The expedition was a disaster for Athens, but Alcibiades only came up with the general idea. He wasn't responsible for the disasterous execution of it. The man most responsible for the disaster was Nicias - the leader of the "peace" faction who was put in charge of the expedition. He was unenthusiastic about the whole idea, and constantly hesitated to take decisive action for fear that he would be blamed for any failure. Eventually failure became unavoidable.
He reminds me most of John F. Kerry. he isn't enthusiastic enough about the war to fight. But he doesn't have the guts to pull out either.
Hence, democracy in the Greek sense is more of an oligocracy.
Not even close. An oligarchy is a system of government where only a few rule. Athenian democracy involved rule by many , by a large slice of the population (perhaps as many as 40 thousand full citizens had the right to vote), and by both the rich and the poor. It was limited sufferage, but it was far closer in both spirit and practice to modern universal sufferage than it was to oligarchy.
However, their system of adult full citizens voting on decisions did pave the way for the Western type of democracy that came out of the French revolution.
The French revolution did not result in any sort of democratic government. It was a republic for a while, before the Monarchy was restored. The closest that they came to democracy was a brief period of mob rule.
The American revolution preceded the French revolution, and the US was the first modern democracy.
Roblimo's article is an example of one of the worst ways to defend open source, and the GPL.
Yes it is useful to know that AdTI is funded by MS, and his first hand account of Brown spouting ridiculous claims about "problems" with open source was informative. But attacking AdTI for being "right-wing", and for criticising evironmental research, second hand smoke research, and teachers unions, is a huge mistake. He should have stuck to the matter at hand.
Open source is not left wing, or right wing, and it will not be made to look more attractive by asociating it with a bunch of other highly dubious causes.
It's not a virus. It's not a worm. It is a trojan, but it isn't even a very good trojan. Not even up to "giant wooden rabbit" standards. The luser was well aware that the file was an executable, and he knew that the origin was totally untrustworthy. And just to make things clear, this is not a security issue. Or at least not a security issue that Apple can, or should do anything about. Except perhaps putting a big sticker on every Mac saying "Warning! Keep out of reach of morons."
A lot of the passion involved in the Open Source community is a reaction to seeing the keys to everyone's computing kingdom held by a single company that has the power of life or death over just about any other software company it chooses to do battle with. If an entity with disproportionate market power is to be free to destroy the sale value of its competitors software, unchecked by effective antitrust policing, why shouldn't a community effort do the same?
This is so true, but seldom mentioned. For individuals and for corporations, Free software became attractive because it offered the only escape from the arbitrary power of Microsoft. If that monopoly was broken then half of the attraction of Free software would be gone. I wonder why the guys at Tocqueville have not suggested this quite obvious first step towards reducing the appeal of Free software.
Indefinitely. Current levels of troop deployment and expenditure (as a fraction of GDP) are a tiny fraction of those durring WWII, and are still about half of late Cold War levels.
You hit the nail on the head. MS has no obligation to pirates, and no responsibility for the problems caused by pirates. But the problems caused by these insecure windows machines are a PR black-eye for MS, a pain for their paying customers, and a great reason for the pirates to switch to free software. If the pirates switch then that will eventually cut into the network effect value of windows. If MS had any sense they would provide the patches to all. Fortunately I think it is unlikely.
Let me guess, you think that blimps are filled with hydrogen just like the Hindenberg? These days they use helium. It doesn't burn. In fact it is so non-flamable that you could use it to put out fires.
As the poster above said they would be above the range of guns. No significant heat signature so man-carried surface to air missles are out. And yes they do have to come down, but they launch straight up so, unlike fixed-wing aircraft, there is no long flight-path to guard.
A high-altitude radar guided surface to air missile would probably do the trick. But really, if therrorists are setting up radar systems and SAM batteries in your back-yard then you have more to worry about than having an unmanned blimp shot down.
