Bad analogy, the seatbelts/insurance agencies vs RIAA. You not wearing a seatbelt doesn't just cost the insurance company when you have a wreck, it costs ME because the rates for EVERYONE goes up to cover the expanded costs accrued by non-belted drivers (who experience MUCH worse/costly injuries).
Since your (the collective "your" not the individual "your") stupid decision to NOT wear a seatbelt directly costs me, it is only right that you be prevented from stealing money from me in this way. It in no way hinders your driving ability or freedom to travel, and it reduces costs to the country.
Now then, if a law were passed that said it is OK to NOT wear a seatbelt or helmet (on a motorcycle) BUT by making this decision, you forfeit all insurance coverage and any right to sue other parties involved in an accident, THEN I would go for the no seatbelt/no helmet decision. Then, it would be totally up to the individual to suck up the cost of treatment, all alone, instead of sticking me and everyone else with increased bills.
Viruses are a non-issue. There can be no danger of Martian viruses for several reasons, of which one you already address. A virus is ABSOLUTELY dependent upon living cells in order to reproduce. They are the ultimate parasite. They cannot exist unless cells exist FIRST and they are tightly evolved to work with those specific cells. Thus, Martian viruses require Martian cells and CANNOT infect human cells.
...And another thing, viruses can be robust but they aren't THAT robust. A good, healthy virus on earth can survive for a few weeks, at best, in a favorable environment (on a napkin, a sink). With Mars, you are talking needing to survive, essentially inert, for likely 100s of thousands of years AT BEST (more likely millions). No way. Not a virus. The dry, dessicated conditions of Mars are not conducive to longterm survival of any DNA or RNA. The ultraviolet radiation levels are antithetical to same.
Now a bacterium of some sort, particularly a bacterium that can form spores...they can last for a good long time (in some cases, they are known to last over 100 years no problem).
The main danger for Mars samples is not contamination of earth/humans - it is contamination by earth/humans of Mars samples. Nothing would suck more than to find evidence of biological material on a Martian sample only to later find that it was earthly contamination.
Doh! I hit the wrong link and wasn't directed at the site I thought I was getting directed to.
No, Dorothy, it is impossible to access the site with konquerer, no matter what useragent setting you use.
Very much in the spirit of the Corporate Government that M$ and others are trying to install the world-over. The UK gov't is the first to fall in line with the Corporate States officially.
ANY gov't site should be accessible to ANYONE that needs/wants to access it. It is not the job of the government (ANY gov't) to dictate what computer, os, software, etc, that one must use to gain the "priviledge" of accessing gov't services.
The web is designed to be based on standards (not M$ standards - OPEN standards that anyone can use). The web does NOT belong to Gates. It does not belong to ANY single entity. Worst of all, NO government has the right to dictate that its people MUST use Gates' software (hence, PAY Gates and Co) in order to gain access to gov't services. Basically, the UK gov't has instituted an access tax payable to M$ before you are allowed to access its services.
My big hope is that there would be a huge outcry if the US gov't tried to institute an M$ tax in order for US citizens to have the right to access gov't services. Besides, there are laws here that work to prevent that. Access must be possible for any and all - the US gov't isn't allowed to discriminate.
I immediately went to the site when I read this abomination. I used konqueror from my KDE 2.2 alpha install. I didn't have a problem. I get the website, I click on the links and it works fine. I haven't (yet, at any rate) found anything that doesn't work.
Could someone indicate what links on the page are the offending links so I could give em a go?
Incidently, I didn't set my useragent to specify anything so it is reporting itself as "konqueror..."
Uhm...I believe that M$ has installed a little phraseology in their click-thru licenses that says that they cannot be held responsible for damages wrought by their software.
Wanting to have someone to sue is a nonsense issue, as a result. You cannot sue M$ because their crappy software got rooted and all your credit card info was accessed by a cracker. You are SOL and YOU are possibly subject to lawsuit by the injured cardholders. M$ is most assuredly NOT going to be nailed for their crappy software.
Redhat is working to provide a similar-style service to.NET. If you want support you go to them (that is where they make their money - supporting their products/services afterall). Any business that laments there not being a point-of-contact for a opensource software package is full of crap. You can go to Redhat, Mandrake, etc...whichever company/distro is providing you the service/package. They will also very likely fix your problem MUCH faster than M$ would.
Bullcrap. I am not even really talking about Netscape. I am talking about producing web pages that do not REQUIRE a particular browser in order to be useful and viewable.
That is EASILY doable - and I have written such pages. I was targetting getting information out to any and all, not just to people with Windoze or with the latest crappola video/graphics toys. That is fluff. It has a place but it is not the end-all be-all of websites.
There are enough graphics, sound, etc, libs and tools out there that do not require Netscape OR IE to be useable in any case. Stick with those instead of asf and such crap and you will allow ANYONE to view your page, including your animations or video, regardless of the browser they use (within reason...lynx and the like are not for graphics/sound. What the f*ck is SO damn hard about using tools that are platform/browser-independent?! NOTHING. Laziness and wanting to play with new useless tools for the hell of it is the only reason. That, or being employed by M$ and wanting to work with M$ to try to make the www belong to M$ (note: it doesn't and never will).
Re:Doolittle's Raid More Important Than Many Think
on
Review: Pearl Harbor
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· Score: 2
The Doolittle Raid was a bit more than what you say. It was a CRUCIAL moral-booster for the American public. Shortly after getting creamed at Pearl Harbor, we turned around and stung the Japanese right back. Instant hooray and boost to the public in the aftermath shock of Pearl.
