That's why you buy a second box and use it as a backup. If you want to get really fancy, put half the primary servers on one, half on the other. For instance, you can put the primary smtp and secondary DNS on a different box than the primary DNS.
And if you need to stay cheap, just get a POS HP desktop computer, put in a raid and use that as your backup. You don't have to have fancy server hardware as a backup.
Uh, but have you even TRIED Writely? NOTEPAD.EXE has more features than this app... Maybe it'd be fine for simple stuff like letters, etc. But if you're doing serious work like desktop publishing, mail merges, TABLES, etc. it falls very very very short. Writely doesn't have definable style sheets. It looks like it's basically a rich-text editor.
I'm not saying it's not a good idea; I'd love to have a web-based office suite to stick on a server somewhere and have it accesable anywhere. But they have a LOOOOOOONG way to go. MS Word is the product of 30 years of development. I remember when it smashed through the established WordPerfect in about 6 months, then crushed openoffice by opening up it's standards and moving to an XML file format (which is still a little closed, but not too bad).
I could see Writely becoming something good for the home user, but for the small to mid business category, Word is the king. Before I can switch, they need at least the following: Tables, mail merge and other database support, envelopes and labels, "macros", tranlation features and support for other languages/character sets, basic formatting like setting tabs, align, paragraph formatting, font formatting like leading and kerning, online clipart built-in, and tools to generate advanced objects like org-charts, graphs, etc.
It'll get there, but by that time, Word will already be online and working, because M$FT had this idea 10 years ago... I hate to say it. BUT, if they play this smart, Google can integrate this into it's other offerings. MySpace type forums utilizing the writely standards, an online auction/store site utilizing the writely standards, etc etc. It's not really about the editor but about the DOCUMENTS and what you can do with them. If I can write a letter one day, then move it to the web in one step, then turn it into an online store entry without retyping, that would be money.
But you have to have a different image for each distinct hardware profile. In a large network, it's a headache you don't want.
Bascially, there are 3 or 4 major solutions, in order from simple to hard:
1. RDP, Citrix, Terminal Services 2. Roaming profiles with redirected desktop/startmenu/etc. (in windows) (take advantage of local machine's power) 3. Image boot, like you were talking about 4. Custom web-based application
Obviously number 4 will preclude using your office products or other software, but if the user really only has a few roles, you could make a custom app that does what they need to do and skip all the other crap. Lock down the machines and use a generic profile for all users. It's hardware independent, etc.
I had the same problem. In a Windows environment, I used regular domain profiles with redirected desktop and start menu, printers, etc. That way each user can move around. The problem is with outlook, because it stores the messages in the local profile in the personal folder. Without exchange, you have people lugging around 600-1000MB outlook folders every time they switch computers. It takes a few minutes to boot....... anyway, each windows box is totally open so they can do whatever they want with it (within reason). Then for the critical stuff, I built a custom web based app with LAMP and it handles the databases, etc. As the app expands, the windows profiles will be slowly locked down until we only need a web browser to do all the necessary work. At that point (2 years ahead), all the computers will need to be replaced, and they can be replaced with thin clients. It works great with outlying or out-of-state branches because I don't have to worry about their system configuration ever, and they can contract their own PC tech to handle the day to day crap.
With the images, you are going to want to blow your head off if someone has a problem with their sound card or something. You'll find they have a different sound card, have to make a whole new image, then make sure that image chases the computer (MAC address) and not the user. You'll have to have roaming profiles anyway in this case.
Remote desktop/terminal services work great. They are the original. No worries about desktops at all, but you can still run all the software you want. Old school terminals work good for certain task also. I used to work at a large unnamed hotel in Las Vegas and they ran everything critical on a big AS/400 and the clients used the 3270 emu software on standard windows boxes (with Netware 6...ugh). You get colored text and that's it. But that's enough for most purposes.. Of course, you have to have some major hardware up top to serve all these clients. It's the best choice if money is no object and security is. Terminal services will necessitate high-end servers, and you need redundancy otherwise one of them going down will take out many clients. With the AS/400, you get legendary 24x7 1 hour response service team (in suits) but it's like $500K a year;) Do you want to be the guy who gets called in 100 times at 4am on saturday to fix a broken server?
