I don't mind if you seriously believe that the private ownership of guns is somehow an effective deterrent against the automatic weapons, tanks, B-52s, daisy-cutters and professional soldiers. And don't give me the silly line that the soldiers wouldn't fire on fellow citizens.
Guerilla war tactics didn't work for the Taliban and it would not work for you gun-loving "patriots" either. But hey, who cares about the logic and reality as long as you can maintain your belief in the blessed guns.
PS. I don't mind the tin-foil hat wearing, new-world-order-conspiracy folk either as long as they keep a distance and don't try to force my kids wear tin-foil too.
Is it right that Usenet authors will contribute their ideas without their consent and without compensation from those who profit from their work?
This is the standard practice in all sciences: information is to be shared freely. I don't see any problem with this. How could I "own" my Usenet posts anymore than I could own a public domain program I released on the net?
But then again the world seems to be breeding more and more people who wouldn't let other people pick up their dog's feces lest they should profit from it.
What Google has done has restored some of my confidence in the vitality and the future of the net. With all the spam and binaries filling the usenet these days makes the 80s and even early 90s look like golden days netwise.
So, do you expect to make money with the stuff you wrote on the net?
Usenet is a public network so anything you write there is public. If you don't like people seeing your old posts, well tough luck. Perhaps you should have thought about it before posting.
There's no god. Furthermore, evolution crawls forwards and even then only towards imperfection.
Grow up. We hold our fate in our own hands. At some point or other we'll have to start controlling our own genetic evolution -- just like we're doing with the cultural evolution right now.
That's the only way we can learn about the dangers involved.
If human cloning is driven underground by fearful luddite governments for "moral and ethical consideration" (and please keep religions out of this; this is an entirely secular matter), only the military, top criminals and other shadowy organizations will experiment with it and gain knowledge over the rest of us.
is reintroducing the concepts of fiscal responsibility and sensible management.
Let me, as a scientist doing basic research, to interpret this for you. What you mean is:
"smothering the skill and imagination of skilled scientists and engineers by chaining them with red tape and oppressing them with fiscal goals set by people who have no clue as to what the research concerns and how long it will take to get meaningful results"
Science is art. Fiscal responsibility and sensible management, taken to the extreme form the bureaucratic rats want it, kills the creative mindset.
And, do you really think that the majority of the US armed services would actually fire upon there own families?
Yes.
What is it that makes you think that American psyche has somehow changed from the civil war or is somehow different from that of all the other people in the world who have fired upon their fellow citizens?
New wiretapping laws, around 1000 people locked up with no right to habeas corpus and more to come. Straight from your Orwellian office of "Homeland Security"...
If you're going to invoke Occam's razor, it's going to say that this was a freak accident with the engine falling off after a catastrophic structural failure (maybe because of emergency cost-saving cuts in the maintenance by the failing airlines). No pilot can keep a passanger jet airborne if it becomes unbalanced by a weight of one missing engine.
new freedom: freedom from security.
If this is indeed a terrorist strike, just watch how quickly the other freedoms we now enjoy will disappear. Freedom of privacy, in particular, will be gone for good although this knee-jerk reaction won't bring back the security.
I'm a pragmatist. I believe in functional software in particular when it comes to software at my workplace.
If non-free software does the task better for MY purposes than free software, then non-free software it will be (xv versus kview, for instance) and vice versa.
If replacing "placeholder" non-free software with a free version means that I have to filter existing data or spend valuable time learning or re-learning a GUI then I will not switch. A good example would be StarOffice/Abiword vs. MS Office. If it's not broken, don't change anything. You might say that non-free software is, in a sense, "broken" but I disagree.
You're free to follow your ideology as religiously as you like. Just don't force your belief in software monoculture on the moderate majority of free software users.
I'm one of those individuals who are simply driven mad by excessive computer noise which means that anything over 50 dB is intolerable. In fact, some time ago I sold my 600 MHz Duron PC because I couldn't stand the noise the CPU fan alone made. A CPU fanless Sun Blade 100 with a low rpm hard drive was heaven after the previous noise polluter (the power supply still makes noise, though). I'm quite content with the trade-off I had to make between computer speed and noise.
I still blame the CPU manufacturers for ignoring the heat problem (=noise problem) at the altar of unnecessary performance, though.
Well, it reflects the way how real warfare has developed, really.
You could turn this to your advantage. Develop your stealth skills and become famous for your "special warfare" skills. Taking out your enemies by a well planned ambush sounds much better than "I sprayed them to death with my 10 barrel minigun".
Slashdot Mirror
Do you have any idea how much money is being spent on the misguided war on drugs?
Something like this could very well be used for drug interdiction amongst other tasks.
I don't mind if you seriously believe that the private ownership of guns is somehow an effective deterrent against the automatic weapons, tanks, B-52s, daisy-cutters and professional soldiers. And don't give me the silly line that the soldiers wouldn't fire on fellow citizens.
Guerilla war tactics didn't work for the Taliban and it would not work for you gun-loving "patriots" either. But hey, who cares about the logic and reality as long as you can maintain your belief in the blessed guns.
