And I am throwing a nice tight rope for you over the nearest lamp-post, where "union-talking" people belong. A possibility of making a mistake -- my reason to object to death penalty -- is not an issue with such people. They'll keep "talking union" all the way to the hanging...
Seriously, though, trade-unions are no better, indeed, indistinguishable from other monopolies and should be treated with anti-trust laws. In some, more extreme cases, anti-racketeering laws may apply too...
Although I really liked all three of the listed books, I'd only call one of them -- the Snow Crash a work of Science Fiction. The two others, while, indeed, works of fiction and pleasantly heavy on science, do not, in my opinion, belong to the SciFi genre.
People don't elect the president here. You got a wrong country. Electoral College elects president. As they did in 2000. And the elected George W. Bush, which as a truth, not a lie.
States send representatives to the College, according to their own rules and laws. As did Florida.
The Laws of the Land say that it's up to the states to determine which representatives to send, not the federal judiciary.
The federal judiciary was appealed to to interpret the Florida state law. The law, which was supposed to regulate Florida's elections... Once it was interpreted, the Florida officials acted according to the interpretation...
Well, that's not really fair, as there are lot more conventionally respectable people who would make the same argument as that enraged geek.
The key in my statement was: "whose side happened to lose". Whatever the outcome, half the nation (or nearly so) would've been unhappy, some of it enraged. Admittedly, my side happened to win, so enjoy my reasoning before it is affected by a passionate rage over some future losing...
Deciding matters through Supreme Court is the best option we had, closely followed by a duel between the two candidates, and a civil war being the distant third.
However troublesome some of the latest developments may appear...
Actually, there are a lot more commas in Ukrainian and Russian, in which I first learned to write. I know, that in casual English writing there are a lot less commas, but the correct English has more. I'm sure, I made a mistake or two, but doubt your claim, that close to half the commas in my post are against the grammar. I'm studying the subject...
He was definitely not elected in the sense that more votes were cast -- by the people, not the electoral college - for his opponent.
That's how presidents were elected in this country since its very creation. There are other unpopular laws and legal decisions -- which the majority objects to. Fortunately, we don't have a direct democracy here -- it took humanity thousands of years to devise a better system, and we are gladly using it.
Most of the opponents of this war, who, I suspect, are otherwise capable of reason, tend to lose their reasoning abilities rapidly and go into a passionate rage, when talking about it.
Just listen to this guy:
I just don't think it had to cost maybe 20K Iraqi lives and how many Americans' so far.
Well, how many would you approve of, sir? 20K, would still be very little -- Saddam himself has killed and would've have killed much more.
I don't think that Linux should be used for killing
Oh, "killing is wrong", is not it? I'm sure, if Saddam's army was marching on Los Angeles, he would've approved of killing as many of them as possible. So, killing (and using Linux for it) is only wrong, when it is done against his beliefs -- well, say so...
(My bodyguards carry weapons, but everyone else, who does, should be locked up, says Rosie O'Donnel -- the passionate lighting rod of the pro-gun lobby.)
I don't really trust the Pentagon to abide by the GPL
I wonder, which violation of GPL does he suspect? Not providing source to code modifications? But that is not required, as long as the modifications are not distributed by Pentagon. And they are not -- by the nature of the organization. They are not in the software business at all...
Their laboratories, that are in that business and do distribute modifications, distribute the source too -- the already mentioned SELinux, TrustedBSD...
Everybody won on that one, and it's a great use of our tax dollars. In the first Gulf War, even the Iraqis used American GPS to guide their missiles. Talk about your equal-opportunity technologies.
Now he is cheering for Iraq? The Iraq of 1991? Talk about loss of reasoning... It is a flaw of the GPS, that it can be used by our enemies (even if they can't get full precision of it). This is not a sport match, where equal oppotunity is desired -- people are dying there, and the higher the advantage of your side, the less of it dies, the better.
You know I am in favor of an army and a national defense
Oh, see, he is not against killing at all...
