The problem here is that this should not be running by default and when it is running it should be obvious to the user by the use of a blinking icon or something to that effect.
One would think that the performanced degredation that always results from running speech recognition software (swapping up the ying-yang, slow responsiveness) would clue the user in that something was "wrong" here besides random character insertion. Of course (I wouldn't know), maybe windoze users are used to slow performance and swapping from bloatware like Office and cannot really tell that "something ain't right here on the performance front".
I gave at the office. Games do matter economically since MOST (I'd wager) computer buyers/users also buy games. It is a big moneymaker overall. Luxuries DO matter. People LOVE luxuries, that is why they are luxuries.
In any case, your response clearly shows that at least with entertainment software/games, I list a clear exception to the RMS rule that all software should be free.
I suppose the thousands online at any moment playing Quake, Everquest, etc, are insignificant? I suppose the reason the racks are FULL of games in software stores is insignificant. Demand drives games sales - the demand is clearly there. Not earth-shattering but hardly insignificant. Games are one of the MAIN things people expect to be able to use on a desktop system. No games, no buy.
It is exactly the level of fanaticism that RMS has about code being free that will absolutely prevent ANY commercial company making ANY software that works with HURD and thus relegates it to a peripheral role below that of the *BSDs.
It may be great for political purists/fanatic hackers, but it wont do squat for bringing on a hurd of new users.
LGPL was REQUIRED to get a lot of companies to do anything for linux. You think any would suddenly have a change of heart and do squat to support HURD apps? Not in a million years.
I think case law/precedent would trump the desires expressed in your post. Dynamic linking would likely be OK as far as the courts/case law is concerned no matter how much RMS throws a tantrum about it.
Don't be naive. He is obviously refering to RMS's insistence that ALL software be free and that there is NEVER justification to not make it free.
Hard, fast, rules rarely apply universally. RMS is a little too simple-minded on the whole idea, but that is easy when one comes from a fully developed First World country and has money to live on.
There are some things that should always be required to be opened and "free": communication standards on the internet, APIs, and all those things required to allow ALL systems to interoperate. Beyond that, all bets are off.
Just a quick question...how does this apply to computer game companies? How do you make money producing computer games if people expect to receive the hard artwork, design, programming for nothing? It DOES hurt people/programmer (certainly in this case) if they spend a couple years creating a great game and then are expected to give it away. There is no support contract to be had here. Updates/fixes are EXPECTED and are free. Also, not all games can be or should be multiplayer and thus there is no sure moneymaker in the form of a battle.net type system where you pay to play.
The "give it away for free" idea doesn't work for all software/situations. Rarely does ANY hard, fast rule.
Random noise. Random crap inserted in the RAM or buffers somewhere.
Voice rec is not exact, it involves algorithms to interpret sounds (noise) coming in the mic and convert it into what it THINKS the word was. Noise is the key here. It is (possibly) interpreting random system noise (or leaking EM?) inside the box as words.
I am addressing this to any possibility or intent for Hurd to make it in the more general population and, in particular, on the desktop. What would be the point of porting ANY GUI/environment like KDE, Gnome, etc, to work with HURD if it is ONLY intended to be used as a server? All you need is the CLI or, if you want a GUI, blackbox or something tiny and simple like that. It becomes pointless to port Gnome and KDE and all the multimedia, graphics (gimp, for instance), and other much desired things to HURD if it isn't intended to try to make it on the desktop too.
As a server-only system, no problem, but ANYTHING beyond that and you DO want wizbang drivers for hardware accelerated 3D graphics (games and scientific imaging by the way). You will no more get Nvidia to release their drivers to GPL on the HURD than they will for Linux - they are making no noises in that direction, as far as I know. So, you want perhaps the best of the graphics hardware...but with HURD you are politically prevented from using it? Silly. Keep your core OS pure but who gives a damn about what USERS run on THEIR system? Hancom Office, StarOffice 6.0 (not OpenOffice which is open), Wordperfect, halflife, quake, The Sims...it is NOT the place for RMS to prevent people from using/buying these things, that is ENTIRELY a user choice to make. Developers should accomodate the USER, not their own political agenda to the point that it a priori removes a LARGE segment of potential users from ever even considering using it.