Taken one blog at a time, or one post at a time, the web might be less reliable than old media outlets like the NYT or CNN, but taken all together the web is far more accurate than old media. The NYT regularly gets the facts wrong, seldom corrects its mistakes, and never corrects them in a place that you are likely to see. Reputable blogs on the other hand do a very good job of correcting their own mistakes, and if they don't then you can be pretty sure that other bloggers will do it for them.
Hidden collusion is certainly a problem, but in general there is nothing unusual about the parties to a contract going to a court and asking the court to determine exactly what it was they all agreed to. It often happens that the parties to a contract find themselves in uncharted waters, so to speak, where neither side is entirely clear about what their contract requires. Often they are not interested in legally nuking each other, they just want their contractual relationship clarified before they proceed. It would be perfectly acceptable for someone to ask a court to do the same thing with the GPL, so long as all parties were up front about what is going on.
Really there isn't just one question to ask. You could ask any of the following.
1. The one that usually gets asked: "Will Windows users who switch find Linux easier to use than windows?" This is obviously a loaded question. making this the standard pretty much ensures that Windows come out ahead. 2. A little better: "If first time users are plunked down in front of a bunch of desktops, which one will they find easiest to use?" This is at least a fair comparison, but given that few users are first time users, the answer isn't very interesting (and I think OS X wins). 3. Better still: "After users have learned to use a bunch of different desktops, which one do they find easiest to use, and most useful?" This is a fair questions, and the answer actually matters. I use Windows, OS X, and Linux (Gnome usually) on a daily basis and I think Linux wins this one. 4. Best: "Which desktop combines a managable learning curve, and is most useful onced learned." This is really where Linux runs into problems. For some people the learning curve on Linux is still too steep. If they learned how to use it they would find it more useful, and even easier to use, but getting to that point is still too hard for some people.
I'm scarcely an historian, but what about the Boston Tea Party? Didn't colonialists dress up as native Americans to raid ships in Boston harbor? That sounds somewhat unconventional to me.
The colonists did employ unconventional methods, that can accurately be described as guerrilla tactics (but not terrorism). But even the extent and significance of that sort of warfare gets exaggerated. Most of the actual fighting in the revolutionary war took place been regular armies in pitched battles.
I think you'd agree that it's been romanticized to some extent, and that from the British point of view, it was hardly sporting.
Actually the first recorded use of the term "guerrilla" in English was in a letter by the Duke of Wellington in which he said that he had advised his Spanish allies to use guerrillas against the French.
They did attack civilian targets (Boston tea party being the most noteable).
Throwing tea into the harbor barely even qualifies as violence, let alone terrorism. By that kind of standard any protestor would count as a terrorist.
They did use privaters.
Piracy isn't terrorism either, and privateers actually had legal sanction, so they were not even as bad as pirates.
They did not fight in the open as was part of war at that time.
You are confusing guerrilla warfare with terrorism. Even then guerrilla tactics were a recognised part of war, and certainly were not violations of the laws of war.
As to finding out the terrorists great, just remember that the US was founded by people that could be called terrorists.
Only if you have a really bizarre definition of terrorism. In the revolutionary war even the militias wore uniforms, carried their weapons openly, and obeyed the laws of war.
For example, the French -- among the noisiest critics of US nowadays lit/painted the Eiffel tower red to greet the Chinese leader and to comfort him with support for his hostility towards Taiwan.
It is much worse than that. The French actually joined China in military exercises that were intended to intimidate and influence elections in Taiwan. France has allied itself with China against another democracy.
Because the people who should care about these things do nothing but bitch when a Republican makes the proposal. Politicians do listen to voters. Unfortunately most of what they hear is "we couldn't give a fuck about the policy, we will just vote for our party". So you get what you asked for. No policies. All partisan warfare.
Any idea what speed it was travelling at when it hit the water? How much extra weight would it have required to make it survive the impact and float? How much would it cost to have a recovery ship on station? What would the risks be of it being stolen while floating around at sea? How large an area might it come down in?