Nothing wrong with passion per se. It is great in art, in bed (the very special art), etc. But the less of it in politics and computers (what a weird pairing of fields!) the better.
Oh, yes, he was elected. As spelled in the Constitution, by representatives sent to Electorate College by all of the States of the Union.
One of the states had a problem determining, which group of representatives to send, but the problem was settled according to the laws of the land, and I'm much more inclined to trust handling of it to 9 wise people with decades of legal experience than an enraged geek, whose side happened to lose.
Except I happened to be an American too, and of the generally Bush-supporting variety in that. If anybody made us look silly, it was Clinton -- lying through his teeth over a non-issue (but under oath) and disgracing the presidency. He would've attacked Iraq, but could not by the time it was over.
I don't blame either of them for the world's anti-US attitude, though -- I think, the US' lower popularity these days is largely due to the collapse of the USSR leaving the world nothing to seriously fear... (My own ex-Soviet past makes me really antagonistic towards China, but the rest of the world -- except Taiwan -- does not share these feelings.)
Bush's unwillingness to bow to the "public opinion" seems a rather positive trait too.
It is intended to remind some more liberal-minded readers (and moderators), that merely labeling someone with a "neo-con" tag is not qualified as grounds for totally dismissing the person's opinion(s):-)
All of the software you mention, while important, isn't what's used on a majority of systems.
Do you have the numbers? I don't...
Not only are there many of CPU-intensive machines in banks, the firms tend to pay a lot of money for them. It is, admittedly, a different market, but there are good reasons Crays, SunFires, and mere (and affordable) dual Intels and AMDs exist.
None of this changes my claim that SMP is a (useful) hack to squeeze more performance out of today's technology for those who just can't wait (and are willing to pay through the nose).
(I doubt, this is your claim, BTW:-) The entire concept of computer can be thought of as a "hack". I think, SMP is a perfectly legitimate direction of scaling -- sideways instead of upward. It is no more "hackish" than various new(er) buses, storage, memory implementations, and periferals.
Yes, the "classic" computers had one processor (hence the term Central PU), but it does not mean any derivations from that are hacks. Certainly, invention of keyboards (instead of switchboards), silicone chips (for processors and for memory), magnetic tapes and disks, are not "hacks", are they?
Seriously though, be sure to compare USA
vs. Malaysia
before moving, or, indeed, before making such statements. There are also otherconcerns,
but you probably don't care.
Combine that with the fact that almost all of the programs used on a modern UNIX-like system arn't CPU bound and it's easy to see why SMP took a back seat to more "interesting" issues.
Wrong. Very wrong. Are you anaware of this field called "banking"? What about "financial trading"? These firms have huge portfolios and run and re-run various models on them. At night, the systems have to run various "end-of-day" scripts and reports, which take CPU-hours to complete. Most of this things run on Unix...
There is also on-the-fly image manipulation, and the scene-rendering done by fleets of Unix machines. The more CPUs each such Unix machine can fit, the better.
Then come databases -- depending on the queries (with joins and orderings), DB-servers can be CPU bound and appreciate multiple processors when available.
What about PVM?
What was it -- and similar packages both free and commercial -- written for? What about this proverbial "beowulf clusters"? Of course, it is much better to have several CPUs inside the box, rather than in separate machines.
However there is a developer being paid to work full time writing SMP support for OpenBSD. He expects to have a working implementation by 3.6 or 3.7.
Until which time, the OpenBSD zealots will continue to deny the issue exists or is of any importance. I see...
The primary reason not to trust the fate of a democracy to a centralized voting system (electronic or not) is that any such system can be taken over. The stakes are much higher with a single system -- a party successfully taking it over wins all. So scumbags will be trying much harder to find flaws in it, than designers and implementors securing, or reviewers checking it.
The danger still holds partially true, BTW, even with a decentralized, but uniform election system -- the same flaw (software, hardware, or administrative) once found can be exploited everywhere.
