The reason there are so many Russian citizens in South Ossetia is because when the region became semi-autonomous prior to the conflict, Russia granted the South Ossetians Russian citizenship.
Agreed, but how does this justify Georgia's attack on South Ossetia? If I were in charge of Russia and somebody was attacking territory directly beside mine, you bet I'd become concerned.
Hence the reason for many Western nations silence on certain parts of the issue.
The U.S. wasn't silent. The official party line of the U.S. government at the time was that Russia should completely vacate all parts of Georgia, declaring it "sovereign Georgian territory" or something to that effect. Many prominent politicians, including John McCain (at the time a U.S. presidential candidate) voiced support for Georgia by declaring "We are all Georgians" in support of the Georgian nation. There are rumours that there were U.S. soldiers in Georgia during that conflict (though I don't think that was verified).
Oh, and the whole missile defence shields to be built in the Czech Republic and Poland, despite Russia's strenuous opposition, also involve meddling in Russia's back yard.
That hardly qualifies as "silence" to me.
To be fair, the Obama administration seems to be taking a far more pragmatic approach to Russia, emphasizing cooperation while agreeing to disagree on certain issues (namely Georgia, but not to the extent that the Bush administration did).
As for Quebec (speaking as an English mother tongue Quebecker), there are rumours of CIA involvement in the initial Quebec separatist movement. On the other hand, the Clinton adminstration showed a clear bias towards a united Canada, according to remarks from Bill Clinton during the 1995 referendum and Madeleine Albright's comments in Hull a few years later.
So, yes, the U.S. intervenes in the affairs of other nations when it's in its interests to do so. That should hardly be news to anyone.
Are you sure Russia attacked first? According to my own understanding of the situation, it's Georgia that invaded South Ossetia, a territory that declared independence from Georgia since the mid-1990's and has many Russian citizens within its territory. You can understand Russia's interest in those two territories.
So it's not as simple as declaring "Georgia's territory is sacrosanct therefore Georgia should be united".
A civilization needs to devote a lot of resources to space travel:
1) Energy 2) Metal and other materials 3) Human resources such as scientists and engineers
Usually, the whole point of exploring and colonizing other planets is to make up for a lack of resources, such as minerals. It's effectively a chicken-and-egg problem.
I'm sure once we run out of resources, we won't have enough left over to start exploring space.
I'm not sure why they're making such a big fuss about this.
All government departments should remove admin rights to their employees workstations so that they can't install unapproved software. There should also be period audits to ensure that unauthorized software didn't somehow find its way onto those workstations anyway and remove them.
For those of you that didn't RTFA, this is the bit that put Russia's problem into its proper perspective:
Although supercomputers are widely used in Western countries to, for instance, build aircraft, Medvedev said few aircraft in Russia have been built using supercomputers. Most of their design today is still being done on paper...
Contrary to popular misconception, Russia's economy doesn't just depend on oil and gas. It also depends on exporting weapons and other military equipment. For that country to maintain an advantage in the design, development, and manufacture of such military equipment, then they need to make more use of modern technology to do so.
Because they're not throwing you in jail -- all they're doing is cutting off your service, which I'm pretty sure they're allowed to do even in the UK.
They have to justify it. AFAIK, it's illegal to refuse to do business with somebody just because you don't like them. You have to have justification, such as violating the terms of service. If a person falsely accused of filesharing is cut off from internet access, then that person didn't really violate the terms of service.
Can anybody in the UK shed some light on whether this practise is even legal? How can an ISP act as a judge, jury and executioner especially given that they have spotty evidence at best?
Microsoft did the right thing. They made a mistake in using GPL code, but were proactive in solving the problem and meeting their legal obligations by releasing all of the source. Other companies in similar situations, such as (if memory serves) Cisco with the Linksys router GPL code fiasco, needed to be prompted by actual legal action by the FSF to release their source code.
What gets me is how Microsoft tried to exploit the situation by using it as a marketing opportunity. They should have been honest and stated the real reason they released the source under GPL to begin with.
