Note: all facts taken from CIA factbook http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html
Haven't we heard this before time and time again. The Japanese, the Germans, the EU, the Russians, etc, etc, etc. I remember back in the 80s when Japan was "taking over the world" and Americans were just lazy stupid people who would all soon be working for Japanese bosses. Hasn't turned out that way, eh?
First of all, remember that past economic growth is no indication of future growth. See dot com boom. Don't make the same mistake with other country's economies (or this one's). Secondly, every country has its own difficulties. China has serious internal stability problems to deal with (see Tienanmen Square). It still has a very large percentage of agriculture based workers, around 50%. The per capita GDP is only $3,600 (compared to $36,200 for US). Remember that with x4 the population of the US you have to spend x4 the resources feeding and clothing them. Finally, while they have over a billion people now it will be interesting to see what long term effects the "one-child" policy will have---especially if the vast majority of Chinese choose to have males.
Of course, they still may come up and kick our butts. But don't think it will be simple.
Why do the Olympic games always have to have French as the first language, even though French is known by a relatively small percentage of the world? Because the founder was French. The Olympics have grown well past the earlier "US only" phase too.
The US government started the Internet as a Defense Dept project and then poured billions into it through the defense dept and research grants. If France or UK or Japan had done what we had done you could bet your bottom dollar they would have control over it too.
all going to the Military, and very little going to science, its not that technology doesnt exsist today, its just too expensive to bring out of the lab.
70%? I think not. The current number is more like 23-24% and that is only if you don't count Social Security and Medicare as part of the total. If you do, it's more like 16%.
And actually the Military is one of the biggest advancers of scientific research. See this cool internet thing we are on. It used to be ARPAnet---The military's advanced research projects agency network (now known as DARPA). The military is one of the biggest supporters of robotics right now. DARPA is throwing millions at CMU, USC, Georgia Tech, MIT, into projects such as the MARS program. I'd bet the great breakthroughs in robotics are more likely to come from DARPA than the NSF
The reasons why the military is such a great scientific and engineering vehicle is that they have a clear goal and demand clear results. I've been on NSF projects where the NSF was treated to a pure dog and pony show. It looked cool, but didn't do much realisticly. The DARPA project I was on was much more stringent in what needed to be done and by when.
This was industry arbitration panel ruling, not a legal one. They have the legal right to a parody, but the MPAA has their own internal rules. I doubt pr0n makers are members of the MPAA so they don't have to deal with arbitration rulings.
Austin Powers battles Bond over "Goldmember" film title
By Steve Gorman
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Suave secret agent James Bond may have won the first round in his battle with bucktoothed superspy Austin Powers, but the international man of mystery isn't giving up his mojo without a fight.
New Line Cinema vowed Monday to appeal an industry arbitration panel ruling that forced the studio to withdraw movie trailers, posters and online promotions for its upcoming third installment of the hit comedy franchise starring Mike Myers, "Austin Powers in Goldmember."
The Motion Picture Association of America panel ruled last week that the "Goldmember" title was inadmissible, in response to a complaint by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., home of the Bond films.
MGM claims that "Goldmember," a spoof on the title of 1964's "Goldfinger," the third in the Bond series that starred Sean Connery as agent 007, infringes its copyright.
Studio executives also object to "Goldmember" promotional materials that send up various Bond characters and posters.
MGM Vice Chairman and CEO Chris McGurk in a statement said the studio and the production company behind the Bond films, Danjac LLC, "have a zero-tolerance policy toward anyone who tries to trade on the James Bond franchise without authorization."
But officials at New Line, a unit of AOL Time Warner Inc., insist last week's ruling dealt with a "procedural infraction" involving the studio's attempt to register the movie's title.
"The issue that is currently in dispute does not pertain to the title or content of the film," New Line said in a statement. A studio spokeswoman said New Line would take its appeal to the MPAA on Thursday. In the meantime, the film will be referred to as "the third installment of 'Austin Powers.'"
The decision forced New Line to recall about 11,000 trailers it had in circulation in theaters across the country, many of them attached to its hit fantasy epic, "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring," the spokeswoman said. She added that "teaser" posters for the film "would be coming down about this time anyway."
The movie, set for release next July, co-stars Michael York, Michael Caine, Heather Graham (reprising her role as Felicity Shagwell) and Beyonce Knowles from the soul trio Destiny's Child as Foxy Cleopatra.
