Well, one of the guys who made millions in the dot com boom is now making sure there are no more 9/11 disasters by writing books on terrorism: Craig Winn of ValueAmerica. Um, ValueAmerica is/was a massive scam a la Amway. Just like Amway, it was run by a right wing nut, Craig Winn. Now that he's no longer conning people, Winn spends his time writing hate books about Islam and promoting conservative Judaism.
Then, in another article, they link the "E3 speaker" to "divisive" comments regarding his belief in non-Christians' path to hell in questions asked of him _on that topic_ way back in 2006, as if those have a particular bearing on anything he might say at E3 2008. If Rick Perry was Grand Wizard of the KKK would you still want him as the keynote speaker at E3? I mean, it's not like racism has anything to do with gaming so it's unlikely that he'd comment. Or does such a bad reputation mean that you don't want your event associated with him?
It seems fair to ask whether GamePolitics is motivated by anti-Christian or anti-religious bigotry in their coverage. There's no information to suggest that the keynote speech was going to have a religious theme or message of any kind. How is pointing out Rick Perry is a right-wing nut (in general, GamePolitics just gave one example) "anti-Christian" or "anti-religious"? Rick Perry is the one who is anti-religious, and (in Christian nomenclature), an Anti-Christ or Anti-Christian, because he feigns Christianity but does not actually hold to Christian values.
You misunderstood my point. I understand your point. I disagree with it.
Look, let's put it like this: the plague outbursts were bad. Really bad. Freakin' horrible even. But their long term effects were good. We had a Renaissance and later an industrial revolution only because of the plague. Except this is totally wrong. The notion that a population devastated by disease is MORE likely to be able to buck the authoritarian status quo is bass-ackwards. Jared Diamond is full of crap.
The TPM, with the right software is specifically designed to EXACTLY as I described Fine, let's see a link to a working or even proposed implementation.
What is unethical is not allowing users to use any other form of payment (aside from COD). Why would an online merchant who already has a merchant gateway (credit card processing) account have to pay PayPal's ridiculous fees? eBay is not intended for online merchants that already have merchant accounts. It is intended for private sellers. Hopefully this change will reduce the prevalence of professional sellers on eBay.
There is absolutely zero technical reason for the prohibition, and aside from check/MO/cashier's check fraud, adds zero to the overall safety of transactions. Incorrect. The majority of fraudulent transactions on eBay are now processed through shady third-party credit card processors. Requiring PayPal will give eBay more control over transactions.
"Witch doctors" aka shamans treat patients through EXORCISM. They believe that illness is caused by evil spirits (or black magic) "possessing" the patient and their goal is to expel the spirits (or black magic) through mystical means. Herbal medicines are just incidental to this goal.
So the comparison I'm making is between EXORCISM and PSYCHOPHARMACEUTICALS. You seem to be talking about herbal medications here.
Secondly, I made a big distinction between PSYCHOSIS, mental illness caused by brain damage (essentially), and NEUROSIS, other, much more poorly-defined mental illnesses, like phobias. Psychopharmaceuticals are intend for the treatment of psychosis.
Given these caveats, I'll respond further.
Modern psychopharmaceuticals are not worthless, but clearly the model of their effect is no better than fiction. Selecting the right drug and dosage is ACTUALLY just guesswork. Keep trying things until the set of symptoms the patient suffers (from the disease and the side effects) becomes more or less tolerable. There exists no test to determine which will be effective. There is no objective measure that any are effective. All such reports involve subjective judgment. Nonsense. Animal studies have shown direct changes in brain chemistry due to psychopharmaceuticals. We know how most of them work. The right drug and dosage isn't just guesswork, but it is variable. Many of the drugs are very similar and so are their effects. This does not mean we know NOTHING about how these drugs work nor does it make them "unscientific". Not everyone's brain chemistry is identical, nor is our understanding of the brain 100% complete. And if everyone makes the same "subjective" judgment about a drug ("It makes me feel X") then that ceases to be subjective, but OBJECTIVE.