VMware will always win on Macs though. I know a lot of people who have bought Fusion so they don't have to dual boot in order to use XP. MS hasn't made any quality software on Macs, let alone replaced any product with decent marketshare.
Let's tackle these one at a time shall we?
1) VMWare Fusion... Perhaps it doesn't run Windows as well, but I find the free VirtualBox fulfills my needs for a VM on Mac. 2) MS still distributes Microsoft Office for Mac, and it's still the #1 office program on OS X, albeit limited to just Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Keynote may beat PowerPoint hands down, but Word is arguably better than Pages and Excel is definitely better than Numbers. MSN Messenger also works decently on Macs.
I guess a few years Microsoft finally got the memo that they can't protect sales of Windows by attempting to force lock-in to their entire Windows ecosystem. They realized that many of their customers mix technologies together. Examples are Java/JBoss on Windows server, Windows desktops and Linux servers (Samba), working with Mozilla developers to port Firefox to Vista, and iPhones connecting to Exchange servers (licensing ActiveSync to Apple).
By taking these actions, Microsoft ensures the continued relevance of the Windows platform instead of potentially dooming it to a proprietary ghetto.
The flip side of this focus is that Microsoft will still push Windows to OEMs to fend off other platforms. An example is their actions in the netbook space among which was to essentially give away XP. So for at least some things, Microsoft is still up to their old tricks.
And my point was that the government, through its members of parliament (or the "National" Assembly, etc) can sidestep many of its constitutional obligations whenever it so chooses. All it needs is a majority vote to override at least some of our rights in perpetuity.
This is much better than not having constitutional rights at all, but it falls short of a system where the courts can keep rogue governments in check.
This is about as laughable as a Brazilian judge ordering YouTube shut down because a incriminating video of two Brazilian celebrities kept getting posted on that site. Needless to say, YouTube is still up and running.
This isn't the first strange internet ruling coming out of Belgium. There was the row between Copiepresse and Google over Google linking to Copiepresse's newspapers. Google was fined and promptly stopped linking to the newspaper's sites.
I'm also a Quebec anglo, BTW, and I follow the English and French press well enough to have a clear idea of what's going on.
All one needs is a majority government (federal or provincial) to override the Charter. Once that law is passed and protected from the Charter, it's up for renewal every five years:
Such a declaration lapses after five years or a lesser time specified in the clause, although the legislature may re-enact the clause indefinitely.
So, on an issue on which the two major federal or provincial parties have a consensus (ex: support of Bill 101 in Quebec), all that has to be done is vote to extend the Charter-violating law every five years. It doesn't matter if it's a majority or a minority government. Both major parties will vote for it and it will be passed.
You're forgetting about the Notwithstanding Clause, that allows the federal government or any provincial government to immunize a law from the Charter:
And, yes, the Notwithstanding Clause has actually been used, most notably and more than once by the Quebec government, which chose to maintain its French language laws despite parts of them being declared unconstitutional:
Then how can they be subject to Canadian law? If they're found guilty of violating privacy laws, where's the enforcement mechanism? It's not like they're going to send Mounties to the U.S. or require ISPs to block Facebook.
All Facebook needs to do is shut down all its servers in Canada and require Canadians to log into the U.S. site. Then it's no longer bound by Canadian law. Problem solved!
Also, this is one of the reasons why I refuse to use Facebook, despite the fact that my condo association was too lazy to develop a website and wants us all to log into their Facebook page.
There's something that game developers don't seem to understand:
Let's say for the sake of argument that there are 100 copies of said game sold for $60/copy. Those 100 copies get sold for $6,000 total. Of those 100 copies, 50 get sold in the used games market for $30. Let's suppose further that there's no Gamespot and buy and sell price is the same. Thus, $1,500 was made in the used games market.
Now, let's suppose that the game developers suddenly come up with some foolproof DRM to tie the game to the specific console it's played on, but still sell the game for $60 a pop. What do you think will happen?