It's the third in a series, following 1997's "Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery" and the megahit 1999 sequel, "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me," in which Powers resorts to a time machine to recover his stolen "mojo," the secret to his incredible libido.
Myers, who co-wrote the script and shares producer credits, again plays an assembly of roles, including Austin Powers, the villainous Dr. Evil and a new character, Goldmember.
As a legal matter, New Line could easily defend its use of "Goldmember" as a parody protected under the "fair use" doctrine of copyright law, as the rap group 2 Live Crew successfully did in a U.S. Supreme Court case involving a parody of the Roy Orbison song "Pretty Woman," legal experts said.
The "Goldmember" flap is not the first between MGM and New Line over Austin Powers titles. MGM initially challenged the use of "The Spy Who Shagged Me," an obvious play on the 1977 Bond title "The Spy Who Loved Me." But that dispute was settled when New Line agreed to include trailer play for MGM movies on its Austin Powers sequel.
While others like Andrew Sullivan probably disagree, I think his bisexuality was intentionally kept out the film because the producers of the movie did not want to associate bi/homosexuality with mental illness.
From: http://www.musichelponline.com/legal/
The Content has been encoded using software that incorporates the LAME encoder; more information about the encoder is available at http:// www.mp3dev.org.
http://www.mp3dev.org/mp3/
now LAME is the source code for a fully GPL'd MP3 encoder, with speed and quality to rival all commercial competitors.
If content were really the issue, and Canada had this amazing free flow of broadband material, where is it? This is the internet. I can hit Canadian servers as easily as American ones. Why isn't there this free flow of movies, TV, and music coming from the Great White North?
The reason is, this article is a bunch of crap. There is a huge Non Sequitor between Canada and Korea having better odds of broadband and lack of content.
There are other little reasons, like the fact we have a larger population and a smaller population density.
Brian Ellenberger
The really cool thing about the new iMac...
on
New iMac Announced
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· Score: 3, Funny
Is the fact that it, based on the pictures, it doesn't seem to require any form of input! No more clunky keyboards or mice.
I'm guessing all that futuristic talk from Jobs was about the new telepathic interface.:)
From Letter #142:
The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like `religion', to cults or practices, in the imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism.
I agree that LotR is not an allegory of anything, Tolkien did say that his Christian beliefs did influence LotR alot. You can especially see this if you read the Silm. Gandalf isn't just some guy doing magic, he is an angel clothed in flesh. Morgoth and Sauron are fallen angels.
And yes, GvsE and stuff is quite common. However, you can see many Christian influences. The central theme of the corruption and temptation of the ring is very Christian and what sets LotR apart. In just-another-myth Frodo would be the unlikely hero who learns how to wield the ring and become powerful.
There are many other little details, such as Gollum. Gandalf's speech about pity and not killing Gollum is VERY Christian (and actually very Catholic).
I'm not descending into a "whose religion is better" pissing contest. I'm just saying to deny that Tolkien's faith didn't have a strong influence is wrong.
Look at all of the good game companies that have gone out of business. Looking Glass, Origin, Microprose, Sir-Tech, Cavedog, etc. Interplay is on its last legs. Why do you think consoles have orders of magnitude greater sales?
So when cheap crappy EA games are all we have left for the PC, thank the pirates.
I'm sorry, but the people who spew crap like this on Slashdot never create anything yourself---you merely leech the hard work of everybody else. Do you think all that software writes itself? What if you had worked your butt off 80 hours a week only to get laid off cause some cheapos decided that they were too good to buy your product, so they stole it.
Imagine if you spent 80 hours a week carving woodcrafts, and people shoplifted your carvings saying "Well, they got the wood from the forest anyway. Besides, some guy down the street does woodcarving for free so I might as well steal this guy's stuff".
Brian Ellenberger
Re:This raises some frightening questions
on
Battlefield Lasers
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· Score: 1
So what are you looking for, a "humane" way to kill people?
Personally, I don't think a laser is any worse than getting killed by a 50 cal bullet, a 1000 pound bomb, or a 767 airliner.
Paris (SatireWire.com) -- Angered over reports that California's economy has surpassed that of France, dozens of French labor unions staged a massive, nationwide strike Friday, demanding the government investigate possible causes of the country's low per capita productivity.
"French workers should be the most productive in the world, and we will strike until the government can discover why we are not," said Rene L'ampoule, a spokesman for truck drivers who blocked most of the nation's major roadways.