Asking Nvidia to release their drivers is about as effective as asking a game company to produce and release a linux port. We all know what the answer to THAT is...it ain't gonna happen. Oh, and you will not get game companies to release their source either so RMS would deny the users the right to play games as they see fit (via wine if necessary) EVEN IF the company does release a linux version?!
If it is actually something that would be allowed, in userspace and apart from the HURD kernel then no problem - RMS really cannot stop people from installing closed source software. If the system is designed to block/make that difficult, then he has some personal issues to resolve - he's no dictator, afterall.
HURD MAY do OK as a server, but if one is restricted to the lowest-common-denominator opensource supported hardware, it is crippled at the start and will stay well behind the *BSDs, let alone linux.
Huh? The MILITARY has national security interests in this. Of COURSE they have say. They are NOT threatening to attack Redmond with B-52s if security issues aren't better dealt with, they are implying that M$ may lose a major customer if they don't clean up their crap. That is absolutely valid and correct.
Feel free to remove your aluminum foil hat and catch some sunshine.
Yeah, keep parroting this...then you should mention that at the same time the vulnerability was announced, a fix was available: download zlib-1.1.4. Sheesh. You NEVER get this responsiveness from M$. Also, the vulnerability wasn't a root exploit, you couldn't trash a system with it, couldn't use it to gain root.
Thanks...THAT is what I wanted to know. I can understand wanting to keep the actual code for the kernel pure but NOT preventing usability as demanded by users for some political dream. The enduser is (virtually) always right, not the developers.
Perhaps true...except for games. Games are not a "make money on support" area. They are hard, code-intensive, creatively challenging (if you care about good artwork and story) and are not ammenable to support. For SOME games you might be able to sell cheap and then make money on network play...something like a battle.net, but this is ONLY for games that are multiplayer (not all are or should be) AND liked by many.
Game companies are made or broken by software SALES, nothing else. You want games, you must pay for them or they just don't come.
So, since binary-only drivers and such are not allowed with HURD (that is what I take from the above, informative posting), there will be much less supported hardware, to say the least, then is possible with linux. If the HURD just MUST stick to some politically correct position no matter what, then kiss your nvidia cards goodbye on it. Kiss a lot of very desireable products and services goodbye.
If the whole HURD thing will have some leeway for non-GPL stuff in certain circumstances, then maybe no problem but right now, from where I sit, you get a largely crippled system and you will simply NOT get all the makers of the truly DESIRED hardware to release their drivers to GPL.
Err, excuse me but name a single war where there were NO civilian causualties. Name. One. You cannot. There are ALWAYS civilian causualties. All you can do is do your best to MINIMIZE and avoid them but you don't do so to the point that you cannot do ANYTHING for fear that a civilian or two will die. They DO die in EVERY war. That is stone-cold fact.
Again, IF you can make a small, clean(ish) nuke and it is realistically the best way to destroy a particular important target, then sure, it is useable. I don't suggest that a nuke should be used willy-nilly, just when absolutely appropriate.
Another fact of warfare - the point is to win with the LEAST amount of causualties for YOUR side (that means men, materiel, civilians on both sides). If that can BEST be accomplished with some form of nuke, then it is the best tool for the job. Fortunately, MOST targets can be handled with conventionals: daisycutters and fuel-air bombs can wipe out huge swaths of massed troops (or clear a thick forest area for use as a landing zone - that is what daisycutters were used for in Vietnam).
I do not have an automatic and thoughtless knee-jerk Pavlovian response to the idea of nukes. I wouldn't make them the first choice of tool but they absolutely CANNOT be simply ruled out without any thought at all.
Reality check: if Saddam had used any weapons of mass destruction during desert storm, the possibility of there being a nuke response was very real. Real enough that he DIDN'T use them against the coalition. If he had...in any case, he and his would not exist right now, nuke or no nuke response.
Nukes would have been used during a conventional-only invasion of Western Europe by the (then) Soviets too. The Soviets would not have NEEDED to use them first. If Western/Nato forces were looking to be overrun, nukes would have been used to prevent it.
Hard fallout IS a factor to consider if contemplating using a nuke. It IS part of the factoring that does/would take place because it addresses collateral damage. If a target could not be handled with conventional forces and weapons, and it was really important to eliminate that target - or if taking that target with conventional forces would cost too many lives (see physically invading Japan vs using two nukes - the overall causualties for BOTH sides would have been much higher if an invasion were done) then the equation favors use of the LEAST damaging solution in this case.
