This implies to me that if you want a dual-processor laptop, you'll have to have two CPU's with less power (each) than a single-CPU laptop.
Transmeta's chips (and the G4) both use much less power than Intel/AMD offerings. The G4 is also smaller (don't know about Crusoe). That's why I think AMD would need some new technology to pull it off. There's also all the cool shit IBM has (0.01 micron process in the lab, SOI, etc.).
Apple has demonstrated the possibilities of G4 laptops (with no fans, I believe), so a dual G4 or Crusoe laptop should be possible with clever engineering. Phase change heat pipes might be useful, for instance...
...but can you imagine a Beowulf Cluster of these? [Ducks for cover]
Those are very cool (figuratively), but I bet they put out tons of heat. Someone mentioned that the board appeared designed to fit in a 1U case. What would it take to properly cool it in such a small enclosure?
What would be even cooler is if AMD bought Transmeta and made dual-CPU laptops (or at least chips suitable for use in said laptops). Then there might be something out there cooler than Apple's Titanium PowerBook G4. Multiprocessor laptops... Drool.... For those occasions when you need to perform advanced simulations of nuclear weapons tests while on that long redeye flight. (Can anyone else actually think of a good use for that much power?)
First of all, Apple did not steal the GUI from Xerox. Apple paid Xerox for certain pieces of the GUI concept. Apple invented many other GUI elements.
Second, Apple lost their suit against Microsoft because Apple had licensed some GUI elements to Microsoft, and the court felt that this was enough to justify the wholesale rip-off of the Mac GUI by MS.
Third, there are at least two forms of intellectual property protection for design: design patents, and trade dress. While I'm not sure about design patents, I believe that with trade dress you are required to enforce the IP or risk losing it.
Fourth, Apple puts significant effort into GUI research and development. Read the Apple Human Interface Guidelines if you want an idea of how seriously they take the matter. To rip them off of all their hard, expensive work against their will is just plain wrong.
The GUI constitutes a large part of Apple's advantage over their competitors, open source or otherwise. Yes, they are competing against GNOME and KDE--since OS X is Unix, they're now in the same game as Linux, BSD, etc. If RedHat could just ship RH X with an Aqua-like theme, it would hurt Apple's sales.
IMHO, GUI design is the one area where open source hasn't come close to commercial software, and possibly never will. Good GUI design is vastly different than other forms of programming, and cannot be broken down into the kind of distributed, modular development model that open source uses. Even the best open source GUIs out there are really just imitations of the Mac OS and Windows, with some pretty skinning features. When will open source developers get it that GUIs are more than just shiny buttons and widgets? Consistency is incredibly important, but it's not to be found between GNOME apps, for instance.
I'd love to be proven wrong on this one. Somebody, please make an open source GUI that is genuinely revolutionary. Don't just copy Windows. Oh, and please don't make yet another web browser...
There's an enzyme called telomeraese that adds telomeres onto the end of chromosomes. It's normally active in germ-line cells (the cells that produce sperm), cancer cells, and stem cells, I think.
Even if this is a problem, there's a way around it.
If China really have plans to use neutron bomb, it is probably meant to be used against military targets.
Do you know what a neutron bomb does? It kills people without damaging buildings... It's perfectly suited to wiping out the population of Taiwan so that it can be invaded and the infrastructure used by the PRC.
There are plenty of other "different people" throughout Canada. Try visiting Vancouver to see true multiculturalism at work. You'll notice that there are no language police and no special culture protection laws.
You're free to be different culturally, but you should get the same treatment from government as everybody else. Nobody should be "special" legally.
I'm not separatist, and I see Québec's nationalism as a way to put presure for the change.
Western Canada is pretty sick of you guys screaming about separation as a way of blackmailing us into giving you yet more stuff. If you'd actually look outside your borders, you'd see that Canada consists of every other province getting screwed over by Ontario, and that you are by no means alone in that respect. Just so you Americans know what's going on, the Liberals (our majority government) are basically Ontario's party. Strangely, Ontario seems to have this bizarre belief that what's good for them is good for the country, so they accuse other parties of regionalism...
I'm all for more power to the provinces, but it shouldn't be limited to Quebec. Also, I'm tired of my tax dollars going to subsidize your weak economy (yes, BC and Alberta pay substantial transfer payments, a good chunk of which go to Quebec).
So go ahead, vote yes in the next referendum. We won't be blackmailed, and you can find out what Canada has done for you after it's all gone.
I half-agree with you. The US is constantly getting grief for anything remotely military it does. They should go back to a bit more of an isolationist stance, and only meddle when either their own interests are directly at stake, or their allies are threatened and ask for help.