They wanted to test an engine. Adding crap to the vehicle, cost to the program, and an espionage risk, makes no sense at all.
Thanks for point that out. This ruling is not for or against any policy at all. The court did not decide that community owned telcos are a bad idea. All they said is that sate governments are entitled to make laws which govern this sort of matter. If you don't like the law you have to change it by getting the state legislature to change it, rather than by asking some court to change it.
Can you remember when your telco used to be more concerned with service than profit?
I can remember when my telco used to be run by the government (in New Zealand). The service sucked. It sucked in ways you could not possibly compare to the relatively minor ways in which the privatised telcos in NZ now suck.
When I first ordered a phone line that I wanted to run a BBS on I...
(1) Had to take a day off school just to make the phone call to order it, because it took 2-4 hours just for someone to answer the call, and they only took calls from 9-4pm. (2) Had to wait for six weeks before the line could be installed. (3) Had to break the law to run my BBS because only "authorized" equipment could be connected to the phone lines, and said equipment usually cost about five times as much as "unauthorized" equipment.
A couple of years later, after the phone service had been privatised I ordered a second line. The call was taken with about a 5 min wait, the line was installed inside 2 business days, and I didn't have to risk jail time when using a modem of my own choice.
Granted, the old government owned telco in New Zealand is probably a standout case for sheer suckitude, but in general government owned monopolies are just as bad, and often far worse, than privately owned monopolies.
they've yet to recognise gun ownership as a fundamental human right
NZ has an unwritten constitution so it is pretty hard to say which rights are recognised as fundamental. NZ'ers also have a lot of guns. Some estimates run up to about 1,000,000 guns for about 4,000,000 people (i.e. about one gun per household).
Slashdot Mirror
The expedition was a disaster for Athens, but Alcibiades only came up with the general idea. He wasn't responsible for the disasterous execution of it. The man most responsible for the disaster was Nicias - the leader of the "peace" faction who was put in charge of the expedition. He was unenthusiastic about the whole idea, and constantly hesitated to take decisive action for fear that he would be blamed for any failure. Eventually failure became unavoidable.
He reminds me most of John F. Kerry. he isn't enthusiastic enough about the war to fight. But he doesn't have the guts to pull out either.
Hence, democracy in the Greek sense is more of an oligocracy.
Not even close. An oligarchy is a system of government where only a few rule. Athenian democracy involved rule by many , by a large slice of the population (perhaps as many as 40 thousand full citizens had the right to vote), and by both the rich and the poor. It was limited sufferage, but it was far closer in both spirit and practice to modern universal sufferage than it was to oligarchy.
However, their system of adult full citizens voting on decisions did pave the way for the Western type of democracy that came out of the French revolution.
The French revolution did not result in any sort of democratic government. It was a republic for a while, before the Monarchy was restored. The closest that they came to democracy was a brief period of mob rule.
The American revolution preceded the French revolution, and the US was the first modern democracy.
Roblimo's article is an example of one of the worst ways to defend open source, and the GPL.
Yes it is useful to know that AdTI is funded by MS, and his first hand account of Brown spouting ridiculous claims about "problems" with open source was informative. But attacking AdTI for being "right-wing", and for criticising evironmental research, second hand smoke research, and teachers unions, is a huge mistake. He should have stuck to the matter at hand.
Open source is not left wing, or right wing, and it will not be made to look more attractive by asociating it with a bunch of other highly dubious causes.
FC2 has not been released officially. Wait a day.
It's not a virus. It's not a worm. It is a trojan, but it isn't even a very good trojan. Not even up to "giant wooden rabbit" standards. The luser was well aware that the file was an executable, and he knew that the origin was totally untrustworthy. And just to make things clear, this is not a security issue. Or at least not a security issue that Apple can, or should do anything about. Except perhaps putting a big sticker on every Mac saying "Warning! Keep out of reach of morons."