According to the report, compiled by the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp., California's gross domestic product was $1.33 trillion last year, compared to France's $1.28 trillion. With 61 million inhabitants, France's population is nearly twice that of California, making the nation's per capita production half that of the U.S. state.
In the country's fifteenth nationwide strike this year, protesting miners, farmers, students, truckers, mechanics, teachers, engineers, entertainers, programmers, police officers, firefighters, and journalists, as well as factory, airline, rail, livery, clerical, and prison workers, said it was the government's responsibility to investigate. Government employees, meanwhile, said they would join the strike in sympathy.
Parents should have the right to set the standards of how their kids are taught. If they don't want graphical sexual content, the art teacher has no right to impose their views or beliefs.
Re:It means the US has taken over the world
on
Defining Globalism
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· Score: 2, Insightful
The most basic right a country has is to defend itself. In fact, that is the #1 reason to have countries. If the world was a nice happy fun place we wouldn't need borders. But evil people--people who want to kill you, take your land, all your stuff, and rule you, these people still exist.
>It means that things like this invasion of >Afghanistan should be accepted by the rest of >the world, because sooner or later it may happen >to them.
Please. We could have taken over most of the world years ago if that was who we are. The Western Hemisphere could be easily conquered in a few months. But if you attack us, the gloves are off.
>Forget that nations have their own sovereign >right to determine their own internal affairs.
No. Nazi's do not have the right to kill Jews. Serbs do not have the right to kill Muslims they don't like.
Oh, and by launching an attack on us, bin Laden and the Taliban have affected OUR internal affairs.
>Would we allow France to bomb our cities because >we are harboring a political fugitive they are ?>seeking?
You tell the children of the WTC that bin Laden, who is on tape admitting the attack, that he is just some "political fugitive".
>Would we allow Russia to arm and finance groups >in America that advocate overthrowing the US >government?
The former USSR funded many groups for this purpose. See the US Communist Party.
>Yet that seems perfectly acceptable for the US >to do in other countries.
You have absolutely no moral compass, except to say that the US is bad and the non-US is good. Sure the US is not perfect, but we are the best this world has got.
The problem is that science cannot really prove faith. I'm a Christian and I admit what I believe in is ridiculous. My conservative Southern Baptist preacher has sermons that what the Bible claims is ridiculous.
If it wasn't, it wouldn't be worth believing in! Christians says some guy 2000 years ago was born without an earthly father and performed all sort of miracles including matter transformation and resurrection of dead and science guys say that from what they know that is impossible. And we say yea, that why we believe He was the Son of God. If there was a simple explanation we wouldn't believe in anything
Of course, then the scientist says that what we believe is myth. Of course, the scientist then admits he/she has no proof but it is "obvious". Then they stop being scientists...
Why doesn't God come back in this time period to prove He exists? Well, honestly, what good would that do? Every time God shows himself, we forget about him in a few hundred years. If He came today, did some miracles, and proved He existed, even if we gathered videotape evidence it would be disputed 1000 years from now---when we are considered primitive and ancient. The people of 3000AD would show "evidence" of how the God video was computer generated in 2500AD by some "evil fundamentalists" and is pure myth. Because "of course" the original tapes were long disintegrated by 3000AD.
Brian Ellenberger
Sorry, but the terrorists were NOT poor
on
Globalization
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· Score: 1
As it has been pointed out many times, the WTC attackers were anything but poor. bin Laden has 100's of millions and the people who actually hit the WTC were middle class all the way.
This is not a slur towards anyone or anything, but the bigger problem is that most of these kids can't even read. I was interested in doing this sort of thing a couple of years ago when I was living in LA.
I spoke with someone who was actually did urban education. She came into it wanting to teach urban kids advanced skills and ended up teaching them basic reading and writing skills.
There are alot of skills Slashdotters take for granted that these kids probably don't know. Like reading at a 9th grade level or knowing multiplication tables or how to write a paragraph.
Counter Strike contantly beats both Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament in number of servers and number of users. The point of the article is that ATI uses Quake 3 because all of the software reviews use it as their benchmark, not for any benefit for gamers.
Its called the difference between an intentional act and an accident.
List of winners of Medal of Honor
on
More On Tragedy
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· Score: 1
You are so wrong. To prove your point, here is the long list of United States Medal of Honor winners, most of which gave their lives in acts of extreme heroism to fight for our freedom.
http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/moh1.htm
Re:What can be done about terrorism?
on
More On Tragedy
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· Score: 1
I am sick and tired of reading this extremist left-wing crap on Slashdot. Get a clue!