For example, there are strong indications of elections rigging in the past in different states of the Union (by crooks from both major parties). But those only affected that particular state with nation-wide effects muffled.
Okay, so that is a little off topic, and I realize that your point is that there should be absolutely no regulation. I think, however, the regulation is necessary for a public domain resource (like radio spectrum) but that regulation should take local realities into account.
The libertarians tend to think, the radio spectrum should not be treated as public domain, but rather as private property on land is -- the first one to use it can claim it. It can be traded. The government (of different levels) can claim the eminent domain over parts of it and take them (as it does with land for highways if any, etc.). There can be regulations, concerning the size and location of fences, as well as content (you can't lie naked in your front yard). And so on. There are some clever carricatures
of this concept, but it still seems more appealing than what we have now. And it follows Occam's Razor principle, by not inventing new concept (FCC et al).
Clear Channel is running its radio in the cheap seats under a government sponsered and enforced monopoly. [...] Clear Channel is just turning to the government to try and squelch a competitor.
Clear Channel's behavior (perhaps even the company itself) is a product of the government's folly -- much like AT&T's monopoly was before that, and the Baby Bells are now... We may be rightfully disgusted by it, but we should not be surprised, nor should we allow for creation of similar government enforced and sponsored monopolies in the future (space travel anyone?) or present (airline bailouts).
Clear Channel is itself being regulated. All they ask for, is stricter regulation of their competitor. If you accept the limitations on the size and/or content of media companies, Clear Channel's complaints should upset you.
I don't think, this limitations are a good idea at all, so my solution is to unregulate Clear Channel too...
This has nothing to do with the quality of their stations, BTW, which is a separate story altogether.
They may not be John Ashcroft but they are certainly interested in controlling the market and what you hear.
Of course! So are the Sirius and the XM. Let them all compete freely...
I can do it with FreeBSD for $0. So what? The point was, WinXP is a multi user OS -- to the point, that someone can make a multi- (or dual-) user PC with it.
But that's just how Microsoft chose to license it (XP workstation). There is nothing inherent in the OS, that prevents them from working in parallel. In fact, NT Servers (XP and 2000) allow multiple people to login. I'm using Remote Desktop right now to access one from my FreeBSD box.
Also, rumors are, the limit on the number of simultamious users can be increased by careful editing of the registry, but I can not find the link right now...
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Second, if the freedom of speech was interpreted as literally as you interpret the freedom of movement (travel), all of the arguments about publishing one's views on the Internet (that's not "press", is it?), for example, would've been without merit.
The interpretation of the First Amendment has come a long way. So should the right to travel, even if not enshrined explicitly in the Bill of Rights. I say, it comes with "the pursuit of happines".
Not any worse, than advertising popsicles, toys, and similar crap in between cartoons. As dim as my view is of these advertisers, they are well within the law.
Furthermore, your analogy about housefires and broken windows does not hold up unless you include that the child was induced to set the fire/break the window by an adult who should know better.
Mmm, yes and no. This were simply the examples of other ways a kid can be irresponsible. Encouraging a kid to break a window is illegal, because the breaking itself is illegal. Installing spyware is not. Moreover, the law is not singling the children out as victims. It is not like laws against selling tobacco, which an adult is allowed to buy, but a child is not. But spyware is not (directly) harmful to health (physical like tobacco or alcohol, or mental like porn) nor addictive, so I don't see a compelling argument for laws limiting it to adult users anyway.
I'm guessing that you got your prepositions switched with the statement,
"Why can't I pay (with cool content) for carrying advertising software?"
No, actually. By "I" I meant the spyware vendors, who asks to install their product in exchange for access to something "cool".
If I can -- in exchange for money -- put a sticker on a child's forehead with an advertisement for my product, why can't I -- in exchange for cool sound theme -- put ads on a child's computer screen?
I understand your disgust with people preying on kids, but the law in question is not a solution.
would pay for itself by advertising for child-oriented products and services
Personally, I consider _all_ such advertising bad. The children should not be targeted by any advertising at all. They are not making money and don't have it. But banning it is too difficult and, probably, not worth the negative side-effects...
