[unexploded cluster munitions dropped on Iraq] during Desert Storm are still killing and maiming civilian targets even now.
Cool - nothing like maimed and dead Iraqis.
Before you get too excited, consider that most of the post Desert Storm civilan casualties have been in Kuwait. Funny how you don't see that on CNN very often.
there were three sheep per capita, now it's down to.5
Thanks for the info, that does put a different spin on it. Got an online source?
Congrats rogerborg! You diden't resort to calling people rednecks - well done. Keep up the good work
Well, I'm not always an ignorant bastard. Consider me to have been responding just as passionately and stupidly as the "Why us?" cadre, only in the opposite direction. I realise it's counterproductive, but basically I was so angry at the ill informed ignorance on display that I didn't give a fuck. Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.
OK, I said "precedent", but I'll refine my answer: look at the language. "The Taliban will share in [Osama bin Laden's] fate.". You're in an F-117, cruising over Afghanistan. How do you identify and target members of the Taliban? They're not just up in the mountains any more, they're in the middle of urban area.
Are you suggesting that dropping bombs on military targets was wrong thing to do during [Operation Desert Storm]
No. However, the problem is the types of munitions available to the USA. Cluster munitions and DUP projectiles are great for the military, but dreadful for the civilian population in the effected area. Even if you don't inflict a single civilian casualty during the military action, the effects last for years.
I completely agree with you that a bombing campaign is unlikely. But the US is building up for one, and there's a real danger that the politican necessity of getting the reruns of the WTC attack off of the TV will precipitate action. Also, bear in mind that Colin Powell has a stated preference for using "overwhelming force".
I'm not claiming that it makes sense, just that it's looking likely. I suppose we'll have to wait and see.
I am also disappointed that so many people seem to be assuming that a U.S. military response will be a brutish, heavy-handed attack on Afghanistan, the country
Precedent. Not necessarily a direct attack, but (for example) the 8 million unexploded cluster munitions dropped on military targets in Kuwait and Iraq during Desert Storm are still killing and maiming civilian targets even now.
Yes, we might pull off a Panama style coup, but the weight of history is against us, and if I were in Afganistan right now, I wouldn't want to bet my life on it.
Another thing to consider - the food supplies in Afganistan are down to nothing. If we could keep the Teliban et al running around like chickes in the high-lands, we could just starve them to death. There isn't much to eat at 12,000 feet this winter
Wow, great idea. If only the Russians had thought of that.
No, wait... they did.
But it's OK, because the Taliban won't take all of the food that is available for themselves.
No, wait... they do.
Ah ha, but the people will realise that we are punishing them for their own good, and will blame the Taliban rather than us, and will overthrow their evil masters.
Just as they did in Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, Sudan, Iraq...
We sent in troops there along with other nations because Iraq was bent on conquest in the area which threatened to fuck oil prices and therefore the western economy. bin Laden and some other loonies decided that foreign troops on Arab soil is an affront to Islam
Now US sanctions are fucking the Iraqi economy (and killing hundreds of thousands of civilans each year), so they should send a mujadideen incursion onto US soil, and we should shrug and say "Fair enough, you've got pragmatism and morality on your side, only a loonie would protest it"?
If you're just arguing that might makes right, I can't honestly say that I disagree with you, but let's not obfuscate it.
But how does continuing the foreign policy that made people hate Americans so much prevent this from happening in the future?
Well said. This is not a "war" that's winnable.
Think how you felt when you watched the planes fly into the WTC towers:
Damn the cause of this, my government's foreign policy. We must change.
Cowardly murdering bastards! Kill them all!
It's no different for anyone else. Even a targetted response is no different. How would you feel about a mujahideen air drop onto US soil to assasinate Colin Powell? A deserved retribution for Desert Storm, or an abominable outrage that must be punished?