Well, it's fair to say that anywhere between 40 to 50 of those initial 100 copies don't get sold. In fact, I'd say it's closer to 50, since I'm sure that those buyers would refuse to pay $60 for the game knowing that they won't be able to recoup $30 of it. Given the realities of free market economics, this will drive down the price of the games to, say, $45. This would bring in 25 buyers who would otherwise buy used games.
I know I'm making up the numbers from the top of my head, but the idea is to illustrate a point: There's no way they can force used game buyers to pay the existing full price for a new game unless it's one of the best games of all time, and even then it probably won't work.
The game developers' notions of opportunity cost are fictitious.
There's a guy who responds to his spam and posts the letters on his site. It's hilarious:)
I don't know if the site is still up, but I know it's blocked by my proxy at work, so it has been identified as a time waster by people who filter websites for a living. You have been warned;)
In the same vein that StarOffice is built on top of OpenOffice, Solaris is now built on top of OpenSolaris. The next version of Solaris will be cut from a version of OpenSolaris.
Besides, if you RTFA, the author is trying to argue that Oracle will kill all of Solaris, not just OpenSolaris.
Why would Oracle kill Solaris? Their first public pronouncement on the Sun takeover specifically mentioned Solaris next to Java as the reasons they want to acquire Sun. Killing Solaris would be almost as much of an about face as killing Java.
Solaris represents one of Oracle's differentiators. It has features that Linux can't due to licensing concerns, namely ZFS and DTrace. It gives them the opportunity to add value to their offerings, as opposed to being simply a reseller, which is what they'd be if they'd favour Linux.
What's more, Oracle's database is well-known to run better on Solaris than on any other operating system. Killing Solaris would remove that competitive advantage.
The only reason Oracle supported Linux so strong is that they didn't have an OS of their own. When they acquire Sun, they will.
Slashdot Mirror
The reason there are so many Russian citizens in South Ossetia is because when the region became semi-autonomous prior to the conflict, Russia granted the South Ossetians Russian citizenship.
Agreed, but how does this justify Georgia's attack on South Ossetia? If I were in charge of Russia and somebody was attacking territory directly beside mine, you bet I'd become concerned.
Hence the reason for many Western nations silence on certain parts of the issue.
The U.S. wasn't silent. The official party line of the U.S. government at the time was that Russia should completely vacate all parts of Georgia, declaring it "sovereign Georgian territory" or something to that effect. Many prominent politicians, including John McCain (at the time a U.S. presidential candidate) voiced support for Georgia by declaring "We are all Georgians" in support of the Georgian nation. There are rumours that there were U.S. soldiers in Georgia during that conflict (though I don't think that was verified).
Oh, and the whole missile defence shields to be built in the Czech Republic and Poland, despite Russia's strenuous opposition, also involve meddling in Russia's back yard.
That hardly qualifies as "silence" to me.
To be fair, the Obama administration seems to be taking a far more pragmatic approach to Russia, emphasizing cooperation while agreeing to disagree on certain issues (namely Georgia, but not to the extent that the Bush administration did).
As for Quebec (speaking as an English mother tongue Quebecker), there are rumours of CIA involvement in the initial Quebec separatist movement. On the other hand, the Clinton adminstration showed a clear bias towards a united Canada, according to remarks from Bill Clinton during the 1995 referendum and Madeleine Albright's comments in Hull a few years later.
So, yes, the U.S. intervenes in the affairs of other nations when it's in its interests to do so. That should hardly be news to anyone.
Are you sure Russia attacked first? According to my own understanding of the situation, it's Georgia that invaded South Ossetia, a territory that declared independence from Georgia since the mid-1990's and has many Russian citizens within its territory. You can understand Russia's interest in those two territories.
So it's not as simple as declaring "Georgia's territory is sacrosanct therefore Georgia should be united".
...then people who modified generic PCs to run "unauthorized software" would receive the same sentence.
Frightening.