1) This attack had nothing to do with greed and globalization. It had to do with our brave stand in supporting the Jewish people and their state. Remember them? The people who for the past several thousand years have been the object of hatred from the Babylonians to the Greeks to the Romans to the Europeans to the Russians to the Germans and many places inbetween. The Arab militiant extremists want nothing less than the annihilation of Israel and to drive every Jew into the sea! We support Israel, so they hate us and want to annihilate us. Whenever we try to negotiate with them they simply call us pigs and tell us how we deserve to die to. Israel was willing to give up pretty much everything except its existance, and that wasn't good enough for Arafat.
Not every Arab state is so bad. Egypt's government has been very reasonable (costing their president his life). There are Arabs who are reasonable. Unfortunately, with 80% of Palestinians supporting the suicide bombings in Israel (and presumably the US) the reasonable people seem to be in the vast minority
2) This corporate greed ranting is some of the most ignorant garbage I've ever heard. Those corporations are the basis of everything we have, from the computers that we are using to the food we eat. A corporation is merely a large organization structure. Nothing more. Without such structures how can you do things like organize the billion dollars to build a microprocessor facility?
Do you think government is a solution? Ha! Government is the ultimate monopoly! It is our worst nightmare---a monopoly with guns that can force you to pay money to it. At least you can choose Linux. You can bet that if the government ran OSs you would have no choice.
The Mars rovers have several decades of AI in them. The amount of time it takes for a signal to get from Earth to Mars is way too long for NASA engineers to be able to run the rovers around realtime. By the time they would get the signal that the robot was about to crash into a big rock, the robot would have already crashed. So they used behavior-based robotics research pioneered by Rodney Brooks at MIT to deal with the low-level don't-kill-yourself AI and then gave the robot highlevel mission parameters. Basically NASA told the robot to go to (x,y) and the robot got there without killing itself.
One paper you might want to look at is Fuzzy Behavior-based Navigation for Planetary Microrovers. I found an abstract here: http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/1415.html
Slashdot Mirror
Note: all facts taken from CIA factbook http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index .html
Haven't we heard this before time and time again. The Japanese, the Germans, the EU, the Russians, etc, etc, etc. I remember back in the 80s when Japan was "taking over the world" and Americans were just lazy stupid people who would all soon be working for Japanese bosses. Hasn't turned out that way, eh?
First of all, remember that past economic growth is no indication of future growth. See dot com boom. Don't make the same mistake with other country's economies (or this one's). Secondly, every country has its own difficulties. China has serious internal stability problems to deal with (see Tienanmen Square). It still has a very large percentage of agriculture based workers, around 50%. The per capita GDP is only $3,600 (compared to $36,200 for US). Remember that with x4 the population of the US you have to spend x4 the resources feeding and clothing them. Finally, while they have over a billion people now it will be interesting to see what long term effects the "one-child" policy will have---especially if the vast majority of Chinese choose to have males.
Of course, they still may come up and kick our butts. But don't think it will be simple.
Brian Ellenberger
Why do the Olympic games always have to have French as the first language, even though French is known by a relatively small percentage of the world? Because the founder was French. The Olympics have grown well past the earlier "US only" phase too.
The US government started the Internet as a Defense Dept project and then poured billions into it through the defense dept and research grants. If France or UK or Japan had done what we had done you could bet your bottom dollar they would have control over it too.
Brian Ellenberger
all going to the Military, and very little going to science, its not that technology doesnt exsist today, its just too expensive to bring out of the lab. 70%? I think not. The current number is more like 23-24% and that is only if you don't count Social Security and Medicare as part of the total. If you do, it's more like 16%.
And actually the Military is one of the biggest advancers of scientific research. See this cool internet thing we are on. It used to be ARPAnet---The military's advanced research projects agency network (now known as DARPA). The military is one of the biggest supporters of robotics right now. DARPA is throwing millions at CMU, USC, Georgia Tech, MIT, into projects such as the MARS program. I'd bet the great breakthroughs in robotics are more likely to come from DARPA than the NSF
The reasons why the military is such a great scientific and engineering vehicle is that they have a clear goal and demand clear results. I've been on NSF projects where the NSF was treated to a pure dog and pony show. It looked cool, but didn't do much realisticly. The DARPA project I was on was much more stringent in what needed to be done and by when.