I've asked my youngest what it means when these things show up, and he assumed that he'd be unable to get to the content he wanted unless he accepted the installation. So, the whole family should be subject to an invasion of privacy? I don't think so.
I do. Its called parenting. If the kid sets the house on fire, the whole family looses shelter. If the kid breaks someone's window, the whole family pays the owner. And so on with things unlawful (like above) and lawful, but shady/embarrassing (like some legal pranks kids do).
Now, the spyware peddlers may be intentionally misleading consumers (users) about their intentions and possible consequences of installing the crap. That may make a case, but there is no need for a special law.
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And I am throwing a nice tight rope for you over the nearest lamp-post, where "union-talking" people belong. A possibility of making a mistake -- my reason to object to death penalty -- is not an issue with such people. They'll keep "talking union" all the way to the hanging...
Seriously, though, trade-unions are no better, indeed, indistinguishable from other monopolies and should be treated with anti-trust laws. In some, more extreme cases, anti-racketeering laws may apply too...
Although I really liked all three of the listed books, I'd only call one of them -- the Snow Crash a work of Science Fiction. The two others, while, indeed, works of fiction and pleasantly heavy on science, do not, in my opinion, belong to the SciFi genre.
People don't elect the president here. You got a wrong country. Electoral College elects president. As they did in 2000. And the elected George W. Bush, which as a truth, not a lie.
States send representatives to the College, according to their own rules and laws. As did Florida.
The federal judiciary was appealed to to interpret the Florida state law. The law, which was supposed to regulate Florida's elections... Once it was interpreted, the Florida officials acted according to the interpretation...
The key in my statement was: "whose side happened to lose". Whatever the outcome, half the nation (or nearly so) would've been unhappy, some of it enraged. Admittedly, my side happened to win, so enjoy my reasoning before it is affected by a passionate rage over some future losing...
Deciding matters through Supreme Court is the best option we had, closely followed by a duel between the two candidates, and a civil war being the distant third.
However troublesome some of the latest developments may appear...
Actually, there are a lot more commas in Ukrainian and Russian, in which I first learned to write. I know, that in casual English writing there are a lot less commas, but the correct English has more. I'm sure, I made a mistake or two, but doubt your claim, that close to half the commas in my post are against the grammar. I'm studying the subject...
That's how presidents were elected in this country since its very creation. There are other unpopular laws and legal decisions -- which the majority objects to. Fortunately, we don't have a direct democracy here -- it took humanity thousands of years to devise a better system, and we are gladly using it.
Indeed, and anyone aware of history should be. Look up Athens and how Socrates died, for examples...
Most of the opponents of this war, who, I suspect, are otherwise capable of reason, tend to lose their reasoning abilities rapidly and go into a passionate rage, when talking about it.
Just listen to this guy:
I just don't think it had to cost maybe 20K Iraqi lives and how many Americans' so far. Well, how many would you approve of, sir? 20K, would still be very little -- Saddam himself has killed and would've have killed much more. I don't think that Linux should be used for killing Oh, "killing is wrong", is not it? I'm sure, if Saddam's army was marching on Los Angeles, he would've approved of killing as many of them as possible. So, killing (and using Linux for it) is only wrong, when it is done against his beliefs -- well, say so...(My bodyguards carry weapons, but everyone else, who does, should be locked up, says Rosie O'Donnel -- the passionate lighting rod of the pro-gun lobby.)
I don't really trust the Pentagon to abide by the GPL I wonder, which violation of GPL does he suspect? Not providing source to code modifications? But that is not required, as long as the modifications are not distributed by Pentagon. And they are not -- by the nature of the organization. They are not in the software business at all...Their laboratories, that are in that business and do distribute modifications, distribute the source too -- the already mentioned SELinux, TrustedBSD...