The REAL problem is lawyers. Any way you look at it, people can sue other people for the stupidest shit. If the patent people say person X has a patent on item A, and person Y claims prior art and sues, there's nothing the patent office can do about it.
However, I do like the idea of having all of us concerned volunteers able to give some of our time to help the patent office out with our spare time and do a lot of their research for them. Seeing as the patent process is important in our society, it could be something you do like voting--because it makes society better. Because over time, the approved patents and associated recorded research would be better quality (and better documented), more and more lawsuits will fail and the lawyers will start to realize it's rarely worth their time to sue.
It could be like that with anything. Congress should spend a few minutes reading the comments of the people on various bills as well, rather than listening to distorted media polls and that type of thing. In this era of easy communications, with the proper protocols, we could cut the media giants out almost completely and thus avoid their influence altogether. I mean, everyone already knows they are more about entertainment and ad sales than actual "reporting" nowadays...
Heh, when they said "Profit Pod" in the summary, I thought they were referring to some new Apple Hardware that ensures they get every last dime of royalties from all their stupid naming conventions.
Like all Apple products, the user interface provides only the needed functions, and comes with only one button:
PROFIT Pod (pPod): Unlicensed name use detected, sending Cease and Desist. PROFIT Pod (pPod): Press Button to file a motion.
Again, like I was saying, MySpace is about extending your social group online, not necessarily finding new members. So you probably already know all the people in your groups, either in meatspace or through some other meeting. It's about having an online static meeting ground to talk, communicate, share ideas, pictures, movies, etc. Thus I compared it with BBS's, which were the same thing (albeit for computer hobbyists), but more personal. MySpace is utterly useless because it doesn't have a good group chat, the ability to share and distribute files in an open fashion (with quotas), etc. Google groups is getting close, but they don't have the sexiness of MySpace right now.
By the way, I know about the MySpace chat, but it's garbage. Something more like (or possibly based on) IRC would be perfect. One channel per group, still invite only, with private chat on the side. I know that you can put up links, but a simple file manager with upload button, description, and a group "uploads" folder. Then the moderator could filter the files into appropriate categories, just like in the BBS days. Thus building up a collection of data, rather than a bunch of unsearchable blog posts.
I just finished watching the BBS Documentary and it reminded me about why BBS's were so cool. I mean, besides bringing the power of global communications to the common man at a low expense, it brought about this whole new online community.
Many of the interviews talk about how impersonal the internet is, the fact that you might be one in 50,000 people on a newsgroup versus one of 100 or 200 on a BBS. The fact is, before myspace-type sites, it was pretty difficult to create a small online community of your friends without some decent computer skills. Sure, there was IRC, but it was difficult to create static content there. Sure, there were search sites like Classmates.com but no one ever went to them.
Myspace is really quite primitive, as everyone knows. It's just a simple database blog. Where it shines is the search feature in combination with the ease of custom publishing. You can search for old friends, search by hometown, etc. And with the inclusion of music and video clips, it's a whole multimedia experience. I think that it's the closest thing to the old personal community feeling the BBS had than anything else.
Sure, there's a lot missing, but I think that if someone were to look at the sucessful old BBS' and modeled a new "Social Networking" site after them (real time chat, files, message boards, multi-player games based on login, just more areas and features), it could be real successful in a hurry. MySpace just doesn't do enough. It's all anyone has right now, of course.
The point I'm trying to make in my post (because in retrospect it may not be totally clear) is that we Judeo-Christian Americans have a double standard when it comes to fear. It doesn't make sense! I am equally guilty of the fear but I don't know if anyone's asked why. That's why I asked.
My guess is if they can tie controversial police actions to this successful bust in any way, they will do it. Some official will testify that "the provisions of the [patriot act, whatever you call yours] were essential in foiling this terrorist plot" likely without any specifics as to the connection.
Yeah. When more probably it was terrorist incompetence or one of the alleged terrorists decided to rat out the crew. Since America is following in the footsteps of Israel (and England to a certain extent) with regards to "security", we only really need to look at their country to see how it's going to be here in 10-20 years... Extra security does nothing. It makes the cost higher to perform the acts, perhaps, but 1000 times zero is still zero. It's like the war on drugs. We spend 59128371238871 billion and there's still plenty of cocaine flowing into America to suit everyone's needs. Likewise, the cost to send one additional terrorist or bomb is pretty low. The only way to end it is to make the VALUE of terror LOW, just like the drug war.