People who attack science, like creationists, often argue that because we don't know every imaginable detail about a subject (like evolution and the origin of life) that we don't actually know ANYTHING about the subject and the "theory" is false because it's incomplete. This is not how science works. Scientific understanding is NEVER complete.
Have you tried them? Have tried every herbal remedy ever invented? No, of course not. Have I tried some? Yes. Their effects were consistent with what I described earlier. They were "known" effective remedies and they seemed weaker and less effective than equivalent modern medicines (which are often refined or synthetic versions of herbal medicines).
Read an actual study demonstrating your assertion (preferably not one paid for by the maker of the synthetic)? Yes, several. Mostly regarding St. Johns Wort and Ginseng, both of which have gotten a lot of attention. Both only "work" if you reduce the claims made. Both tend to "work" at lot better when people know what they're getting. Proponents of these "cures" aren't interested in double-blind trials and don't report negative results.
Modern science doesn't focus on "curing" mental illness because it hasn't the slightest clue how to do that. That does NOT justify changing the metric to one more favorable. I know of only a few actual "cures" for mental illness, all developed by scientists. Electroshock, lobotomies, and LSD can cure psychosis. Neurosis is (IMHO) poorly defined, so it's difficult to determine what constitutes a "cure". But to claim that talk therapy+poisons from witch doctors is equivalent to modern psychopharmaceuticals is a little absurd.
Meanwhile, it turns out that a number of remedies used by folk healers of all sorts over the years turn out to contain various natural analogs to drugs in common use in modern medicine for the same conditions. Yes, and they're almost always less effective than synthetics. And we only know they "work" because of science. That's the point. Science is KNOWING through trial, study, and research. Folk medicine is GUESSING through practical experience. If your experience doesn't coincide with someone else's there's no way of determining who is right, it's an issue of authority not knowledge.
Let's not forget that modern chemistry evolved from the physical/practical side of alchemy. Astronomy evolved from astrology. Astrology is STILL bullshit.
Actually, it's demonstrated as being more effective than placebo for various pain. The margin by which acupuncture is "more effective" than placebo is quite small, less that 10%. Anyone who actually tests medications will tell you that is an unacceptably low success rate. A marginally effective treatment is little better than no treatment. And again, "marginally effective pain treatment" is not what acupuncturists claim.
Oh, and always happy to amuse, but the term has a fairly well established meaning that probably would be too confusing to get into with you. "Orthodox" as opposed to what? I just find the use of the term when applied to Lutherans (who aren't in communion with the catholic church) a little strange. I'd use the terms "conservative" and "liberal" to refer to interpretations by individual Lutheran churches. I just don't think that Martin Luther would appreciate being lumped in with the "papists".
"Monopoly abuse" and "innocent" are specific legal terms. They were ruled a "natural monopoly" by the US courts. How you can hold that against MS I have no idea. EU rulings don't count (they're pretty obviously biased).
The context here isn't legal, but moral. You're MORALLY condemning Microsoft based on evidence like the legal case against them. I'm attacking that evidence, arguing the case against them was essentially bogus so they did nothing "morally wrong". What I'm saying is that the whole concept of "tying" is nonsense in the context of web browsers and desktop operating systems. Bundling apps is perfectly legal, even for a supposed "monopoly".
I'm sure I can dredge up rulings against Apple on consumer protection issues (like the iPod battery lawsuit), but I don't think that proves anything either.
claims that the PPC architecture was superior to x86, however questionable in hindsight, even remotely translate to "Intel is evil." Apple, in various ways, claimed that Intel processors were technically inferior to PowerPC and that Intel was "immoral" (I don't know the exact words) because they had a "monopoly" on desktop processors. This was in advertising and straight from the horse's mouth (Jobs). This is hypocrisy/fraud because Apple has now adopted Intel processors.
In fact, virtually ever reviewer agrees that Apple engaged in outright fraud, or at best "misled", when presenting benchmarks for the G4 and G5 processors to give the false impression they were comparable to then-current Intel and AMD processors. They were not.
