Ah, I see...you meant a simplified interface. I guess I'm really thinking more about having access to a computer while I'm in the car--not having a computer to control my car's systems.
Wouldn't it have been easier to just pop a Mac Mini under the seat? Seems like a no-brainer to me...you could even run Linux on it, if that's what you really want. I can envision one mounted on a little shock-mount kind of thing.
Or, if you really want to go crazy, an HP nr3610 rugged notebook PC, or something like it. That'll only set you back 4 big ones, right? But at least using it in a car won't kill the warranty!
There are certainly much better places to spend military money than on space weapons at this point. Personally, I think the area where we need additonal funding most desparately is at the individual soldier and platoon level. We need more soldiers, more and better education for our soldiers, better man-portable equipment, better vehicles, better body armor, better communications, better...well, just about everything at that level. I think the current debacle in Iraq is evidence of this--not to mention that we need better civilian leadership.
As far as renewable energy is concerned, that's really an area where we need to improve the efficiency of the equipment we're currently using so that the military itself is not so dependent on fossil fuels. HMMWV's and BFV's use a huge amount of fuel to do their job. We need lighter, faster, more efficient vehicles to get our troops where they need to be.
Military power is maximized by putting the most amount of power in the smallest, most efficient package you can. For this reason, it is likely that we will not find a suitable replacement for fossil fuels in our military vehicles.
Aah, what the hell do I know, I'm just a systems designer...
Nothing in my reply was intended to cause you to question the decision to use the bomb. I was merely reflecting on some of the aspects of this discussion that I feel deserve greater reflection. History will ultimately judge us all. By all means, please question anything you desire.
I do, however, take issue with the notion that the bomb was used on "primarily a human target". The city of Hiroshima was a high-value military target. Bombing Hiroshima with an atomic weapon in no way could be regarded as "a war crime", any more than if we had utterly flattened Hiroshima with conventional weapons.
If part of the decision to use the bomb on Hiroshima was to demonstrate the horrific effects of American technology not only to the Japanese, but to the entire world, it's not going to keep me up at night. I think the constant stream of Anti-American sentiment here ought to be tempered by the fact that the rest of the world should probably be thankful that it was the US who used the bomb, and not Germany, Russia, or Japan. We may be ruthless in war, but we are also gracious in peace (or at least, we try to be, which is more than can be said for the barbaric governments we defeated in WWII). We live with the consequences of our decision, while much of the rest of the world owes its continued freedom to our demonstration of military supremacy. Do we make mistakes? Certainly. Have we made mistakes? Incontrovertibly. Will we continue to make mistakes? Probably. But Hiroshima was not one of those mistakes, in my opinion.
As for my admiration of pre-1853 Japanese culture, that is not limited to an admiration of the Tokugawa Shogunate goverment (and BTW, I agree with your characterazation), or even just that time period. Mostly, I was referring to the Japanese people and the high level of personal, cultural, and aesthetic values they attained while largely isolated from the rest of the world. The very fact that the Japanese were able to evolve such industrial power in less than a century is a testament to their abilities. Also, I did not say that I do not admire post-1945 Japan, only that I especially admire pre-1853 Japan.
The reason why I consider the personal connection to be relevant is that it is in some ways much easier to demonize an enemy when you have not seen the effects of conflict close up and personal, and in other ways much more difficult to forgive conflict when you are personally involved. One should always consider the position of other people before passing judgements. I wonder how many Slashdotters are capable of seeing both sides of this issue, whether in involves Hiroshima, Pearl Harbor, Nanking, Bataan, WWII in general, the Cold War, or the 9/11 catastrophe. Or really, anything at all.
Of course, had we wanted to make a maximum psychological impact, we would have bombed Tokyo or Kyoto. Had it not been for Stimson's love of Kyoto, it probably would have been at the top of the list.
Thank God we didn't bomb Fuji-san. I agree with the previous poster that bombing Fuji would have been a barbaric deed. The constructions of men can be rebuilt.
That said, I wonder how many Slashdotters actually have a personal connection to the Second World War, or a connection to Japan other than anime and manga, or their Japanese car or electronic devices.
My grandfather on my mother's fought in WWII in the US Navy. He retired a Deputy Chief of the NYFD (about as high as you can go without being Fire Commissioner). Many of the NYFD officers killed at the WTC were personal friends of my grandfather. My grandmother told me recently that something like 3/4 of the young men from their town were killed in WWII.
Should we have forgone using the atomic weapons? Possibly. Did the war end within days? Yes. Were lives ultimately saved? Maybe. Have any other atomic weapons been used in war since? No. Do I feel for the Japanese people? Yes. Would Japan be the country it is today if the US didn't ensure its protection? Absolutely not. Did the Japanese have good cause to initiate hostilities? Likely.
On days like today, I thank God I am a Citizen of the United States of America, and I thank God that no citizens of any other nation have to live with having used a nuclear weapon in war.
There are many people of the world who like to paint Americans as warmongers. We are not. We are, however, ruthless enemies when provoked (the actions of our current hapless administration nowithstanding). I will always feel sympathy for those affected by war, but I will never feel sorry for my country having used the most destructive weapon of all in a time of war.
I admire Japanese culture, especially Japanese culture pre-1853. I admire the tradition of craftsmanship and the aesthetic tradition embodied in the Japanese. I admire their warrior spirit.
I am American, Filipino, English, and German. My grandfather on my father's side was a guerilla fighter against the Japanese in WWII in the Manila area. My father, as a child, stole vegetables from an occupying Japanese officer's garden.
Do I hate the Japanese? No. Sixty years ago, we were at war, but we have become friends. Hopefully, we will never make war on each other again. But, both Americans and Japanese should never forget what we have done to each other in the past.
You've misinterpreted what I was trying to communicate.
