As an Australian, I agree, in a qualified sense. In his mind it's OK to suspend or abolish democratic freedoms in order to ensure that people he doesn't agree with can't be heard or be politically active. (Another example from recent history is Nixon -- government "by any means necessary", legal or illegal).
... along with John Howard's racist issues on immigration (lock up the non-white illegal immigrants), we should soon be the new old South Africa, if you know what I mean.
As an Australian, I can safely say that's a load of crap.
I can sit here and post what i want without fear of recrimination. As can you.
The democratic freedoms that have been abolished - name them? Name what I can't do now that I could do under the previous Keating Govt? The fact that they're doing something to prevent terrorism - whether there's a clear and present threat or not - is a good thing. I don't want it to take two planes slamming into Sydney skyscrapers before the Govt acts.
The best you can raise is J-B-P examples. Howard has not infringed upon any civil liberties for Australian citizens. And whether or not you agree with mandatory detention - it's not racist. If people enter the country illegally, they're well within their rights.
And you forget, the Australian people re-elected him.
The trend profoundly concerns consumer advocates and some Internet policy experts. They warn that if the FCC goes through with its plans, cable companies and the Baby Bells will quickly establish a monopoly on broadband service over their own networks.
not to say this is ok, but isn't it likely that the monopolies would face the same fate as AT&T and get broken up into lots of baby bells again?
I think this is especially the case seeing the US now has a precedent for breaking up big telecommunications carriers with monopolies. Getting the first one is always the hardest.
This password protection is basically a deterrant, but not ultimate security.
that's right, it won't stop a determined hacker. If they want what's on your machine, and they have physical access, they'll get it.
But where this falls down is that it makes it a *real* bitch if you need to legitimately boot off a CD - for example, something bad happens to your install. Unlikely with OS X, but still a remote possibility.
A history teacher I once took some courses from in High School (Military History and US History) subscribed to an interesting theory; The fall of Russian Communism resulted from McDonalds.
The fact that there were McDonalds restaurants in Russia fed the public there the image of how Americans live, and with that as a model, it became increasingly obvious that Communism was failing to fulfill it's mission of Utopia. In 1984, Orwell realized that as long as the government asserted that everything was improving, people would not be too inquisitiveabout the subject. In Russia, this became impossible, and the people lost faith in their government.
In China, it seems as though a similar evolution is occuring; The alter-ego of Soviet Commuism, Chinese Communism, is being exposed to it's antithesis. Russian Communism focused, as I understand, mainly on supression and communitization of materialism, but was then faced with the holy grail of materialism, McDonalds. Chinese Communism, now that they have seen how materialism works, focuses on supression of intellectualism among their masses, and is now faced with intellectualism's holy grail, the internet, which allows the masses to see the intellectual side of Democracy.
The theory you refer to is otherwise known as The Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention. And before you mod me +1 funny, I'm being serious - it was first espoused by Thomas Friedman in his book, The Lexus and the Olive Tree. It's an excellent read, a great perspective on globalisation and its differing effects on various parts of the world.
Maybe, but somebody's control of the english language definitely is.
-- james
Re:Moving production to Asia?
on
IBM Spins Down
·
· Score: 1
I do not know wtf that URL is doing at the top of my post. It was certainly not intended to be there.
I think I hit paste without meaning to. That "if it's not right, you should have previewed it" came back to bite me on the ass I guess:)
so, apologies
-- james
Re:Moving production to Asia?
on
IBM Spins Down
·
· Score: 1
http://riceornot.ricecop.com/?state=top10r
What will stop Hitachi from firing everyone after three years and moving production to cheaper Asia?
Nothing. But that's not a bad thing. All that will happen is 24,000 or so people will be freed up to do something else in our economy. A company like this sounds like it belongs in Asia anyway - America isn't known for cheap duplication of already wide-spread technology. We're more well known for our R&D efforts contributing to the latest in technology. So, I wouldn't worry too much about it - with the speed that our economy is changing, we won't even notice the flux of 24,000 jobs.
And what's more, that will probably mean cheaper hard drives if the manufacturing costs come down. I say go for it. I'm sure IBM will be able to find good use for the money.
I'm one of the sysadmins at the AI lab - we had a power shutdown in our building last night through much of today, but the site is back up and ready to get slashdotted.
I've heard of slashdotting, but now we're taking out the power grid too?::grin::
I was thinking about this too. I don't like the RIAA/MPAA, but I was thinking exactly what is the harm this could do?
The only reason I can come up with for the MPAA wanting to do this is if: helping track big pirating operations. Say they bust a big bootlegging operation, it would then probably have one original that it copied everything else off. All the bootlegged copies would have the original tag, and this unique tag could then be used to work out how many pirated copies have made it out into (dodgy) stores, etc. It could help with prosecution.