Militarily, sure, the Doolittle Raid was a modest move against the Japanese - but it had its psychological and moral-affecting aspect to it for the Japanese. "We can hit you even across the great Pacific. You are NOT safe." Boom, a small shake to the moral of the Japanese in the aftermath of the Pearl attack.
I have an idea. Instead of writing crappy web pages for a specific non-standards-compliant browser, you could create GOOD webpages that work within standards and can be viewed/used by ANY browser (not just IE or NS...there ARE others...and the web is supposed to be based on STANDARDS, not M$ crap).
If you created pages that work with any browser, then you could lose the crutch of crappy graphical wizbangs and sounds, each a bandwidth hog, and stick to good, intelligent content.
Don't use asf, instead use mov or, better, mpeg for movie stuff...then ANYONE can see them. Don't use docs, use html (standard) or xml (standard) or just plain ascii text documents so that ANYONE can download/view them.
A good webpage is a page that doesn't require IE or doesn't require NS to view properly. All such pages indicate are poor coding and poor design, and a desire to prevent a lot of people from viewing your site.
Berlin is an attempt at this very thing. Unfortunately, it is getting nowhere fast. The biggest hurdle...it would break just about every graphical application in existence for linux/bsd. It may be easy to say "replace X with something better" but in practice there is a HUGE amount of inertia and resistance.
Subjugation? At $1000 per day vs $200? Also, why is it "subjugation" or objectification of women if a woman has a guy in one of these video going down on her? It's damned if you do and damned if you don't. A guy having sex with a women on film is subjugation of women. A woman blowing a guy on film is subjugation of women. A GUY going down on a woman on film is subjugation of women. Multiple men on one woman is subjugation of women. Multiple women on one man is subjugation of women.
This gets to the point of the extreme view of some whacked out feminists that ANY sex with a man is rape or subjugation of women. Come on!
Actually, RU-486 is certain to attract the nutbar religious types as soon as it is mentioned so it was directed at any that stumbled upon the post. I had no idea about you but figured it would certainly garner a response.
RU-486 has been used for YEARS in Europe without any huge problem. Like ANY drug (including aspirin) there are potential for adverse side-effects. On another note, did you know that RU-486 shows promise as an anti-cancer drug as well as having use terminating pregnancies? Did you know that ANY anti-cancer drug would also be a pretty good pregnancy terminator as well?
Side-effect scares are often ridiculous. I see TV commercials for birth-control pills or pain relievers, etc, and they always list "possible side effects" because they are required to...but they also fail to mention that the side-effects are incredibly rare. Of the side-effects that happen often, they are usually very mild.
I don't believe the commercials should have to post the side-effects that are theoretically possible. That is what pharmacists and doctors do, tell you what the side-effects may be. If a side-effect must be mentioned, then it should be put in perspective and mentioned with ABSOLUTE accuracy - ie, 1 in 10,000 women using RU-486 experience excessive, though non-life-threatening bleeding or 1 in 250,000 experience migraines, etc. It is INACCURATE to simply state that this or that side-effect could happen without stating what the REAL chance is - very rare. Women are not dropping like flies in Europe.
I am considering a population control virus that attacks the ovaries of women and/or seminal vesicles of men. The virus would render the infected sterile. Preferably it would only be somewhat effective so that it could be used on nutbar religious fanatics and prevent them from breeding.
Alternatively, a variation of brucellosis so that it will infect humans. Brucellosis causes abortion in cattle and bison. Modify that sucker a little bit and release it in a few nutbar religious fanatic onclaves and POP! Abortion city!
Sure, if one has the full genetic information on an individual plus the means and ability to engineer a bug of some sort - likely a virus - then one could devise a weapon that would affect an individual - for a bit - but after release, you lose all control.
The problem is that viruses replicate rapidly and invariably mutate faster than the cells they infect. Even if their DNA replication fidelity was as high as that of the cell they infect, the fact that they must replicate so rapidly means that they will mutate substantially faster than any cell they infect. This means that once you release your virus to nail person X, it will experience mutations, some of which will alter its affinity for this or that receptor. That means that it will develop a partial "interest" in someone with a similar, though different, receptor.
To make it specific for infecting a single person, you must choose a person-specific receptor, period. You COULD make the virus very promiscuous and able to infect anyone but have it engineered to produce a protein that attacks and destroys a specific, but critical, protein/enzyme in you target person alone...but the same problem arises. Viruses experience an accelerated evolution as a result of their rapid replication. If they don't replicate rapidly, they wont reproduce enough virus to do anything but irritate (slightly) your target...like a minor cold at worst. Their immune system would make quick work of the virus and any cells infected with it.
You must have a rapidly replicating virus that can spread too fast to do anything about. This means mutations - it is inevitable. These mutations WOULD lead to a change in host range from your one person to others with similar genetic characteristics to your target. Once that happens, it keeps going and you get a fast dispersal and less specificity of target.
Nothing can change this biological fact. To do any damage to your target, the virus must replicate rapidly. Replicating WILL lead to mutations. Some of those mutations, among the millions and millions of viruses produced, will lead to expanded host range. Once that happens, the cat is out of the bag.
Some nutbar might well try this sort of thing but it wont work as intended. It cannot. The moment it leaves their lab/hands, they lose all control of the future evolution of that virus. It will mutate and be acted upon by selection and that is well beyond their control. What was intended to kill one person would likely spread and then either soften up and become more benign (killing your host before you can infect a new one is NOT an evolutionarily stable strategy) or, if killing rapidly allows it to spread nontheless, then it will remain lethal - but lethal to non-targets.