A civilization needs to devote a lot of resources to space travel:
1) Energy
2) Metal and other materials
3) Human resources such as scientists and engineers
Usually, the whole point of exploring and colonizing other planets is to make up for a lack of resources, such as minerals. It's effectively a chicken-and-egg problem.
I'm sure once we run out of resources, we won't have enough left over to start exploring space.
I'm not sure why they're making such a big fuss about this.
All government departments should remove admin rights to their employees workstations so that they can't install unapproved software. There should also be period audits to ensure that unauthorized software didn't somehow find its way onto those workstations anyway and remove them.
What's the big deal?
For those of you that didn't RTFA, this is the bit that put Russia's problem into its proper perspective:
Contrary to popular misconception, Russia's economy doesn't just depend on oil and gas. It also depends on exporting weapons and other military equipment. For that country to maintain an advantage in the design, development, and manufacture of such military equipment, then they need to make more use of modern technology to do so.
Because they're not throwing you in jail -- all they're doing is cutting off your service, which I'm pretty sure they're allowed to do even in the UK.
They have to justify it. AFAIK, it's illegal to refuse to do business with somebody just because you don't like them. You have to have justification, such as violating the terms of service. If a person falsely accused of filesharing is cut off from internet access, then that person didn't really violate the terms of service.
Can anybody in the UK shed some light on whether this practise is even legal? How can an ISP act as a judge, jury and executioner especially given that they have spotty evidence at best?
Microsoft did the right thing. They made a mistake in using GPL code, but were proactive in solving the problem and meeting their legal obligations by releasing all of the source. Other companies in similar situations, such as (if memory serves) Cisco with the Linksys router GPL code fiasco, needed to be prompted by actual legal action by the FSF to release their source code.
What gets me is how Microsoft tried to exploit the situation by using it as a marketing opportunity. They should have been honest and stated the real reason they released the source under GPL to begin with.
So how do you explain Microsoft's patent-less interoperability agreement with Red Hat?
VMware will always win on Macs though. I know a lot of people who have bought Fusion so they don't have to dual boot in order to use XP. MS hasn't made any quality software on Macs, let alone replaced any product with decent marketshare.
Let's tackle these one at a time shall we?
1) VMWare Fusion... Perhaps it doesn't run Windows as well, but I find the free VirtualBox fulfills my needs for a VM on Mac.
2) MS still distributes Microsoft Office for Mac, and it's still the #1 office program on OS X, albeit limited to just Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Keynote may beat PowerPoint hands down, but Word is arguably better than Pages and Excel is definitely better than Numbers. MSN Messenger also works decently on Macs.
I guess a few years Microsoft finally got the memo that they can't protect sales of Windows by attempting to force lock-in to their entire Windows ecosystem. They realized that many of their customers mix technologies together. Examples are Java/JBoss on Windows server, Windows desktops and Linux servers (Samba), working with Mozilla developers to port Firefox to Vista, and iPhones connecting to Exchange servers (licensing ActiveSync to Apple).
By taking these actions, Microsoft ensures the continued relevance of the Windows platform instead of potentially dooming it to a proprietary ghetto.
The flip side of this focus is that Microsoft will still push Windows to OEMs to fend off other platforms. An example is their actions in the netbook space among which was to essentially give away XP. So for at least some things, Microsoft is still up to their old tricks.
And my point was that the government, through its members of parliament (or the "National" Assembly, etc) can sidestep many of its constitutional obligations whenever it so chooses. All it needs is a majority vote to override at least some of our rights in perpetuity.
This is much better than not having constitutional rights at all, but it falls short of a system where the courts can keep rogue governments in check.
At which point, IIRC, Copiepresse sued Google to force them to link to Copiepresse, and have Google pay for said "privilege".
I searched for this, but I wasn't able to find any references to the story. Not that I don't believe you, but do you have a link?
This is about as laughable as a Brazilian judge ordering YouTube shut down because a incriminating video of two Brazilian celebrities kept getting posted on that site. Needless to say, YouTube is still up and running.
This isn't the first strange internet ruling coming out of Belgium. There was the row between Copiepresse and Google over Google linking to Copiepresse's newspapers. Google was fined and promptly stopped linking to the newspaper's sites.