I am a proponent of original meaning construction, which most scholars of the subject would term "strict construction". Note that the term is "construction", as in "to construe from", and not "constitutionalism", which etymologically speaking would be an affinity for constutional forms of government. Randy Barnett has written a couple of excellent books on the topic of constitutional law, and while I do not agree entirely with his strong libertarian stance on economics, my beliefs of consitutional construction follow along similar lines. I suggest you read his books "The Structure of Liberty: Justice and the Rule of Law" and "Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty" for a better understanding of the reason why Amendment IX exists (not Amendment XIX, as you cited erroneously). I also suggest you study the available documentation of the period of the Framing so that you can come to a greater understanding of why many of the great thinkers of the age were vehemently opposed to the idea of a "Bill of Rights". In summary, it was thought by some opponents of the "Bill of Rights" that the enumeration of certain rights in the Constitution would give the government cause to deny or disparage other natural rights not so enumerated. For this reason, Amendment IX was agreed upon as a compromise. Clearly, you do not understand the concept of "natural law".
Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has seen fit (with Footnote Four) to entirely disregard the principle behind Amendment IX. This entirely flies in the face of the prime duty of the Supreme Court, which has apparently decided with Carolene Products that it is above the Law of the Land.
Aside from all that, it is apparent that you have a very unclear idea of what exactly constitutes an "establishment of religion" or the prohibition of "the free exercise thereof". Clearly, you need to study the matter further. You also need to abandon the starw man argument that you have been repeatedly using that the insistence on a separation of church and state is equivalent to a ban on free speech. No one is talking about banning religous speech or thought. What we're talking about is the abuse of authority represented by President Bush advocating a religious, specifically fundamentalist Christian, and utterly false POV in the public education.
In the terms of the current discussion, there is no logical dissimilarity between "religious people" and "atheists". Both "freedom of religion" and "freedom from religion" are logically equivalent as pertains to an individual's beliefs. However, an agent of the Federal Government, especially the highest ranking agent thereof, has a moral and ethical civic duty to separate his own religious beliefs from public policy decisions. That's simply the way our Constitution was set up, and if you don't like it, feel free to propose an Amendment yourself.
Bear in mind that the Constitution in only a document, an inanimate object. It has no inherent wisdom. Only sentient beings can possess wisdom. Am I wiser than the Framers? Possibly, though I make no such claim. I do, however, possess knowledge of history that the Framers could not have been privy to, so I feel perfectly qualified (and as a Citizen of the United States, I feel obligated) to determine for myself whether the Constitution promulgates relevant and legitimate interests.
While I do refer to the intentions of the Framers when trying to understand *why* the Constitution is the way it is (which is what I was suggesting you examine concerning the separation of church and state), when the question at hand is "What is the Law?", I feel it is only correct and proper to consult the meaning of the words, as written, and as would have been understood by the common man at the time of their adoption. Logically, no other form of construction has merit.
The sort of people who are calling themselves "conservatives" these days should be extremely wary of strict construction. You cannot have your cake and eat it too when it comes to strict contruction, as Justice Scalia seems to be fond of believing. If it's strict, it either is or is not, and the "is" side of things doesn't quite add up to what these "conservatives" think it does...
The debate over access to contraceptives, emergency or otherwise, is much more complex than you make it out to be. There was a good discussion of the matter on WHYY's Radio Times the other day. Go listen. [Real Audio file]
I suggest that you, yourself, do some research concerning the separation of church and state demanded by the United States Constitution. The "wall" as you put it, was designed not so much to protect religious freedom, as it was designed to protect civil government from the influence of religion. This was done, I might add, largely by men who identified themselves as pious Christians. I suggest you refer to the writings of the Framers, and the proceedings of the various Conventions for more background.
The religious freedom of that portion of the electorate that elected President Bush is protected, yes, but so is the religious freedom of that portion of the electorate which did *not* elect President Bush. What you fail to recognize is that the meaning of the wording of Amendment I does not necessarily mean the same thing to you as it did to the Framers. I will further point out that you should understand the text of Amendment IX when discussing "rights protected by the Bill of Rights":
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Footnote Four [United States v Carolene Products Co. 304 US 144] notwithstanding, of course.
Oh my, where to begin? Clearly I disagree with Aquinas (and apparently "many sensible Christians and Jews", not to mention probably many sensible people who adhere to other belief systems. The level of regard which is ascribed to Aquinas by religious people is irrelevant to the truth.
I hardly think that Gregor Mendel's work constitutes the "very first pioneering excursions into the realm of science". Genetics, perhaps, but certainly not science, in general.
As for my belief in the incompatibility of intelligence and religion, you may want to familiarize yourself with the philosophy of Objectivism, as promulgated by Ayn Rand (though there are areas where I strongly disagree with Rand, such as the moral primacy of unfettered Capitalism), to help you in your understanding of this matter. The philosophy of Objectivism relies upon Reason for its epistemology, and the origin of objective reasoning is the empirical evidence of the human senses. The existence of the deity presented by the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition, is by its nature undiscoverable to the human senses, and is therefore, rejected by Objectivism.
The issue is not about knowing the mind of God. I've yet to meet anyone that claims to know the mind of God. The issue for those of us that are religious is merely to follow the principles that God has given us, and use those principles in conjuction with everything else we've been given (faith, logic, conscience) to do what would please him.
You are making two claims here that would seem to indicate that you believe you do, indeed, "know the mind of God". Firstly, you claim to possess knowledge of "the principles that God has given us". By what direct proof can you claim that any such principles were in fact given to anyone by your deity? Secondly, you claim to possess knowledge of "what would please him". From God's mouth to your ears, apparently. By what direct proof can you establish that your deity has communicated this information to you? Third hand accounts are not acceptable to Science. Scientific principles are discoverable by all men in their emprical observations.
