You've completely missed the point. If you've voted and the party of your choice does not win than criticize away! Say I told you so or jump up and down, the fact is that you've exercised your ballot. If you haven't voted either by choice or by submitting a blank ballot than quite simply you've forfeited your vote and it spreads the message of "I don't really care who gets voted in". If this is the case than keep your mouth shut because you had your chance to be heard.
That is it, plain and simple.
And you're part about prying your freedom of speech from your cold, dead fingers? Where did that come from? No one said that the citizens of Australia are restricted from rallying for their favorite canidate or voicing their opinions concerning who others should vote for.
1) Casting a blank ballot also goes to forfeit your right to complain? What if I want none of these guys to represent me? I care deeply about politics, just not about these politicians. Must I run myself then? Even if I would show an effort, though staying at home would be just as blank a vote,it's not good enough for you. Not that you could even tell if I cast a blank vote.
2) Complaining about politicians is the most fundamental freedom of speech. Citizens are not just campaigning/funding/voting machines for candidates! (And like I said before, those who don't get to vote still have the right to bitch. It's a fundamental human right, not an exclusive right of voters-who-did-not-vote-blank.) Take the UK or the US. There are really only two parties! Care to choose your poison? And if you don't take any poison you don't get to see the doctor.
I'm sorry, but You missed the point. Your position is fundamentally flawed.
Besides, who's going to stop me from complaining? Your imaginary Thought Police?
Well, actually them losing their backups has zero to do with their ability to deal with certification. The guys who write code, didn't lose the backups. The SysAdmin did.
Earth to programmer guy. How are we supposed to trust you people not to conveniently "lose" a couple of "backups" of votes? Also called ballots?
Until a voter can ensure the setup of the machine, in a trustworthy way, your screwed.
Which is why manual voting is cool. You can see the paper going into the boxes, coming out, and being counted. It's not necessarily too slow, election results CAN ACTUALLY WAIT A DAMN DAY. Plus, not every Joe Voter may want to hang around to inspect stuff, but usually the political parties on the ballots have some vested interest in keeping an eye on the proceedings.
I truly believe that if you don't vote (or in an Australian citizen's case cast a blank ballot) you have no place to criticize politics or the actions of politicians until you do so.
I truly believe that if you voted in some schmuck who turns around and screws you, you don't have the right to complain. After all, he has your mandate..
On a finer note, what about people who don't get to vote? Illegal immigrants (which for most parts of Western Europe includes for example women smuggled into the country and forced into prostitution), or even (in the US) prisoners (who are stripped of even their passive political rights). Can't they complain?
How about people who voted for the opposition? Surely they can't blame the government for doing something they don't like! They should've voted for the winner if they wanted to keep them to their promises.. What about I don't vote this time because I don't like ANY of the parties? Maybe I have my own political party and wasn't able to get enough signatures/money to get on the list of candidates? Is my political preference then null and void and must I vote "blank"?
Yours is a fundamentally undemocratic proposition that is unfortunately but all too often bandied about by politicians who in fact only want more people to vote since that would increase their legitimacy. "Why, dear constituent, I'm hardbroken that you take an opposing view, but you see, 5 billion other people voted for me, and they support me down to the last man, I can assure you that.."
Ever noticed how opinion polls the day before the election are rarely more than a few percentage points off? And the accuracy of exit polls? While it's a good thing that every single vote is counted, opinion polls and exit polls accurately predict at the very least which government gets to be in charge; at which point the celebration starts at political headquarters; counting the rest of the votes is a formality, mostly a headcount to see how "legitimate" a political party can claim to be when they decide to renege on their election promises. The fact that 60% of the population choses to go to the park doesn't mean their political preferences, given the choices available, aren't reflected in the results.
Ever notice how seats in parliament always get filled, whatever the number of blank votes may be? Blank should get at least a couple of seats, empty ones! Otherwise what is the sense of rules requiring a 3/4 majority to change sensitive legislation (such as the Consitution in a lot of countries) if you can't be sure that 3/4 majority actually represents more than a handful of voters?