The rest of your post re: iTunes/iPods is unadulterated speculation. No it's not. I personally know this is what happened (more or less). I just can't prove it. You don't have to take my word for it.
Contracts with record labels are by definition not "internal."
Find them. I've looked and I've discovered that the entire contents of these contracts are considered "trade secrets" by both Apple and the label(s). I haven't tried from the label side, but from Apple's side.
For the record, as an ID'er (which of course, means that I am a Neanderthal ooga-booga sun worshipper, somewhat below a monkey in intelligence), Monkeys can't type, so I'd say you're probably smarter than a money.
Though from looking at your posts in this thread, not by much.
I also find the notion of an "orthodox Lutheran" pretty amusing.
Interestingly, witch doctors have the same cure rate as modern science in the field of mental illness but only waste 24 hours or so and cost a chicken. Modern science does not focus on "curing" mental illness, but an alleviating the symptoms. By THIS measure, the REAL measure, modern medicine stomps all over witch doctors whose treatment ENTIRELY consists of telling the patient they're not sick.
Acupuncture was seen as complete bunk in western medicine until fMRI studies showed an actual effect. Acupuncturists claim that acupuncture can treat or cure DISEASES, like cancer, heart disease, infectious diseases, etc. Unless they've proven these "actual effects" (and they haven't), acupuncture is bullshit. Acupuncture may be a halfway-decent treatment for back pain, and that's only due to the placebo effect, but that's it.
The Chilean Government has put up $600,000 to see if any of that magical thinking can be applied to the real world. Government donations don't mean much. The Japanese government has spent millions on "cold fusion".
And really, what's with all the cynicism? Long experience.
Developing EFFICIENT new forms of energy production has proven to be extremely difficult. No single hobbiest or home invetor has ever acheived it (bio-desil is not efficent). But for centuries now liars and con artists have been offering what used to be called "perpetual motion" machines. They're now called "free energy" machines. These are all fake.
Basically, long experience has shown that 100% of thousands of devices put forward by small inventors promising "cheap, efficient energy production" have proven to be false, usually outright fraud attempts. For this reason anyone with any experience is EXTREMELY skeptical of such claims.
At this point, 100% working demonstration models with extremely detailed blueprints which are available for literally ANYONE to test at ANY time under the conditions the tester determines should be considered the absolute minimum to rule out fraudsters.
This guy has no model, no blueprints, and a crappy website that hasn't been updated since 2006 when supposedly work was going to begin on a reactor in Chile. Where are the photographs? Where are the blueprints?
TPMs allow "remote attestation" - a software maker can ask your machine whether everything is in an approved state - are you running "cracked" software (does the digital signature of the code match) You are wrong. Nobody has yet come up with a mechanism to do what you describe with current shipping implementations of TPM. It is, according to my analysis and the analysis of everyone I've spoken to familiar with TPM, IMPOSSIBLE to implement what you're talking about with TPM. Bushnell is simply wrong here, likely because he is unfamiliar with the details of TPM.
What you're talking about is a hypothetical future technology. There is a possibility a technology such as you describe could make it to PC motherboards. I think it's unlikely, mainly because I don't see the Taiwanese spending their cash implementing 3rd-party encryption products in hardware, and more importantly, I don't see the game manufacturers getting together, creating a standard, and then paying the Taiwanese to put it on their motherboards.
I'd like to expand on the last part a bit: It is MUCH more likely that Microsoft will enforce some sort of of software locking system, similar to Palladium. The PC game makers have shown that they can't do ANYTHING by themselves, the only "standards" they have are things imposed by Microsoft. So unless MS is implementing something like this (after they way they were screwed on the "protected path" for HD content don't bet on it), it's not going to happen.