I guess this is fair enough. I don't support piracy, and if this helps catch big-ass pirates without preventing me from putting a few (fairly purchased) movies on my laptop hard drive I'll support it.
Microsoft is doing more than just trying to leverage into another hot market... this plan is so much bolder than that. They're out to chop the knees out from under Dell, HPaq, and Gateway.
Xbox2, most likely, but possibly xbox3 will be the "home computer". It will be marketed as such, a computer that is "so much simpler to use" and never has compatibility problems caused by all sorts of 3rd party drivers. It will be cheaper too, loaded with software and still well under then $700 price mark that consumer pc's are shooting for.
sounds to me like an iMac run on a TV instead of an LCD. I'd rather entrust my online-life to Apple than MS.
It's time to wheel out the perennial Slashdot "cheap unlimited broadband is a right, not a privilege" crowd.
Everyone forgets - these companies are in business to make money. To lay out broadband across a country so vast and a with such a low population density is always going to be an expensive task. And because it's relatively expensive (a 3gb ADSL plan on Telstra is more than double most unlimited 56k modem plans), most of the people that have adopted it are the hardcore. Furthermore, because previously Optus have allowed more in downloads per month than Telstra, they've attracted all the big downloading home customers. Which would have only compounded their problems. Optus have probably been making a loss on the provisioning of this service for some time.
So, the Optus gravy train has ground to a halt. It's a shame, but before you go off the hook at them, please bear in mind that these businesses are there to make money. If you don't like the price/policy that goes along with it, don't use what they offer.
I know this is going to get me modded down, but what is the obsession with Stanley Kubrick? His movies are tripped out delusions of a nutcase that are coherent (if you're lucky) about half the time. I sat watching 2001 for the first 15 minutes, thinking this guy has got to be joking. I spent the last 15 minutes on fast forward, until some baby in a goddamn bubble floated towards the earth.
Funny thing to note: timothy and I went to see Spider-Man, yesterday and we were the only two people in that theatre. Three guesses where everyone else went, and the first two don't count.
In Australia, AotC has come out before SpiderMan. What will be interesting is to see if the reverse of this holds true - I intend to go see Star Wars again, and I'll do it once Spider man is out. If there are only two people in the theatre, I'll have a good guess where they've gone (and yeah, the first two don't count:)
Slashdot Mirror
As an Australian, I can safely say that's a load of crap.
I can sit here and post what i want without fear of recrimination. As can you.
The democratic freedoms that have been abolished - name them? Name what I can't do now that I could do under the previous Keating Govt? The fact that they're doing something to prevent terrorism - whether there's a clear and present threat or not - is a good thing. I don't want it to take two planes slamming into Sydney skyscrapers before the Govt acts.
The best you can raise is J-B-P examples. Howard has not infringed upon any civil liberties for Australian citizens. And whether or not you agree with mandatory detention - it's not racist. If people enter the country illegally, they're well within their rights.
And you forget, the Australian people re-elected him.
-- james
I disagree. That's like saying I shouldn't take a shower only because I'm going to get dirty again tomorrow.
Take action as and when necessary. That's what the law is for.
-- james
On March 13 the FCC commissioners ruled, 3-1, that cable broadband is an "information service" rather than a "telecommunications service."
if narrowband is a telecommunications service, how can you argue that broadband isn't? It's just a faster extension of the same basic principles.
The FCC needs to pull its head out of its ass. It's blipping into an entirely new intestinal reality
-- james
The trend profoundly concerns consumer advocates and some Internet policy experts. They warn that if the FCC goes through with its plans, cable companies and the Baby Bells will quickly establish a monopoly on broadband service over their own networks.
not to say this is ok, but isn't it likely that the monopolies would face the same fate as AT&T and get broken up into lots of baby bells again?
I think this is especially the case seeing the US now has a precedent for breaking up big telecommunications carriers with monopolies. Getting the first one is always the hardest.
-- james
that's right, it won't stop a determined hacker. If they want what's on your machine, and they have physical access, they'll get it.
But where this falls down is that it makes it a *real* bitch if you need to legitimately boot off a CD - for example, something bad happens to your install. Unlikely with OS X, but still a remote possibility.
-- james
The theory you refer to is otherwise known as The Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention . And before you mod me +1 funny, I'm being serious - it was first espoused by Thomas Friedman in his book, The Lexus and the Olive Tree. It's an excellent read, a great perspective on globalisation and its differing effects on various parts of the world.
-- james
As opposed to some of the causes of Internet2?
-- james
Maybe, but somebody's control of the english language definitely is.
-- james
I do not know wtf that URL is doing at the top of my post. It was certainly not intended to be there.
:)
I think I hit paste without meaning to. That "if it's not right, you should have previewed it" came back to bite me on the ass I guess
so, apologies
-- james
http://riceornot.ricecop.com/?state=top10r
What will stop Hitachi from firing everyone after three years and moving production to cheaper Asia?