So, if using a nuke would save (overall) MORE enemy and allied lives, you would STILL be against it and thus in favor of killing as many of everyone as it takes otherwise? Easy to say for someone who doesn't have to actually DO the dirty work or have family members who do the heavy lifting and fighting.
The overall point is that you do not, a priori, automatically rule out response possibilities to a crisis situation. You look over the options, weigh the costs and benefits (lives lost vs lives saved, afteraffects aside from direct causualties, possible responses from others, etc). You look at ALL of it with a cold, logical eye and then make the decision. It is NOT logical nor reasonable to automagically bar a potential response option a priori and without any REAL consideration.
These are CONTINGENCY plans, not hard, fast rules. We've ALWAYS had them and they have ALWAYS included nuclear response options...ALWAYS. You are just vaguely AWARE of this particular contingency planning document. EVERY president for decades has faced situations where nuke options are presented. EVERY ONE OF THEM from Eisenhower to Clinton to Bush. Sheesh, get over it. No one has USED them have they? We have NEVER (and rightfully so) ruled out the option of using nukes. It IS a valid option to consider in this or that situation. Whether it is deemed the CORRECT response is altogether different isn't it now?
Huh? Evolution happens, period. It doesn't require supernovae or comet strikes or asteroid impacts. Such events merely act to change the course of evolution as it was situated at the time of the event.
Dinosaurs weren't static and unchanging, they were evolving just like everything else. Their evolutionary history merely came to an end with the probable K-T asteroid impact. It that hadn't happened, we would not be here but some other form of life would be - different dinosaurs or something else. Not necessarily (by ANY stretch) technically advanced life as we fashion ourselves, but something other than what is.
Evolution just happens. Its fortunes can be altered for any given species or genera, etc, by some catastrophic event but don't make the mistake of thinking that such episodes are required for evolution to happen.
You are actually rather ignorant and an totally naive. I served with the nuclear forces (B-52s) for the 4 years leading up to their final removal from nuclear alert in '91. We were not there playing pretend. We were there to USE the nukes when called to do so.
It wasn't some abstract idea, it was real. Very real. There IS call to use nukes in more than simply a situation following a ballistic nuke attack on the USA or its allies. It WOULD be appropriate and utterly defensible to use nukes against a country that hit us with chemical or biologicals. Any such country foreits it right to exist.
The Soviets/Russians have always had a pragmatic view on the use of nukes. It is about time WE did too. Nukes are just weapons.
How is using a single nuke different than dropping hundreds of HE bombs? Both can lead to the same level of destruction. It matters not if a target was destroyed by a nuke or HE, it is destroyed and there is no distinction. Destroyed in destroyed - unless you go with overkill. Of course it would be different if you used a multikiloton weapon against a small target that could have easily been handled by a load of precision conventionals. If, on the other hand, true deep devestation of a target is called for, then it IS valid to use the right tool for the job, and if that means nuke, so be it. You don't allow an enemy to get away with something simply because you think there should be some mystical, unpassable wall barring the use of a nuke.
If you can produce a nice, "clean", little nuke then fine. It may be the ONLY way to properly destroy a deep bunker with the LEAST amount of risk to our troops AND with reduced collateral effect.
Would you be against use of Fuel-air explosives against massed troops? They are conventional weapons yet they have the same localized thermal and pressure effects as a small nuke. Somehow a nuke with the SAME effects would magically be a no-no? Logically...WHY!? There is no logic nor rationality to your knee-jerk response. No doubt, you didn't actually read any of the articles, just the headlines or excerpts from which you automagically develop a Pavlovian reaction against it without thought. In any case, the DETAILS of the plans are unknown to you. None of these articles are THE actual plans - the DETAILS and actual facts remain unknown to you. But no doubt, even if they were known to you, you wouldn't actually SEE them and would maintain your Pavlovian response to anything with the nuke-word in it.
What to wear, what to wear?
on
To The Pain
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· Score: 2
So, does this mean I should wear tight black leather, studded collar, S&M mask, and have a "mistress" with me when I use this device?
Not at all. With Clinton, the focus for such favors was properly directed at the lovely sex. With Bush and his misdirected Republicans, they DO get sexual satisfaction from corporations. Their wet dreams are made up of visions of wasting the land, polluting the air, crushing the small guy all in the name of a fast buck.