Microsoft has been found guilty of abusing its monopoly position in a court of law. Apple hasn't even been indicted. Just because a court ruled on it doesn't make it right. Are the cops who shot Sean Bell and beat Rodney King innocent? A court said they were, so they must be. The antitrust case against MS was basically bogus because it was perversely claimed that normal business practices suddenly because illegal ONLY when Microsoft did them. I worked for Netscape and I can assure your that Netscape ran THEMSELVES into the ground, they didn't need any help from MS.
("Intel is evil!") Now you're just making shit up. So I'm making up the term "Wintel"? I'm making up all of the advertising and marketing Apple put out claiming the PowerPC architecture of the Mac was superior to the Intel architecture of Windows machines? I must have been living in a parallel universe for the last 15 years.
Again, citation needed. I can't cite internal contracts between Apple and major record labels. Nor can a present a recording of Apple representatives making these assertions to record executives. But it happened. When companies (like Apple) break contracts they tend not to leave a paper trail.
The genesis of this is that Apple agreed before iTunes was created that the iPod, iTunes, and most importantly, Protected AAC would work ONLY on MacOS (originally, 9). The argument was that even if the protection was cracked, piracy would not be a problem because the iPod, etc. only worked with Mac which were/are very unpopular. They used this argument to get major label music far ahead of other music stores.
Let me ask you a question: Why do you think HP was selling iPods for Windows (back in the day) long before Apple did? And why did Apple "lend" HP engineers to port iTunes and also agree to do ALL of the design work, packaging, fulfillment, etc. as well. HP actually had NOTHING to do with the "HP iPods". Why do you think this happened? It's because "HP" could produce iPods for Windows without breaking the deal between Apple and the major labels.
How can Apple make Windows iPods now? The exclusivity contract expired. A long time ago. But by then the labels we seeing significant revenue off iTunes and didn't want to risk cutting Apple off out of spite. So they just won't give Apple any special deals anymore, that's why everyone else (Walmart, Amazon, Napster, etc.) has a lot more DRM-free music.
Confirmed victims of Stalin: about 2 millions. Stalin is responsible for the deaths of approximately 60 million people - from a combination of murder, war, famine, and neglect. That includes some of the Russians killed by the Nazis, as Stalin often sent military units into hopeless battles deliberately to eliminate his "opponents". His collectivization policies completely destroyed Russian agriculture causing famine, which he encouraged to purge more of his "opponents". Of course, he also outright kidnapped and murdered millions of innocent people.
Stalin is almost the definition of evil, even moreso because people in Russia still try to defend his madness. Stalin was worse than Hitler but slightly better than Mao. But even the People's Republic of China now admits that Mao was basically a monster.
None of this is a condemnation of communism or even the Soviet Union per se. Virtually everyone agrees that Lenin and Khrushchev were far better leaders.
No, actually, think about it more like: think that France decided to dismantle some monument to the WW2 American soldiers and send it back to America, together with a very loud and very melodramatic message, along the lines of, "fuck you very much, we didn't invite you here in the first place. Oh, and we liked the Nazis and Petain more." When did the USA march the French into concentration camps? Oh that's right, THEY DIDN'T. Stalin killed way more Estonians than Hitler.
The situation is more comparable to Native Americans asking for a war memorial dedicated to the US Army removed from their territory. Sure, at various points the US Army did "defend" Native Americans, but they slaughtered a lot more of them.
well, if the high-tech and web savvy Estonians were not able to block the attacks, or, according to the pdf report, even accurately pinpoint the origin of the attack, how could Putin's government do that Because Putin's cronies organized the protests and cyber attack.
How would it be in the interest of the Russian government to appear to the world as a bully? Remember how Putin poisoned one of his detractors with polonium, and exotic isotope used only by Russian Intelligence which ends in a very painful death? Putin obviously WANTED his critics to know that he was willing to hunt them down and kill them wherever they are. He compares himself to STALIN, for God's sake.
This whole Russia-bashing is quite annoying. It's not "Russia-bashing" it's "Putin-bashing", or even "neo-communist nationalist-bashing" because that's what we're attacking, not the Russian people. If I wanted to bash the Russian people I'd bash for for supporting a nutcase like Putin.
