushu down Ching Kiang
Passing through Chung King, Wuhan and Hoo Kow
Three thousand miles, but it gets there somehow
Hey! Oh Szechuan's the province and Shanghai is the port
And the Yangtse is the river that we all support
We love the Yangtse, Yangtse Kiang
Flowing from Yushu down Ching Kiang
Passing through Chung King, Wuhan and Hoo Kow
Three thousand miles, but it gets there somehow
Hey! Oh Szechuan's the province and Shanghai is the port
And the Yangtse is the river that we all support
--Thanks to Monty Python
Sony sells them, I think you just have to look for the ones that say "Made in Japan"
I saw them in Circuit City, but the floor staff pushed me to buy the product with the big rebate instead.
Slashdot Mirror
All taxpayers, including illegal immigrants, can get Tax ID numbers, no questions asked.
Northwestern University recently upgraded their web email client from the unpopular Emumail to the open source Internet Messaging Program. Unfortunately the servers crashed on the first day of service and NUIT was forced to switch back.
I don't know if it was because of bad server administration or bad software, but I feel bad for the people who stuck their heads out to try an open source solution. They got publicly embarrassed when they messed up, but they did The Right Thing.
Sure, they can pass any law they want. I just wish they would bother with upholding the constitution on their own more often instead of letting the courts do it.
His comment is at least insightful, and possibly true. I don't see why you have to pretend like you know what his mental state is.
Maybe they can get Darl's brother's law license revoked--just like SCO tried to revoke our Linux licenses.
just use nuclear, forget solar
That's exactly what I was thinking. I downloaded Solaris last summer and set it up for fun on a quad boot machine. Solaris systems administration definitely has a steep learning curve for nonprofessional Linux users like me. Murdock should try to catch up with OpenBSD. In oBSD the user isn't coddled as much as with say Ubuntu's gui admin tools, but the answers are always on hand with the great documentation. I'm sure Solaris is nearly well-documented, but not in an easily accessible form like OpenBSD. Just visit Solaris.com and see how many things are in PDF.
Today, trains are a rather insignificant symbol in the US, because although they are an incredibly efficient way to transport bulk goods, they are too slow to move people. In Europe, they are still a critical means of personal transportation for the masses who don't have cars, so of course it is a hot button issue.
I would argue that the fascist-train connection is really the fascist-industrial connection, because governments became a lot richer and more militarily powerful. It only indirectly involves trains themselves.
At my college, all ten of my closest friends use GMail, and most of them forward their mail from their .edu account to GMail.
Also, use of AIM has dropped off significantly, b/c most of them feel more comfortable using GoogleTalk.
Personally, I use Gaim to connect to AIM and GTalk at the same time. It's nice.
I really enjoy Tony Homo, the fake blog devoted to [former] starting NFL quarterback Drew Bledsoe.
Here is the link to the article: http://badreligion.com/news/essays.php?id=8. He has since become a Ph.D and a biology instructor at UCLA.
To quote from the first two paragraphs:
I think the main reason people "have to" upgrade is because Windows gets bloated registries. Even without viruses, things crawl on a poorly maintained machine with a lot of crappy apps like AOL installed.
As soon as I put their Wifi crypto info in the iPhone, I will have net access without bothering them to use their computers.
This after I initially balked at the lack of 3G and proprietary features.
The reason is that with a subsidy, I can then afford to buy the updated 3G model later. I don't care whether the subsidy comes as a big rebate up front, or as a long term discount to service, because, you know, I'm rational.
Good luck finding someone with ten years experience with .Net
We love the Yangtse, Yangtse Kiang Flowing from Yushu down Ching Kiang Passing through Chung King, Wuhan and Hoo Kow Three thousand miles, but it gets there somehow Hey! Oh Szechuan's the province and Shanghai is the port And the Yangtse is the river that we all support We love the Yangtse, Yangtse Kiang Flowing from Yushu down Ching Kiang Passing through Chung King, Wuhan and Hoo Kow Three thousand miles, but it gets there somehow Hey! Oh Szechuan's the province and Shanghai is the port And the Yangtse is the river that we all support --Thanks to Monty Python
Japan could lead the effort. With Norway. They both like fish and like eating whales, and Japan has the cash.
Sony sells them, I think you just have to look for the ones that say "Made in Japan" I saw them in Circuit City, but the floor staff pushed me to buy the product with the big rebate instead.
Because if we read them, they might become legally binding!
Yet they are able to broadcast HDTV over the airwaves.
Apple is doing exclusive deals with people like Willie Nelson to release new recordings on iTunes store. They are called iTunes Originals.
Yeah, it would be pretty badass to have a radio, especially now that the NFL season has started.
MP3 will be open soon enough; the patent expires in a few years.