I assure you that I understand logic and religion both, quite well, and that I am not a fanatic of any type. I neither demand nor require that any one else subscribe to my world view--I do however, demand and require that others treat me the same. What was that Golden Rule again? Ah yes, "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you". Merely speaking my mind in the company of others who by their presence at this site have implied their willingness to engage in debate does not equate with fanaticism, I should think.
In any case, should the Final Judgement come, I am quite certain that God will forgive me my conclusions if they do not come out quite as He may have hoped. After all, if He really did create little old imperfect me, then logic and religion both dictate that He is the source of my reasoning capacity.
I have stood beneath and atop the dome of the Basilica di San Pietro, and I have stood beneath the firmament of the night sky, though I have not yet stood atop it. I have not failed to be impressed by either. I have no fear of God, and I have no fear of Knowledge.
Mr. Schroeder, that is very possibly the best post of yours I have ever seen on Slashdot. I think you sum up very well my own thoughts on the matter of abortion. I am vehemently "pro-choice" (for lack of a better term), and vehemently supportive of stem cell research, however, I am not unaware of, or insensitive to, the moral and ethical aspects of my position.
More to the point of the article, it never ceases to amaze me that there are so many so-called "Christians" in this world that profess such a profound arrogance in presuming to know the mind of God. Who among us can know the mind of God? I was raised in a family both Christian and medical/scientific, and while I have come to disbelieve many of the religious aspects of my upbringing, I have more than a passing knowledge of Christian doctrine, so I feel quite comfortable in using deist thoughts in opposition to those who would use their supposedly Christian faith as a bludgeon.
It is also my belief, though I'm sure there are many who would disagree with me, possibly including yourself, that advanced intelligence is entirely incompatible with religious belief, at least at current understanding levels of the two concepts. I am greatly distressed by the assumption of many that the scientific method cannot be applied to questions of ethics and morality, the the idea that these questions are solely the province of "religious" or "spiritual" contemplation. As an adherent of Heinlein's "Scientific Theory of Morality", as well as an amateur of Objectivism (thought there are aspects of Objectivism with which I also disagree somewhat), I reject the idea that the discovery of moral and ethical principles cannot follow from the evidence of our own senses and reasoning without reliance on the dubious existence of a mythical "higher power".
All of that said, I applaud you for having the courage to stand up in this debate for the points you make, as I believe that following the threads of the ideas in your post will lead us all down the path most likely to increase humanity's wisdom on the subject. I will mark you a "Friend".
Sorry, but there *is* a difference. A journalist is obligated just the same as any other protected class (attorneys, physicians, etc.) to reveal the name of a source when that journalist has material evidence or can be reasonably expected to understand that the source is complicit in criminal activity. In the Valerie Plame case, this would be the revelation of the identity of a CIA operative; such a revelation is in itself a crime, and as such, the source cannot and should not be protected.
One of the primary reasons Linux is somewhat inferior to commerical offierings when considered as a general-purpose dektop operating system is that there is a lack of a single guiding human interface standard for the various groups to work toward. Companies such as Apple Computer and Microsoft have invested large amounts of money in human interface studies, and although much of this information has been made readily accessible to the public, it would appear that very little of that information has been put to good use by F/OSS developers.
With Apple using the BSD branch of software as it's operating system core, do you see a future for a Microsoft-branded Linux distribution, using a Microsoft-developed HCI design?
Though there is a large amount of enmity in the F/OSS community toward Microsoft, it cannot be denied that Microsoft's development methods are demonstrably capable of producing quality software. Could Microsoft serve as a catalyst for consolidation within the community, while remaining true to the F/OSS philosophy? Could such a strategy be profitable for Microsoft?
And finally, the new VAIO Pocket is touted as the "iPod Killer" and it's easy to see why. Apple should be afraid; very afraid indeed.
Don't make me laugh. Sony pre-announced the VAIO Pocket over one year ago. In that time, Apple has sold, what, something like 18 million plus iPods?
3Q2005 iPod sales ~= 6.2 million units 2Q2005 iPod sales ~= 5.3 million units 1Q2005 iPod sales ~= 4.5 million units 4Q2004 iPod sales ~= 2.0 million units 3Q2004 iPod sales ~= 0.86 million units
Do Mr. Robinson and The Register seriously think that the VAIO Pocket is going to "kill" a product line which has sold nearly 20 million units just in the time since Sony pre-announced the VAIO Pocket? Never mind what the rest of the world has already said concerning the viability of the VAIO Pocket...
Apple isn't stitting in Cupertino on their hands, I'm certain.
Buy Apple, yes. But also buy Microsoft. Also buy Intel. Sell AMD short-term. Sell Dell in the long term. Maybe buy HP.
Here's my scenario:
1. Apple's move to Intel surely means only greater profits for Microsoft. After all, despite all the gnashing and grinding of teeth over WINE, the fact of the matter is that WINE will be utterly irrelevant for Mac OS X users. After all, Virtual PC is not only much, much better than WINE (being as it actually runs Windows), it results in two software sales for Microsoft, one for Virtual PC, one for some flavor of Windows. With Apple's Intel-based machines, Virtual PC will now run at near-native speeds, so I predict that Virtual PC/Windows sales will jump dramatically.
2. Apple's inital machines will not support Windows, officially. But as Phil Schiller has been quoted, Apple will not do anything to prevent users from installing Windows. For those users for whom Virtual PC is not enough, a retail copy of Windows will do nicely.
3. Eventually, Apple will do what ever it takes to write Windows Certified drivers for their hardware, and begin offering full Windows OEM support. Businesses will start buying Apple hardware in droves. Michael Dell will regret ever trashing Apple. Microsoft will see even more profit.