Problems of targeting as well as control once released are some of the main reasons that biological warfare hasn't been used much in the past. For a weapon to be effective, you must be able to control where it goes and who it takes out. You cannot control the wind, you cannot control the vagaries of mutation, you cannot control a virus or bacteria once you release it from its laboratory-controlled environment.
I should also emphasize software beyond games here. Word, for instance, expands in size and complexity to match hardware capability (both storage capacity and CPU power). Lots of big apps do this. You MUST upgrade your older CPU to the more recent designs and speeds if you wish or need to use what software designers are providing.
PPC is NO different, it is just not the prime focus of most software development. Besides, you CAN run a lot of the modern apps on a Pentium, for instance, but it would be slow. The same holds for the PPC - you could run modern apps on your original PPC 601 or 604 but it would be slow. Upgrade to the latest to get the speed...or are Apple users more tolerant of slow startup times, slow system response, etc? I don't think so.
In any case, there are 486s still in productive use. They may not make good desktop systems but they can handle various server functions or network functions just fine. That doesn't sound any worse than what we in my school lab are doing with an OLD mac ix (or whatever it is). It is a print server for a couple lab printers. That is all it is good for now because it cannot handle modern apps - because its not PPC and even if this wasn't a problem, the CPU is too damn slow for today's apps regardless.
So...how is the PPC so magically different than the x86 that it is impossible to make it as cheap as x86 chips? It isn't in any way different. The stumbling block is Moto can barely pump them out right now to keep Apple supplied. IBM is focused on other things. Apple has a lock on the market.
Jobs couldn't take the heat of cloner competition and so instead of doing better and COMPETING, he killed the cloners before they could get a foothold. THAT killed the commodity PPC system market, and economics followed. Hell, if he had competition, MacOS wouldn't have remained stagnant and unchanging for virtually its entire existence until the VERY recent release of MacOS X. That is the ONLY real upgrade to MacOS since its inception.
In a competitive market, Apple would have actually had to improve their OS along with everything else - plus bring the price of their hardware down to match the cheaper prices availabl to CHRP users.
Instead, Jobs killed the cloners, eliminated the competition before they had a foothold, and was able to keep Macs in the dark ages of OS design until very recently when the weight of the MacOS inferiority just couldn't sustain it anymore. A new OS with new guts was a MUST. Hence you now have OS X which is finally on par with Windoze and Linux and many other unices (I mean, come ON. Why did it take sooooooooooooo long to finally get preemptive multitasking into a Mac? GUI look and feel will only take you so far before its functional weaknesses send it into the crapper).
If the cloners hadn't been killed before they could get anywhere, Macs would be competing on PPC systems head-to-head against WinPPC, OS/2 (maybe...IBM probably would have bungled it on the PPC just as badly as they did on the x86), and later, linux. They (Apple) would have had to innovate faster and better and cheaper to stand up to the competition. YOU as an Apple user would be better off for it. Instead, you are subject to the whim of ONE man...Jobs - and what HE thinks is best for YOU. You get what HE wants you to get, hardware and software.
Apple was against the CHRP. There WERE plans to be able to load MacOS on the clones, just as with WinNT and OS/2. Jobs took over, killed the cloners, this, in turn, essentially killed CHRP.
Apple DID have a hand (a big hand) in killing CHRP boards and the cloners. They are gone BECAUSE of Jobs. They didn't just fade away due to lack of demand. There was interest, this scared Apple and Jobs because it was competition for the then struggling Apple. Jobs didn't want ANY loosening of the hardware reigns vis a vis PPC. He wanted (and wants) to be the ONLY supply of PPC systems for the consumer. This IS no better than Gates and M$.
I recall the CHRP boards days (I emphasize "days" since that is about how long they lasted, largely due to Apple machinations).
I was THIS close to buying a dual PPC 604 motherboard, but waited because there were supply problems (I don't recall exactly but I believe it was for PPC chips) which left the CPU prices quite high relative to x86 chips. This was also at the time when the "standard" was still unsolidified - who wants to buy a motherboard that was within weeks of being out of wack with regards to new CHRP standards, etc? Not long after this, Apple killed the cloners and this aborted the non-Apple PPC hardware market before it got to the 3-cell stage.
You have to actually give it a little TIME for a market to take off (and you need to have a solid set of standards so that there are no worries that what you JUST bought will go incompatible with everything produced in a few months hence). The standards were not solidified, the market wasn't allowed to develop, and the prices/supplies of PPC cpus was high/low respectively.
I would NEVER buy a PPC cpu from Moto or IBM at this point. The cost is way too high when I can grab an Athlon of equivalent performance for a fraction of the price and stick it in a commodity GOOD motherboard that isn't suffering from rapid standards changes.
If the market for PPC hardware (separate from Apple stuff) had been allowed to actually start up and grow, there would likely still be a Doze for PPC to go along with LinuxPPC, and there would likely be some apps to run on it. The only apps available for PPC now are the relatively few Apple-specific apps (I emphasize "relative few" because that is fact).
At this point, if one were to cough up the money to build a PPC system from components, unless you had MacOS on it alongside your LinuxPPC, you would have a VERY limited supply of software available. You could acquire more linux apps (not a single commercial game, no staroffice) if you were willing and able to do a buttload of cross-compiling.
This situation would be much different today if Apple didn't torpedo CHRP and kill off the cloners. There would be a ready and steady supply of component hardware today because the market would have been allowed to grow and mature. Loki would be releasing games for x86 and PPC, and PPC would stand a chance of going somewhere on the desktop.
With just Apple having it (the PPC), it is destined to remain a minor fraction of desktop system market. Have no illusions, the PC-Windoze dominance is not threatened by Apple and its overwhelming dominant position isn't going to come crashing down (unfortunately...though I certainly don't simply want Apple to replace M$, which is EXACTLY what Jobs wants).