It's simple economics. Extra security, fear, etc. is making terror more and more valuable. We need to lower it to the value of say, drunk driving, which kills about 10x more people PER YEAR then "terror" has EVER killed. Notice that when you get into the car you are not scared of dying in a drunk driving related accident, and notice that there isn't a cop that makes sure you're not drunk before getting into your car and driving (or a computerized cop). When you get into the car, ANY car, you are immediately at risk of DYING (a much higher risk than terror) and yet you aren't scared, the government isn't spending $5002139218218 to stop it, we just accept it as part of our existence as humans and go on with our lives.
If we were to adopt the same attitude towards "fear" and "terror", it would lower it's value to a point where the goals of the terrorist (to incite fear) cannot be achieved thru terror. Thus the terrorist ceases to exist. This is SO obvious that anyone with 2 or 3 braincells can understand and probably already knows it. So why do we keep making such a big deal about it? Because, it's NEWS and BAD NEWS SELLS.
On top of that, it's a great excuse to keep the military in business, expand the police force, and steal other countries' oil. Even though it's EXTREMELY UNLIKELY that you will ever be a victim of terrorism, it's about 10 TIMES MORE UNLIKELY that Bush or his Millionaire Friends will. Thus, they make sure to make a policy that makes MORE terrorism, thus allowing them to continue to profit (AT NO REAL RISK) on the under-educated and overly-paranoid. Not to mention the other little perks, like power.
It's all very obvious. I just don't understand why people are so scared. You get up, you go to work, you go home. You might choke on your frosted flakes, get hit by a drunk driver, drown in your cup of coffee, get electrocuted when your coffee drips into your CPU, accidentally fall on your stapler, or have a heart attack on the way home. Any of these things can happen, and are LIKELY ways for you to die, yet you don't worry about it. You accept it. You know that one day you're going to die.
This is where religion comes into it. I posit that because of your Judeo-Christian upbringing (likely if you're reading this), you accept dying because of... well, there's a number of reasons, you either don't think about it, you're "saved" or you really are scared of dying all the time. If it's the latter, you have bigger problems than terrorists, I might add.
But when some "terrorist" (which probably brings to mind a turbaned muslim arab [thanks media]) takes the life of your countryman, loved one, whatever, it seems like it "wasn't their time", like that this terrorist was actually Satan incarnate and God could not protect your comrade/family memeber like he usually does and that's why it's IMPOSSIBLE to accept. "It was sooo out of control", you think. Like anyone drives around WANTING to get hit by a drunk dr
Seriously, what every happened to books? I mean, we have books and diarys going back 100-1000 years. There has to be a way to encode the data on that.
I think though, that the higher the density of the information the greater the chance that one of the little dots or charged particles is going to go bad. So you have to have errorchecking and periodic backups. The problem is, who's going to do that? I mean, I know Google is posturing to be the computing and data storage services provider for everyone in the world, using their clustering technology, but then Google would be in control of your data. He who controls the past controls the future.
Great, now the paid political blog watchers will know about this place. The bastion is gone. Moderators need to be extra careful for the next few months to make sure none of them get thru.
That's why I keep a liberal supply of dandruff and chicken grease on my keyboard at all times. Even if the boffins manage to make an identical keyboard (with the windows keys ripped out, no less), they could never recreate the back-alley ambiance.
Yeah, I really like NPR news also, because they give 30 minutes to a story and really get into the details. Spouting off lines on video with a caption at the bottom with smoke, fire, and other graphic effects that says "WWIII??!?" just doesn't do it for me.
A lot people (chicken hawks, mostly), write off NPR as "liberal" news, but I think it's the most unbiased news for one simple reason: they are not doing it for a profit. They have no agenda. Granted, they are biased towards the democratic way of thinking, because they rely on certain government grants, but they aren't as liberal as say, a college professor or something. I wouldn't call them LEFTIST by any means.