Everybody won on that one, and it's a great use of our tax dollars. In the first Gulf War, even the Iraqis used American GPS to guide their missiles. Talk about your equal-opportunity technologies. Now he is cheering for Iraq? The Iraq of 1991? Talk about loss of reasoning... It is a flaw of the GPS, that it can be used by our enemies (even if they can't get full precision of it). This is not a sport match, where equal oppotunity is desired -- people are dying there, and the higher the advantage of your side, the less of it dies, the better. You know I am in favor of an army and a national defense Oh, see, he is not against killing at all...Nothing wrong with passion per se. It is great in art, in bed (the very special art), etc. But the less of it in politics and computers (what a weird pairing of fields!) the better.
Good riddance, LULA!
If, indeed, true, this fact only adds strengthens the argument for America's responsibility for Iraqies.
However, whether we actually "put him there" or merely helped him -- and how crucial the help was -- remains an unsettled debate...
Oh, yes, he was elected. As spelled in the Constitution, by representatives sent to Electorate College by all of the States of the Union.
One of the states had a problem determining, which group of representatives to send, but the problem was settled according to the laws of the land, and I'm much more inclined to trust handling of it to 9 wise people with decades of legal experience than an enraged geek, whose side happened to lose.
I don't blame either of them for the world's anti-US attitude, though -- I think, the US' lower popularity these days is largely due to the collapse of the USSR leaving the world nothing to seriously fear... (My own ex-Soviet past makes me really antagonistic towards China, but the rest of the world -- except Taiwan -- does not share these feelings.)
Bush's unwillingness to bow to the "public opinion" seems a rather positive trait too.
It is intended to remind some more liberal-minded readers (and moderators), that merely labeling someone with a "neo-con" tag is not qualified as grounds for totally dismissing the person's opinion(s) :-)
Do you have the numbers? I don't...
Not only are there many of CPU-intensive machines in banks, the firms tend to pay a lot of money for them. It is, admittedly, a different market, but there are good reasons Crays, SunFires, and mere (and affordable) dual Intels and AMDs exist.
(I doubt, this is your claim, BTW :-) The entire concept of computer can be thought of as a "hack". I think, SMP is a perfectly legitimate direction of scaling -- sideways instead of upward. It is no more "hackish" than various new(er) buses, storage, memory implementations, and periferals.
Yes, the "classic" computers had one processor (hence the term Central PU), but it does not mean any derivations from that are hacks. Certainly, invention of keyboards (instead of switchboards), silicone chips (for processors and for memory), magnetic tapes and disks, are not "hacks", are they?
If this such a good way to produce/store electricity, why aren't power companies using it?
No, they are not sold out to oil -- most of the electricity comes from burning coal...
Is it only because hydrogen can also be used directly (for cooking and heating)?
Watch for the door on your way out.
Seriously though, be sure to compare USA vs. Malaysia before moving, or, indeed, before making such statements. There are also other concerns, but you probably don't care.
Wrong. Very wrong. Are you anaware of this field called "banking"? What about "financial trading"? These firms have huge portfolios and run and re-run various models on them. At night, the systems have to run various "end-of-day" scripts and reports, which take CPU-hours to complete. Most of this things run on Unix...
There is also on-the-fly image manipulation, and the scene-rendering done by fleets of Unix machines. The more CPUs each such Unix machine can fit, the better.
Then come databases -- depending on the queries (with joins and orderings), DB-servers can be CPU bound and appreciate multiple processors when available.
What about PVM? What was it -- and similar packages both free and commercial -- written for? What about this proverbial "beowulf clusters"? Of course, it is much better to have several CPUs inside the box, rather than in separate machines.
Until which time, the OpenBSD zealots will continue to deny the issue exists or is of any importance. I see...
The primary reason not to trust the fate of a democracy to a centralized voting system (electronic or not) is that any such system can be taken over. The stakes are much higher with a single system -- a party successfully taking it over wins all. So scumbags will be trying much harder to find flaws in it, than designers and implementors securing, or reviewers checking it.
The danger still holds partially true, BTW, even with a decentralized, but uniform election system -- the same flaw (software, hardware, or administrative) once found can be exploited everywhere.