Where I disagree with you is on disarmament. I'm a firm believer in peace through strength. Consider two scenarios:
A) If you attack the US, they will retaliate by telling you you're a bad man, and asking you to stop in a real nice way.
B) If you attack the US, you will be instantly disintegrated by airborne lasers, and have your molecules turned into interstellar spam.
Under which scenario do you think people are more likely to screw with the US?
The Libertarian (as in the party) view on this matter is to build up defensive capabilities (including a National Missile Defense), and stop pissing off other countries by meddling. If they screw with the US, their leaders find a TLAM-C cruise missile flying down their chimney. Otherwise, they're free to do whatever they want.
Sometimes violence is unavoidable, and the most humane approach is to end it as swiftly as possible through overwhelming force. Other times, that large force will act as a deterrant and prevent conflict in the first place. Don't be another Neville Chamberlain...
Actually, I am aware of what happened at Ruby Ridge. Yes, it was horrible, especially how the Feds basically lured out the kid by shooting his dog. Just not as horrible as sending a division of tanks and infantry to massacre students peacefully protesting for democracy, then lying about it and supressing any attempts to protest against the massacre.
My mention of the Weavers having guns was meant to imply that they at least had the honour of having some remote fighting chance, not that they deserved to be shot for having guns. Believe me, I do understand why the second amendment is important...
It's just that your comment about all immigrants being potential traitors struck a nerve in me as I (though an American citizen) find that I will not be able safely to pursue a scientific career in NASA because of my ethnic background. As I saw with Wen Ho Lee, if you are Chinese, then the US government will treat you as a traitor.
It was not the intention of my comment to characterize all foreigners as potential traitors. I was merely commenting on the reality of the situation, which is that there are probably one or two traitors who will (or already have) put backdoors into commercial software. The solution to this is [karma whoring mode]open source software[/karma whoring mode], not a witch hunt. I think what happened to Wen Ho Lee was more a feature of the past administration (which, IMHO, was quite corrupt) than of American attitudes in general. My personal (completely unsubstantiated) conspiracy theory is that Wen Ho Lee was a fall guy for what really happened--the "sale" (for campaign contributions) of American nuclear technology to the PRC. Hurting innocent people never appeared to bother Clinton too much...
Having lived in Canada and not the US, I can't comment on the racial situation down there, but I suspect the situation in Canada is similar. I live in Vancouver, BC, and I see extremely high racial tolerance. Some of my university classes are composed predominantly non-white minority groups, and there's really never any problems. One of my friends (from Singapore and of Indian decent, I believe) has appied for a job with the CSE, the Canadian equivalent of the NSA. He's made it past the first round of interviews, and I think he's got a good shot at the job. The job, by the way, entails a level III Top Secret security clearance, the highest level in the Canadian government. Race simply isn't an issue here. Just to give you an idea of how multi-cultural things are, one of my roommates is Chinese, one is German, one is French, and then there's me (and I'm Canadian-English-Scottish-German-American-French-C anadian-Italian-Native-American-and-God-knows-what -else). We all get along fine. Heck, half my friends aren't white (that hadn't even occurred to me until just now).
Perhaps this makes it hard for me to conceive of systemic racism like what you're describing. The few times I have witnessed racism, it's just as often directed against white people as non-white minorities. Maybe things are different in the US--I don't know.
I will not suggest that the author isn't biased (though you should pay attention to the his biography on the right column). However, it will give you a perspective on Chinese-Taiwanese relations that is not presented in Western media. It certainly had a huge impact on my view of things after I read the essays.
It was interesting, although it was short on facts. Most of the references were to other articles on the same site, by the same person, or within a small clique of sites. It's quite possible it's all true and that we've all been fed Western propaganda, and it's also possible that the article is PRC propaganda. Without extensive research, it's impossible to say. There was a strong anti-Japanese sentiment running through the article, which made me suspicious. Playing off underlying racial tensions is a classic tactic for manipulating the populace... I also consider a somewhat corrupt democracy to be better than no democracy at all...
Third of all, as for why I oppose SDI, consider that in an arms race, you can do two things 1) Make your own weapons work better or 2) Make your enemy's weapons work worse. Both courses of actions will escalate tensions.
The unfortunate truth is that the United States is already in an arms race with the PRC. The PRC currently has at least a dozen nuclear warheads targeted at US cities. The arms race has begun, and now the US is trying to win it. They won before against the Soviet Union by outspending them, and they hope to do it again against the PRC.
I agree with you on several of your latter points, but i'm afraid i must denounce you as historically blind in this particular statement. America has used exactly these tactics to attain its current position - namely mass slaughter of japanese civilians without warning. Two cities were gutted. Why were those millions killed?