Freedom of speech, press, and even thought are human rights that are fundamental to democracy. They don't just extend to those who are able and allowed to vote, but to everyone. Even foreigners (ahem, journalists from abroad?) who aren't necessarily affected by whatever policies and legislations the politicians may come up with. And that's a very, very good thing. To state otherwise is frankly absurd.
Mandatory voting? Well, it's a bit silly, and people are sure to object. It won't serve any purpose but to strengthen politicians' "legitimacy" or "mandate", whatever their true legitimacy is (for example the turnout for the European Parliament elections is very low.. Because they don't have any power or influence! Well duh, big waste of my time and taxes!). But if it makes you happy, sure, make me vote.
But you can pry my freedom of speech from my cold, dead fingers!
And yeah I voted. Not that it's any of your business.
I don't see what you guys' problem is. Just take a lesson from the RIAA and sue for infringement! Let's see... at >$750 per infringement, which I'm taking to be per d/l, you'll be able to retire in no time! I'd be sure to file suit early, though, just in case they go belly-up.
You're neglecting the fact that BuyMusic.com is connected to the interweb with the equivalent of 20,000 modems, so every download should be counted 20,000 times over, resulting in a $15 million claim per download.;-)
do cell phones, refirgerators, and other "appliances" really need a dedicated static i.p. address? why can't they use NAT and private addresses?
But if you have, say, 2 appliances that you need to be able to access from the outside, you'd need to keep them apart. For example one could be on port 31337 and the other on port 31338 and those ports are forwarded to 10.0.0.1:22 and 10.0.0.2:22. Of course, setting that up manually is a bit of a chore, plus you'd have to remember all of it. It would be neat if there was a standardized protocol to do this. Guess what, hotshot! This is your lucky day! There *is* such a protocol, and it *eliminates* all problems you could think of. It's not called uPNP,it's called... wait for it.. IPv6 !
So that only leaves the top client OS, top server OS, top word processor, top spreadsheet, top client database, top server database, top mail server, etc, etc, etc as product that Microsoft developed. Wow. What a failure.
Erm.. I think two companies, called Oracle and Sendmail, might have something to say about that...
Yeah, like we really needed thousands of.whateverc files in our home directory. Not to mention countless environment variables, sometimes unpleasantly clashing with each other.
In fact the one thing windows DID have going for it were.ini files. Easily edited, standard format, human readable with room for comments. And the settings in the "working directory" the app started up from would override settings in c:\windows\app.ini. Much better than that registry malarky.
Oh, and you shouldn't use %windir% except in shell scripting, there's an API call to get the Windows directory. (Also home directory, temp directory, etc).
As well as in oemsetup.inf files (though that makes windows use the API call, which may or may not be the same value).
Re:POSIX,LSB,BSD,heck, where is everything?
on
LSB & Posix Conflicts
·
· Score: 4, Informative
C:\Program Files\
Ok, is explorer.exe in C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer\ ? Or in C:\Windows\ ? Or in C:\Windows\System32\? Or in C:\Program Files\Explorer\? And where's iexplore.exe ? Where's the uninstaller for FooSoft Bar? C:\windows\unwise.exe ?
Now go and find those settings. Are they in C:\Documents and Settings\Windows User\Application Data\ ? Are they in C:\Program Files\Foo\Bar.ini ? In win.ini? Are they in the registry in HKLM? Or in HKCU? Or even in HKU\.DEFAULT? Or in a group policy? Or in a custom policy? Somewhere in Active Directory?
Where does iexplore put it's cache? How about MSIE 4? How about 5? How about if you run ME? in C:\Windows\Cache ? In c:\Documents and Settings\Windows User\Local Settings\Temp? Win98x doesnt even have C:\Documents and Settings!
When is %windir% C:\windows and when is it c:\winnt? Why is %windir% even an environment variables, people fuck with those!
Windows paths are a great big piling heap of.. Well, something unpleasant. And the registry doubly so. Granted, the *nix way of doing things isn't perfect, but at least it had homedirectories(!) with.apprc settings ages ago.