Yeah, I KNOW I dicked up "their" vs "they're". Big deal. It is too late to correct such errors once the submit button is hit. The important part is the message, not the details of the message. That's noise.
The problem remains. Apple has a situation set up in which the only way to get a PPC computer is to buy one of THEIR computers with THEIR os on it. You have no choice. You want the hardware? You have to pay the Apple tax to get it. This is just as wrong as the M$ tax that virtually requires that you pay M$ for the right to a complete computer setup. You cannot buy a PC without an os on it. You CAN build one from easily obtained parts. This is where the x86/PC side differs and is superior to the PPC side. You have to go through a single company to get a coherent PPC computer and are not in any way given the power or option to build yourself.
I actually have a nice vidcard (radeon). I didn't mention videocards because even with a good one, there comes a point at which it just isn't up to handling newer games. CPU cycles do get used more and more, inspite of graphics cards, with newer and newer games.
You start getting fancy "smart" AI and other background activity and it requires the CPU. The better and more dense all that becomes, the more load is placed on the CPU.
The whole argument about having to upgrade/alter your motherboard is bogus. If software vendors dedicated as much work to making PPC apps as they do to making x86 apps, then PPC systems would have to be upgraded every coupble years too.
Because software is targeted primarily at x86 - because it is virtually the entire desktop/workstation market all around the world - and because the software competition is so hot, they push the envelope. Game developers are particularly into this. You give them X amount of processing power and they will consume it as fast as they can. Then they will go on to surpass it, anticipating an improved chip next year, etc. You want the latest and greatest software? Then every couple years you need to update your processing power to match it.
This isn't an inherent weakness of the x86 design, it is reality regardless of the design. If the roles were reversed, then we would all be upgrading our PPC cpus every few years so we could keep framerates up and make use of the latest productivity suite version.
PPCs are NOT orders of magnitude faster than their x86 rivals. They are on par but they lack the focus of the VAST majority of software
developers.
For embedded systems, there is no reason to upgrade CPUs or motherboards. You can use the same, slow, simple CPU next year as you did last year, and the year before. A microwave oven is NOT a clock-cycle hog. A car is NOT a clock-cycle hog.
So you prefer to waste CPU clock cycles on sound rather than doing the proper way with a dedicated sound processors? Does this mean that you also consider the proper way to do modems is to have the CPU handle that too?
The proper way to do this is with dedicate DSPs, leaving the CPU to do important and better things. Leave the graphics heavy lifting to the graphics chip, the sound processing to the sound processor, and the modem function should be handled by a dedicated DSP too, not the CPU.
Ah, so will the Apple Store build a system to my spec? This means NO MACOS on it. Will they provide me a computer without MacOS installed? No? They can blow it out their pooper then.
Can I simply order a motherboard and CPU? That is my spec. A mobo and cpu, nothing else (becauee I have a PERFECTLY good ATX case, keyboard, monitor, video card, etc). No? Then they can blow it out their pooper.
It isn't that hard to understand. The PROBLEM is that if you want a PPC system, unless you are willing to shell out a buttload for a high-end puter, then you are STUCK buying an Apple. You have NO choice but to give Jobs money.
We want nothing more than CPUs, motherboards, etc, that we can put together and then install whatever we want on it, be it OEM MacOS, Linux, or what have you. We are against being required to pay Apple a premium (a tax, if you will) so we can get around that damn MacOS and use what we want...the hardware with the software of our choice.
It is NOT acceptable to simply say "Buy a Mac and install linux." No. This requires you to BUY AN APPLE, which means you are paying Jobs & Co, and getting an OS you don't want, a single button mouse that belongs in the trashbin of history, a case design that you may or may not care for. Bullcrap.
With x86, I can buy a cpu...ALONE. I can buy from any of a dozen mobo makers a decent motherboard to stick the CPU into. I can buy a case, fancy or basic, I can buy empty harddrives and everything else, stick it all together and have a system that has never seen Gates' OS and didn't require payment of an M$ tax. You ask that we forsake the M$ tax and accept an Apple tax. Piss off.
It's more than just a simple hardware availability issue at this point. What software will you run on your non-Apple PPC? Sure, you could run linux apps that you cross-compile (LinuxPPC is always behind the x86 linux, so this will mean in software as well). If you like games, oh well, yer skrewd. No games and the games you already bought are useless.
Nobody makes games for PPC systems, fer Cthulhu's sake. Yea, some will get all whiney and scream how wrong I am...except there are sh*tloads of games for the x86 (and doze, of course) and a mere pittance for the Mac on PPC. None at all right now for MacOS X.
You go PPC, you are choosing to go into a software wilderness inhabited by a very few scattered far and wide.
I think we are arguing at cross-purposes. I reject, absolutely, claims by anyone that make a statement: "Kubrick's 2001 is and allegory about X" and ANY other such statement. No, 2001 is a sci-fi story about an obelisk of alien manufacture that has impacted on human evolution and affected our destiny. Kubrick may have had a few things in mind besides this face value when he wrote it but it was more than likely NOT what the author of the goofy piece that started this states it is.
To HIM 2001 contains those meanings but it is absolutely incorrect and undefendable to state catagorically that this or that meaning is hidden in the work. No. If you can present Kubrick's journal or notes and they state that, then you can make that claim. Otherwise, it is simply a matter that in YOUR eyes (and mind) 2001 has this meaning or contains that reference. It certainly doesn't contain any of that for me and it didn't for Kubrick, the creator of the work. As long as the statement of "fact" is qualified and limited to exactly what it is, then it floats. Otherwise it sinks like an anchor and is merely hot air.