Who's morality? Mine says abortion is OK and that embryonic stem cell research is totally OK. I don't know what you mean by "How far can we allow our morality..."
This is a reason that religion does absolutely NOT belong in government in any way shape or form. Science is science and marches to its own drum.
By the by...exactly WHERE did I say ANYTHING about Gnome in my original post? Nowhere. YOU took what I said, a fact that QT-based aa (which predates Gnome aa, by the way of another fact) looks better than what happens after using the libXft altered lib. You seem to have a chip on your shoulder, assuming a Gnome attack where there wasn't any.
I reported a fact. Plain and simple. I did not mention Gnome at all. I don't use it and couldn't care less how it does anything so there was no point in my holding your defensive hand.
Sorry clown. I am right. I did NOTHING to my system EXCEPT change the libXft.so.1.1 file as per the instructions. It totally dicked up the rendering, making it look HORRIBLE. I don't give a f*ck for how Gnome does aa, I don't use it. I would assume that if it dicks up KDE aa, and Gnome uses the same method, then it will also dick up Gnome rendering too.
You don't like FACTS that your problem. I reported a deadass fact. You have to learn to live with reality. Really. You do.
Matter of fact, I tried it TWICE. Independent attempts. Font rendering went UGLY each time I used the xft hacked lib vs the unaltered. Fact. Live with it.
Easy to cast stones from over here isn't it? WE don't have to live shoulder to shoulder, packed like sardines into limited space as they must in China. WE don't (yet) suffer the same overpopulation problems China does NOW.
I fully support the intention of their population control measures, if not necessarily the way they are carried out. Perhaps economic inducements to smaller families would be better (here AND there). Instead of payrolling big families with tax deductions and crap like that, make people actually pay the real cost of their overproduction of kids.
I just gave it a try and I must say that it looks frickin' horrible compared to the aa done in KDE/QT. I had to back it out to make the aa fonts on my system look better and more readable. Looking at the xft-based aa fonts from the hack made me think my glasses prescription was f*cked or that I had scum in my eyes.
Nice try and all but until it can do it as well as QT, it isn't ready for primetime.
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The problem here is that this should not be running by default and when it is running it should be obvious to the user by the use of a blinking icon or something to that effect.
One would think that the performanced degredation that always results from running speech recognition software (swapping up the ying-yang, slow responsiveness) would clue the user in that something was "wrong" here besides random character insertion. Of course (I wouldn't know), maybe windoze users are used to slow performance and swapping from bloatware like Office and cannot really tell that "something ain't right here on the performance front".
I gave at the office. Games do matter economically since MOST (I'd wager) computer buyers/users also buy games. It is a big moneymaker overall. Luxuries DO matter. People LOVE luxuries, that is why they are luxuries.
In any case, your response clearly shows that at least with entertainment software/games, I list a clear exception to the RMS rule that all software should be free.
I suppose the thousands online at any moment playing Quake, Everquest, etc, are insignificant? I suppose the reason the racks are FULL of games in software stores is insignificant. Demand drives games sales - the demand is clearly there. Not earth-shattering but hardly insignificant. Games are one of the MAIN things people expect to be able to use on a desktop system. No games, no buy.
It is exactly the level of fanaticism that RMS has about code being free that will absolutely prevent ANY commercial company making ANY software that works with HURD and thus relegates it to a peripheral role below that of the *BSDs.
It may be great for political purists/fanatic hackers, but it wont do squat for bringing on a hurd of new users.
LGPL was REQUIRED to get a lot of companies to do anything for linux. You think any would suddenly have a change of heart and do squat to support HURD apps? Not in a million years.
I think case law/precedent would trump the desires expressed in your post. Dynamic linking would likely be OK as far as the courts/case law is concerned no matter how much RMS throws a tantrum about it.
Don't be naive. He is obviously refering to RMS's insistence that ALL software be free and that there is NEVER justification to not make it free.
Hard, fast, rules rarely apply universally. RMS is a little too simple-minded on the whole idea, but that is easy when one comes from a fully developed First World country and has money to live on.
There are some things that should always be required to be opened and "free": communication standards on the internet, APIs, and all those things required to allow ALL systems to interoperate. Beyond that, all bets are off.