They work great for comp sci projects, and if you have an essay or a paper to write, do it in vi first, import it to word_processor_of_your_choice (for formatting) only when you're about to print it.
For those who use LaTeX, vi *is* te word_processor_of_choice.
My earlier comment was incorrect. You can have 2 numbers for 1 phone (the nams you speak of) what you cant have is 1 number for 2 (or more) phones.
I have just exactly that; a "personal number" which rings simultaneously on my cell and on my home number (though I can add up to 10 domestic phonenumbers, and even use a roster (e.g. workplace phone rings only between 9 and 5) through a simple web interface). The provider I'm using at the moment offers free service for me, but the caller does pay a higher charge per minute. I could go with another provider though.
An aspect of Kroupware project I find really interesting is the "indirect funding" by the German government. The government said "we need features X, Y, and Z and be compatible with Outlook and Linux". The developers responded to those requests and won the contract to develop the software. I've thought for a long time this would be a really intelligent way for government agencies of any size to get the features they want out of software for a reasonable price.
Amazingly, this process, called a public tender, or even a "European tender" is mandatory for EU government agencies for any purchase over 100,000 euros.
The trick is to cut up your purchases in smaller amount (software for department A, maximum 99,999.99, software for department B, maximum 99,999.99) or to overspecify the requirements such that only a specific vendor's offering complies.
This vendor also may or may not, completely by coincidence, offer whoever is in charge of making up the specifications huge discounts on construction of his porch, or demonstrations at the vendor's "head quarters" on Honolulu. Which is really quite inconvenient seeing as the 5 star Hotel requires a minimum 14 day stay, which coincides with the dates on the plane tickets. Strange, that.
People working on secret project. Send sensitive files in.. Encrypted.zips. The ones you can crack in 4 hours at most.
Why? "everyone has zip" and "it's good enough" (Yes, indeed! Evil hacker people who intercept your e-mail on the internet through a myriad of complicated hacks and deceptions will never think to download a.zip cracker!).
Nevermind that everyone has Outlook [other S/MIME mailreaders available], and that for all it failings, it does a pretty good job of strong S/MIME encryption using X.509 certs..
Gotta love ad-hoc cubicle solutions to the world's problems.
"mostly audiophile gear is a jerk-off session of wannabee music expert wealthy bast^H^H^H^H guys who can afford to spend large anounts of money on equipment"
And this differs from computer hardware discussions how?
Computer hardware discussion usually discuss measurable quantities such as Mhz, fps, Mbps, etc. The more subjective stuff (CISC vs. RISC) is usually backed up by benchmarks (with all sides accepting that ALL benchmarks are bullshit). It is rare to hear an audiophile even mention the word "frequency", let alone relate this to any numbers ("high" frequencies? wotsat?).
Now, if you're talking about software, that's when geeks get religious!;-)
My only question is, if you have questions with the code, aren't you going to need a translator for the comments?
English is the international language for software development. Most companies that have overseas work, or open operations will have business-level English speakers at hand for this stuff. We have 3 Indians here, all of whom speak excellent English (although one has an accent exactly like Apu) just for that reason.
More over, a lot of people in India speak English, what with it being a former Colony of the Brits, and English being pretty much a Lingua Franca though it's not one of 15 official languages(!).
Still, there are cultural differences. In Indian culture it's very rude to say 'No', so they might happily say 'Yes', which means 'If I get around to it' or 'Maybe' which means 'Go @#$! yourself'.
In many countries, time is rather more flexible than in the West. Next week may mean in a few months, and tomorrow almost invariably means 'never' (even as far from the Western world as Spain).
American (and Dutch, which is what I am:p) frankness is perceived as incredibly rude by approximately 95% of the world's inhabitants (including the Brits;-). The same goes for a lack of devout, unquestioning respect of seniority (hello Germany;-).
This implies that the nations denying visas (or whatever is happening) are doing so based SOLELY upon the Passport Number, a number which is only used to uniquely identify the passport document itself, and not the person? I surely hope not.