4. Microsoft has absolutely nothing to fear from Apple, unless Apple decides to go after OEM licsening deals for Mac OS X. This is unlikely in the extreme, though not out of the realm of possibility. If this happens, it will be well down the road, and probably will only happen if Apple manages to make a big dent in the overall PC marketshare with Mac OS X on Intel.
5. Even if Apple begins OEM deals with other manufacturers, it is likely that the prevailing scenario will be dual-boot Mac OS X and Windows Vista (or whatever it really ends up being called).
6. Microsoft is unlikely to discontinue Office for Mac. It's worth too much money to MS, and any potential direct competition with Apple on the OS side is far off, at best.
7. Linux and BSD will continue to thrive. There will always be a market for Free and Open Source Software. As I write this, I am compiling updates to OpenBSD 3.7 on a spare iMac.
8. Moore's Law will be broken by this Apple move. Intel now loses the only viable general-purpose CPU competitor. CPU development will slow.
This article is so filled with misconceptions, revisionist history, wishful thinking, and downright FUD that it's difficult to extract the few relevant and correct facts from the story.
Apple not exactly rolling in cash
WTF? What pocket universe have you been living in? One of Apple watchers' biggest complaints about APPL is that they have been sitting on a tremendous amount of cash for years, when they could have spent some of it to shore up their market position in many, many different ways. I argue that one of the biggest mistakes Apple made was not buying Netscape before Sun and AOL divided and conquered it, or CS&T/Steltor before Oracle subsumed it. Think of where Apple might be today if we had an improved Netscape SuiteSpot running on Mac OS X. What if Apple spent some of those billions in cash developing a successot to the Apple Network Servers to run the above server software? Wouldn't you like to see a product that could absolutely destroy Microsoft Exchange using Internet Standard protocols?
And, speaking of Oracle, how many years did Larry Ellison sit on Apple's board without producing an Oracle server for an Apple platform? But, I digress..
Motorola in particular, has written off hundreds of millions of dollars in losses caused directly by the erratic actions of Apple Computer
Umm, how about..."Motorola in particular, has written off billions of dollars in losses caused directly by the erratic actions of Motorola? Hey, let's just completely ignore MOT's complete mishandling of the entire PowerPC agreement/concept. We weren't stuck at 500MHz because of Apple--it was MOT's inability to make a gracful transition to a new process line that caused *that*. Not to mention Motorola switching all internal operations machines to WinTel and ditching *their own product* in favor of a competitors?
IBM has other customers who actually pay up front for custom designs and who don't insist on having IBM tailor their product roadmap around a few million units a year
And how, exactly is the example of one of IBM's "regular" customers in any way relevant to Apple? You may have forgotten that Apple *owns*, at least partially, the PowerPC IP, not to mention the fact that *no other manufacturer* uses PowerPC in a general purpose computing application, other than Apple and IBM, themselves. Yes, IBM has "other customers", but none of these have the same needs or relationship with IBM that Apple has. IBM is doing as much damage to their own product line by not moving the Power and PowerPC lines forward as aggressively as possible, unless of course IBM intends to pawn off their workstation, mini, and mainframe lines to China, as well...
The bottom line is, no matter how much Hannibal would like to wish it otherwise, IBM screwed up royally, and in the process, screwed Apple and Steve Jobs. You may want to go back and read my Slashdot post from 2005-04-15 to see my evaluation of the possibility of Apple moving to Intel (which , I may add, was well before any speculation/rumors on the part of C|Net or the WSJ).
...Darwin seems to work just fine on x86 hardware. In fact, it arguably got its start on x86 hardware. The guys at Apple are no dummies--the upper layers of the OS may not be open source, but you can be sure that they are sufficiently abstracted from the lower layers that it would be a relatively simple job for Apple to port to another platform. They might lose things like AltiVec/Velocity Engine, but vector processors are widely available elsewhere.
For the same reason, I don't buy the argument that Apple will never release an x86 version of Mac OS X--after a
Would you like a napkin to wipe up that spittle and froth dripping down your chin?
From the context of your posts concerning this topic, it is clear that you have very little understanding of the subject. My posts, however, speak for themselves, as anyone with even a passing knowledge of basic networking concepts can grasp.
Your main problem seems to stem from your confusion of Network Address Translation and Port Address Translation. I suggest you take a trip down to your local bookstore, pick up a few books on networking subjects and read them thoroughly, as well as take a few classes, either at your local university or from a vendor-sponsored program. Then go out and buy yourself a carrier-class Internet connection or three and enterprise-grade routers (or borrow the usage of same), and find out what you can actually do with the stuff.
Personally, I have gained my experience by spending the past ten years running an ISP and working as a technology consultant specializing in wide-area networking, security, and Internet technologies in both the public and private sectors. I have more enterprise-class networks designed and built under my belt than I can remember offhand.
I do not know what experience you can claim, but the context of what you have posted makes it quite clear that you possess limited experience, and you have now worked yourself into a lather barking like a rabid troll at your betters. Your posts are filled with so many incorrect assumptions about this topic that to attempt to address even a minor fraction of them would be a Herculean task.
Learn and contribute, or hide behind your prideful ignorance. I care not which, so long as you do not waste anymore of my time or bandwidth.
No, I didn't miss the boat. The real point of this thread is that Yet Another Waste of Money Project has been started to re-invent the Internet Wheel. I simply chose to post on a subset of the topic because of what I feel is highly inappropriate upwardly mobile moderation.
You clearly do not understand NAT. Please do your homework and gain some real-world experience before replying to any more posts in this topic.
I have run an Internet Service Provider, and built multiple enterprise-class networks. I have extensive experience with many grades of firewall and router equipment including from Cisco, 3Com, Wellfleet/Bay Networks/Nortel, Netopia, Checkpoint, SonicWall, Lucent, Ascend, Livingston, Netgear, Linksys, Livingston, ZyXel, IBM, Compatible Systems, etc., etc., etc.