Anyway, I also believe it's the news that Intelligent People listen to and trust and donate to, and that might have some effect on the content. For the most part, most intelligent people in America (with the exception of people running large military contractors and oil companies, etc.) are liberal right now because it's easy to see we (as a nation) are on the wrong path. If we were on the right path, the intelligent people would be more conservative. Because intelligent people are not closed minded, they change their minds often, as facts present itself. They are less likely to believe something on "blind faith" alone.
Newscorp has the channel to sell ads, Rupert Murdoch wants money. He's also a very rich man and has a lot of his money invested, perhaps in military contractors?
I don't believe it is unreasonable, nor prejudiced, to think that a man, who obviously and intentionally doctored a photo, did so to fan the anti-Isreali flame that seems to permeate the world right now.
You won't be upset then, when I say that it's POSSIBLE some of the Israeli video is also staged (given that they are a much higher technology country), and that the "Hezbollah Rockets" are just fireworks. Not necessarily, but possible.
I mean, give me a Prosumer DV camera, a wind generator, 50 pounds of cordite and an old deserted building right now. Surely people who fake offical things have much better technology. Guess what, you can't trust ANYONE. So, the real logical conclusion should be to turn your back and not give any CPU cycles to what is real or fake that the "authorities" are telling. Or at least take everything with a grain of salt.
Oh yes. And ANYONE can submit photos to the wire nowadays. War is about information now. Before, you had to get 100 million people involved before it affected everyone, because news moved so slow. Now it's about convincing whatever side you're on that you're winning and of course fighting for the "right" side.
Getting the photo on the wire is as easy as knowing someone at a client newspaper. Agents from all governments and organizations are employed by newspapers. In fact, it's a very common "cover story" for legal and illegal agents operating in foriegn countries. Speaking only about the U.S., I beleive it's against our policies to pose agents as American press, but they can pose as British or Canadian press and skirt the law.
Naturally, we have agents at newspapers and television stations and wire outlets all over the world. And it's reasonable to assume that other countries do as well (Israel, Russia, Britian, etc.), maybe even inside OUR (American) media. It's been going on for decades but now it matters more than ever. A few faked photos, a fake story, some fake video dropped at the right moment can really make it seem like something totally different is going on. I'm not going to single anything out, but really how hard would it be to get a guy with a beard out on a Texas ranch with a small video crew and "make" a "bin Laden" video? Not that I think they did that but who knows?
Also, I highly recommend watching Wag the Dog if you haven't in a while. It's circa 1997 but still relevant today.
Conrad 'Connie' Brean: What's the thing people remember about the Gulf War? A bomb falling down a chimney. Let me tell you something: I was in the building where we filmed that with a 10-inch model made out of Legos. Stanley Motss: Is that true? Conrad 'Connie' Brean: Who the hell's to say?
In my opinion, there are 3 major groups of people in America.
1. The Chicken-Hawks. Creators of Freedom Fries and the stupid flag thing, they love Jesus, NASCAR and War. Their patron representatives are the conservative republicans. Side-effects of this group include abortion bans, the military-industrial complex, the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act and the Iraq War. They are scared of, and I quote: "Ragheads, Niggers, Jews, Wetbacks, and 'terrorists'".
2. The Lefties. Creators of the "War on Globalization" and Greenpeace, they love Wicca, Soccer and War. Their patron representatives cannot get elected right now, or ever. They relegate themselves to Indymedia.org and protests. Side effects of this group include Wiretapping initiatives, the rise of the Neo-Cons in '00, coffee houses and the Canada thing. They are scared of Militant Christians, logical debate, and growing up.
3. Everyone Else. Creators of the economy, common sense, the space program, etc., they love to worship whatever they worship in moderation, football and baseball, and Peace. Side effects of this group include a strong American economy, foreign policy that is just the right balance between isolationist and imperialist, and the 50-50 distribution of votes in the last election. These people are having a hard time deciding who they trust, so they vote almost at random based on maybe one hotbed issue that is different for each of them. They are afraid of Chicken Hawks and Lefties.
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That's why you buy a second box and use it as a backup. If you want to get really fancy, put half the primary servers on one, half on the other. For instance, you can put the primary smtp and secondary DNS on a different box than the primary DNS.