Does your passport list your SSN? No? So what other number can they use to identify you? And not just you, but nationals from every country on this earth? Full name isn't unique, sometimes not even with d.o.b. and city (o.b.) added. Adresses change. You can even change your name (and, incidentally, get a new passport). Or your gender, even! Passport number is no worse than any other identifier. Even biometrics won't do the trick, too much false negatives (and worse, positives); even when we use the most advanced face recognition techniques available (wanted posters).
If someone else (or you yourself, you criminal terrorist) steals your identity, you can even get a new SSN!
>>So are nuclear bombs. Some tools are too powerful >>to allow them to become pervasive in society.
>More specifically, nuclear power is the tool, and >has both positive uses (eletricity generation, >radiology, etc.) and negative uses (nuclear bombs). >Nuclear power itself, though, is neutral.
No. A bomb is a tool. Which can be used for excavating for example. Or clearing away debris. Or demolishing buildings in an orderly fashion. Nuclear power is a concept.
A hammer is a tool. It's an instrument. "Hammering" is not a tool. "Gravity" is not a tool. Here's the clue; tools are objects. Physical processes and laws of nature are not. We've been using nuclear power for ages; the sun runs off of it. That doesn't make it a tool.
An X-ray machine is a tool. And we only let doctors and some border security people use those, however beneficial an application it might seem.
Sorry to be pedantic, but you were kinda talking out of your ass..:-p
So are nuclear bombs. Some tools are too powerful to allow them to become pervasive in society.
You even have to take a test to use a car, for Pete's sake! Some countries even outlaw handguns.. I heard rumors that certain seven year olds might not be allowed to bring foot long knives to school.. Regardless of whether they'd use them to just eat their lunch!
Slashdot Mirror
You've completely missed the point. If you've voted and the party of your choice does not win than criticize away! Say I told you so or jump up and down, the fact is that you've exercised your ballot. If you haven't voted either by choice or by submitting a blank ballot than quite simply you've forfeited your vote and it spreads the message of "I don't really care who gets voted in". If this is the case than keep your mouth shut because you had your chance to be heard.
That is it, plain and simple.
And you're part about prying your freedom of speech from your cold, dead fingers? Where did that come from? No one said that the citizens of Australia are restricted from rallying for their favorite canidate or voicing their opinions concerning who others should vote for.
1) Casting a blank ballot also goes to forfeit your right to complain? What if I want none of these guys to represent me? I care deeply about politics, just not about these politicians. Must I run myself then? Even if I would show an effort, though staying at home would be just as blank a vote,it's not good enough for you. Not that you could even tell if I cast a blank vote.
2) Complaining about politicians is the most fundamental freedom of speech. Citizens are not just campaigning/funding/voting machines for candidates! (And like I said before, those who don't get to vote still have the right to bitch. It's a fundamental human right, not an exclusive right of voters-who-did-not-vote-blank.)
Take the UK or the US. There are really only two parties! Care to choose your poison? And if you don't take any poison you don't get to see the doctor.
I'm sorry, but You missed the point. Your position is fundamentally flawed.
Besides, who's going to stop me from complaining? Your imaginary Thought Police?
Well, actually them losing their backups has zero to do with their ability to deal with certification. The guys who write code, didn't lose the backups. The SysAdmin did.
Earth to programmer guy. How are we supposed to trust you people not to conveniently "lose" a couple of "backups" of votes? Also called ballots?
Until a voter can ensure the setup of the machine, in a trustworthy way, your screwed.
Which is why manual voting is cool. You can see the paper going into the boxes, coming out, and being counted. It's not necessarily too slow, election results CAN ACTUALLY WAIT A DAMN DAY. Plus, not every Joe Voter may want to hang around to inspect stuff, but usually the political parties on the ballots have some vested interest in keeping an eye on the proceedings.
I truly believe that if you don't vote (or in an Australian citizen's case cast a blank ballot) you have no place to criticize politics or the actions of politicians until you do so.