This was industry arbitration panel ruling, not a legal one. They have the legal right to a parody, but the MPAA has their own internal rules. I doubt pr0n makers are members of the MPAA so they don't have to deal with arbitration rulings.
Austin Powers battles Bond over "Goldmember" film title
By Steve Gorman
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Suave secret agent James Bond may have won the first round in his battle with bucktoothed superspy Austin Powers, but the international man of mystery isn't giving up his mojo without a fight.
New Line Cinema vowed Monday to appeal an industry arbitration panel ruling that forced the studio to withdraw movie trailers, posters and online promotions for its upcoming third installment of the hit comedy franchise starring Mike Myers, "Austin Powers in Goldmember."
The Motion Picture Association of America panel ruled last week that the "Goldmember" title was inadmissible, in response to a complaint by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., home of the Bond films.
MGM claims that "Goldmember," a spoof on the title of 1964's "Goldfinger," the third in the Bond series that starred Sean Connery as agent 007, infringes its copyright.
Studio executives also object to "Goldmember" promotional materials that send up various Bond characters and posters.
MGM Vice Chairman and CEO Chris McGurk in a statement said the studio and the production company behind the Bond films, Danjac LLC, "have a zero-tolerance policy toward anyone who tries to trade on the James Bond franchise without authorization."
But officials at New Line, a unit of AOL Time Warner Inc., insist last week's ruling dealt with a "procedural infraction" involving the studio's attempt to register the movie's title.
"The issue that is currently in dispute does not pertain to the title or content of the film," New Line said in a statement. A studio spokeswoman said New Line would take its appeal to the MPAA on Thursday. In the meantime, the film will be referred to as "the third installment of 'Austin Powers.'"
The decision forced New Line to recall about 11,000 trailers it had in circulation in theaters across the country, many of them attached to its hit fantasy epic, "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring," the spokeswoman said. She added that "teaser" posters for the film "would be coming down about this time anyway."
The movie, set for release next July, co-stars Michael York, Michael Caine, Heather Graham (reprising her role as Felicity Shagwell) and Beyonce Knowles from the soul trio Destiny's Child as Foxy Cleopatra.
It's the third in a series, following 1997's "Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery" and the megahit 1999 sequel, "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me," in which Powers resorts to a time machine to recover his stolen "mojo," the secret to his incredible libido.
Myers, who co-wrote the script and shares producer credits, again plays an assembly of roles, including Austin Powers, the villainous Dr. Evil and a new character, Goldmember.
As a legal matter, New Line could easily defend its use of "Goldmember" as a parody protected under the "fair use" doctrine of copyright law, as the rap group 2 Live Crew successfully did in a U.S. Supreme Court case involving a parody of the Roy Orbison song "Pretty Woman," legal experts said.
The "Goldmember" flap is not the first between MGM and New Line over Austin Powers titles. MGM initially challenged the use of "The Spy Who Shagged Me," an obvious play on the 1977 Bond title "The Spy Who Loved Me." But that dispute was settled when New Line agreed to include trailer play for MGM movies on its Austin Powers sequel.
While others like Andrew Sullivan probably disagree, I think his bisexuality was intentionally kept out the film because the producers of the movie did not want to associate bi/homosexuality with mental illness.
Brian Ellenberger
At least they use open source code! :)
From: http://www.musichelponline.com/legal/
The Content has been encoded using software that incorporates the LAME encoder; more information about the encoder is available at http:// www.mp3dev.org.
http://www.mp3dev.org/mp3/
now LAME is the source code for a fully GPL'd MP3 encoder, with speed and quality to rival all commercial competitors.
Brian Ellenberger
If content were really the issue, and Canada had this amazing free flow of broadband material, where is it? This is the internet. I can hit Canadian servers as easily as American ones. Why isn't there this free flow of movies, TV, and music coming from the Great White North?
The reason is, this article is a bunch of crap. There is a huge Non Sequitor between Canada and Korea having better odds of broadband and lack of content.
There are other little reasons, like the fact we have a larger population and a smaller population density.
Brian Ellenberger
Is the fact that it, based on the pictures, it doesn't seem to require any form of input! No more clunky keyboards or mice.
:)
I'm guessing all that futuristic talk from Jobs was about the new telepathic interface.
Brian Ellenberger
when innovation on the Mac consisted of more than pretty computer packaging.