NAT and PAT are extremely valuable tools, that while having some limitations, are of such usefulness that it is more constructive to ask, "Why wouldn't one use NAT?", than to ask why one would.
The vast majority of the situtations described under the link you provided are utterly irrelevant to a network with only one path to the Internet, which I will venture to guess is the vast majority of private networks.
NAT should never be used on a carrier network (though it often, and deplorably, is used in such a fashion).
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, I see...you meant a simplified interface. I guess I'm really thinking more about having access to a computer while I'm in the car--not having a computer to control my car's systems.
I'm a little confused about "no decent frontends for Mac OS". What's wrong with Aqua? I assume you meant "Mac OS X" rather than "Mac OS".
And how difficult could it possibly be to mount a Mac Mini in your car?
Wouldn't it have been easier to just pop a Mac Mini under the seat? Seems like a no-brainer to me...you could even run Linux on it, if that's what you really want. I can envision one mounted on a little shock-mount kind of thing.
Or, if you really want to go crazy, an HP nr3610 rugged notebook PC, or something like it. That'll only set you back 4 big ones, right? But at least using it in a car won't kill the warranty!
There are certainly much better places to spend military money than on space weapons at this point. Personally, I think the area where we need additonal funding most desparately is at the individual soldier and platoon level. We need more soldiers, more and better education for our soldiers, better man-portable equipment, better vehicles, better body armor, better communications, better...well, just about everything at that level. I think the current debacle in Iraq is evidence of this--not to mention that we need better civilian leadership.
As far as renewable energy is concerned, that's really an area where we need to improve the efficiency of the equipment we're currently using so that the military itself is not so dependent on fossil fuels. HMMWV's and BFV's use a huge amount of fuel to do their job. We need lighter, faster, more efficient vehicles to get our troops where they need to be.
Military power is maximized by putting the most amount of power in the smallest, most efficient package you can. For this reason, it is likely that we will not find a suitable replacement for fossil fuels in our military vehicles.
Aah, what the hell do I know, I'm just a systems designer...
Nothing in my reply was intended to cause you to question the decision to use the bomb. I was merely reflecting on some of the aspects of this discussion that I feel deserve greater reflection. History will ultimately judge us all. By all means, please question anything you desire.
I do, however, take issue with the notion that the bomb was used on "primarily a human target". The city of Hiroshima was a high-value military target. Bombing Hiroshima with an atomic weapon in no way could be regarded as "a war crime", any more than if we had utterly flattened Hiroshima with conventional weapons.
If part of the decision to use the bomb on Hiroshima was to demonstrate the horrific effects of American technology not only to the Japanese, but to the entire world, it's not going to keep me up at night. I think the constant stream of Anti-American sentiment here ought to be tempered by the fact that the rest of the world should probably be thankful that it was the US who used the bomb, and not Germany, Russia, or Japan. We may be ruthless in war, but we are also gracious in peace (or at least, we try to be, which is more than can be said for the barbaric governments we defeated in WWII). We live with the consequences of our decision, while much of the rest of the world owes its continued freedom to our demonstration of military supremacy. Do we make mistakes? Certainly. Have we made mistakes? Incontrovertibly. Will we continue to make mistakes? Probably. But Hiroshima was not one of those mistakes, in my opinion.
As for my admiration of pre-1853 Japanese culture, that is not limited to an admiration of the Tokugawa Shogunate goverment (and BTW, I agree with your characterazation), or even just that time period. Mostly, I was referring to the Japanese people and the high level of personal, cultural, and aesthetic values they attained while largely isolated from the rest of the world. The very fact that the Japanese were able to evolve such industrial power in less than a century is a testament to their abilities. Also, I did not say that I do not admire post-1945 Japan, only that I especially admire pre-1853 Japan.
The reason why I consider the personal connection to be relevant is that it is in some ways much easier to demonize an enemy when you have not seen the effects of conflict close up and personal, and in other ways much more difficult to forgive conflict when you are personally involved. One should always consider the position of other people before passing judgements. I wonder how many Slashdotters are capable of seeing both sides of this issue, whether in involves Hiroshima, Pearl Harbor, Nanking, Bataan, WWII in general, the Cold War, or the 9/11 catastrophe. Or really, anything at all.
Of course, had we wanted to make a maximum psychological impact, we would have bombed Tokyo or Kyoto. Had it not been for Stimson's love of Kyoto, it probably would have been at the top of the list.
Thank God we didn't bomb Fuji-san. I agree with the previous poster that bombing Fuji would have been a barbaric deed. The constructions of men can be rebuilt.
That said, I wonder how many Slashdotters actually have a personal connection to the Second World War, or a connection to Japan other than anime and manga, or their Japanese car or electronic devices.
My grandfather on my mother's fought in WWII in the US Navy. He retired a Deputy Chief of the NYFD (about as high as you can go without being Fire Commissioner). Many of the NYFD officers killed at the WTC were personal friends of my grandfather. My grandmother told me recently that something like 3/4 of the young men from their town were killed in WWII.
Should we have forgone using the atomic weapons? Possibly.
Did the war end within days? Yes.
Were lives ultimately saved? Maybe.
Have any other atomic weapons been used in war since? No.
Do I feel for the Japanese people? Yes.
Would Japan be the country it is today if the US didn't ensure its protection? Absolutely not.
Did the Japanese have good cause to initiate hostilities? Likely.
On days like today, I thank God I am a Citizen of the United States of America, and I thank God that no citizens of any other nation have to live with having used a nuclear weapon in war.
There are many people of the world who like to paint Americans as warmongers. We are not. We are, however, ruthless enemies when provoked (the actions of our current hapless administration nowithstanding). I will always feel sympathy for those affected by war, but I will never feel sorry for my country having used the most destructive weapon of all in a time of war.