I truly believe that if you voted in some schmuck who turns around and screws you, you don't have the right to complain. After all, he has your mandate..
On a finer note, what about people who don't get to vote? Illegal immigrants (which for most parts of Western Europe includes for example women smuggled into the country and forced into prostitution), or even (in the US) prisoners (who are stripped of even their passive political rights). Can't they complain?
How about people who voted for the opposition? Surely they can't blame the government for doing something they don't like! They should've voted for the winner if they wanted to keep them to their promises.. What about I don't vote this time because I don't like ANY of the parties? Maybe I have my own political party and wasn't able to get enough signatures/money to get on the list of candidates? Is my political preference then null and void and must I vote "blank"?
Yours is a fundamentally undemocratic proposition that is unfortunately but all too often bandied about by politicians who in fact only want more people to vote since that would increase their legitimacy. "Why, dear constituent, I'm hardbroken that you take an opposing view, but you see, 5 billion other people voted for me, and they support me down to the last man, I can assure you that.."
Ever noticed how opinion polls the day before the election are rarely more than a few percentage points off? And the accuracy of exit polls? While it's a good thing that every single vote is counted, opinion polls and exit polls accurately predict at the very least which government gets to be in charge; at which point the celebration starts at political headquarters; counting the rest of the votes is a formality, mostly a headcount to see how "legitimate" a political party can claim to be when they decide to renege on their election promises. The fact that 60% of the population choses to go to the park doesn't mean their political preferences, given the choices available, aren't reflected in the results.
Ever notice how seats in parliament always get filled, whatever the number of blank votes may be? Blank should get at least a couple of seats, empty ones! Otherwise what is the sense of rules requiring a 3/4 majority to change sensitive legislation (such as the Consitution in a lot of countries) if you can't be sure that 3/4 majority actually represents more than a handful of voters?
Freedom of speech, press, and even thought are human rights that are fundamental to democracy. They don't just extend to those who are able and allowed to vote, but to everyone. Even foreigners (ahem, journalists from abroad?) who aren't necessarily affected by whatever policies and legislations the politicians may come up with.
And that's a very, very good thing. To state otherwise is frankly absurd.
Mandatory voting? Well, it's a bit silly, and people are sure to object. It won't serve any purpose but to strengthen politicians' "legitimacy" or "mandate", whatever their true legitimacy is (for example the turnout for the European Parliament elections is very low.. Because they don't have any power or influence! Well duh, big waste of my time and taxes!). But if it makes you happy, sure, make me vote.
But you can pry my freedom of speech from my cold, dead fingers!
And yeah I voted. Not that it's any of your business.
I don't see what you guys' problem is. Just take a lesson from the RIAA and sue for infringement! Let's see... at >$750 per infringement, which I'm taking to be per d/l, you'll be able to retire in no time! I'd be sure to file suit early, though, just in case they go belly-up.
;-)
You're neglecting the fact that BuyMusic.com is connected to the interweb with the equivalent of 20,000 modems, so every download should be counted 20,000 times over, resulting in a $15 million claim per download.
I've seen the "NAT means you have to remember the address AND the port number. Too much to remember..."
Well lets see: 100.200.300.400:45634, kinda long
But IPv6: fe80::212:23ff:fe12, well, kinda still long
1) NAT break things.
2) Hostnames.
do cell phones, refirgerators, and other "appliances" really need a dedicated static i.p. address? why can't they use NAT and private addresses?
But if you have, say, 2 appliances that you need to be able to access from the outside, you'd need to keep them apart. For example one could be on port 31337 and the other on port 31338 and those ports are forwarded to 10.0.0.1:22 and 10.0.0.2:22. Of course, setting that up manually is a bit of a chore, plus you'd have to remember all of it. It would be neat if there was a standardized protocol to do this. Guess what, hotshot! This is your lucky day! There *is* such a protocol, and it *eliminates* all problems you could think of. It's not called uPNP,it's called... wait for it.. IPv6 !