You're wrong here in so many respects, but that's not really your fault. There's been a lot of historical revisionism surrounding the dropping of the bombs on Japan.
First of all, there was warning. The US air-dropped leaflets telling citizens of Hiroshima to leave before they dropped the bomb. Most people chose to ignore their warning. There was also a substantial window of time between the dropping of the Hiroshima bomb and the dropping of the Nagasaki bomb, in which Japan could have surrendured (and yet, they didn't--in fact, the Japanese war council wanted to continue even after the second bomb). The number killed by the bombs was closer to 200,000 than millions. A lot of people, yes, but far, far less than the millions of casualties (civilians and soldiers) predicted in the event of an invasion of Japan. Don't forget that the Japanese started the war with the US via a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. Had the US not invaded and occupied Japan, it is highly unlikely Japan would be as succesful as it is today.
It's amazing that a nation threatening to exercise those same methods is then labeled a monster. Hypocrisy in action.
The situations are vastly different. Taiwan hasn't tried to pick a war with China, for one. The US wasn't on a war of aggressive expansionism.
Also, they've been trying for a couple of decades now for something that will take out hostile missiles, surpise attack or otherwise. I hate to break it to you, but these people are most likely a lot smarter than either of us and have probably put this idea to the test.
So, because the idea was technically infeasible in the past, it must be impossible? What a ridiculous concept. The technology available to build such a defense system has dramatically improved.
Finally, do you really want the US government telling those Japanese-wannabe traitors in Taiwan...
Anybody who considers the Taiwanese to be traitors for desiring democracy and freedom is a jerk in my books. Also, what's wrong with wanting to be like Japan? You're the one who comes across as a xenophobic, racist, paranoid, communist-sympathizing asshole.
I was merely trying to point out the hypocritical way most Americans go about treating China.
For your information, I'm not American, nor do I live in the US. Fuck you for making that assumption.
I normally try to be civil with people I disgree with, but you unjustly called me a racist, so you can burn in hell, asshole.
Ah, so what happens if [enemy] develops missile systems in orbit?
Hence the need for killsats...
or establishes missile launch sites in Central or South America? Or Cuba for that matter, which (if I remember correctly) would be able to get a missile over American soil before an anti-missile nuke could intercept it?
Ever heard of the Cuban missile crisis? You guys went through a lot of crap before to avoid that scenario. I imagine you would go to great pains to prevent missile launch sites from being established there.
Kent State, Ruby Ridge, and Waco come readily to mind as does the war on drugs.
Yes, those were pretty fucked up, too. Not excusing those, but, at least in the case of Ruby Ridge (and Waco, I think), the victims were armed.
The W-88 neutron bomb warhead was copied from the United States and we mostly certainly have at least a hundred loaded into our missiles right now.
I very much doubt the US has any of them armed or loaded into missiles. What would be the point? It's not like the US wants to invade anybody. Yes, the Chinese stole the neutron bomb from the US (although they claim to have invented it themselves). What's your point?
The US, in it's typically arrogant fashion, has rattled its saber against China several times as well, like in 1996 when it sent 2 carrier groups to the Taiwan strait. Finally, do you really want the US government telling those Japanese-wannabe traitors in Taiwan that, "Hey, defy and provoke China all you want. American soldiers will pay the consequences."
How arrogant of the US to offer to help out a fellow democracy against a much larger aggresor. What traitorous bastards they are, wanting things like democracy and freedom.
There isn't such a thing as a "clean" nuclear warhead. All nuclear weapons use either uranium or plutonium as a trigger and the radioactive byproducts from fission cannot be minimized and will not go away. Plus, you are talking about two nuclear devices exploding at the same time in the same place high in the atmosphere. That will so healthy.
Oh yes, it's so much better to have the nuke blow up your own fucking cities than be destroyed over the middle of the Pacific. And, for your information, some nuclear weapons are cleaner than others, in that they use up more of the fissionable material and produce less fallout. Also, the incoming ICBM would not explode in a nuclear fashion, it would just be damaged and fall into the ocean.
If you want to say all immigrants of Chinese descent are traitors, why don't you come out and say it directly? Then maybe the people in the forum will see you for the rascist bastard you are.
I'm not racist, and you're the one who called certain Chinese traitors (see your Taiwan comment). The vast majority of immigrants--Chinese or otherwise--are loyal citizens, and I have quite a few Chinese friends. My point was that it only takes one spy to do damage... If you think it is ridiculous to worry about this, perhaps you should consider how the Soviets and the People's Republic of China "acquired" their nuclear technology from the US. You might also want to look into a company called Lorel, and how the PRC aquired ballistic missile technology.
What I do hate are communist-sympathizer assholes like you.