Second, the cold war did not end because the economy of SU was in collapse... The collapse began about 1991-1992, when a economy that previously functioned as a single company suddenly was split into a myriad of smaller companies You're contradicting yourself. The SU collapsed largely due to economic pressures, both internal and external, on RUSSIA which made Russia unable to maintain control of the satellite states (as you describe) and that lost of revenue led the the complete collapse of the Soviet system. Much of this pressure was external. Soviet citizens weren't doing so much WORSE (as you pointed out, things and be bad for a long time) but they came to realize that the Soviet system was never going to IMPROVE economic conditions, certainly not to the level of the West. Decrying the evils of "Western materialism" can only last so long when you don't have clothes on your back or food on your plate.
the deluded Western governments imagining that they won the cold war and they are entitled to a "winner takes all" attitude, not unlike what happened in Germany The "deluded Western governments" haven't imposed anything even remotely like the sanctions placed on Germany post-WWI on Russia. All Russia/SU lost was territory they seized through force. And the West didn't "take it way from them", they declared independence. Most of the current criticism against Russia is because Russia is moving AWAY from democracy and because they are selling arms and weapons technology indiscriminately.
The US government uses networks completely disconnected from the internet to conduct its real business, as posted repeatedly on slashdot. This is incredibly wrong. The US military uses a disconnected network "SIPRNet" for SOME classified information and communication between military equipment (tanks reporting their position to the command center). That's it. Every other part of the US government, like the IRS and the FBI, use the public internet as do all local and state agencies. Yes, the IRS transfers your tax data on the public internet.
Vladamirs Putins political party is heavily involved in supporting "youth" organizations which can act for the state, You are right in thinking this was probably a staged attack by the Russian government.
What excuse does anyone have, today, for being vulnerable to this? Money. Everything you talked about costs money. More links, new equipment, more staff, etc.
Estonia I can almost forgive, as they're relatively poor It's not like they need the money for public works, energy costs, FOOD. The reality is that expensive network equipment is a relatively low priority for most nations, and rightly so.
1) MS is not offering their software from the beneficence of samaritan spirit. Prove it. It strikes me as extremely optimistic to think that, as you put it, "5th world" nations will magically become 1st world nations in short oder and begin providing significant revenue streams. So if this is a "loss leader" investment they must be thinking in the long term, like 100 years. Pretty odd thinking from a company with a constantly-changing 5 year roadmap.
3) No matter what language it supports, If you can't read the text on the screen, a laptop isn't much good to you. According to OLPC, on the site you linked:
At the moment, the laptop is 100% English, 68% Spanish, 53% French, 48% Portuguese, 40% Japanese and 30% German. All the other languages are 5% done at best.
which is exactly what I saw when I used the OLPC. NONE of these are the native languages for any of the target markets of the OLPC. OTHO, Windows XP supports MOST of the languages for the OLPC's target market.
It shows, quite obviously, that Windows supports far more languages than Linux.
3) Redhat, Novell, Canonical et al were not asked to step up. According to the people I talked to at LinuxWorld several major vendors were asked for help and they turned the OLPC people down cold. They didn't want to invest in a money pit and/or they didn't have the cash of charity projects. I can't prove this, since I heard it verbally. Why don't you ask Redhat, etc. why they aren't involved?
I say convinced with all the irony that I can muster in this life and the next. Please present evidence that Microsoft coerced OLPC into using XP, especially give that the OPLC founder and spokespeople have said otherwise.
MS is offering a raped version of XP, and not the version you are obviously used to. I haven't seen it, but I suspect it's basically WinXP for Legacy PCs, which aside from limiting the number of apps you can run, is basically Windows XP with the Classic skin. The screenshots I've seen certainly look a lot like XPFLP.
I offer this review as rebuttal. Stallman is obviously biased. He wouldn't used Windows if it cured cancer. I don't trust Bill O'Reilly for objective political commentary either.