Brian Ellenberger
From Letter #142:
The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like `religion', to cults or practices, in the imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism.
I agree that LotR is not an allegory of anything, Tolkien did say that his Christian beliefs did influence LotR alot. You can especially see this if you read the Silm. Gandalf isn't just some guy doing magic, he is an angel clothed in flesh. Morgoth and Sauron are fallen angels.
And yes, GvsE and stuff is quite common. However, you can see many Christian influences. The central theme of the corruption and temptation of the ring is very Christian and what sets LotR apart. In just-another-myth Frodo would be the unlikely hero who learns how to wield the ring and become powerful.
There are many other little details, such as Gollum. Gandalf's speech about pity and not killing Gollum is VERY Christian (and actually very Catholic).
I'm not descending into a "whose religion is better" pissing contest. I'm just saying to deny that Tolkien's faith didn't have a strong influence is wrong.
Brian Ellenberger
Look at all of the good game companies that have gone out of business. Looking Glass, Origin, Microprose, Sir-Tech, Cavedog, etc. Interplay is on its last legs. Why do you think consoles have orders of magnitude greater sales?
So when cheap crappy EA games are all we have left for the PC, thank the pirates.
Brian Ellenberger
I'm sorry, but the people who spew crap like this on Slashdot never create anything yourself---you merely leech the hard work of everybody else. Do you think all that software writes itself? What if you had worked your butt off 80 hours a week only to get laid off cause some cheapos decided that they were too good to buy your product, so they stole it.
Imagine if you spent 80 hours a week carving woodcrafts, and people shoplifted your carvings saying "Well, they got the wood from the forest anyway. Besides, some guy down the street does woodcarving for free so I might as well steal this guy's stuff".
Brian Ellenberger
So what are you looking for, a "humane" way to kill people?
Personally, I don't think a laser is any worse than getting killed by a 50 cal bullet, a 1000 pound bomb, or a 767 airliner.
Brian Ellenberger
French Strike for Greater Productivity
Paris (SatireWire.com) -- Angered over reports that California's economy has surpassed that of France, dozens of French labor unions staged a massive, nationwide strike Friday, demanding the government investigate possible causes of the country's low per capita productivity.
"French workers should be the most productive in the world, and we will strike until the government can discover why we are not," said Rene L'ampoule, a spokesman for truck drivers who blocked most of the nation's major roadways.
According to the report, compiled by the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp., California's gross domestic product was $1.33 trillion last year, compared to France's $1.28 trillion. With 61 million inhabitants, France's population is nearly twice that of California, making the nation's per capita production half that of the U.S. state.
In the country's fifteenth nationwide strike this year, protesting miners, farmers, students, truckers, mechanics, teachers, engineers, entertainers, programmers, police officers, firefighters, and journalists, as well as factory, airline, rail, livery, clerical, and prison workers, said it was the government's responsibility to investigate. Government employees, meanwhile, said they would join the strike in sympathy.
Parents should have the right to set the standards of how their kids are taught. If they don't want graphical sexual content, the art teacher has no right to impose their views or beliefs.
The most basic right a country has is to defend itself. In fact, that is the #1 reason to have countries. If the world was a nice happy fun place we wouldn't need borders. But evil people--people who want to kill you, take your land, all your stuff, and rule you, these people still exist.
>It means that things like this invasion of >Afghanistan should be accepted by the rest of >the world, because sooner or later it may happen >to them.
Please. We could have taken over most of the world years ago if that was who we are. The Western Hemisphere could be easily conquered in a few months. But if you attack us, the gloves are off.
>Forget that nations have their own sovereign >right to determine their own internal affairs.
No. Nazi's do not have the right to kill Jews. Serbs do not have the right to kill Muslims they don't like.
Oh, and by launching an attack on us, bin Laden and the Taliban have affected OUR internal affairs.
>Would we allow France to bomb our cities because >we are harboring a political fugitive they are ?>seeking?
You tell the children of the WTC that bin Laden, who is on tape admitting the attack, that he is just some "political fugitive".
>Would we allow Russia to arm and finance groups >in America that advocate overthrowing the US >government?
The former USSR funded many groups for this purpose. See the US Communist Party.
>Yet that seems perfectly acceptable for the US >to do in other countries.
You have absolutely no moral compass, except to say that the US is bad and the non-US is good. Sure the US is not perfect, but we are the best this world has got.