So, sure, remove bin Laden, the Taliban and Hussein, but those are short term fixes that will just create more of the same. The long term solution is to take a good hard look at US foreign policy (not just the stuff on CNN), and decide whether killing civilians with bombs and sanctions is really a good long term strategy.
US won't do anything against Iraq because everyone knows Saddam is not responsible for what happened, and there would be massive internationnal oposition.
The US needed someone to blame, and it needed them quickly. That's not to say it wasn't bin Laden, but I don't think truth is really going to be a high priority here, just plausibility.
was that individuality that gave the American GI the edge over the Japanese or German soldier
That's an interesting bit of cultural stereotyping. By the time the US entered Europe, the German army was a shadow of its former self, with most of the best troops engaged on the Russian front. What won it for the US was mass production: specifically tanks, munitions, and chocolate cake.
I value my privacy as much as anyone else, but SOMETHING must be done to protect the safety and security of this country.
Something, but not this. This is a solution to a different problem altogether. This is a solution to the problem of a government having citizens that question its motives and actions..
Re:How will this affect the Nintendo GameCube?
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XBox Delayed
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· Score: 2
I don't care how good it looks or how hackable it is, I can't in good conscience purchase one of these things
In other news: "You may not use this pen to write disparaging statements about BIC, or to commit slander, libel, or any criminal act. BIC explicitely refute any liability for misuse of this kind."
What I want to know is, what country are these scientists going to go to, and can I emigrate as well
I'd have said Canada, but they're butt monkeying on any issue regarding security. Likewise, Australia has lost the plot completely, and don't even think about Europe, there's a super-DMCA in the works.
That leaves New Zealand. Tough immigration laws, but it's definitely on my list.
I'm in favour of ISPs locking out infected machines that have demonstrated no attempt at fixing the problem
As an aside, Blueyonder, a UK cableco, have just cut my friend off for being infected with Nimda.
He's using Linux.
He spoke with a techie who claimed (I swear that this is true) that "Apache has an IIS component. It can be infected. You have to reinstall Windo- I mean Linux."
I'm sure that we all understand their initial actions, and that there will be some collateral from innocent people getting cut off, but the problem is that if comes down to you proving your innocence, it's a complete lottery to even reach someone with the basic technical knowledge to understand what you are saying to them.
As the final funny, he was emailed and snail mailed a letter referring him to a Microsoft security URL. You know, when he's running Linux, and they've cut his cable anyway. Sheesh.
OK, OK, the expectation curve is vertical. Incidentally, I know that a vertical line isn't a curve. I had a great debate with a mathematician over ballistics curves. While he looked up some references and worked through the equations, I wrote five lines of code that did a binary search to find an more-or-less correct trajectory, and demonstrated the efficiency of my method by blowing the crap out of his units while he was still drawing lines and boxes on bits of paper. That pretty much summarises the games world; you don't have time to learn how to do it, you just have to make it happen! That's a great reason why games don't make great learning projects.;)
The dreamcast has an EXCELLENT community built up around homebrew
Good point. Also, how about the Gameboy Advance? Cheap hardware (free emulators easily available), decent developer resources, plus it restricts you to realistic projects and obliges you to be disciplined during design and development.
The compiler is time limited evaluation ware with a hack, or you could beg poverty.
It's a fun platform that teaches valuable skills, and it's realistic. Go for it!
I don't want to discourage you too much, but designing a game with graphics and everything is a huge task
Listen to this man. I spent a few happy years hacking Netrek, but when I actually tried to do a Master's thesis on an AI 'bot for it, I found that I had time to write the software, or to do the thesis, but not both. And that was on a small, well defined subset of a very mature 2D game, with no display component to worry about!
Further to that, I didn't learn my lesson and spent a frantic couple of years as a commercial games developer. It was a vertical learning curve, and the pressure and expectations were immense. I just wasn't good enough, and got out. Since then, I have coasted through a couple of corporate code monkey, using no more than half of the potential that I was expected to show every day as a games developer.