XP is too big for the built-in 1GB flash chip, so it'll come preloaded on a 2GB SD card Presumably newer versions of the OLPC will start shipping with 2GB of memory to accommodate the new OS. The SD card is presumably a stopgap.
And if they weren't so overpaid the whole Hollywood inflated price scales would get in touch with reality all the way to the box office and DVD rack at Walmart. Except this is nonsense. If actors were literally slaves, the cost of DVDs wouldn't go down one red cent. The reason movies are expensive is largely because of MARKETING costs, not actor's salaries (a small percentage of most large films). And actor's salaries are slowly starting to go down ans Hollywod films in general are becoming more "effects oriented".
No, a government monopoly[1] to threaten your employer with jail if he trys to buy services at market prices is wicked and he is a either an idiot or wicked for suggesting it. SAG is not a "government monopoly". SAN can't threaten anybody with jail, nor can ANY union I'm aware of except the FOP. Studios can feel free to ignore SAG and use non-SAG actors in their films. What they can't do is sign an exclusive contract with SAG (as almost every studio has) and then ignore it. Then SAG can sue them for billions and win very easily.
The only unions that are really widely abused are unions for government workers, like the Fraternal Order of Police, because they're insulated from market forces and only have to lobby/bribe the government for benefits. Consequently, police have high salaries, extensive benefits (including 100% matching pensions), and jobs for life (it's essentially impossible to fire a police officer, no matter what). All of which is completely unheard of in the private sector. I'd argue the teacher's unions are one of the biggest problems with our schools as well (you can't fire lousy teachers).
Right now, union organizers around the world are are being murdered by corporate thugs. In the USA, they can't get away with outright murdering union organizers any more so the threaten, sue, harass, and stalk them. All with impunity. There certainly is a power imbalance, but it's not with the unions.
Slashdot Mirror
"Witch doctors" aka shamans treat patients through EXORCISM. They believe that illness is caused by evil spirits (or black magic) "possessing" the patient and their goal is to expel the spirits (or black magic) through mystical means. Herbal medicines are just incidental to this goal.
So the comparison I'm making is between EXORCISM and PSYCHOPHARMACEUTICALS. You seem to be talking about herbal medications here.
Secondly, I made a big distinction between PSYCHOSIS, mental illness caused by brain damage (essentially), and NEUROSIS, other, much more poorly-defined mental illnesses, like phobias. Psychopharmaceuticals are intend for the treatment of psychosis.
Given these caveats, I'll respond further. Modern psychopharmaceuticals are not worthless, but clearly the model of their effect is no better than fiction. Selecting the right drug and dosage is ACTUALLY just guesswork. Keep trying things until the set of symptoms the patient suffers (from the disease and the side effects) becomes more or less tolerable. There exists no test to determine which will be effective. There is no objective measure that any are effective. All such reports involve subjective judgment. Nonsense. Animal studies have shown direct changes in brain chemistry due to psychopharmaceuticals. We know how most of them work. The right drug and dosage isn't just guesswork, but it is variable. Many of the drugs are very similar and so are their effects. This does not mean we know NOTHING about how these drugs work nor does it make them "unscientific". Not everyone's brain chemistry is identical, nor is our understanding of the brain 100% complete. And if everyone makes the same "subjective" judgment about a drug ("It makes me feel X") then that ceases to be subjective, but OBJECTIVE.
People who attack science, like creationists, often argue that because we don't know every imaginable detail about a subject (like evolution and the origin of life) that we don't actually know ANYTHING about the subject and the "theory" is false because it's incomplete. This is not how science works. Scientific understanding is NEVER complete. Have you tried them? Have tried every herbal remedy ever invented? No, of course not. Have I tried some? Yes. Their effects were consistent with what I described earlier. They were "known" effective remedies and they seemed weaker and less effective than equivalent modern medicines (which are often refined or synthetic versions of herbal medicines). Read an actual study demonstrating your assertion (preferably not one paid for by the maker of the synthetic)? Yes, several. Mostly regarding St. Johns Wort and Ginseng, both of which have gotten a lot of attention. Both only "work" if you reduce the claims made. Both tend to "work" at lot better when people know what they're getting. Proponents of these "cures" aren't interested in double-blind trials and don't report negative results.