Nothing. But that's not a bad thing. All that will happen is 24,000 or so people will be freed up to do something else in our economy. A company like this sounds like it belongs in Asia anyway - America isn't known for cheap duplication of already wide-spread technology. We're more well known for our R&D efforts contributing to the latest in technology. So, I wouldn't worry too much about it - with the speed that our economy is changing, we won't even notice the flux of 24,000 jobs.
And what's more, that will probably mean cheaper hard drives if the manufacturing costs come down. I say go for it. I'm sure IBM will be able to find good use for the money.
-- james
This is what Steved means.
-- james
ps I am not trolling! I'm being serious
thanks to this post, those iMacs will be "steved" - ie canned.
Jobs likes surprises, and if his surprise is spoiled this far out he'll take his toys and go home.
Which means - these things will never see the light of day, or their release date will be substantially changed
-- james
Most interestingly, the e740 will be available in three different trims: one with Integrated Wi-Fi, the other with Bluetooth and one with neither.
:))
I see two ways for a BeoWolf cluster!
-- james
please, stop it! you're giving me the hiccups :)
-- james
I'm one of the sysadmins at the AI lab - we had a power shutdown in our building last night through much of today, but the site is back up and ready to get slashdotted.
::grin::
I've heard of slashdotting, but now we're taking out the power grid too?
-- james
I was thinking about this too. I don't like the RIAA/MPAA, but I was thinking exactly what is the harm this could do?
The only reason I can come up with for the MPAA wanting to do this is if: helping track big pirating operations. Say they bust a big bootlegging operation, it would then probably have one original that it copied everything else off. All the bootlegged copies would have the original tag, and this unique tag could then be used to work out how many pirated copies have made it out into (dodgy) stores, etc. It could help with prosecution.
I guess this is fair enough. I don't support piracy, and if this helps catch big-ass pirates without preventing me from putting a few (fairly purchased) movies on my laptop hard drive I'll support it.
-- james
but you're forgetting - BT invented the internet.
-- james
better than plugging the analogue hole - why don't they plug everybody's ear holes. That way, nobody would want to pirate music.
And what's the bet they'd blame a fall in sales on the "damn grail pirates"
-- james
either that, or my adsl connection just went down. something tells me it's the former.
/. sites from the subcategories now (like apple.slashdot.org). I think we need a /. mirror of every page that gets linked or something :)
great, we're
-- james
Microsoft is doing more than just trying to leverage into another hot market... this plan is so much bolder than that. They're out to chop the knees out from under Dell, HPaq, and Gateway.
Xbox2, most likely, but possibly xbox3 will be the "home computer". It will be marketed as such, a computer that is "so much simpler to use" and never has compatibility problems caused by all sorts of 3rd party drivers. It will be cheaper too, loaded with software and still well under then $700 price mark that consumer pc's are shooting for.
sounds to me like an iMac run on a TV instead of an LCD. I'd rather entrust my online-life to Apple than MS.
-- james
yeah, and tell me how much Optus made in profits last year?
It was not a pretty number: ie a lot less than zero.
-- james
It's time to wheel out the perennial Slashdot "cheap unlimited broadband is a right, not a privilege" crowd.
Everyone forgets - these companies are in business to make money. To lay out broadband across a country so vast and a with such a low population density is always going to be an expensive task. And because it's relatively expensive (a 3gb ADSL plan on Telstra is more than double most unlimited 56k modem plans), most of the people that have adopted it are the hardcore. Furthermore, because previously Optus have allowed more in downloads per month than Telstra, they've attracted all the big downloading home customers. Which would have only compounded their problems. Optus have probably been making a loss on the provisioning of this service for some time.
So, the Optus gravy train has ground to a halt. It's a shame, but before you go off the hook at them, please bear in mind that these businesses are there to make money. If you don't like the price/policy that goes along with it, don't use what they offer.
-- james
I know this is going to get me modded down, but what is the obsession with Stanley Kubrick? His movies are tripped out delusions of a nutcase that are coherent (if you're lucky) about half the time. I sat watching 2001 for the first 15 minutes, thinking this guy has got to be joking. I spent the last 15 minutes on fast forward, until some baby in a goddamn bubble floated towards the earth.
He's vastly overrated.
-- james
Funny thing to note: timothy and I went to see Spider-Man, yesterday and we were the only two people in that theatre. Three guesses where everyone else went, and the first two don't count.
:)
In Australia, AotC has come out before SpiderMan. What will be interesting is to see if the reverse of this holds true - I intend to go see Star Wars again, and I'll do it once Spider man is out. If there are only two people in the theatre, I'll have a good guess where they've gone (and yeah, the first two don't count
-- james
I'm glad somebody appreciates my sense of humour :)
:)
:P
I don't see why you couldn't link them up by IR
-- james
ps yeah, go ahead, rip me up, moderators with sense of humour failure