PS. I don't mind the tin-foil hat wearing, new-world-order-conspiracy folk either as long as they keep a distance and don't try to force my kids wear tin-foil too.
So, let's be subjective and chant the gun-nut mantra instead of being logical and objective, eh?
Well, in that case, based on my observations of the current state of human rights in Europe, I'd say that you're still wrong.
Oh you mean like in Europe and practically in every other western democracy?
Besides that's a "Slippery Slope" logical fallacy.
Thanks!
I never got the lmsensors to work until now.
Well, UN is looking for new World Heritage targets to sponsor... ;-)
This is the standard practice in all sciences: information is to be shared freely. I don't see any problem with this. How could I "own" my Usenet posts anymore than I could own a public domain program I released on the net?
But then again the world seems to be breeding more and more people who wouldn't let other people pick up their dog's feces lest they should profit from it.
What Google has done has restored some of my confidence in the vitality and the future of the net. With all the spam and binaries filling the usenet these days makes the 80s and even early 90s look like golden days netwise.
I don't see Microsoft publishing their software on a public part of the net.
What is it with you people? An marvellous and unique archive like this will become completely useless if people like you want to start censoring it.
Take the responsibility for your posts!
Usenet is a public network so anything you write there is public. If you don't like people seeing your old posts, well tough luck. Perhaps you should have thought about it before posting.
You can download PC DOS 7 (and DR DOS and MS DOS) here.
Right.
That kind of attitude will really encourage people in general to use Linux and encryption on a daily basis...
Grow up. We hold our fate in our own hands. At some point or other we'll have to start controlling our own genetic evolution -- just like we're doing with the cultural evolution right now.
That's the only way we can learn about the dangers involved.
If human cloning is driven underground by fearful luddite governments for "moral and ethical consideration" (and please keep religions out of this; this is an entirely secular matter), only the military, top criminals and other shadowy organizations will experiment with it and gain knowledge over the rest of us.
Let me, as a scientist doing basic research, to interpret this for you. What you mean is:
"smothering the skill and imagination of skilled scientists and engineers by chaining them with red tape and oppressing them with fiscal goals set by people who have no clue as to what the research concerns and how long it will take to get meaningful results"
Science is art. Fiscal responsibility and sensible management, taken to the extreme form the bureaucratic rats want it, kills the creative mindset.
Yes.
What is it that makes you think that American psyche has somehow changed from the civil war or is somehow different from that of all the other people in the world who have fired upon their fellow citizens?
New wiretapping laws, around 1000 people locked up with no right to habeas corpus and more to come. Straight from your Orwellian office of "Homeland Security"...
A airplane security expert just said on BBC World that the less of an engine would unbalance the plane so that it would become impossible to fly.
Anyone know if A300 a fly-by-wire plane?
Uh, and just what makes this time so special?
If you're going to invoke Occam's razor, it's going to say that this was a freak accident with the engine falling off after a catastrophic structural failure (maybe because of emergency cost-saving cuts in the maintenance by the failing airlines). No pilot can keep a passanger jet airborne if it becomes unbalanced by a weight of one missing engine.
new freedom: freedom from security.
If this is indeed a terrorist strike, just watch how quickly the other freedoms we now enjoy will disappear. Freedom of privacy, in particular, will be gone for good although this knee-jerk reaction won't bring back the security.
I'd say a missile or cannon would have ripped it apart.
I don't know if you're a troll, but I'll bite...
I'm a pragmatist. I believe in functional software in particular when it comes to software at my workplace.
If non-free software does the task better for MY purposes than free software, then non-free software it will be (xv versus kview, for instance) and vice versa.
If replacing "placeholder" non-free software with a free version means that I have to filter existing data or spend valuable time learning or re-learning a GUI then I will not switch. A good example would be StarOffice/Abiword vs. MS Office. If it's not broken, don't change anything. You might say that non-free software is, in a sense, "broken" but I disagree.
You're free to follow your ideology as religiously as you like. Just don't force your belief in software monoculture on the moderate majority of free software users.
Fans make noise. Period.
I'm one of those individuals who are simply driven mad by excessive computer noise which means that anything over 50 dB is intolerable. In fact, some time ago I sold my 600 MHz Duron PC because I couldn't stand the noise the CPU fan alone made. A CPU fanless Sun Blade 100 with a low rpm hard drive was heaven after the previous noise polluter (the power supply still makes noise, though). I'm quite content with the trade-off I had to make between computer speed and noise.
I still blame the CPU manufacturers for ignoring the heat problem (=noise problem) at the altar of unnecessary performance, though.
Ever noticed that the narrator guy sounds the same in every trailer?
I wonder if there's some kind of a MPAA approved trailer narrator school out there. Something like Microsoft's MCSA program.
You could turn this to your advantage. Develop your stealth skills and become famous for your "special warfare" skills. Taking out your enemies by a well planned ambush sounds much better than "I sprayed them to death with my 10 barrel minigun".