So hear this clearly: writing games is hard. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a producer, an armchair expert, or a psycho uber geek.;)
Comprehensive, but contains a spurious assertion
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· Score: 2
3 year-old Gateway Solo 9100 notebook (Pentium II 300MHz with 96 MB). The RAM on this notebook was insufficient to run Windows 2000
Hmm... I had Win2K running just fine on a 96Mb Acer Travelmate. Sure, it paged like a bastard on startup, but soon settled down (and I did go back to SuSE/KDE). Minor niggle though, otherwise a great article, well presented, and commendably objective. Cheers!
If you're looking for another review that doesn't involve Force.net drool
Well, to be fair, there's no point in giving anything like a critical review of the movie itself. You've either seen it before, or you're not going to see it, love it, hate it, or are bored hearing about it. But, that said, it really is appalingly sycophantic.
But don't worry, the podrace has never looked better. [...] Podracers roar like never before and you will appreciate the nuance of sound design. Laser blasts and the roar of the crowd fill the rear channels and the subwoofer roars appropriately. [...] including a major sequence around the podrace a second time with Anakin losing control of his pod and Sebulba getting his flamethrower out and trashing other contestants in the Boonta Eve race. You'll be greeted by several new racers, new pods and plenty more action in the Deleted Scenes section
Sounds like someone's got a real Pod Racer hangup (George or Joshua, the reviewer, or both). It's just one scene, dudes. In fact, it's (to my eyes) a shoddy, dull and overlong scene, cynically designed to look a lot like the game it was intended to sell. Hey ho.
In this copy the documentation was not included but will probably lean more towards functionality and less on innovation
Does it scare anyone else that there's any question that a DVD needs "functional documentation"?;)
since the reviewer doesn't mention the only aspect I truly care about with menus: do I have to spend 8 hours watching flashy menu transitions just to watch the movie
Or in the case of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, see a spoiler of the end of the movie!. Yes, this irritates the hell out of me as well. I wonder why they think it's necessary.
Climate prediction, however -- working out how large an effect increased CO2 emmisions will have on global warming -- is easy by comparison... at least in theory
Theory indeed.
IMB: We've predicted the climate for the next 1000 years!
Press: Assuming that major vulcanism or meteor impacts don't screw it up, right?
IBM: Oh, well, sure, assuming that doesn't happen.
Press: And the chances of that are...?
IBM: Uhh... about.. ummm... look! Flashing lights! Just like on Star Trek!
Look at each proposed limitation on freedom and clearly explain why it won't work.
Increased security and searches at airports, especially on domestic flights: This will help. It's common in most European countries, and has been recommended several times in the US, most recently by good old Al Gore in 1997.
Go hog wild with FISA warrants: Might help, although "hog wild" in the context of FISA is relative, and as the details of FISA warrants are secret and non-overseen, how would we know how effective they are?
Mandatory encryption backdoors: OK, I wrap my message in an older PGP, then wrap that in the backdoored version. How does that help you find or read it?
Mandatory copy control on all hardware: What the hell has this got to do with this issue, you ask? The Bill under consideration mentions "security". It talks about defending the US economy. It could sneak through just on those merits. That makes it (very unfortunately) relevant to this discussion, as it's a warning that we can't let "me too!" legislation slip through on the back of this.
Some of the proposed measures are effective, and actually overdue. Some, like FISA, are unfortunate necessities. But the backdoors are pointless at best, and at worst, criminalise Joe Public (or more likely, Jane Corporate).
Pretty well everybody running Linux is using either Netscape or Mozilla
Really? I find that Konquerer kicks Mozilla's nuts into it's throat so far as basic web browsing goes. And if I wanted the full, integrated, spinny, swooshy, commercial internet experience, I'd still have to use IE, not Netscape.
Slashdot Mirror
- [unexploded cluster munitions dropped on Iraq] during Desert Storm are still killing and maiming civilian targets even now.