And if you need to stay cheap, just get a POS HP desktop computer, put in a raid and use that as your backup. You don't have to have fancy server hardware as a backup.
Uh, but have you even TRIED Writely? NOTEPAD.EXE has more features than this app... Maybe it'd be fine for simple stuff like letters, etc. But if you're doing serious work like desktop publishing, mail merges, TABLES, etc. it falls very very very short. Writely doesn't have definable style sheets. It looks like it's basically a rich-text editor.
I'm not saying it's not a good idea; I'd love to have a web-based office suite to stick on a server somewhere and have it accesable anywhere. But they have a LOOOOOOONG way to go. MS Word is the product of 30 years of development. I remember when it smashed through the established WordPerfect in about 6 months, then crushed openoffice by opening up it's standards and moving to an XML file format (which is still a little closed, but not too bad).
I could see Writely becoming something good for the home user, but for the small to mid business category, Word is the king. Before I can switch, they need at least the following: Tables, mail merge and other database support, envelopes and labels, "macros", tranlation features and support for other languages/character sets, basic formatting like setting tabs, align, paragraph formatting, font formatting like leading and kerning, online clipart built-in, and tools to generate advanced objects like org-charts, graphs, etc.
It'll get there, but by that time, Word will already be online and working, because M$FT had this idea 10 years ago...
I hate to say it. BUT, if they play this smart, Google can integrate this into it's other offerings. MySpace type forums utilizing the writely standards, an online auction/store site utilizing the writely standards, etc etc. It's not really about the editor but about the DOCUMENTS and what you can do with them. If I can write a letter one day, then move it to the web in one step, then turn it into an online store entry without retyping, that would be money.
We know what he was trying to say, he just did a really bad job of saying it
I guess you're saying we mean what he knows.
But you have to have a different image for each distinct hardware profile. In a large network, it's a headache you don't want.
;) Do you want to be the guy who gets called in 100 times at 4am on saturday to fix a broken server?
Bascially, there are 3 or 4 major solutions, in order from simple to hard:
1. RDP, Citrix, Terminal Services
2. Roaming profiles with redirected desktop/startmenu/etc. (in windows) (take advantage of local machine's power)
3. Image boot, like you were talking about
4. Custom web-based application
Obviously number 4 will preclude using your office products or other software, but if the user really only has a few roles, you could make a custom app that does what they need to do and skip all the other crap. Lock down the machines and use a generic profile for all users. It's hardware independent, etc.
I had the same problem. In a Windows environment, I used regular domain profiles with redirected desktop and start menu, printers, etc. That way each user can move around. The problem is with outlook, because it stores the messages in the local profile in the personal folder. Without exchange, you have people lugging around 600-1000MB outlook folders every time they switch computers. It takes a few minutes to boot....... anyway, each windows box is totally open so they can do whatever they want with it (within reason). Then for the critical stuff, I built a custom web based app with LAMP and it handles the databases, etc. As the app expands, the windows profiles will be slowly locked down until we only need a web browser to do all the necessary work. At that point (2 years ahead), all the computers will need to be replaced, and they can be replaced with thin clients. It works great with outlying or out-of-state branches because I don't have to worry about their system configuration ever, and they can contract their own PC tech to handle the day to day crap.
With the images, you are going to want to blow your head off if someone has a problem with their sound card or something. You'll find they have a different sound card, have to make a whole new image, then make sure that image chases the computer (MAC address) and not the user. You'll have to have roaming profiles anyway in this case.
Remote desktop/terminal services work great. They are the original. No worries about desktops at all, but you can still run all the software you want. Old school terminals work good for certain task also. I used to work at a large unnamed hotel in Las Vegas and they ran everything critical on a big AS/400 and the clients used the 3270 emu software on standard windows boxes (with Netware 6...ugh). You get colored text and that's it. But that's enough for most purposes.. Of course, you have to have some major hardware up top to serve all these clients. It's the best choice if money is no object and security is. Terminal services will necessitate high-end servers, and you need redundancy otherwise one of them going down will take out many clients. With the AS/400, you get legendary 24x7 1 hour response service team (in suits) but it's like $500K a year
The REAL problem is lawyers. Any way you look at it, people can sue other people for the stupidest shit. If the patent people say person X has a patent on item A, and person Y claims prior art and sues, there's nothing the patent office can do about it.