I admire Japanese culture, especially Japanese culture pre-1853. I admire the tradition of craftsmanship and the aesthetic tradition embodied in the Japanese. I admire their warrior spirit.
I am American, Filipino, English, and German. My grandfather on my father's side was a guerilla fighter against the Japanese in WWII in the Manila area. My father, as a child, stole vegetables from an occupying Japanese officer's garden.
Do I hate the Japanese? No. Sixty years ago, we were at war, but we have become friends. Hopefully, we will never make war on each other again. But, both Americans and Japanese should never forget what we have done to each other in the past.
You've misinterpreted what I was trying to communicate.
I am a proponent of original meaning construction, which most scholars of the subject would term "strict construction". Note that the term is "construction", as in "to construe from", and not "constitutionalism", which etymologically speaking would be an affinity for constutional forms of government. Randy Barnett has written a couple of excellent books on the topic of constitutional law, and while I do not agree entirely with his strong libertarian stance on economics, my beliefs of consitutional construction follow along similar lines. I suggest you read his books "The Structure of Liberty: Justice and the Rule of Law" and "Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty" for a better understanding of the reason why Amendment IX exists (not Amendment XIX, as you cited erroneously). I also suggest you study the available documentation of the period of the Framing so that you can come to a greater understanding of why many of the great thinkers of the age were vehemently opposed to the idea of a "Bill of Rights". In summary, it was thought by some opponents of the "Bill of Rights" that the enumeration of certain rights in the Constitution would give the government cause to deny or disparage other natural rights not so enumerated. For this reason, Amendment IX was agreed upon as a compromise. Clearly, you do not understand the concept of "natural law".
Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has seen fit (with Footnote Four) to entirely disregard the principle behind Amendment IX. This entirely flies in the face of the prime duty of the Supreme Court, which has apparently decided with Carolene Products that it is above the Law of the Land.
Aside from all that, it is apparent that you have a very unclear idea of what exactly constitutes an "establishment of religion" or the prohibition of "the free exercise thereof". Clearly, you need to study the matter further. You also need to abandon the starw man argument that you have been repeatedly using that the insistence on a separation of church and state is equivalent to a ban on free speech. No one is talking about banning religous speech or thought. What we're talking about is the abuse of authority represented by President Bush advocating a religious, specifically fundamentalist Christian, and utterly false POV in the public education.
In the terms of the current discussion, there is no logical dissimilarity between "religious people" and "atheists". Both "freedom of religion" and "freedom from religion" are logically equivalent as pertains to an individual's beliefs. However, an agent of the Federal Government, especially the highest ranking agent thereof, has a moral and ethical civic duty to separate his own religious beliefs from public policy decisions. That's simply the way our Constitution was set up, and if you don't like it, feel free to propose an Amendment yourself.
Bear in mind that the Constitution in only a document, an inanimate object. It has no inherent wisdom. Only sentient beings can possess wisdom. Am I wiser than the Framers? Possibly, though I make no such claim. I do, however, possess knowledge of history that the Framers could not have been privy to, so I feel perfectly qualified (and as a Citizen of the United States, I feel obligated) to determine for myself whether the Constitution promulgates relevant and legitimate interests.
While I do refer to the intentions of the Framers when trying to understand *why* the Constitution is the way it is (which is what I was suggesting you examine concerning the separation of church and state), when the question at hand is "What is the Law?", I feel it is only correct and proper to consult the meaning of the words, as written, and as would have been understood by the common man at the time of their adoption. Logically, no other form of construction has merit.
The sort of people who are calling themselves "conservatives" these days should be extremely wary of strict construction. You cannot have your cake and eat it too when it comes to strict contruction, as Justice Scalia seems to be fond of believing. If it's strict, it either is or is not, and the "is" side of things doesn't quite add up to what these "conservatives" think it does...
The debate over access to contraceptives, emergency or otherwise, is much more complex than you make it out to be. There was a good discussion of the matter on WHYY's Radio Times the other day. Go listen. [Real Audio file]
The religious freedom of that portion of the electorate that elected President Bush is protected, yes, but so is the religious freedom of that portion of the electorate which did *not* elect President Bush. What you fail to recognize is that the meaning of the wording of Amendment I does not necessarily mean the same thing to you as it did to the Framers. I will further point out that you should understand the text of Amendment IX when discussing "rights protected by the Bill of Rights":
Footnote Four [United States v Carolene Products Co. 304 US 144] notwithstanding, of course.
I hardly think that Gregor Mendel's work constitutes the "very first pioneering excursions into the realm of science". Genetics, perhaps, but certainly not science, in general.
As for my belief in the incompatibility of intelligence and religion, you may want to familiarize yourself with the philosophy of Objectivism, as promulgated by Ayn Rand (though there are areas where I strongly disagree with Rand, such as the moral primacy of unfettered Capitalism), to help you in your understanding of this matter. The philosophy of Objectivism relies upon Reason for its epistemology, and the origin of objective reasoning is the empirical evidence of the human senses. The existence of the deity presented by the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition, is by its nature undiscoverable to the human senses, and is therefore, rejected by Objectivism.
You are making two claims here that would seem to indicate that you believe you do, indeed, "know the mind of God". Firstly, you claim to possess knowledge of "the principles that God has given us". By what direct proof can you claim that any such principles were in fact given to anyone by your deity? Secondly, you claim to possess knowledge of "what would please him". From God's mouth to your ears, apparently. By what direct proof can you establish that your deity has communicated this information to you? Third hand accounts are not acceptable to Science. Scientific principles are discoverable by all men in their emprical observations.
I assure you that I understand logic and religion both, quite well, and that I am not a fanatic of any type. I neither demand nor require that any one else subscribe to my world view--I do however, demand and require that others treat me the same. What was that Golden Rule again? Ah yes, "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you". Merely speaking my mind in the company of others who by their presence at this site have implied their willingness to engage in debate does not equate with fanaticism, I should think.