So that only leaves the top client OS, top server OS, top word processor, top spreadsheet, top client database, top server database, top mail server, etc, etc, etc as product that Microsoft developed. Wow. What a failure.
Erm.. I think two companies, called Oracle and Sendmail, might have something to say about that...
Yeah, like we really needed thousands of
In fact the one thing windows DID have going for it were
Oh, and you shouldn't use %windir% except in shell scripting, there's an API call to get the Windows directory. (Also home directory, temp directory, etc).
As well as in oemsetup.inf files (though that makes windows use the API call, which may or may not be the same value).
C:\Program Files\
Ok, is explorer.exe in C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer\ ? Or in C:\Windows\ ? Or in C:\Windows\System32\? Or in C:\Program Files\Explorer\? And where's iexplore.exe ? Where's the uninstaller for FooSoft Bar? C:\windows\unwise.exe ?
Now go and find those settings. Are they in C:\Documents and Settings\Windows User\Application Data\ ? Are they in C:\Program Files\Foo\Bar.ini ? In win.ini? Are they in the registry in HKLM? Or in HKCU? Or even in HKU\.DEFAULT? Or in a group policy? Or in a custom policy? Somewhere in Active Directory?
Where does iexplore put it's cache? How about MSIE 4? How about 5? How about if you run ME? in C:\Windows\Cache ? In c:\Documents and Settings\Windows User\Local Settings\Temp? Win98x doesnt even have C:\Documents and Settings!
When is %windir% C:\windows and when is it c:\winnt? Why is %windir% even an environment variables, people fuck with those!
Windows paths are a great big piling heap of.. Well, something unpleasant. And the registry doubly so. Granted, the *nix way of doing things isn't perfect, but at least it had homedirectories(!) with
They work great for comp sci projects, and if you have an essay or a paper to write, do it in vi first, import it to word_processor_of_your_choice (for formatting) only when you're about to print it.
For those who use LaTeX, vi *is* te word_processor_of_choice.
My earlier comment was incorrect. You can have 2 numbers for 1 phone (the nams you speak of) what you cant have is 1 number for 2 (or more) phones.
;-)
I have just exactly that; a "personal number" which rings simultaneously on my cell and on my home number (though I can add up to 10 domestic phonenumbers, and even use a roster (e.g. workplace phone rings only between 9 and 5) through a simple web interface). The provider I'm using at the moment offers free service for me, but the caller does pay a higher charge per minute. I could go with another provider though.
Then again, I live in Europe
An aspect of Kroupware project I find really interesting is the "indirect funding" by the German government. The government said "we need features X, Y, and Z and be compatible with Outlook and Linux". The developers responded to those requests and won the contract to develop the software. I've thought for a long time this would be a really intelligent way for government agencies of any size to get the features they want out of software for a reasonable price.
Amazingly, this process, called a public tender, or even a "European tender" is mandatory for EU government agencies for any purchase over 100,000 euros.
The trick is to cut up your purchases in smaller amount (software for department A, maximum 99,999.99, software for department B, maximum 99,999.99) or to overspecify the requirements such that only a specific vendor's offering complies.
This vendor also may or may not, completely by coincidence, offer whoever is in charge of making up the specifications huge discounts on construction of his porch, or demonstrations at the vendor's "head quarters" on Honolulu. Which is really quite inconvenient seeing as the 5 star Hotel requires a minimum 14 day stay, which coincides with the dates on the plane tickets. Strange, that.
People working on secret project. Send sensitive files in.. Encrypted .zips.
.zip cracker!).
The ones you can crack in 4 hours at most.
Why? "everyone has zip" and "it's good enough" (Yes, indeed! Evil hacker people who intercept your e-mail on the internet through a myriad of complicated hacks and deceptions will never think to download a
Nevermind that everyone has Outlook [other S/MIME mailreaders available], and that for all it failings, it does a pretty good job of strong S/MIME encryption using X.509 certs..
Gotta love ad-hoc cubicle solutions to the world's problems.