Cool - nothing like maimed and dead Iraqis.Before you get too excited, consider that most of the post Desert Storm civilan casualties have been in Kuwait. Funny how you don't see that on CNN very often.
Thanks for the info, that does put a different spin on it. Got an online source?
Well, I'm not always an ignorant bastard. Consider me to have been responding just as passionately and stupidly as the "Why us?" cadre, only in the opposite direction. I realise it's counterproductive, but basically I was so angry at the ill informed ignorance on display that I didn't give a fuck. Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.
That's true, but on the other hand, among the embargoed goods are water purifiers and antibiotics. There's no "good guy" here.
OK, I said "precedent", but I'll refine my answer: look at the language. "The Taliban will share in [Osama bin Laden's] fate.". You're in an F-117, cruising over Afghanistan. How do you identify and target members of the Taliban? They're not just up in the mountains any more, they're in the middle of urban area.
No. However, the problem is the types of munitions available to the USA. Cluster munitions and DUP projectiles are great for the military, but dreadful for the civilian population in the effected area. Even if you don't inflict a single civilian casualty during the military action, the effects last for years.
I completely agree with you that a bombing campaign is unlikely. But the US is building up for one, and there's a real danger that the politican necessity of getting the reruns of the WTC attack off of the TV will precipitate action. Also, bear in mind that Colin Powell has a stated preference for using "overwhelming force".
I'm not claiming that it makes sense, just that it's looking likely. I suppose we'll have to wait and see.
Precedent. Not necessarily a direct attack, but (for example) the 8 million unexploded cluster munitions dropped on military targets in Kuwait and Iraq during Desert Storm are still killing and maiming civilian targets even now.
Yes, we might pull off a Panama style coup, but the weight of history is against us, and if I were in Afganistan right now, I wouldn't want to bet my life on it.
Wow, great idea. If only the Russians had thought of that.
No, wait... they did.
But it's OK, because the Taliban won't take all of the food that is available for themselves.
No, wait... they do.
Ah ha, but the people will realise that we are punishing them for their own good, and will blame the Taliban rather than us, and will overthrow their evil masters.
Just as they did in Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, Sudan, Iraq...
Now US sanctions are fucking the Iraqi economy (and killing hundreds of thousands of civilans each year), so they should send a mujadideen incursion onto US soil, and we should shrug and say "Fair enough, you've got pragmatism and morality on your side, only a loonie would protest it"?
If you're just arguing that might makes right, I can't honestly say that I disagree with you, but let's not obfuscate it.
Well said. This is not a "war" that's winnable.
Think how you felt when you watched the planes fly into the WTC towers:
It's no different for anyone else. Even a targetted response is no different. How would you feel about a mujahideen air drop onto US soil to assasinate Colin Powell? A deserved retribution for Desert Storm, or an abominable outrage that must be punished?
So, sure, remove bin Laden, the Taliban and Hussein, but those are short term fixes that will just create more of the same. The long term solution is to take a good hard look at US foreign policy (not just the stuff on CNN), and decide whether killing civilians with bombs and sanctions is really a good long term strategy.
Not everyone.
The US needed someone to blame, and it needed them quickly. That's not to say it wasn't bin Laden, but I don't think truth is really going to be a high priority here, just plausibility.
That's an interesting bit of cultural stereotyping. By the time the US entered Europe, the German army was a shadow of its former self, with most of the best troops engaged on the Russian front. What won it for the US was mass production: specifically tanks, munitions, and chocolate cake.
Something, but not this. This is a solution to a different problem altogether. This is a solution to the problem of a government having citizens that question its motives and actions..
All Microsoft cares about is making money.
If you buy a bare box, it costs them money.
Seems very conscionable to me.
In other news: "You may not use this pen to write disparaging statements about BIC, or to commit slander, libel, or any criminal act. BIC explicitely refute any liability for misuse of this kind."
I'd have said Canada, but they're butt monkeying on any issue regarding security. Likewise, Australia has lost the plot completely, and don't even think about Europe, there's a super-DMCA in the works.