In any case, should the Final Judgement come, I am quite certain that God will forgive me my conclusions if they do not come out quite as He may have hoped. After all, if He really did create little old imperfect me, then logic and religion both dictate that He is the source of my reasoning capacity.
I have stood beneath and atop the dome of the Basilica di San Pietro, and I have stood beneath the firmament of the night sky, though I have not yet stood atop it. I have not failed to be impressed by either. I have no fear of God, and I have no fear of Knowledge.
Mr. Schroeder, that is very possibly the best post of yours I have ever seen on Slashdot. I think you sum up very well my own thoughts on the matter of abortion. I am vehemently "pro-choice" (for lack of a better term), and vehemently supportive of stem cell research, however, I am not unaware of, or insensitive to, the moral and ethical aspects of my position.
More to the point of the article, it never ceases to amaze me that there are so many so-called "Christians" in this world that profess such a profound arrogance in presuming to know the mind of God. Who among us can know the mind of God? I was raised in a family both Christian and medical/scientific, and while I have come to disbelieve many of the religious aspects of my upbringing, I have more than a passing knowledge of Christian doctrine, so I feel quite comfortable in using deist thoughts in opposition to those who would use their supposedly Christian faith as a bludgeon.
It is also my belief, though I'm sure there are many who would disagree with me, possibly including yourself, that advanced intelligence is entirely incompatible with religious belief, at least at current understanding levels of the two concepts. I am greatly distressed by the assumption of many that the scientific method cannot be applied to questions of ethics and morality, the the idea that these questions are solely the province of "religious" or "spiritual" contemplation. As an adherent of Heinlein's "Scientific Theory of Morality", as well as an amateur of Objectivism (thought there are aspects of Objectivism with which I also disagree somewhat), I reject the idea that the discovery of moral and ethical principles cannot follow from the evidence of our own senses and reasoning without reliance on the dubious existence of a mythical "higher power".
All of that said, I applaud you for having the courage to stand up in this debate for the points you make, as I believe that following the threads of the ideas in your post will lead us all down the path most likely to increase humanity's wisdom on the subject. I will mark you a "Friend".
Sorry, but there *is* a difference. A journalist is obligated just the same as any other protected class (attorneys, physicians, etc.) to reveal the name of a source when that journalist has material evidence or can be reasonably expected to understand that the source is complicit in criminal activity. In the Valerie Plame case, this would be the revelation of the identity of a CIA operative; such a revelation is in itself a crime, and as such, the source cannot and should not be protected.
The subject says it all (mostly).
One of the primary reasons Linux is somewhat inferior to commerical offierings when considered as a general-purpose dektop operating system is that there is a lack of a single guiding human interface standard for the various groups to work toward. Companies such as Apple Computer and Microsoft have invested large amounts of money in human interface studies, and although much of this information has been made readily accessible to the public, it would appear that very little of that information has been put to good use by F/OSS developers.
With Apple using the BSD branch of software as it's operating system core, do you see a future for a Microsoft-branded Linux distribution, using a Microsoft-developed HCI design?
Though there is a large amount of enmity in the F/OSS community toward Microsoft, it cannot be denied that Microsoft's development methods are demonstrably capable of producing quality software. Could Microsoft serve as a catalyst for consolidation within the community, while remaining true to the F/OSS philosophy? Could such a strategy be profitable for Microsoft?
No, he misspelled "Aldus". As in "Aldus PageMaker", the application that made the Macintosh/LaserWriter combination worth its weight in gold.
Don't make me laugh. Sony pre-announced the VAIO Pocket over one year ago. In that time, Apple has sold, what, something like 18 million plus iPods?
3Q2005 iPod sales ~= 6.2 million units
2Q2005 iPod sales ~= 5.3 million units
1Q2005 iPod sales ~= 4.5 million units
4Q2004 iPod sales ~= 2.0 million units
3Q2004 iPod sales ~= 0.86 million units
Do Mr. Robinson and The Register seriously think that the VAIO Pocket is going to "kill" a product line which has sold nearly 20 million units just in the time since Sony pre-announced the VAIO Pocket? Never mind what the rest of the world has already said concerning the viability of the VAIO Pocket...
Apple isn't stitting in Cupertino on their hands, I'm certain.
No, no, no...
Buy Apple, yes. But also buy Microsoft. Also buy Intel. Sell AMD short-term. Sell Dell in the long term. Maybe buy HP.
Here's my scenario:
1. Apple's move to Intel surely means only greater profits for Microsoft. After all, despite all the gnashing and grinding of teeth over WINE, the fact of the matter is that WINE will be utterly irrelevant for Mac OS X users. After all, Virtual PC is not only much, much better than WINE (being as it actually runs Windows), it results in two software sales for Microsoft, one for Virtual PC, one for some flavor of Windows. With Apple's Intel-based machines, Virtual PC will now run at near-native speeds, so I predict that Virtual PC/Windows sales will jump dramatically.
2. Apple's inital machines will not support Windows, officially. But as Phil Schiller has been quoted, Apple will not do anything to prevent users from installing Windows. For those users for whom Virtual PC is not enough, a retail copy of Windows will do nicely.
3. Eventually, Apple will do what ever it takes to write Windows Certified drivers for their hardware, and begin offering full Windows OEM support. Businesses will start buying Apple hardware in droves. Michael Dell will regret ever trashing Apple. Microsoft will see even more profit.
4. Microsoft has absolutely nothing to fear from Apple, unless Apple decides to go after OEM licsening deals for Mac OS X. This is unlikely in the extreme, though not out of the realm of possibility. If this happens, it will be well down the road, and probably will only happen if Apple manages to make a big dent in the overall PC marketshare with Mac OS X on Intel.