Yeah, it's real nice to know that we are provoking yet another arms race.
How is building a defensive system provoking an arms race?
Just as an aside, I believe there are more Native Americans alive today than there were before Columbus arrived in North America.
I'm certainly not excusing all the past crimes of the US. The US has done some pretty scary things, too, although I tend to think they're currently nowhere near as bad as China.
Except that's not really feasible except over someplace without any electrical equipment whatsoever...because even a small atom bomb will create an EM pulse capable of taking out the electronics below it.
The idea is to intercept the ICBM somewhere off the coast of North America. That way, the EM pulse won't screw us up, and any radioactive debris will fall into the ocean. Not good, but a hell of a lot better than having 30 million people get nuked.
It's not the diversity, it's the fact that they demand special treatment, and whine when they don't get it. Then there's the fact that they hate all us "Anglo" Canadians... We've tried to accomodate them, and it just doesn't work. Your turn now:-)
Despite the occasional whining, I think Canada generally still likes the US. Granted, it would have been nice if you could have spared us the month of crap about your election, but that's water under the bridge...
If you really want us to like you, invade Quebec. Please. And take Celine Dion. Oh, and could you bring some Cherry Coke with you? It's impossible to get up here, and that Wild Cherry Pepsi is shit. Also, would you mind getting California to pay us for all the electricity we gave them? Now that I think about it, I could use some good Mexican food... Maybe California can pay us back in tamales...
Anybody here remember the Tiananmen Square Massacre? A government that will kill its own citizens (many of them students--like most Slashdotters) is a government to be feared. Brown is obviously Taiwan. China has rattled its sabre at Taiwan a number of times already, so this scenario is entirely realistic. In case you think it wouldn't be worth interfering, consider that the Chinese military has publically discussed plans to neutron bomb Taiwan. How's that for fucking horrific? Do you want another holocaust?
Some people here claim that a National Missile Defense (NMD) is technically infeasible. I agree that there are problems with the idea of kinetic-kill interceptors--it's very hard to hit a target moving at several times the speed of sound. What would be much more realistic is to use an interceptor with a very small, clean nuclear warhead. If you only have to get within 200 metres, things get a lot easier. I think that was the original plan back in the days of Star Wars, but it got killed (most likely for political reasons).
As for space war, that's entirely realistic. Just consider how reliant on GPS, spy satellites, and sat-communication the US is, and how much of an advantage those capabilities give the US. Throughout history, wars have often been decided by intelligence and communication. Back in the earlier half of last millenium, battles were usually decided by the vanguards of the respective army. If your vanguard lost, you wouldn't know where the enemy was, and you would have no recon screen. The same principle applies even more strongly now.
Hacker war? Definitely. The targets don't have to be military installations to cause severe damage. For instance, the US Army uses FedEx to transport spare parts a lot of the time. Messing with banks and financial institutions could also seriously affect the will and ability of the US to fight a war. Tom Clancy has already thought of a lot of this, although he usually blows the details when it comes to hi-tech.
The warriors in the "hacker war" won't be your average script kiddies, and they won't be limited to the usual attacks. Lots of software development is done in foreign countries or by foreign immigrants, and, while the vast majority of these people are honest, it only takes a few to plant backdoors in dangerous places. These "enemy hackers" also don't have to be attacking from somewhere within country X--they could be within your own borders. It's worth noting that China uses a lot of open source software--maybe they're concerned about these kinds of vulnerabilities.
Of course, even script kiddies can do serious damage, as Microsoft recently found out. Imagine what a few thousand script kiddies could do if given a year and co-ordinated planning... Biggest DDoS you've ever seen, coming from everywhere all at once... While that attack was causing general chaos, the true 1337 h4X0rs would do the real damage.
It's nice to see that the Armed Forces have started thinking about all this.
I'm not normally one of the grammar nazis on Slashdot, but this is just getting ridiculous. They shouldn't even need a spell-checker to spot errors like that...
Next thing you know, Slashdot is going to switch its official language from English to 1337 5|>33|.
CmdrTaco and Hemos--why not incorporate a spell-checker into slashcode? It's badly needed.
WebCT was started by my Operating Systems prof, Murray Goldberg. He's a pretty cool guy, although he has to travel a lot to run the company.
As for WebCT itself, it's pretty good, but the discussion boards aren't well-suited for extremely active discussion (when it gets over 500 messages, it becomes hard to find things).
Live video is probably unnecessary. It's a rare teacher who can accomplish more though a video connection than could be done through well-designed online notes.
Hmmm. He's worth $72,273,900,000 right now, and his $100,000,000 is spread out over the next five years, so his yearly donation of $20,000,000 is worth a whopping 0.02767% of his net worth.