A lot of the passion involved in the Open Source community is a reaction to seeing the keys to everyone's computing kingdom held by a single company that has the power of life or death over just about any other software company it chooses to do battle with. If an entity with disproportionate market power is to be free to destroy the sale value of its competitors software, unchecked by effective antitrust policing, why shouldn't a community effort do the same?
This is so true, but seldom mentioned. For individuals and for corporations, Free software became attractive because it offered the only escape from the arbitrary power of Microsoft. If that monopoly was broken then half of the attraction of Free software would be gone. I wonder why the guys at Tocqueville have not suggested this quite obvious first step towards reducing the appeal of Free software.
I hate it when they try to make personal computing into a SERVICE rather than a PRODUCT.
Open Source is the enlightened way to compute.
Last time I checked the "service" model was just about the only viable business model available for OSS developers.
How long can we sustain this?
Indefinitely. Current levels of troop deployment and expenditure (as a fraction of GDP) are a tiny fraction of those durring WWII, and are still about half of late Cold War levels.
You hit the nail on the head. MS has no obligation to pirates, and no responsibility for the problems caused by pirates. But the problems caused by these insecure windows machines are a PR black-eye for MS, a pain for their paying customers, and a great reason for the pirates to switch to free software. If the pirates switch then that will eventually cut into the network effect value of windows. If MS had any sense they would provide the patches to all. Fortunately I think it is unlikely.
Let me guess, you think that blimps are filled with hydrogen just like the Hindenberg? These days they use helium. It doesn't burn. In fact it is so non-flamable that you could use it to put out fires.
As the poster above said they would be above the range of guns. No significant heat signature so man-carried surface to air missles are out. And yes they do have to come down, but they launch straight up so, unlike fixed-wing aircraft, there is no long flight-path to guard.
A high-altitude radar guided surface to air missile would probably do the trick. But really, if therrorists are setting up radar systems and SAM batteries in your back-yard then you have more to worry about than having an unmanned blimp shot down.
Taken one blog at a time, or one post at a time, the web might be less reliable than old media outlets like the NYT or CNN, but taken all together the web is far more accurate than old media. The NYT regularly gets the facts wrong, seldom corrects its mistakes, and never corrects them in a place that you are likely to see. Reputable blogs on the other hand do a very good job of correcting their own mistakes, and if they don't then you can be pretty sure that other bloggers will do it for them.
Hidden collusion is certainly a problem, but in general there is nothing unusual about the parties to a contract going to a court and asking the court to determine exactly what it was they all agreed to. It often happens that the parties to a contract find themselves in uncharted waters, so to speak, where neither side is entirely clear about what their contract requires. Often they are not interested in legally nuking each other, they just want their contractual relationship clarified before they proceed. It would be perfectly acceptable for someone to ask a court to do the same thing with the GPL, so long as all parties were up front about what is going on.
Really there isn't just one question to ask. You could ask any of the following.
1. The one that usually gets asked: "Will Windows users who switch find Linux easier to use than windows?" This is obviously a loaded question. making this the standard pretty much ensures that Windows come out ahead.
2. A little better: "If first time users are plunked down in front of a bunch of desktops, which one will they find easiest to use?" This is at least a fair comparison, but given that few users are first time users, the answer isn't very interesting (and I think OS X wins).
3. Better still: "After users have learned to use a bunch of different desktops, which one do they find easiest to use, and most useful?" This is a fair questions, and the answer actually matters. I use Windows, OS X, and Linux (Gnome usually) on a daily basis and I think Linux wins this one.
4. Best: "Which desktop combines a managable learning curve, and is most useful onced learned." This is really where Linux runs into problems. For some people the learning curve on Linux is still too steep. If they learned how to use it they would find it more useful, and even easier to use, but getting to that point is still too hard for some people.
I'm scarcely an historian, but what about the Boston Tea Party? Didn't colonialists dress up as native Americans to raid ships in Boston harbor? That sounds somewhat unconventional to me.