5. Even if Apple begins OEM deals with other manufacturers, it is likely that the prevailing scenario will be dual-boot Mac OS X and Windows Vista (or whatever it really ends up being called).
6. Microsoft is unlikely to discontinue Office for Mac. It's worth too much money to MS, and any potential direct competition with Apple on the OS side is far off, at best.
7. Linux and BSD will continue to thrive. There will always be a market for Free and Open Source Software. As I write this, I am compiling updates to OpenBSD 3.7 on a spare iMac.
8. Moore's Law will be broken by this Apple move. Intel now loses the only viable general-purpose CPU competitor. CPU development will slow.
I, for one, feel tremensly embiggened by our prepensity for the creation of new, more cromulent words.
WTF? What pocket universe have you been living in? One of Apple watchers' biggest complaints about APPL is that they have been sitting on a tremendous amount of cash for years, when they could have spent some of it to shore up their market position in many, many different ways. I argue that one of the biggest mistakes Apple made was not buying Netscape before Sun and AOL divided and conquered it, or CS&T/Steltor before Oracle subsumed it. Think of where Apple might be today if we had an improved Netscape SuiteSpot running on Mac OS X. What if Apple spent some of those billions in cash developing a successot to the Apple Network Servers to run the above server software? Wouldn't you like to see a product that could absolutely destroy Microsoft Exchange using Internet Standard protocols?
And, speaking of Oracle, how many years did Larry Ellison sit on Apple's board without producing an Oracle server for an Apple platform? But, I digress..
Motorola in particular, has written off hundreds of millions of dollars in losses caused directly by the erratic actions of Apple Computer
Umm, how about..."Motorola in particular, has written off billions of dollars in losses caused directly by the erratic actions of Motorola? Hey, let's just completely ignore MOT's complete mishandling of the entire PowerPC agreement/concept. We weren't stuck at 500MHz because of Apple--it was MOT's inability to make a gracful transition to a new process line that caused *that*. Not to mention Motorola switching all internal operations machines to WinTel and ditching *their own product* in favor of a competitors?
And how, exactly is the example of one of IBM's "regular" customers in any way relevant to Apple? You may have forgotten that Apple *owns*, at least partially, the PowerPC IP, not to mention the fact that *no other manufacturer* uses PowerPC in a general purpose computing application, other than Apple and IBM, themselves. Yes, IBM has "other customers", but none of these have the same needs or relationship with IBM that Apple has. IBM is doing as much damage to their own product line by not moving the Power and PowerPC lines forward as aggressively as possible, unless of course IBM intends to pawn off their workstation, mini, and mainframe lines to China, as well...
The bottom line is, no matter how much Hannibal would like to wish it otherwise, IBM screwed up royally, and in the process, screwed Apple and Steve Jobs. You may want to go back and read my Slashdot post from 2005-04-15 to see my evaluation of the possibility of Apple moving to Intel (which , I may add, was well before any speculation/rumors on the part of C|Net or the WSJ).
May I direct you to http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=146200&c id=12245408 ?
And I quote:
Would you like a napkin to wipe up that spittle and froth dripping down your chin?
From the context of your posts concerning this topic, it is clear that you have very little understanding of the subject. My posts, however, speak for themselves, as anyone with even a passing knowledge of basic networking concepts can grasp.
Your main problem seems to stem from your confusion of Network Address Translation and Port Address Translation. I suggest you take a trip down to your local bookstore, pick up a few books on networking subjects and read them thoroughly, as well as take a few classes, either at your local university or from a vendor-sponsored program. Then go out and buy yourself a carrier-class Internet connection or three and enterprise-grade routers (or borrow the usage of same), and find out what you can actually do with the stuff.
Personally, I have gained my experience by spending the past ten years running an ISP and working as a technology consultant specializing in wide-area networking, security, and Internet technologies in both the public and private sectors. I have more enterprise-class networks designed and built under my belt than I can remember offhand.
I do not know what experience you can claim, but the context of what you have posted makes it quite clear that you possess limited experience, and you have now worked yourself into a lather barking like a rabid troll at your betters. Your posts are filled with so many incorrect assumptions about this topic that to attempt to address even a minor fraction of them would be a Herculean task.
Learn and contribute, or hide behind your prideful ignorance. I care not which, so long as you do not waste anymore of my time or bandwidth.
Are you entirely certain that it's not the angular acceleration of toast that is the question?
Well then, I believe the superpenultimate question is:
Given that the universe exists, is the universe evolving toward one, or devolving toward zero?
In other words, is the end result of entropy zero or one?
No, I didn't miss the boat. The real point of this thread is that Yet Another Waste of Money Project has been started to re-invent the Internet Wheel. I simply chose to post on a subset of the topic because of what I feel is highly inappropriate upwardly mobile moderation.
You clearly do not understand NAT. Please do your homework and gain some real-world experience before replying to any more posts in this topic.
I have run an Internet Service Provider, and built multiple enterprise-class networks. I have extensive experience with many grades of firewall and router equipment including from Cisco, 3Com, Wellfleet/Bay Networks/Nortel, Netopia, Checkpoint, SonicWall, Lucent, Ascend, Livingston, Netgear, Linksys, Livingston, ZyXel, IBM, Compatible Systems, etc., etc., etc.
NAT and PAT are extremely valuable tools, that while having some limitations, are of such usefulness that it is more constructive to ask, "Why wouldn't one use NAT?", than to ask why one would.
The vast majority of the situtations described under the link you provided are utterly irrelevant to a network with only one path to the Internet, which I will venture to guess is the vast majority of private networks.
NAT should never be used on a carrier network (though it often, and deplorably, is used in such a fashion).
-1, Incorrect.
Sorry, but thanks for playing.
You could have easily said "When you are not behind NAT, and you want to run two webservers, only one of then can sit on TCP port 80 per IP address.