So collect it from the new owners of the company.
I'm also a Quebec anglo, BTW, and I follow the English and French press well enough to have a clear idea of what's going on.
All one needs is a majority government (federal or provincial) to override the Charter. Once that law is passed and protected from the Charter, it's up for renewal every five years:
So, on an issue on which the two major federal or provincial parties have a consensus (ex: support of Bill 101 in Quebec), all that has to be done is vote to extend the Charter-violating law every five years. It doesn't matter if it's a majority or a minority government. Both major parties will vote for it and it will be passed.
You're forgetting about the Notwithstanding Clause, that allows the federal government or any provincial government to immunize a law from the Charter:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notwithstanding_clause
And, yes, the Notwithstanding Clause has actually been used, most notably and more than once by the Quebec government, which chose to maintain its French language laws despite parts of them being declared unconstitutional:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notwithstanding_clause#Use_of_the_clause
How robust is Canada's analog to the 4th amendment? Does it even have one?..
Part of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms which is as robust as it gets in Canadian constitutional law.
8. Everyone has the right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure.
Then how can they be subject to Canadian law? If they're found guilty of violating privacy laws, where's the enforcement mechanism? It's not like they're going to send Mounties to the U.S. or require ISPs to block Facebook.
All Facebook needs to do is shut down all its servers in Canada and require Canadians to log into the U.S. site. Then it's no longer bound by Canadian law. Problem solved!
Also, this is one of the reasons why I refuse to use Facebook, despite the fact that my condo association was too lazy to develop a website and wants us all to log into their Facebook page.
There's something that game developers don't seem to understand:
Let's say for the sake of argument that there are 100 copies of said game sold for $60/copy. Those 100 copies get sold for $6,000 total. Of those 100 copies, 50 get sold in the used games market for $30. Let's suppose further that there's no Gamespot and buy and sell price is the same. Thus, $1,500 was made in the used games market.
Now, let's suppose that the game developers suddenly come up with some foolproof DRM to tie the game to the specific console it's played on, but still sell the game for $60 a pop. What do you think will happen?
Well, it's fair to say that anywhere between 40 to 50 of those initial 100 copies don't get sold. In fact, I'd say it's closer to 50, since I'm sure that those buyers would refuse to pay $60 for the game knowing that they won't be able to recoup $30 of it. Given the realities of free market economics, this will drive down the price of the games to, say, $45. This would bring in 25 buyers who would otherwise buy used games.
I know I'm making up the numbers from the top of my head, but the idea is to illustrate a point: There's no way they can force used game buyers to pay the existing full price for a new game unless it's one of the best games of all time, and even then it probably won't work.
The game developers' notions of opportunity cost are fictitious.
There's a guy who responds to his spam and posts the letters on his site. It's hilarious :)
I don't know if the site is still up, but I know it's blocked by my proxy at work, so it has been identified as a time waster by people who filter websites for a living. You have been warned ;)
http://thespamletters.com/
In the same vein that StarOffice is built on top of OpenOffice, Solaris is now built on top of OpenSolaris. The next version of Solaris will be cut from a version of OpenSolaris.
Besides, if you RTFA, the author is trying to argue that Oracle will kill all of Solaris, not just OpenSolaris.
Why would Oracle kill Solaris? Their first public pronouncement on the Sun takeover specifically mentioned Solaris next to Java as the reasons they want to acquire Sun. Killing Solaris would be almost as much of an about face as killing Java.
Solaris represents one of Oracle's differentiators. It has features that Linux can't due to licensing concerns, namely ZFS and DTrace. It gives them the opportunity to add value to their offerings, as opposed to being simply a reseller, which is what they'd be if they'd favour Linux.
What's more, Oracle's database is well-known to run better on Solaris than on any other operating system. Killing Solaris would remove that competitive advantage.
The only reason Oracle supported Linux so strong is that they didn't have an OS of their own. When they acquire Sun, they will.