Just a quick question...how does this apply to computer game companies? How do you make money producing computer games if people expect to receive the hard artwork, design, programming for nothing? It DOES hurt people/programmer (certainly in this case) if they spend a couple years creating a great game and then are expected to give it away. There is no support contract to be had here. Updates/fixes are EXPECTED and are free. Also, not all games can be or should be multiplayer and thus there is no sure moneymaker in the form of a battle.net type system where you pay to play.
The "give it away for free" idea doesn't work for all software/situations. Rarely does ANY hard, fast rule.
Random noise. Random crap inserted in the RAM or buffers somewhere.
Voice rec is not exact, it involves algorithms to interpret sounds (noise) coming in the mic and convert it into what it THINKS the word was. Noise is the key here. It is (possibly) interpreting random system noise (or leaking EM?) inside the box as words.
I am addressing this to any possibility or intent for Hurd to make it in the more general population and, in particular, on the desktop. What would be the point of porting ANY GUI/environment like KDE, Gnome, etc, to work with HURD if it is ONLY intended to be used as a server? All you need is the CLI or, if you want a GUI, blackbox or something tiny and simple like that. It becomes pointless to port Gnome and KDE and all the multimedia, graphics (gimp, for instance), and other much desired things to HURD if it isn't intended to try to make it on the desktop too.
As a server-only system, no problem, but ANYTHING beyond that and you DO want wizbang drivers for hardware accelerated 3D graphics (games and scientific imaging by the way). You will no more get Nvidia to release their drivers to GPL on the HURD than they will for Linux - they are making no noises in that direction, as far as I know. So, you want perhaps the best of the graphics hardware...but with HURD you are politically prevented from using it? Silly. Keep your core OS pure but who gives a damn about what USERS run on THEIR system? Hancom Office, StarOffice 6.0 (not OpenOffice which is open), Wordperfect, halflife, quake, The Sims...it is NOT the place for RMS to prevent people from using/buying these things, that is ENTIRELY a user choice to make. Developers should accomodate the USER, not their own political agenda to the point that it a priori removes a LARGE segment of potential users from ever even considering using it.
Asking Nvidia to release their drivers is about as effective as asking a game company to produce and release a linux port. We all know what the answer to THAT is...it ain't gonna happen. Oh, and you will not get game companies to release their source either so RMS would deny the users the right to play games as they see fit (via wine if necessary) EVEN IF the company does release a linux version?!
If it is actually something that would be allowed, in userspace and apart from the HURD kernel then no problem - RMS really cannot stop people from installing closed source software. If the system is designed to block/make that difficult, then he has some personal issues to resolve - he's no dictator, afterall.
HURD MAY do OK as a server, but if one is restricted to the lowest-common-denominator opensource supported hardware, it is crippled at the start and will stay well behind the *BSDs, let alone linux.
Huh? The MILITARY has national security interests in this. Of COURSE they have say. They are NOT threatening to attack Redmond with B-52s if security issues aren't better dealt with, they are implying that M$ may lose a major customer if they don't clean up their crap. That is absolutely valid and correct.
Feel free to remove your aluminum foil hat and catch some sunshine.
Yeah, keep parroting this...then you should mention that at the same time the vulnerability was announced, a fix was available: download zlib-1.1.4. Sheesh. You NEVER get this responsiveness from M$. Also, the vulnerability wasn't a root exploit, you couldn't trash a system with it, couldn't use it to gain root.
Except that the Army has switched to Macs because of security headaches.
Thanks...THAT is what I wanted to know. I can understand wanting to keep the actual code for the kernel pure but NOT preventing usability as demanded by users for some political dream. The enduser is (virtually) always right, not the developers.
It might make a dent in M$ is the Air Force follows the Army's lead and switches to Apple. Pretty damn secure is Apple, love Macs or hate 'em.
Perhaps true...except for games. Games are not a "make money on support" area. They are hard, code-intensive, creatively challenging (if you care about good artwork and story) and are not ammenable to support. For SOME games you might be able to sell cheap and then make money on network play...something like a battle.net, but this is ONLY for games that are multiplayer (not all are or should be) AND liked by many.
Game companies are made or broken by software SALES, nothing else. You want games, you must pay for them or they just don't come.
So, since binary-only drivers and such are not allowed with HURD (that is what I take from the above, informative posting), there will be much less supported hardware, to say the least, then is possible with linux. If the HURD just MUST stick to some politically correct position no matter what, then kiss your nvidia cards goodbye on it. Kiss a lot of very desireable products and services goodbye.