However, I do like the idea of having all of us concerned volunteers able to give some of our time to help the patent office out with our spare time and do a lot of their research for them. Seeing as the patent process is important in our society, it could be something you do like voting--because it makes society better. Because over time, the approved patents and associated recorded research would be better quality (and better documented), more and more lawsuits will fail and the lawyers will start to realize it's rarely worth their time to sue.
It could be like that with anything. Congress should spend a few minutes reading the comments of the people on various bills as well, rather than listening to distorted media polls and that type of thing. In this era of easy communications, with the proper protocols, we could cut the media giants out almost completely and thus avoid their influence altogether. I mean, everyone already knows they are more about entertainment and ad sales than actual "reporting" nowadays...
and comments like how in Soviet Russia, patents own you and that a Beowulf cluster of them would be even cooler.
Heh, when they said "Profit Pod" in the summary, I thought they were referring to some new Apple Hardware that ensures they get every last dime of royalties from all their stupid naming conventions.
Like all Apple products, the user interface provides only the needed functions, and comes with only one button:
PROFIT Pod (pPod): Unlicensed name use detected, sending Cease and Desist.
PROFIT Pod (pPod): Press Button to file a motion.
Again, like I was saying, MySpace is about extending your social group online, not necessarily finding new members. So you probably already know all the people in your groups, either in meatspace or through some other meeting. It's about having an online static meeting ground to talk, communicate, share ideas, pictures, movies, etc. Thus I compared it with BBS's, which were the same thing (albeit for computer hobbyists), but more personal. MySpace is utterly useless because it doesn't have a good group chat, the ability to share and distribute files in an open fashion (with quotas), etc. Google groups is getting close, but they don't have the sexiness of MySpace right now.
By the way, I know about the MySpace chat, but it's garbage. Something more like (or possibly based on) IRC would be perfect. One channel per group, still invite only, with private chat on the side. I know that you can put up links, but a simple file manager with upload button, description, and a group "uploads" folder. Then the moderator could filter the files into appropriate categories, just like in the BBS days. Thus building up a collection of data, rather than a bunch of unsearchable blog posts.
I just finished watching the BBS Documentary and it reminded me about why BBS's were so cool. I mean, besides bringing the power of global communications to the common man at a low expense, it brought about this whole new online community.
Many of the interviews talk about how impersonal the internet is, the fact that you might be one in 50,000 people on a newsgroup versus one of 100 or 200 on a BBS. The fact is, before myspace-type sites, it was pretty difficult to create a small online community of your friends without some decent computer skills. Sure, there was IRC, but it was difficult to create static content there. Sure, there were search sites like Classmates.com but no one ever went to them.
Myspace is really quite primitive, as everyone knows. It's just a simple database blog. Where it shines is the search feature in combination with the ease of custom publishing. You can search for old friends, search by hometown, etc. And with the inclusion of music and video clips, it's a whole multimedia experience. I think that it's the closest thing to the old personal community feeling the BBS had than anything else.
Sure, there's a lot missing, but I think that if someone were to look at the sucessful old BBS' and modeled a new "Social Networking" site after them (real time chat, files, message boards, multi-player games based on login, just more areas and features), it could be real successful in a hurry. MySpace just doesn't do enough. It's all anyone has right now, of course.
In Soviet Russia, the math proves YOU.
end sarcasm
The point I'm trying to make in my post (because in retrospect it may not be totally clear) is that we Judeo-Christian Americans have a double standard when it comes to fear. It doesn't make sense! I am equally guilty of the fear but I don't know if anyone's asked why. That's why I asked.
4. The sound that deadlines make as they go flying by.
--DNA
My guess is if they can tie controversial police actions to this successful bust in any way, they will do it. Some official will testify that "the provisions of the [patriot act, whatever you call yours] were essential in foiling this terrorist plot" likely without any specifics as to the connection.