Brian Ellenberger
The problem is that science cannot really prove faith. I'm a Christian and I admit what I believe in is ridiculous. My conservative Southern Baptist preacher has sermons that what the Bible claims is ridiculous.
If it wasn't, it wouldn't be worth believing in! Christians says some guy 2000 years ago was born without an earthly father and performed all sort of miracles including matter transformation and resurrection of dead and science guys say that from what they know that is impossible. And we say yea, that why we believe He was the Son of God. If there was a simple explanation we wouldn't believe in anything
Of course, then the scientist says that what we believe is myth. Of course, the scientist then admits he/she has no proof but it is "obvious". Then they stop being scientists...
Why doesn't God come back in this time period to prove He exists? Well, honestly, what good would that do? Every time God shows himself, we forget about him in a few hundred years. If He came today, did some miracles, and proved He existed, even if we gathered videotape evidence it would be disputed 1000 years from now---when we are considered primitive and ancient. The people of 3000AD would show "evidence" of how the God video was computer generated in 2500AD by some "evil fundamentalists" and is pure myth. Because "of course" the original tapes were long disintegrated by 3000AD.
Brian EllenbergerAs it has been pointed out many times, the WTC attackers were anything but poor. bin Laden has 100's of millions and the people who actually hit the WTC were middle class all the way.
Brian Ellenberger
Here is a really good link from the people who made Age of Kings: http://www.ensemblestudios.com/openjournal2/story/ 18.shtml
This is not a slur towards anyone or anything, but the bigger problem is that most of these kids can't even read. I was interested in doing this sort of thing a couple of years ago when I was living in LA.
I spoke with someone who was actually did urban education. She came into it wanting to teach urban kids advanced skills and ended up teaching them basic reading and writing skills.
There are alot of skills Slashdotters take for granted that these kids probably don't know. Like reading at a 9th grade level or knowing multiplication tables or how to write a paragraph.
Brian Ellenberger
Counter Strike contantly beats both Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament in number of servers and number of users. The point of the article is that ATI uses Quake 3 because all of the software reviews use it as their benchmark, not for any benefit for gamers.
Its called the difference between an intentional act and an accident.
You are so wrong. To prove your point, here is the long list of United States Medal of Honor winners, most of which gave their lives in acts of extreme heroism to fight for our freedom.
http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/moh1.htmI am sick and tired of reading this extremist left-wing crap on Slashdot. Get a clue!
1) This attack had nothing to do with greed and globalization. It had to do with our brave stand in supporting the Jewish people and their state. Remember them? The people who for the past several thousand years have been the object of hatred from the Babylonians to the Greeks to the Romans to the Europeans to the Russians to the Germans and many places inbetween. The Arab militiant extremists want nothing less than the annihilation of Israel and to drive every Jew into the sea! We support Israel, so they hate us and want to annihilate us. Whenever we try to negotiate with them they simply call us pigs and tell us how we deserve to die to. Israel was willing to give up pretty much everything except its existance, and that wasn't good enough for Arafat.
Not every Arab state is so bad. Egypt's government has been very reasonable (costing their president his life). There are Arabs who are reasonable. Unfortunately, with 80% of Palestinians supporting the suicide bombings in Israel (and presumably the US) the reasonable people seem to be in the vast minority
2) This corporate greed ranting is some of the most ignorant garbage I've ever heard. Those corporations are the basis of everything we have, from the computers that we are using to the food we eat. A corporation is merely a large organization structure. Nothing more. Without such structures how can you do things like organize the billion dollars to build a microprocessor facility?
Do you think government is a solution? Ha! Government is the ultimate monopoly! It is our worst nightmare---a monopoly with guns that can force you to pay money to it. At least you can choose Linux. You can bet that if the government ran OSs you would have no choice.
The Mars rovers have several decades of AI in them. The amount of time it takes for a signal to get from Earth to Mars is way too long for NASA engineers to be able to run the rovers around realtime. By the time they would get the signal that the robot was about to crash into a big rock, the robot would have already crashed. So they used behavior-based robotics research pioneered by Rodney Brooks at MIT to deal with the low-level don't-kill-yourself AI and then gave the robot highlevel mission parameters. Basically NASA told the robot to go to (x,y) and the robot got there without killing itself.
One paper you might want to look at is Fuzzy Behavior-based Navigation for Planetary Microrovers. I found an abstract here: http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/1415.html