If the whole HURD thing will have some leeway for non-GPL stuff in certain circumstances, then maybe no problem but right now, from where I sit, you get a largely crippled system and you will simply NOT get all the makers of the truly DESIRED hardware to release their drivers to GPL.
Err, excuse me but name a single war where there were NO civilian causualties. Name. One. You cannot. There are ALWAYS civilian causualties. All you can do is do your best to MINIMIZE and avoid them but you don't do so to the point that you cannot do ANYTHING for fear that a civilian or two will die. They DO die in EVERY war. That is stone-cold fact.
Again, IF you can make a small, clean(ish) nuke and it is realistically the best way to destroy a particular important target, then sure, it is useable. I don't suggest that a nuke should be used willy-nilly, just when absolutely appropriate.
Another fact of warfare - the point is to win with the LEAST amount of causualties for YOUR side (that means men, materiel, civilians on both sides). If that can BEST be accomplished with some form of nuke, then it is the best tool for the job. Fortunately, MOST targets can be handled with conventionals: daisycutters and fuel-air bombs can wipe out huge swaths of massed troops (or clear a thick forest area for use as a landing zone - that is what daisycutters were used for in Vietnam).
I do not have an automatic and thoughtless knee-jerk Pavlovian response to the idea of nukes. I wouldn't make them the first choice of tool but they absolutely CANNOT be simply ruled out without any thought at all.
Reality check: if Saddam had used any weapons of mass destruction during desert storm, the possibility of there being a nuke response was very real. Real enough that he DIDN'T use them against the coalition. If he had...in any case, he and his would not exist right now, nuke or no nuke response.
Nukes would have been used during a conventional-only invasion of Western Europe by the (then) Soviets too. The Soviets would not have NEEDED to use them first. If Western/Nato forces were looking to be overrun, nukes would have been used to prevent it.
Hard fallout IS a factor to consider if contemplating using a nuke. It IS part of the factoring that does/would take place because it addresses collateral damage. If a target could not be handled with conventional forces and weapons, and it was really important to eliminate that target - or if taking that target with conventional forces would cost too many lives (see physically invading Japan vs using two nukes - the overall causualties for BOTH sides would have been much higher if an invasion were done) then the equation favors use of the LEAST damaging solution in this case.
So, if using a nuke would save (overall) MORE enemy and allied lives, you would STILL be against it and thus in favor of killing as many of everyone as it takes otherwise? Easy to say for someone who doesn't have to actually DO the dirty work or have family members who do the heavy lifting and fighting.
The overall point is that you do not, a priori, automatically rule out response possibilities to a crisis situation. You look over the options, weigh the costs and benefits (lives lost vs lives saved, afteraffects aside from direct causualties, possible responses from others, etc). You look at ALL of it with a cold, logical eye and then make the decision. It is NOT logical nor reasonable to automagically bar a potential response option a priori and without any REAL consideration.
These are CONTINGENCY plans, not hard, fast rules. We've ALWAYS had them and they have ALWAYS included nuclear response options...ALWAYS. You are just vaguely AWARE of this particular contingency planning document. EVERY president for decades has faced situations where nuke options are presented. EVERY ONE OF THEM from Eisenhower to Clinton to Bush. Sheesh, get over it. No one has USED them have they? We have NEVER (and rightfully so) ruled out the option of using nukes. It IS a valid option to consider in this or that situation. Whether it is deemed the CORRECT response is altogether different isn't it now?
Huh? Evolution happens, period. It doesn't require supernovae or comet strikes or asteroid impacts. Such events merely act to change the course of evolution as it was situated at the time of the event.
Dinosaurs weren't static and unchanging, they were evolving just like everything else. Their evolutionary history merely came to an end with the probable K-T asteroid impact. It that hadn't happened, we would not be here but some other form of life would be - different dinosaurs or something else. Not necessarily (by ANY stretch) technically advanced life as we fashion ourselves, but something other than what is.
Evolution just happens. Its fortunes can be altered for any given species or genera, etc, by some catastrophic event but don't make the mistake of thinking that such episodes are required for evolution to happen.
You are actually rather ignorant and an totally naive. I served with the nuclear forces (B-52s) for the 4 years leading up to their final removal from nuclear alert in '91. We were not there playing pretend. We were there to USE the nukes when called to do so.