Yeah. When more probably it was terrorist incompetence or one of the alleged terrorists decided to rat out the crew. Since America is following in the footsteps of Israel (and England to a certain extent) with regards to "security", we only really need to look at their country to see how it's going to be here in 10-20 years... Extra security does nothing. It makes the cost higher to perform the acts, perhaps, but 1000 times zero is still zero. It's like the war on drugs. We spend 59128371238871 billion and there's still plenty of cocaine flowing into America to suit everyone's needs. Likewise, the cost to send one additional terrorist or bomb is pretty low. The only way to end it is to make the VALUE of terror LOW, just like the drug war.
It's simple economics. Extra security, fear, etc. is making terror more and more valuable. We need to lower it to the value of say, drunk driving, which kills about 10x more people PER YEAR then "terror" has EVER killed. Notice that when you get into the car you are not scared of dying in a drunk driving related accident, and notice that there isn't a cop that makes sure you're not drunk before getting into your car and driving (or a computerized cop). When you get into the car, ANY car, you are immediately at risk of DYING (a much higher risk than terror) and yet you aren't scared, the government isn't spending $5002139218218 to stop it, we just accept it as part of our existence as humans and go on with our lives.
If we were to adopt the same attitude towards "fear" and "terror", it would lower it's value to a point where the goals of the terrorist (to incite fear) cannot be achieved thru terror. Thus the terrorist ceases to exist. This is SO obvious that anyone with 2 or 3 braincells can understand and probably already knows it. So why do we keep making such a big deal about it? Because, it's NEWS and BAD NEWS SELLS.
On top of that, it's a great excuse to keep the military in business, expand the police force, and steal other countries' oil. Even though it's EXTREMELY UNLIKELY that you will ever be a victim of terrorism, it's about 10 TIMES MORE UNLIKELY that Bush or his Millionaire Friends will. Thus, they make sure to make a policy that makes MORE terrorism, thus allowing them to continue to profit (AT NO REAL RISK) on the under-educated and overly-paranoid. Not to mention the other little perks, like power.
It's all very obvious. I just don't understand why people are so scared. You get up, you go to work, you go home. You might choke on your frosted flakes, get hit by a drunk driver, drown in your cup of coffee, get electrocuted when your coffee drips into your CPU, accidentally fall on your stapler, or have a heart attack on the way home. Any of these things can happen, and are LIKELY ways for you to die, yet you don't worry about it. You accept it. You know that one day you're going to die.
This is where religion comes into it. I posit that because of your Judeo-Christian upbringing (likely if you're reading this), you accept dying because of... well, there's a number of reasons, you either don't think about it, you're "saved" or you really are scared of dying all the time. If it's the latter, you have bigger problems than terrorists, I might add.
But when some "terrorist" (which probably brings to mind a turbaned muslim arab [thanks media]) takes the life of your countryman, loved one, whatever, it seems like it "wasn't their time", like that this terrorist was actually Satan incarnate and God could not protect your comrade/family memeber like he usually does and that's why it's IMPOSSIBLE to accept. "It was sooo out of control", you think. Like anyone drives around WANTING to get hit by a drunk dr
HEY! What about tattoos?!
Seriously, what every happened to books? I mean, we have books and diarys going back 100-1000 years. There has to be a way to encode the data on that.
I think though, that the higher the density of the information the greater the chance that one of the little dots or charged particles is going to go bad. So you have to have errorchecking and periodic backups. The problem is, who's going to do that? I mean, I know Google is posturing to be the computing and data storage services provider for everyone in the world, using their clustering technology, but then Google would be in control of your data. He who controls the past controls the future.
Great, now the paid political blog watchers will know about this place. The bastion is gone. Moderators need to be extra careful for the next few months to make sure none of them get thru.
In browser torrent client, on java or activex. If you watch a video you have to share it out at least twice.
;)
Their competitors will figure this out first, or everyone will move to Goooooogle. SELL YOUR YOUTUBE STOCK!
That's why I keep a liberal supply of dandruff and chicken grease on my keyboard at all times. Even if the boffins manage to make an identical keyboard (with the windows keys ripped out, no less), they could never recreate the back-alley ambiance.
Yeah, I really like NPR news also, because they give 30 minutes to a story and really get into the details. Spouting off lines on video with a caption at the bottom with smoke, fire, and other graphic effects that says "WWIII??!?" just doesn't do it for me.