Bill Gates has donated in excess of $10 billion to charity. In both relative and absolute terms, that's extremely generous. Have you donated more than 10% of your net worth to charity? I doubt it. Have you donated more than $10,000,000,000 to charity? Not a chance. You are a jealous hypocrite. Bill Gates is not.
Be honest and admit you hate Bill Gates because he's more successful than you. Short of donating his entire fortune to charity, there's nothing he could possibly do to make you like him.
The same goes for all those people out there for bashing pharmaceutical companies for being greedy and spending only 33% of their income on R&D (a far greater percentage than any other industry).
What really pisses me off is all you people who scream about others being greedy when you haven't done anything to help others.
I know what you're going to say... Here's my response: learn basic economics. The economy is not a zero-sum game.
What exactly are they selling? It's not a physical item. It's not information.
The closest I can come to figuring out what is actually taking place in a transaction over a virtual item is this:
Party A agrees to carry out certain actions that will cause bits to change on EverQuest's server, resulting in a "transfer" of the "item" to party B.
All well and good unless EverQuest doesn't want you to do it. The bits in question do reside on EverQuest's servers, after all.
I have no clue why EverQuest cares if people sell virtual stuff (well, OK, maybe it's because it makes their gamers look pathetic to be spending real money on imaginary things:-) Nonetheless, it is probably their right to forbid the "sale".
Slashdot Mirror
This implies to me that if you want a dual-processor laptop, you'll have to have two CPU's with less power (each) than a single-CPU laptop.
Transmeta's chips (and the G4) both use much less power than Intel/AMD offerings. The G4 is also smaller (don't know about Crusoe). That's why I think AMD would need some new technology to pull it off. There's also all the cool shit IBM has (0.01 micron process in the lab, SOI, etc.).
Apple has demonstrated the possibilities of G4 laptops (with no fans, I believe), so a dual G4 or Crusoe laptop should be possible with clever engineering. Phase change heat pipes might be useful, for instance...
...but can you imagine a Beowulf Cluster of these? [Ducks for cover]
Those are very cool (figuratively), but I bet they put out tons of heat. Someone mentioned that the board appeared designed to fit in a 1U case. What would it take to properly cool it in such a small enclosure?
What would be even cooler is if AMD bought Transmeta and made dual-CPU laptops (or at least chips suitable for use in said laptops). Then there might be something out there cooler than Apple's Titanium PowerBook G4. Multiprocessor laptops... Drool.... For those occasions when you need to perform advanced simulations of nuclear weapons tests while on that long redeye flight. (Can anyone else actually think of a good use for that much power?)
First of all, Apple did not steal the GUI from Xerox. Apple paid Xerox for certain pieces of the GUI concept. Apple invented many other GUI elements.
Second, Apple lost their suit against Microsoft because Apple had licensed some GUI elements to Microsoft, and the court felt that this was enough to justify the wholesale rip-off of the Mac GUI by MS.
Third, there are at least two forms of intellectual property protection for design: design patents, and trade dress. While I'm not sure about design patents, I believe that with trade dress you are required to enforce the IP or risk losing it.
Fourth, Apple puts significant effort into GUI research and development. Read the Apple Human Interface Guidelines if you want an idea of how seriously they take the matter. To rip them off of all their hard, expensive work against their will is just plain wrong.
The GUI constitutes a large part of Apple's advantage over their competitors, open source or otherwise. Yes, they are competing against GNOME and KDE--since OS X is Unix, they're now in the same game as Linux, BSD, etc. If RedHat could just ship RH X with an Aqua-like theme, it would hurt Apple's sales.
IMHO, GUI design is the one area where open source hasn't come close to commercial software, and possibly never will. Good GUI design is vastly different than other forms of programming, and cannot be broken down into the kind of distributed, modular development model that open source uses. Even the best open source GUIs out there are really just imitations of the Mac OS and Windows, with some pretty skinning features. When will open source developers get it that GUIs are more than just shiny buttons and widgets? Consistency is incredibly important, but it's not to be found between GNOME apps, for instance.
I'd love to be proven wrong on this one. Somebody, please make an open source GUI that is genuinely revolutionary. Don't just copy Windows. Oh, and please don't make yet another web browser...
There's an enzyme called telomeraese that adds telomeres onto the end of chromosomes. It's normally active in germ-line cells (the cells that produce sperm), cancer cells, and stem cells, I think.
Even if this is a problem, there's a way around it.
If China really have plans to use neutron bomb, it is probably meant to be used against military targets.
Do you know what a neutron bomb does? It kills people without damaging buildings... It's perfectly suited to wiping out the population of Taiwan so that it can be invaded and the infrastructure used by the PRC.