The other 95% are Blue Screens Of Death which aren't reported because the system is dead...
Also, the LGPL. (For the framework that is)
The only thing it's useful for is getting you off to sleep at night.
OK, so if it doesn't do anything, how can it be effective in relaxing you?
You know, that's the point of meditation - to help you to relax.
I doubt your boss would like it if you went to sleep in his time
To sniff traffic it requires installing a packet driver... which also requires administrative rights.
Not on the same box though, plugging your laptop into the unwitting victim's network should suffice.
with a grain of salt.
rimshot
"mostly audiophile gear is a jerk-off session of wannabee music expert wealthy bast^H^H^H^H guys who can afford to spend large anounts of money on equipment"
;-)
And this differs from computer hardware discussions how?
Computer hardware discussion usually discuss measurable quantities such as Mhz, fps, Mbps, etc. The more subjective stuff (CISC vs. RISC) is usually backed up by benchmarks (with all sides accepting that ALL benchmarks are bullshit).
It is rare to hear an audiophile even mention the word "frequency", let alone relate this to any numbers ("high" frequencies? wotsat?).
Now, if you're talking about software, that's when geeks get religious!
English is the international language for software development. Most companies that have overseas work, or open operations will have business-level English speakers at hand for this stuff. We have 3 Indians here, all of whom speak excellent English (although one has an accent exactly like Apu) just for that reason.
More over, a lot of people in India speak English, what with it being a former Colony of the Brits, and English being pretty much a Lingua Franca though it's not one of 15 official languages(!).
Still, there are cultural differences. In Indian culture it's very rude to say 'No', so they might happily say 'Yes', which means 'If I get around to it' or 'Maybe' which means 'Go @#$! yourself'.
In many countries, time is rather more flexible than in the West. Next week may mean in a few months, and tomorrow almost invariably means 'never' (even as far from the Western world as Spain).
American (and Dutch, which is what I am
Language is the least of your problems..
This implies that the nations denying visas (or whatever is happening) are doing so based SOLELY upon the Passport Number, a number which is only used to uniquely identify the passport document itself, and not the person? I surely hope not.
Does your passport list your SSN? No? So what other number can they use to identify you? And not just you, but nationals from every country on this earth? Full name isn't unique, sometimes not even with d.o.b. and city (o.b.) added. Adresses change. You can even change your name (and, incidentally, get a new passport). Or your gender, even! Passport number is no worse than any other identifier. Even biometrics won't do the trick, too much false negatives (and worse, positives); even when we use the most advanced face recognition techniques available (wanted posters).
If someone else (or you yourself, you criminal terrorist) steals your identity, you can even get a new SSN!
Like in 2000?
For Microsoft, It's "Inactive TV" (businessweek)
And 2002?
Microsoft likely to miss key test on interactive TV(and they did)(zdnet)
>>So are nuclear bombs. Some tools are too powerful
:-p
>>to allow them to become pervasive in society.
>More specifically, nuclear power is the tool, and
>has both positive uses (eletricity generation,
>radiology, etc.) and negative uses (nuclear bombs).
>Nuclear power itself, though, is neutral.
No. A bomb is a tool. Which can be used for excavating for example. Or clearing away debris. Or demolishing buildings in an orderly fashion. Nuclear power is a concept.
A hammer is a tool. It's an instrument. "Hammering" is not a tool. "Gravity" is not a tool. Here's the clue; tools are objects. Physical processes and laws of nature are not.
We've been using nuclear power for ages; the sun runs off of it. That doesn't make it a tool.
An X-ray machine is a tool. And we only let doctors and some border security people use those, however beneficial an application it might seem.
Sorry to be pedantic, but you were kinda talking out of your ass..
RFID's are a tool
So are nuclear bombs.
Some tools are too powerful to allow them to become pervasive in society.
You even have to take a test to use a car, for Pete's sake! Some countries even outlaw handguns.. I heard rumors that certain seven year olds might not be allowed to bring foot long knives to school.. Regardless of whether they'd use them to just eat their lunch!