The colonists did employ unconventional methods, that can accurately be described as guerrilla tactics (but not terrorism). But even the extent and significance of that sort of warfare gets exaggerated. Most of the actual fighting in the revolutionary war took place been regular armies in pitched battles.
I think you'd agree that it's been romanticized to some extent, and that from the British point of view, it was hardly sporting.
Actually the first recorded use of the term "guerrilla" in English was in a letter by the Duke of Wellington in which he said that he had advised his Spanish allies to use guerrillas against the French.
They did attack civilian targets (Boston tea party being the most noteable).
Throwing tea into the harbor barely even qualifies as violence, let alone terrorism. By that kind of standard any protestor would count as a terrorist.
They did use privaters.
Piracy isn't terrorism either, and privateers actually had legal sanction, so they were not even as bad as pirates.
They did not fight in the open as was part of war at that time.
You are confusing guerrilla warfare with terrorism. Even then guerrilla tactics were a recognised part of war, and certainly were not violations of the laws of war.
As to finding out the terrorists great, just remember that the US was founded by people that could be called terrorists.
Only if you have a really bizarre definition of terrorism. In the revolutionary war even the militias wore uniforms, carried their weapons openly, and obeyed the laws of war.
For example, the French -- among the noisiest critics of US nowadays lit/painted the Eiffel tower red to greet the Chinese leader and to comfort him with support for his hostility towards Taiwan.
It is much worse than that. The French actually joined China in military exercises that were intended to intimidate and influence elections in Taiwan. France has allied itself with China against another democracy.
Because the people who should care about these things do nothing but bitch when a Republican makes the proposal. Politicians do listen to voters. Unfortunately most of what they hear is "we couldn't give a fuck about the policy, we will just vote for our party". So you get what you asked for. No policies. All partisan warfare.
Any idea what speed it was travelling at when it hit the water? How much extra weight would it have required to make it survive the impact and float? How much would it cost to have a recovery ship on station? What would the risks be of it being stolen while floating around at sea? How large an area might it come down in?
They wanted to test an engine. Adding crap to the vehicle, cost to the program, and an espionage risk, makes no sense at all.
The Mozilla crowd should take a page from Microsoft's book and rename it to "Web Browser (tm)".
Thanks for point that out. This ruling is not for or against any policy at all. The court did not decide that community owned telcos are a bad idea. All they said is that sate governments are entitled to make laws which govern this sort of matter. If you don't like the law you have to change it by getting the state legislature to change it, rather than by asking some court to change it.
Can you remember when your telco used to be more concerned with service than profit?
I can remember when my telco used to be run by the government (in New Zealand). The service sucked. It sucked in ways you could not possibly compare to the relatively minor ways in which the privatised telcos in NZ now suck.
When I first ordered a phone line that I wanted to run a BBS on I...
(1) Had to take a day off school just to make the phone call to order it, because it took 2-4 hours just for someone to answer the call, and they only took calls from 9-4pm.
(2) Had to wait for six weeks before the line could be installed.
(3) Had to break the law to run my BBS because only "authorized" equipment could be connected to the phone lines, and said equipment usually cost about five times as much as "unauthorized" equipment.
A couple of years later, after the phone service had been privatised I ordered a second line. The call was taken with about a 5 min wait, the line was installed inside 2 business days, and I didn't have to risk jail time when using a modem of my own choice.
Granted, the old government owned telco in New Zealand is probably a standout case for sheer suckitude, but in general government owned monopolies are just as bad, and often far worse, than privately owned monopolies.
The New Zealand Bill of Rights looks pretty fundamental.
Looks that way, but its not. The Bill of rights is just a regular legislative act. The government can change or repeal it any time they like.
they've yet to recognise gun ownership as a fundamental human right
NZ has an unwritten constitution so it is pretty hard to say which rights are recognised as fundamental. NZ'ers also have a lot of guns. Some estimates run up to about 1,000,000 guns for about 4,000,000 people (i.e. about one gun per household).
I think the original (the book) was intended to be "Zulu" as seen from the perspective of the Zulus.