A lot people (chicken hawks, mostly), write off NPR as "liberal" news, but I think it's the most unbiased news for one simple reason: they are not doing it for a profit. They have no agenda. Granted, they are biased towards the democratic way of thinking, because they rely on certain government grants, but they aren't as liberal as say, a college professor or something. I wouldn't call them LEFTIST by any means.
Anyway, I also believe it's the news that Intelligent People listen to and trust and donate to, and that might have some effect on the content. For the most part, most intelligent people in America (with the exception of people running large military contractors and oil companies, etc.) are liberal right now because it's easy to see we (as a nation) are on the wrong path. If we were on the right path, the intelligent people would be more conservative. Because intelligent people are not closed minded, they change their minds often, as facts present itself. They are less likely to believe something on "blind faith" alone.
Newscorp has the channel to sell ads, Rupert Murdoch wants money. He's also a very rich man and has a lot of his money invested, perhaps in military contractors?
He was using a fake name anyway, so he'll continue to submit photos through his other alias'.
Cheers.
I don't believe it is unreasonable, nor prejudiced, to think that a man, who obviously and intentionally doctored a photo, did so to fan the anti-Isreali flame that seems to permeate the world right now.
You won't be upset then, when I say that it's POSSIBLE some of the Israeli video is also staged (given that they are a much higher technology country), and that the "Hezbollah Rockets" are just fireworks. Not necessarily, but possible.
I mean, give me a Prosumer DV camera, a wind generator, 50 pounds of cordite and an old deserted building right now. Surely people who fake offical things have much better technology. Guess what, you can't trust ANYONE. So, the real logical conclusion should be to turn your back and not give any CPU cycles to what is real or fake that the "authorities" are telling. Or at least take everything with a grain of salt.
Getting the photo on the wire is as easy as knowing someone at a client newspaper. Agents from all governments and organizations are employed by newspapers. In fact, it's a very common "cover story" for legal and illegal agents operating in foriegn countries. Speaking only about the U.S., I beleive it's against our policies to pose agents as American press, but they can pose as British or Canadian press and skirt the law.
Naturally, we have agents at newspapers and television stations and wire outlets all over the world. And it's reasonable to assume that other countries do as well (Israel, Russia, Britian, etc.), maybe even inside OUR (American) media. It's been going on for decades but now it matters more than ever. A few faked photos, a fake story, some fake video dropped at the right moment can really make it seem like something totally different is going on. I'm not going to single anything out, but really how hard would it be to get a guy with a beard out on a Texas ranch with a small video crew and "make" a "bin Laden" video? Not that I think they did that but who knows?
Also, I highly recommend watching Wag the Dog if you haven't in a while. It's circa 1997 but still relevant today.
Speak for yourself, there, tiger.
In my opinion, there are 3 major groups of people in America.
1. The Chicken-Hawks. Creators of Freedom Fries and the stupid flag thing, they love Jesus, NASCAR and War. Their patron representatives are the conservative republicans. Side-effects of this group include abortion bans, the military-industrial complex, the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act and the Iraq War. They are scared of, and I quote: "Ragheads, Niggers, Jews, Wetbacks, and 'terrorists'".
2. The Lefties. Creators of the "War on Globalization" and Greenpeace, they love Wicca, Soccer and War. Their patron representatives cannot get elected right now, or ever. They relegate themselves to Indymedia.org and protests. Side effects of this group include Wiretapping initiatives, the rise of the Neo-Cons in '00, coffee houses and the Canada thing. They are scared of Militant Christians, logical debate, and growing up.
3. Everyone Else. Creators of the economy, common sense, the space program, etc., they love to worship whatever they worship in moderation, football and baseball, and Peace. Side effects of this group include a strong American economy, foreign policy that is just the right balance between isolationist and imperialist, and the 50-50 distribution of votes in the last election. These people are having a hard time deciding who they trust, so they vote almost at random based on maybe one hotbed issue that is different for each of them. They are afraid of Chicken Hawks and Lefties.
Television. The first frontier. Our mission. To boldly go where no iteration of Star Trek has gone before. Nowhere.