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Bad analogy, the seatbelts/insurance agencies vs RIAA. You not wearing a seatbelt doesn't just cost the insurance company when you have a wreck, it costs ME because the rates for EVERYONE goes up to cover the expanded costs accrued by non-belted drivers (who experience MUCH worse/costly injuries).
Since your (the collective "your" not the individual "your") stupid decision to NOT wear a seatbelt directly costs me, it is only right that you be prevented from stealing money from me in this way. It in no way hinders your driving ability or freedom to travel, and it reduces costs to the country.
Now then, if a law were passed that said it is OK to NOT wear a seatbelt or helmet (on a motorcycle) BUT by making this decision, you forfeit all insurance coverage and any right to sue other parties involved in an accident, THEN I would go for the no seatbelt/no helmet decision. Then, it would be totally up to the individual to suck up the cost of treatment, all alone, instead of sticking me and everyone else with increased bills.
Viruses are a non-issue. There can be no danger of Martian viruses for several reasons, of which one you already address. A virus is ABSOLUTELY dependent upon living cells in order to reproduce. They are the ultimate parasite. They cannot exist unless cells exist FIRST and they are tightly evolved to work with those specific cells. Thus, Martian viruses require Martian cells and CANNOT infect human cells.
...And another thing, viruses can be robust but they aren't THAT robust. A good, healthy virus on earth can survive for a few weeks, at best, in a favorable environment (on a napkin, a sink). With Mars, you are talking needing to survive, essentially inert, for likely 100s of thousands of years AT BEST (more likely millions). No way. Not a virus. The dry, dessicated conditions of Mars are not conducive to longterm survival of any DNA or RNA. The ultraviolet radiation levels are antithetical to same.
Now a bacterium of some sort, particularly a bacterium that can form spores...they can last for a good long time (in some cases, they are known to last over 100 years no problem).
The main danger for Mars samples is not contamination of earth/humans - it is contamination by earth/humans of Mars samples. Nothing would suck more than to find evidence of biological material on a Martian sample only to later find that it was earthly contamination.
Doh! I hit the wrong link and wasn't directed at the site I thought I was getting directed to.
No, Dorothy, it is impossible to access the site with konquerer, no matter what useragent setting you use.
Very much in the spirit of the Corporate Government that M$ and others are trying to install the world-over. The UK gov't is the first to fall in line with the Corporate States officially.
ANY gov't site should be accessible to ANYONE that needs/wants to access it. It is not the job of the government (ANY gov't) to dictate what computer, os, software, etc, that one must use to gain the "priviledge" of accessing gov't services.
The web is designed to be based on standards (not M$ standards - OPEN standards that anyone can use). The web does NOT belong to Gates. It does not belong to ANY single entity. Worst of all, NO government has the right to dictate that its people MUST use Gates' software (hence, PAY Gates and Co) in order to gain access to gov't services. Basically, the UK gov't has instituted an access tax payable to M$ before you are allowed to access its services.
My big hope is that there would be a huge outcry if the US gov't tried to institute an M$ tax in order for US citizens to have the right to access gov't services. Besides, there are laws here that work to prevent that. Access must be possible for any and all - the US gov't isn't allowed to discriminate.
I immediately went to the site when I read this abomination. I used konqueror from my KDE 2.2 alpha install. I didn't have a problem. I get the website, I click on the links and it works fine. I haven't (yet, at any rate) found anything that doesn't work.
Could someone indicate what links on the page are the offending links so I could give em a go?
Incidently, I didn't set my useragent to specify anything so it is reporting itself as "konqueror..."
Uhm...I believe that M$ has installed a little phraseology in their click-thru licenses that says that they cannot be held responsible for damages wrought by their software.
Wanting to have someone to sue is a nonsense issue, as a result. You cannot sue M$ because their crappy software got rooted and all your credit card info was accessed by a cracker. You are SOL and YOU are possibly subject to lawsuit by the injured cardholders. M$ is most assuredly NOT going to be nailed for their crappy software.
Redhat is working to provide a similar-style service to .NET. If you want support you go to them (that is where they make their money - supporting their products/services afterall). Any business that laments there not being a point-of-contact for a opensource software package is full of crap. You can go to Redhat, Mandrake, etc...whichever company/distro is providing you the service/package. They will also very likely fix your problem MUCH faster than M$ would.
Bullcrap. I am not even really talking about Netscape. I am talking about producing web pages that do not REQUIRE a particular browser in order to be useful and viewable.
That is EASILY doable - and I have written such pages. I was targetting getting information out to any and all, not just to people with Windoze or with the latest crappola video/graphics toys. That is fluff. It has a place but it is not the end-all be-all of websites.
There are enough graphics, sound, etc, libs and tools out there that do not require Netscape OR IE to be useable in any case. Stick with those instead of asf and such crap and you will allow ANYONE to view your page, including your animations or video, regardless of the browser they use (within reason...lynx and the like are not for graphics/sound. What the f*ck is SO damn hard about using tools that are platform/browser-independent?! NOTHING. Laziness and wanting to play with new useless tools for the hell of it is the only reason. That, or being employed by M$ and wanting to work with M$ to try to make the www belong to M$ (note: it doesn't and never will).
The Doolittle Raid was a bit more than what you say. It was a CRUCIAL moral-booster for the American public. Shortly after getting creamed at Pearl Harbor, we turned around and stung the Japanese right back. Instant hooray and boost to the public in the aftermath shock of Pearl.
Militarily, sure, the Doolittle Raid was a modest move against the Japanese - but it had its psychological and moral-affecting aspect to it for the Japanese. "We can hit you even across the great Pacific. You are NOT safe." Boom, a small shake to the moral of the Japanese in the aftermath of the Pearl attack.