For example, there are strong indications of elections rigging in the past in different states of the Union (by crooks from both major parties). But those only affected that particular state with nation-wide effects muffled.
The libertarians tend to think, the radio spectrum should not be treated as public domain, but rather as private property on land is -- the first one to use it can claim it. It can be traded. The government (of different levels) can claim the eminent domain over parts of it and take them (as it does with land for highways if any, etc.). There can be regulations, concerning the size and location of fences, as well as content (you can't lie naked in your front yard). And so on. There are some clever carricatures of this concept, but it still seems more appealing than what we have now. And it follows Occam's Razor principle, by not inventing new concept (FCC et al).
Clear Channel's behavior (perhaps even the company itself) is a product of the government's folly -- much like AT&T's monopoly was before that, and the Baby Bells are now... We may be rightfully disgusted by it, but we should not be surprised, nor should we allow for creation of similar government enforced and sponsored monopolies in the future (space travel anyone?) or present (airline bailouts).
Clear Channel is itself being regulated. All they ask for, is stricter regulation of their competitor. If you accept the limitations on the size and/or content of media companies, Clear Channel's complaints should upset you.
I don't think, this limitations are a good idea at all, so my solution is to unregulate Clear Channel too...
This has nothing to do with the quality of their stations, BTW, which is a separate story altogether.
Of course! So are the Sirius and the XM. Let them all compete freely...
I can do it with FreeBSD for $0. So what? The point was, WinXP is a multi user OS -- to the point, that someone can make a multi- (or dual-) user PC with it.
But that's just how Microsoft chose to license it (XP workstation). There is nothing inherent in the OS, that prevents them from working in parallel. In fact, NT Servers (XP and 2000) allow multiple people to login. I'm using Remote Desktop right now to access one from my FreeBSD box.
Also, rumors are, the limit on the number of simultamious users can be increased by careful editing of the registry, but I can not find the link right now...
First, the 9th amendment:
Second, if the freedom of speech was interpreted as literally as you interpret the freedom of movement (travel), all of the arguments about publishing one's views on the Internet (that's not "press", is it?), for example, would've been without merit.
The interpretation of the First Amendment has come a long way. So should the right to travel, even if not enshrined explicitly in the Bill of Rights. I say, it comes with "the pursuit of happines".
Not any worse, than advertising popsicles, toys, and similar crap in between cartoons. As dim as my view is of these advertisers, they are well within the law.
Mmm, yes and no. This were simply the examples of other ways a kid can be irresponsible. Encouraging a kid to break a window is illegal, because the breaking itself is illegal. Installing spyware is not. Moreover, the law is not singling the children out as victims. It is not like laws against selling tobacco, which an adult is allowed to buy, but a child is not. But spyware is not (directly) harmful to health (physical like tobacco or alcohol, or mental like porn) nor addictive, so I don't see a compelling argument for laws limiting it to adult users anyway.
No, actually. By "I" I meant the spyware vendors, who asks to install their product in exchange for access to something "cool".
If I can -- in exchange for money -- put a sticker on a child's forehead with an advertisement for my product, why can't I -- in exchange for cool sound theme -- put ads on a child's computer screen?
I understand your disgust with people preying on kids, but the law in question is not a solution.
Personally, I consider _all_ such advertising bad. The children should not be targeted by any advertising at all. They are not making money and don't have it. But banning it is too difficult and, probably, not worth the negative side-effects...
I do. Its called parenting. If the kid sets the house on fire, the whole family looses shelter. If the kid breaks someone's window, the whole family pays the owner. And so on with things unlawful (like above) and lawful, but shady/embarrassing (like some legal pranks kids do).
People are paid for carrying advertisements on their foreheads. Why can't I pay (with cool content) for carrying advertising software?
Now, the spyware peddlers may be intentionally misleading consumers (users) about their intentions and possible consequences of installing the crap. That may make a case, but there is no need for a special law.