Read the Emperor's New Clothes (yes, that's right).
Read the Scientific American article from a year or two back about the problems with SDI.
Read up on the test results from the current kinetic-kill system.
I'm sure those people know what they're talking about, but I suspect they've been ignored for political reasons.... Happens all the time.
There are plenty of other "different people" throughout Canada. Try visiting Vancouver to see true multiculturalism at work. You'll notice that there are no language police and no special culture protection laws.
You're free to be different culturally, but you should get the same treatment from government as everybody else. Nobody should be "special" legally.
I'm not separatist, and I see Québec's nationalism as a way to put presure for the change.
Western Canada is pretty sick of you guys screaming about separation as a way of blackmailing us into giving you yet more stuff. If you'd actually look outside your borders, you'd see that Canada consists of every other province getting screwed over by Ontario, and that you are by no means alone in that respect. Just so you Americans know what's going on, the Liberals (our majority government) are basically Ontario's party. Strangely, Ontario seems to have this bizarre belief that what's good for them is good for the country, so they accuse other parties of regionalism...
I'm all for more power to the provinces, but it shouldn't be limited to Quebec. Also, I'm tired of my tax dollars going to subsidize your weak economy (yes, BC and Alberta pay substantial transfer payments, a good chunk of which go to Quebec).
So go ahead, vote yes in the next referendum. We won't be blackmailed, and you can find out what Canada has done for you after it's all gone.
I half-agree with you. The US is constantly getting grief for anything remotely military it does. They should go back to a bit more of an isolationist stance, and only meddle when either their own interests are directly at stake, or their allies are threatened and ask for help.
Where I disagree with you is on disarmament. I'm a firm believer in peace through strength. Consider two scenarios:
A) If you attack the US, they will retaliate by telling you you're a bad man, and asking you to stop in a real nice way.
B) If you attack the US, you will be instantly disintegrated by airborne lasers, and have your molecules turned into interstellar spam.
Under which scenario do you think people are more likely to screw with the US?
The Libertarian (as in the party) view on this matter is to build up defensive capabilities (including a National Missile Defense), and stop pissing off other countries by meddling. If they screw with the US, their leaders find a TLAM-C cruise missile flying down their chimney. Otherwise, they're free to do whatever they want.
Sometimes violence is unavoidable, and the most humane approach is to end it as swiftly as possible through overwhelming force. Other times, that large force will act as a deterrant and prevent conflict in the first place. Don't be another Neville Chamberlain...
Actually, I am aware of what happened at Ruby Ridge. Yes, it was horrible, especially how the Feds basically lured out the kid by shooting his dog. Just not as horrible as sending a division of tanks and infantry to massacre students peacefully protesting for democracy, then lying about it and supressing any attempts to protest against the massacre.
My mention of the Weavers having guns was meant to imply that they at least had the honour of having some remote fighting chance, not that they deserved to be shot for having guns. Believe me, I do understand why the second amendment is important...
It's just that your comment about all immigrants being potential traitors struck a nerve in me as I (though an American citizen) find that I will not be able safely to pursue a scientific career in NASA because of my ethnic background. As I saw with Wen Ho Lee, if you are Chinese, then the US government will treat you as a traitor.
C anadian-Italian-Native-American-and-God-knows-what -else). We all get along fine. Heck, half my friends aren't white (that hadn't even occurred to me until just now).
It was not the intention of my comment to characterize all foreigners as potential traitors. I was merely commenting on the reality of the situation, which is that there are probably one or two traitors who will (or already have) put backdoors into commercial software. The solution to this is [karma whoring mode]open source software[/karma whoring mode], not a witch hunt. I think what happened to Wen Ho Lee was more a feature of the past administration (which, IMHO, was quite corrupt) than of American attitudes in general. My personal (completely unsubstantiated) conspiracy theory is that Wen Ho Lee was a fall guy for what really happened--the "sale" (for campaign contributions) of American nuclear technology to the PRC. Hurting innocent people never appeared to bother Clinton too much...
Having lived in Canada and not the US, I can't comment on the racial situation down there, but I suspect the situation in Canada is similar. I live in Vancouver, BC, and I see extremely high racial tolerance. Some of my university classes are composed predominantly non-white minority groups, and there's really never any problems. One of my friends (from Singapore and of Indian decent, I believe) has appied for a job with the CSE, the Canadian equivalent of the NSA. He's made it past the first round of interviews, and I think he's got a good shot at the job. The job, by the way, entails a level III Top Secret security clearance, the highest level in the Canadian government. Race simply isn't an issue here. Just to give you an idea of how multi-cultural things are, one of my roommates is Chinese, one is German, one is French, and then there's me (and I'm Canadian-English-Scottish-German-American-French-
Perhaps this makes it hard for me to conceive of systemic racism like what you're describing. The few times I have witnessed racism, it's just as often directed against white people as non-white minorities. Maybe things are different in the US--I don't know.