I have an idea. Instead of writing crappy web pages for a specific non-standards-compliant browser, you could create GOOD webpages that work within standards and can be viewed/used by ANY browser (not just IE or NS...there ARE others...and the web is supposed to be based on STANDARDS, not M$ crap).
If you created pages that work with any browser, then you could lose the crutch of crappy graphical wizbangs and sounds, each a bandwidth hog, and stick to good, intelligent content.
Don't use asf, instead use mov or, better, mpeg for movie stuff...then ANYONE can see them. Don't use docs, use html (standard) or xml (standard) or just plain ascii text documents so that ANYONE can download/view them.
A good webpage is a page that doesn't require IE or doesn't require NS to view properly. All such pages indicate are poor coding and poor design, and a desire to prevent a lot of people from viewing your site.
Berlin is an attempt at this very thing. Unfortunately, it is getting nowhere fast. The biggest hurdle...it would break just about every graphical application in existence for linux/bsd. It may be easy to say "replace X with something better" but in practice there is a HUGE amount of inertia and resistance.
Subjugation? At $1000 per day vs $200? Also, why is it "subjugation" or objectification of women if a woman has a guy in one of these video going down on her? It's damned if you do and damned if you don't. A guy having sex with a women on film is subjugation of women. A woman blowing a guy on film is subjugation of women. A GUY going down on a woman on film is subjugation of women. Multiple men on one woman is subjugation of women. Multiple women on one man is subjugation of women.
This gets to the point of the extreme view of some whacked out feminists that ANY sex with a man is rape or subjugation of women. Come on!
Actually, RU-486 is certain to attract the nutbar religious types as soon as it is mentioned so it was directed at any that stumbled upon the post. I had no idea about you but figured it would certainly garner a response.
RU-486 has been used for YEARS in Europe without any huge problem. Like ANY drug (including aspirin) there are potential for adverse side-effects. On another note, did you know that RU-486 shows promise as an anti-cancer drug as well as having use terminating pregnancies? Did you know that ANY anti-cancer drug would also be a pretty good pregnancy terminator as well?
Side-effect scares are often ridiculous. I see TV commercials for birth-control pills or pain relievers, etc, and they always list "possible side effects" because they are required to...but they also fail to mention that the side-effects are incredibly rare. Of the side-effects that happen often, they are usually very mild.
I don't believe the commercials should have to post the side-effects that are theoretically possible. That is what pharmacists and doctors do, tell you what the side-effects may be. If a side-effect must be mentioned, then it should be put in perspective and mentioned with ABSOLUTE accuracy - ie, 1 in 10,000 women using RU-486 experience excessive, though non-life-threatening bleeding or 1 in 250,000 experience migraines, etc. It is INACCURATE to simply state that this or that side-effect could happen without stating what the REAL chance is - very rare. Women are not dropping like flies in Europe.
I am considering a population control virus that attacks the ovaries of women and/or seminal vesicles of men. The virus would render the infected sterile. Preferably it would only be somewhat effective so that it could be used on nutbar religious fanatics and prevent them from breeding.
Alternatively, a variation of brucellosis so that it will infect humans. Brucellosis causes abortion in cattle and bison. Modify that sucker a little bit and release it in a few nutbar religious fanatic onclaves and POP! Abortion city!
Sure, if one has the full genetic information on an individual plus the means and ability to engineer a bug of some sort - likely a virus - then one could devise a weapon that would affect an individual - for a bit - but after release, you lose all control.
The problem is that viruses replicate rapidly and invariably mutate faster than the cells they infect. Even if their DNA replication fidelity was as high as that of the cell they infect, the fact that they must replicate so rapidly means that they will mutate substantially faster than any cell they infect. This means that once you release your virus to nail person X, it will experience mutations, some of which will alter its affinity for this or that receptor. That means that it will develop a partial "interest" in someone with a similar, though different, receptor.
To make it specific for infecting a single person, you must choose a person-specific receptor, period. You COULD make the virus very promiscuous and able to infect anyone but have it engineered to produce a protein that attacks and destroys a specific, but critical, protein/enzyme in you target person alone...but the same problem arises. Viruses experience an accelerated evolution as a result of their rapid replication. If they don't replicate rapidly, they wont reproduce enough virus to do anything but irritate (slightly) your target...like a minor cold at worst. Their immune system would make quick work of the virus and any cells infected with it.
You must have a rapidly replicating virus that can spread too fast to do anything about. This means mutations - it is inevitable. These mutations WOULD lead to a change in host range from your one person to others with similar genetic characteristics to your target. Once that happens, it keeps going and you get a fast dispersal and less specificity of target.
Nothing can change this biological fact. To do any damage to your target, the virus must replicate rapidly. Replicating WILL lead to mutations. Some of those mutations, among the millions and millions of viruses produced, will lead to expanded host range. Once that happens, the cat is out of the bag.
Some nutbar might well try this sort of thing but it wont work as intended. It cannot. The moment it leaves their lab/hands, they lose all control of the future evolution of that virus. It will mutate and be acted upon by selection and that is well beyond their control. What was intended to kill one person would likely spread and then either soften up and become more benign (killing your host before you can infect a new one is NOT an evolutionarily stable strategy) or, if killing rapidly allows it to spread nontheless, then it will remain lethal - but lethal to non-targets.
Problems of targeting as well as control once released are some of the main reasons that biological warfare hasn't been used much in the past. For a weapon to be effective, you must be able to control where it goes and who it takes out. You cannot control the wind, you cannot control the vagaries of mutation, you cannot control a virus or bacteria once you release it from its laboratory-controlled environment.