The context here isn't legal, but moral. You're MORALLY condemning Microsoft based on evidence like the legal case against them. I'm attacking that evidence, arguing the case against them was essentially bogus so they did nothing "morally wrong". What I'm saying is that the whole concept of "tying" is nonsense in the context of web browsers and desktop operating systems. Bundling apps is perfectly legal, even for a supposed "monopoly".
I'm sure I can dredge up rulings against Apple on consumer protection issues (like the iPod battery lawsuit), but I don't think that proves anything either. claims that the PPC architecture was superior to x86, however questionable in hindsight, even remotely translate to "Intel is evil." Apple, in various ways, claimed that Intel processors were technically inferior to PowerPC and that Intel was "immoral" (I don't know the exact words) because they had a "monopoly" on desktop processors. This was in advertising and straight from the horse's mouth (Jobs). This is hypocrisy/fraud because Apple has now adopted Intel processors.
In fact, virtually ever reviewer agrees that Apple engaged in outright fraud, or at best "misled", when presenting benchmarks for the G4 and G5 processors to give the false impression they were comparable to then-current Intel and AMD processors. They were not. The rest of your post re: iTunes/iPods is unadulterated speculation. No it's not. I personally know this is what happened (more or less). I just can't prove it. You don't have to take my word for it.
Contracts with record labels are by definition not "internal."
Find them. I've looked and I've discovered that the entire contents of these contracts are considered "trade secrets" by both Apple and the label(s). I haven't tried from the label side, but from Apple's side.
Though from looking at your posts in this thread, not by much.
I also find the notion of an "orthodox Lutheran" pretty amusing.
Developing EFFICIENT new forms of energy production has proven to be extremely difficult. No single hobbiest or home invetor has ever acheived it (bio-desil is not efficent). But for centuries now liars and con artists have been offering what used to be called "perpetual motion" machines. They're now called "free energy" machines. These are all fake.
Basically, long experience has shown that 100% of thousands of devices put forward by small inventors promising "cheap, efficient energy production" have proven to be false, usually outright fraud attempts. For this reason anyone with any experience is EXTREMELY skeptical of such claims.
At this point, 100% working demonstration models with extremely detailed blueprints which are available for literally ANYONE to test at ANY time under the conditions the tester determines should be considered the absolute minimum to rule out fraudsters.
This guy has no model, no blueprints, and a crappy website that hasn't been updated since 2006 when supposedly work was going to begin on a reactor in Chile. Where are the photographs? Where are the blueprints?
This guy is a con artist, pure and simple.
What you're talking about is a hypothetical future technology. There is a possibility a technology such as you describe could make it to PC motherboards. I think it's unlikely, mainly because I don't see the Taiwanese spending their cash implementing 3rd-party encryption products in hardware, and more importantly, I don't see the game manufacturers getting together, creating a standard, and then paying the Taiwanese to put it on their motherboards.
I'd like to expand on the last part a bit: It is MUCH more likely that Microsoft will enforce some sort of of software locking system, similar to Palladium. The PC game makers have shown that they can't do ANYTHING by themselves, the only "standards" they have are things imposed by Microsoft. So unless MS is implementing something like this (after they way they were screwed on the "protected path" for HD content don't bet on it), it's not going to happen.
Mod the parent up please. Syndicate was fscking awesome. Probably my all-time favorite game. Syndicate Wars was a fairly lackluster follow-up.
Fable was pretty good, one of the best RPGs of it's era. But it was overshadowed by KOTOR.
Well, there you go. I heard that a number of engineers from Red Had had contributed, but I hadn't heard about cash. Kudos for Red Hat.