It wasn't some abstract idea, it was real. Very real. There IS call to use nukes in more than simply a situation following a ballistic nuke attack on the USA or its allies. It WOULD be appropriate and utterly defensible to use nukes against a country that hit us with chemical or biologicals. Any such country foreits it right to exist.
The Soviets/Russians have always had a pragmatic view on the use of nukes. It is about time WE did too. Nukes are just weapons.
How is using a single nuke different than dropping hundreds of HE bombs? Both can lead to the same level of destruction. It matters not if a target was destroyed by a nuke or HE, it is destroyed and there is no distinction. Destroyed in destroyed - unless you go with overkill. Of course it would be different if you used a multikiloton weapon against a small target that could have easily been handled by a load of precision conventionals. If, on the other hand, true deep devestation of a target is called for, then it IS valid to use the right tool for the job, and if that means nuke, so be it. You don't allow an enemy to get away with something simply because you think there should be some mystical, unpassable wall barring the use of a nuke.
If you can produce a nice, "clean", little nuke then fine. It may be the ONLY way to properly destroy a deep bunker with the LEAST amount of risk to our troops AND with reduced collateral effect.
Would you be against use of Fuel-air explosives against massed troops? They are conventional weapons yet they have the same localized thermal and pressure effects as a small nuke. Somehow a nuke with the SAME effects would magically be a no-no? Logically...WHY!? There is no logic nor rationality to your knee-jerk response. No doubt, you didn't actually read any of the articles, just the headlines or excerpts from which you automagically develop a Pavlovian reaction against it without thought. In any case, the DETAILS of the plans are unknown to you. None of these articles are THE actual plans - the DETAILS and actual facts remain unknown to you. But no doubt, even if they were known to you, you wouldn't actually SEE them and would maintain your Pavlovian response to anything with the nuke-word in it.
So, does this mean I should wear tight black leather, studded collar, S&M mask, and have a "mistress" with me when I use this device?
Not at all. With Clinton, the focus for such favors was properly directed at the lovely sex. With Bush and his misdirected Republicans, they DO get sexual satisfaction from corporations. Their wet dreams are made up of visions of wasting the land, polluting the air, crushing the small guy all in the name of a fast buck.
Who's morality? Mine says abortion is OK and that embryonic stem cell research is totally OK. I don't know what you mean by "How far can we allow our morality..."
This is a reason that religion does absolutely NOT belong in government in any way shape or form. Science is science and marches to its own drum.
By the by...exactly WHERE did I say ANYTHING about Gnome in my original post? Nowhere. YOU took what I said, a fact that QT-based aa (which predates Gnome aa, by the way of another fact) looks better than what happens after using the libXft altered lib. You seem to have a chip on your shoulder, assuming a Gnome attack where there wasn't any.
I reported a fact. Plain and simple. I did not mention Gnome at all. I don't use it and couldn't care less how it does anything so there was no point in my holding your defensive hand.
Sorry clown. I am right. I did NOTHING to my system EXCEPT change the libXft.so.1.1 file as per the instructions. It totally dicked up the rendering, making it look HORRIBLE. I don't give a f*ck for how Gnome does aa, I don't use it. I would assume that if it dicks up KDE aa, and Gnome uses the same method, then it will also dick up Gnome rendering too.
You don't like FACTS that your problem. I reported a deadass fact. You have to learn to live with reality. Really. You do.
Matter of fact, I tried it TWICE. Independent attempts. Font rendering went UGLY each time I used the xft hacked lib vs the unaltered. Fact. Live with it.
Care for a frickin' screenshot buttf*ck?
Easy to cast stones from over here isn't it? WE don't have to live shoulder to shoulder, packed like sardines into limited space as they must in China. WE don't (yet) suffer the same overpopulation problems China does NOW.
I fully support the intention of their population control measures, if not necessarily the way they are carried out. Perhaps economic inducements to smaller families would be better (here AND there). Instead of payrolling big families with tax deductions and crap like that, make people actually pay the real cost of their overproduction of kids.
I just gave it a try and I must say that it looks frickin' horrible compared to the aa done in KDE/QT. I had to back it out to make the aa fonts on my system look better and more readable. Looking at the xft-based aa fonts from the hack made me think my glasses prescription was f*cked or that I had scum in my eyes.
Nice try and all but until it can do it as well as QT, it isn't ready for primetime.