I should also emphasize software beyond games here. Word, for instance, expands in size and complexity to match hardware capability (both storage capacity and CPU power). Lots of big apps do this. You MUST upgrade your older CPU to the more recent designs and speeds if you wish or need to use what software designers are providing.
PPC is NO different, it is just not the prime focus of most software development. Besides, you CAN run a lot of the modern apps on a Pentium, for instance, but it would be slow. The same holds for the PPC - you could run modern apps on your original PPC 601 or 604 but it would be slow. Upgrade to the latest to get the speed...or are Apple users more tolerant of slow startup times, slow system response, etc? I don't think so.
In any case, there are 486s still in productive use. They may not make good desktop systems but they can handle various server functions or network functions just fine. That doesn't sound any worse than what we in my school lab are doing with an OLD mac ix (or whatever it is). It is a print server for a couple lab printers. That is all it is good for now because it cannot handle modern apps - because its not PPC and even if this wasn't a problem, the CPU is too damn slow for today's apps regardless.
So...how is the PPC so magically different than the x86 that it is impossible to make it as cheap as x86 chips? It isn't in any way different. The stumbling block is Moto can barely pump them out right now to keep Apple supplied. IBM is focused on other things. Apple has a lock on the market.
Jobs couldn't take the heat of cloner competition and so instead of doing better and COMPETING, he killed the cloners before they could get a foothold. THAT killed the commodity PPC system market, and economics followed. Hell, if he had competition, MacOS wouldn't have remained stagnant and unchanging for virtually its entire existence until the VERY recent release of MacOS X. That is the ONLY real upgrade to MacOS since its inception.
In a competitive market, Apple would have actually had to improve their OS along with everything else - plus bring the price of their hardware down to match the cheaper prices availabl to CHRP users.
Instead, Jobs killed the cloners, eliminated the competition before they had a foothold, and was able to keep Macs in the dark ages of OS design until very recently when the weight of the MacOS inferiority just couldn't sustain it anymore. A new OS with new guts was a MUST. Hence you now have OS X which is finally on par with Windoze and Linux and many other unices (I mean, come ON. Why did it take sooooooooooooo long to finally get preemptive multitasking into a Mac? GUI look and feel will only take you so far before its functional weaknesses send it into the crapper).
If the cloners hadn't been killed before they could get anywhere, Macs would be competing on PPC systems head-to-head against WinPPC, OS/2 (maybe...IBM probably would have bungled it on the PPC just as badly as they did on the x86), and later, linux. They (Apple) would have had to innovate faster and better and cheaper to stand up to the competition. YOU as an Apple user would be better off for it. Instead, you are subject to the whim of ONE man...Jobs - and what HE thinks is best for YOU. You get what HE wants you to get, hardware and software.
Sick and wrong.
Apple was against the CHRP. There WERE plans to be able to load MacOS on the clones, just as with WinNT and OS/2. Jobs took over, killed the cloners, this, in turn, essentially killed CHRP.
Apple DID have a hand (a big hand) in killing CHRP boards and the cloners. They are gone BECAUSE of Jobs. They didn't just fade away due to lack of demand. There was interest, this scared Apple and Jobs because it was competition for the then struggling Apple. Jobs didn't want ANY loosening of the hardware reigns vis a vis PPC. He wanted (and wants) to be the ONLY supply of PPC systems for the consumer. This IS no better than Gates and M$.
I recall the CHRP boards days (I emphasize "days" since that is about how long they lasted, largely due to Apple machinations).
I was THIS close to buying a dual PPC 604 motherboard, but waited because there were supply problems (I don't recall exactly but I believe it was for PPC chips) which left the CPU prices quite high relative to x86 chips. This was also at the time when the "standard" was still unsolidified - who wants to buy a motherboard that was within weeks of being out of wack with regards to new CHRP standards, etc? Not long after this, Apple killed the cloners and this aborted the non-Apple PPC hardware market before it got to the 3-cell stage.
You have to actually give it a little TIME for a market to take off (and you need to have a solid set of standards so that there are no worries that what you JUST bought will go incompatible with everything produced in a few months hence). The standards were not solidified, the market wasn't allowed to develop, and the prices/supplies of PPC cpus was high/low respectively.
I would NEVER buy a PPC cpu from Moto or IBM at this point. The cost is way too high when I can grab an Athlon of equivalent performance for a fraction of the price and stick it in a commodity GOOD motherboard that isn't suffering from rapid standards changes.
If the market for PPC hardware (separate from Apple stuff) had been allowed to actually start up and grow, there would likely still be a Doze for PPC to go along with LinuxPPC, and there would likely be some apps to run on it. The only apps available for PPC now are the relatively few Apple-specific apps (I emphasize "relative few" because that is fact).
At this point, if one were to cough up the money to build a PPC system from components, unless you had MacOS on it alongside your LinuxPPC, you would have a VERY limited supply of software available. You could acquire more linux apps (not a single commercial game, no staroffice) if you were willing and able to do a buttload of cross-compiling.
This situation would be much different today if Apple didn't torpedo CHRP and kill off the cloners. There would be a ready and steady supply of component hardware today because the market would have been allowed to grow and mature. Loki would be releasing games for x86 and PPC, and PPC would stand a chance of going somewhere on the desktop.
With just Apple having it (the PPC), it is destined to remain a minor fraction of desktop system market. Have no illusions, the PC-Windoze dominance is not threatened by Apple and its overwhelming dominant position isn't going to come crashing down (unfortunately...though I certainly don't simply want Apple to replace M$, which is EXACTLY what Jobs wants).