I will not suggest that the author isn't biased (though you should pay attention to the his biography on the right column). However, it will give you a perspective on Chinese-Taiwanese relations that is not presented in Western media. It certainly had a huge impact on my view of things after I read the essays.
It was interesting, although it was short on facts. Most of the references were to other articles on the same site, by the same person, or within a small clique of sites. It's quite possible it's all true and that we've all been fed Western propaganda, and it's also possible that the article is PRC propaganda. Without extensive research, it's impossible to say. There was a strong anti-Japanese sentiment running through the article, which made me suspicious. Playing off underlying racial tensions is a classic tactic for manipulating the populace... I also consider a somewhat corrupt democracy to be better than no democracy at all...
Third of all, as for why I oppose SDI, consider that in an arms race, you can do two things 1) Make your own weapons work better or 2) Make your enemy's weapons work worse. Both courses of actions will escalate tensions.
The unfortunate truth is that the United States is already in an arms race with the PRC. The PRC currently has at least a dozen nuclear warheads targeted at US cities. The arms race has begun, and now the US is trying to win it. They won before against the Soviet Union by outspending them, and they hope to do it again against the PRC.
I agree with you on several of your latter points, but i'm afraid i must denounce you as historically blind in this particular statement. America has used exactly these tactics to attain its current position - namely mass slaughter of japanese civilians without warning. Two cities were gutted. Why were those millions killed?
You're wrong here in so many respects, but that's not really your fault. There's been a lot of historical revisionism surrounding the dropping of the bombs on Japan.
First of all, there was warning. The US air-dropped leaflets telling citizens of Hiroshima to leave before they dropped the bomb. Most people chose to ignore their warning. There was also a substantial window of time between the dropping of the Hiroshima bomb and the dropping of the Nagasaki bomb, in which Japan could have surrendured (and yet, they didn't--in fact, the Japanese war council wanted to continue even after the second bomb). The number killed by the bombs was closer to 200,000 than millions. A lot of people, yes, but far, far less than the millions of casualties (civilians and soldiers) predicted in the event of an invasion of Japan. Don't forget that the Japanese started the war with the US via a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. Had the US not invaded and occupied Japan, it is highly unlikely Japan would be as succesful as it is today.
It's amazing that a nation threatening to exercise those same methods is then labeled a monster. Hypocrisy in action.
The situations are vastly different. Taiwan hasn't tried to pick a war with China, for one. The US wasn't on a war of aggressive expansionism.
Also, they've been trying for a couple of decades now for something that will take out hostile missiles, surpise attack or otherwise. I hate to break it to you, but these people are most likely a lot smarter than either of us and have probably put this idea to the test.
So, because the idea was technically infeasible in the past, it must be impossible? What a ridiculous concept. The technology available to build such a defense system has dramatically improved.
I was merely trying to point out the hypocritical way most Americans go about treating China.
For your information, I'm not American, nor do I live in the US. Fuck you for making that assumption.
I normally try to be civil with people I disgree with, but you unjustly called me a racist, so you can burn in hell, asshole.
Ah, so what happens if [enemy] develops missile systems in orbit?
Hence the need for killsats...
or establishes missile launch sites in Central or South America? Or Cuba for that matter, which (if I remember correctly) would be able to get a missile over American soil before an anti-missile nuke could intercept it?
Ever heard of the Cuban missile crisis? You guys went through a lot of crap before to avoid that scenario. I imagine you would go to great pains to prevent missile launch sites from being established there.
Kent State, Ruby Ridge, and Waco come readily to mind as does the war on drugs.
Yes, those were pretty fucked up, too. Not excusing those, but, at least in the case of Ruby Ridge (and Waco, I think), the victims were armed.
The W-88 neutron bomb warhead was copied from the United States and we mostly certainly have at least a hundred loaded into our missiles right now.
I very much doubt the US has any of them armed or loaded into missiles. What would be the point? It's not like the US wants to invade anybody. Yes, the Chinese stole the neutron bomb from the US (although they claim to have invented it themselves). What's your point?
The US, in it's typically arrogant fashion, has rattled its saber against China several times as well, like in 1996 when it sent 2 carrier groups to the Taiwan strait. Finally, do you really want the US government telling those Japanese-wannabe traitors in Taiwan that, "Hey, defy and provoke China all you want. American soldiers will pay the consequences."
How arrogant of the US to offer to help out a fellow democracy against a much larger aggresor. What traitorous bastards they are, wanting things like democracy and freedom.