That leaves New Zealand. Tough immigration laws, but it's definitely on my list.
As an aside, Blueyonder, a UK cableco, have just cut my friend off for being infected with Nimda.
He's using Linux.
He spoke with a techie who claimed (I swear that this is true) that "Apache has an IIS component. It can be infected. You have to reinstall Windo- I mean Linux."
I'm sure that we all understand their initial actions, and that there will be some collateral from innocent people getting cut off, but the problem is that if comes down to you proving your innocence, it's a complete lottery to even reach someone with the basic technical knowledge to understand what you are saying to them.
As the final funny, he was emailed and snail mailed a letter referring him to a Microsoft security URL. You know, when he's running Linux, and they've cut his cable anyway. Sheesh.
OK, OK, the expectation curve is vertical. Incidentally, I know that a vertical line isn't a curve. I had a great debate with a mathematician over ballistics curves. While he looked up some references and worked through the equations, I wrote five lines of code that did a binary search to find an more-or-less correct trajectory, and demonstrated the efficiency of my method by blowing the crap out of his units while he was still drawing lines and boxes on bits of paper. That pretty much summarises the games world; you don't have time to learn how to do it, you just have to make it happen! That's a great reason why games don't make great learning projects. ;)
Good point. Also, how about the Gameboy Advance? Cheap hardware (free emulators easily available), decent developer resources, plus it restricts you to realistic projects and obliges you to be disciplined during design and development.
The compiler is time limited evaluation ware with a hack, or you could beg poverty.
It's a fun platform that teaches valuable skills, and it's realistic. Go for it!
Listen to this man. I spent a few happy years hacking Netrek, but when I actually tried to do a Master's thesis on an AI 'bot for it, I found that I had time to write the software, or to do the thesis, but not both. And that was on a small, well defined subset of a very mature 2D game, with no display component to worry about!
Further to that, I didn't learn my lesson and spent a frantic couple of years as a commercial games developer. It was a vertical learning curve, and the pressure and expectations were immense. I just wasn't good enough, and got out. Since then, I have coasted through a couple of corporate code monkey, using no more than half of the potential that I was expected to show every day as a games developer.
So hear this clearly: writing games is hard. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a producer, an armchair expert, or a psycho uber geek. ;)
Hmm... I had Win2K running just fine on a 96Mb Acer Travelmate. Sure, it paged like a bastard on startup, but soon settled down (and I did go back to SuSE/KDE). Minor niggle though, otherwise a great article, well presented, and commendably objective. Cheers!
Well, to be fair, there's no point in giving anything like a critical review of the movie itself. You've either seen it before, or you're not going to see it, love it, hate it, or are bored hearing about it. But, that said, it really is appalingly sycophantic.
Sounds like someone's got a real Pod Racer hangup (George or Joshua, the reviewer, or both). It's just one scene, dudes. In fact, it's (to my eyes) a shoddy, dull and overlong scene, cynically designed to look a lot like the game it was intended to sell. Hey ho.
Does it scare anyone else that there's any question that a DVD needs "functional documentation"? ;)
...until after episodes 2 & 3 are out. Wierdly, Amazon has the DVD of Episode 4 listed, complete with ASIN number.
But sure, let's have it, George. Heck, I'd settle for being able to get pristine VHS tapes of the unbutchered versions.
Or in the case of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, see a spoiler of the end of the movie!. Yes, this irritates the hell out of me as well. I wonder why they think it's necessary.
Theory indeed.
Some of the proposed measures are effective, and actually overdue. Some, like FISA, are unfortunate necessities. But the backdoors are pointless at best, and at worst, criminalise Joe Public (or more likely, Jane Corporate).
Really? I find that Konquerer kicks Mozilla's nuts into it's throat so far as basic web browsing goes. And if I wanted the full, integrated, spinny, swooshy, commercial internet experience, I'd still have to use IE, not Netscape.