Yeah, I KNOW I dicked up "their" vs "they're". Big deal. It is too late to correct such errors once the submit button is hit. The important part is the message, not the details of the message. That's noise.
The problem remains. Apple has a situation set up in which the only way to get a PPC computer is to buy one of THEIR computers with THEIR os on it. You have no choice. You want the hardware? You have to pay the Apple tax to get it. This is just as wrong as the M$ tax that virtually requires that you pay M$ for the right to a complete computer setup. You cannot buy a PC without an os on it. You CAN build one from easily obtained parts. This is where the x86/PC side differs and is superior to the PPC side. You have to go through a single company to get a coherent PPC computer and are not in any way given the power or option to build yourself.
I actually have a nice vidcard (radeon). I didn't mention videocards because even with a good one, there comes a point at which it just isn't up to handling newer games. CPU cycles do get used more and more, inspite of graphics cards, with newer and newer games.
You start getting fancy "smart" AI and other background activity and it requires the CPU. The better and more dense all that becomes, the more load is placed on the CPU.
The whole argument about having to upgrade/alter your motherboard is bogus. If software vendors dedicated as much work to making PPC apps as they do to making x86 apps, then PPC systems would have to be upgraded every coupble years too.
Because software is targeted primarily at x86 - because it is virtually the entire desktop/workstation market all around the world - and because the software competition is so hot, they push the envelope. Game developers are particularly into this. You give them X amount of processing power and they will consume it as fast as they can. Then they will go on to surpass it, anticipating an improved chip next year, etc. You want the latest and greatest software? Then every couple years you need to update your processing power to match it.
This isn't an inherent weakness of the x86 design, it is reality regardless of the design. If the roles were reversed, then we would all be upgrading our PPC cpus every few years so we could keep framerates up and make use of the latest productivity suite version.
PPCs are NOT orders of magnitude faster than their x86 rivals. They are on par but they lack the focus of the VAST majority of software developers.
For embedded systems, there is no reason to upgrade CPUs or motherboards. You can use the same, slow, simple CPU next year as you did last year, and the year before. A microwave oven is NOT a clock-cycle hog. A car is NOT a clock-cycle hog.
So you prefer to waste CPU clock cycles on sound rather than doing the proper way with a dedicated sound processors? Does this mean that you also consider the proper way to do modems is to have the CPU handle that too?
The proper way to do this is with dedicate DSPs, leaving the CPU to do important and better things. Leave the graphics heavy lifting to the graphics chip, the sound processing to the sound processor, and the modem function should be handled by a dedicated DSP too, not the CPU.
Ah, so will the Apple Store build a system to my spec? This means NO MACOS on it. Will they provide me a computer without MacOS installed? No? They can blow it out their pooper then.
Can I simply order a motherboard and CPU? That is my spec. A mobo and cpu, nothing else (becauee I have a PERFECTLY good ATX case, keyboard, monitor, video card, etc). No? Then they can blow it out their pooper.
Their no better than M$
It isn't that hard to understand. The PROBLEM is that if you want a PPC system, unless you are willing to shell out a buttload for a high-end puter, then you are STUCK buying an Apple. You have NO choice but to give Jobs money.
We want nothing more than CPUs, motherboards, etc, that we can put together and then install whatever we want on it, be it OEM MacOS, Linux, or what have you. We are against being required to pay Apple a premium (a tax, if you will) so we can get around that damn MacOS and use what we want...the hardware with the software of our choice.
It is NOT acceptable to simply say "Buy a Mac and install linux." No. This requires you to BUY AN APPLE, which means you are paying Jobs & Co, and getting an OS you don't want, a single button mouse that belongs in the trashbin of history, a case design that you may or may not care for. Bullcrap.
With x86, I can buy a cpu...ALONE. I can buy from any of a dozen mobo makers a decent motherboard to stick the CPU into. I can buy a case, fancy or basic, I can buy empty harddrives and everything else, stick it all together and have a system that has never seen Gates' OS and didn't require payment of an M$ tax. You ask that we forsake the M$ tax and accept an Apple tax. Piss off.
It's more than just a simple hardware availability issue at this point. What software will you run on your non-Apple PPC? Sure, you could run linux apps that you cross-compile (LinuxPPC is always behind the x86 linux, so this will mean in software as well). If you like games, oh well, yer skrewd. No games and the games you already bought are useless.
Nobody makes games for PPC systems, fer Cthulhu's sake. Yea, some will get all whiney and scream how wrong I am...except there are sh*tloads of games for the x86 (and doze, of course) and a mere pittance for the Mac on PPC. None at all right now for MacOS X.
You go PPC, you are choosing to go into a software wilderness inhabited by a very few scattered far and wide.
I think we are arguing at cross-purposes. I reject, absolutely, claims by anyone that make a statement: "Kubrick's 2001 is and allegory about X" and ANY other such statement. No, 2001 is a sci-fi story about an obelisk of alien manufacture that has impacted on human evolution and affected our destiny. Kubrick may have had a few things in mind besides this face value when he wrote it but it was more than likely NOT what the author of the goofy piece that started this states it is.
To HIM 2001 contains those meanings but it is absolutely incorrect and undefendable to state catagorically that this or that meaning is hidden in the work. No. If you can present Kubrick's journal or notes and they state that, then you can make that claim. Otherwise, it is simply a matter that in YOUR eyes (and mind) 2001 has this meaning or contains that reference. It certainly doesn't contain any of that for me and it didn't for Kubrick, the creator of the work. As long as the statement of "fact" is qualified and limited to exactly what it is, then it floats. Otherwise it sinks like an anchor and is merely hot air.