The genesis of this is that Apple agreed before iTunes was created that the iPod, iTunes, and most importantly, Protected AAC would work ONLY on MacOS (originally, 9). The argument was that even if the protection was cracked, piracy would not be a problem because the iPod, etc. only worked with Mac which were/are very unpopular. They used this argument to get major label music far ahead of other music stores.
Let me ask you a question: Why do you think HP was selling iPods for Windows (back in the day) long before Apple did? And why did Apple "lend" HP engineers to port iTunes and also agree to do ALL of the design work, packaging, fulfillment, etc. as well. HP actually had NOTHING to do with the "HP iPods". Why do you think this happened? It's because "HP" could produce iPods for Windows without breaking the deal between Apple and the major labels.
How can Apple make Windows iPods now? The exclusivity contract expired. A long time ago. But by then the labels we seeing significant revenue off iTunes and didn't want to risk cutting Apple off out of spite. So they just won't give Apple any special deals anymore, that's why everyone else (Walmart, Amazon, Napster, etc.) has a lot more DRM-free music.
Stalin is almost the definition of evil, even moreso because people in Russia still try to defend his madness. Stalin was worse than Hitler but slightly better than Mao. But even the People's Republic of China now admits that Mao was basically a monster.
None of this is a condemnation of communism or even the Soviet Union per se. Virtually everyone agrees that Lenin and Khrushchev were far better leaders.
The situation is more comparable to Native Americans asking for a war memorial dedicated to the US Army removed from their territory. Sure, at various points the US Army did "defend" Native Americans, but they slaughtered a lot more of them.
At the moment, the laptop is 100% English, 68% Spanish, 53% French, 48% Portuguese, 40% Japanese and 30% German. All the other languages are 5% done at best.
which is exactly what I saw when I used the OLPC. NONE of these are the native languages for any of the target markets of the OLPC. OTHO, Windows XP supports MOST of the languages for the OLPC's target market.
If you look at this page on MS' site:
http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/reference/oslocversion.mspx#winxp
It shows, quite obviously, that Windows supports far more languages than Linux. 3) Redhat, Novell, Canonical et al were not asked to step up. According to the people I talked to at LinuxWorld several major vendors were asked for help and they turned the OLPC people down cold. They didn't want to invest in a money pit and/or they didn't have the cash of charity projects. I can't prove this, since I heard it verbally. Why don't you ask Redhat, etc. why they aren't involved? I say convinced with all the irony that I can muster in this life and the next. Please present evidence that Microsoft coerced OLPC into using XP, especially give that the OPLC founder and spokespeople have said otherwise. MS is offering a raped version of XP, and not the version you are obviously used to. I haven't seen it, but I suspect it's basically WinXP for Legacy PCs, which aside from limiting the number of apps you can run, is basically Windows XP with the Classic skin. The screenshots I've seen certainly look a lot like XPFLP. I offer this review as rebuttal. Stallman is obviously biased. He wouldn't used Windows if it cured cancer. I don't trust Bill O'Reilly for objective political commentary either. XP is too big for the built-in 1GB flash chip, so it'll come preloaded on a 2GB SD card Presumably newer versions of the OLPC will start shipping with 2GB of memory to accommodate the new OS. The SD card is presumably a stopgap.
Of course not, he's a RIGHT wing judicial activist.
The only unions that are really widely abused are unions for government workers, like the Fraternal Order of Police, because they're insulated from market forces and only have to lobby/bribe the government for benefits. Consequently, police have high salaries, extensive benefits (including 100% matching pensions), and jobs for life (it's essentially impossible to fire a police officer, no matter what). All of which is completely unheard of in the private sector. I'd argue the teacher's unions are one of the biggest problems with our schools as well (you can't fire lousy teachers).
Right now, union organizers around the world are are being murdered by corporate thugs. In the USA, they can't get away with outright murdering union organizers any more so the threaten, sue, harass, and stalk them. All with impunity. There certainly is a power imbalance, but it's not with the unions.