There isn't such a thing as a "clean" nuclear warhead. All nuclear weapons use either uranium or plutonium as a trigger and the radioactive byproducts from fission cannot be minimized and will not go away. Plus, you are talking about two nuclear devices exploding at the same time in the same place high in the atmosphere. That will so healthy.
Oh yes, it's so much better to have the nuke blow up your own fucking cities than be destroyed over the middle of the Pacific. And, for your information, some nuclear weapons are cleaner than others, in that they use up more of the fissionable material and produce less fallout. Also, the incoming ICBM would not explode in a nuclear fashion, it would just be damaged and fall into the ocean.
If you want to say all immigrants of Chinese descent are traitors, why don't you come out and say it directly? Then maybe the people in the forum will see you for the rascist bastard you are.
I'm not racist, and you're the one who called certain Chinese traitors (see your Taiwan comment). The vast majority of immigrants--Chinese or otherwise--are loyal citizens, and I have quite a few Chinese friends. My point was that it only takes one spy to do damage... If you think it is ridiculous to worry about this, perhaps you should consider how the Soviets and the People's Republic of China "acquired" their nuclear technology from the US. You might also want to look into a company called Lorel, and how the PRC aquired ballistic missile technology.
What I do hate are communist-sympathizer assholes like you.
Yeah, it's real nice to know that we are provoking yet another arms race.
How is building a defensive system provoking an arms race?
Just as an aside, I believe there are more Native Americans alive today than there were before Columbus arrived in North America.
I'm certainly not excusing all the past crimes of the US. The US has done some pretty scary things, too, although I tend to think they're currently nowhere near as bad as China.
Of course, I don't live in the US.
Except that's not really feasible except over someplace without any electrical equipment whatsoever...because even a small atom bomb will create an EM pulse capable of taking out the electronics below it.
The idea is to intercept the ICBM somewhere off the coast of North America. That way, the EM pulse won't screw us up, and any radioactive debris will fall into the ocean. Not good, but a hell of a lot better than having 30 million people get nuked.
Yeah, diversity sucks, so hard to cope with.
:-)
It's not the diversity, it's the fact that they demand special treatment, and whine when they don't get it. Then there's the fact that they hate all us "Anglo" Canadians... We've tried to accomodate them, and it just doesn't work. Your turn now
Quebecers are very nice to Americans, but they hate us "Anglo" Canadians. Everybody will be better off if you invade them...
Hell, Maxim even did an article recently on how great Montreal is.
Despite the occasional whining, I think Canada generally still likes the US. Granted, it would have been nice if you could have spared us the month of crap about your election, but that's water under the bridge...
If you really want us to like you, invade Quebec. Please. And take Celine Dion. Oh, and could you bring some Cherry Coke with you? It's impossible to get up here, and that Wild Cherry Pepsi is shit. Also, would you mind getting California to pay us for all the electricity we gave them? Now that I think about it, I could use some good Mexican food... Maybe California can pay us back in tamales...
Anybody here remember the Tiananmen Square Massacre? A government that will kill its own citizens (many of them students--like most Slashdotters) is a government to be feared. Brown is obviously Taiwan. China has rattled its sabre at Taiwan a number of times already, so this scenario is entirely realistic. In case you think it wouldn't be worth interfering, consider that the Chinese military has publically discussed plans to neutron bomb Taiwan. How's that for fucking horrific? Do you want another holocaust?
Some people here claim that a National Missile Defense (NMD) is technically infeasible. I agree that there are problems with the idea of kinetic-kill interceptors--it's very hard to hit a target moving at several times the speed of sound. What would be much more realistic is to use an interceptor with a very small, clean nuclear warhead. If you only have to get within 200 metres, things get a lot easier. I think that was the original plan back in the days of Star Wars, but it got killed (most likely for political reasons).
As for space war, that's entirely realistic. Just consider how reliant on GPS, spy satellites, and sat-communication the US is, and how much of an advantage those capabilities give the US. Throughout history, wars have often been decided by intelligence and communication. Back in the earlier half of last millenium, battles were usually decided by the vanguards of the respective army. If your vanguard lost, you wouldn't know where the enemy was, and you would have no recon screen. The same principle applies even more strongly now.
Hacker war? Definitely. The targets don't have to be military installations to cause severe damage. For instance, the US Army uses FedEx to transport spare parts a lot of the time. Messing with banks and financial institutions could also seriously affect the will and ability of the US to fight a war. Tom Clancy has already thought of a lot of this, although he usually blows the details when it comes to hi-tech.
The warriors in the "hacker war" won't be your average script kiddies, and they won't be limited to the usual attacks. Lots of software development is done in foreign countries or by foreign immigrants, and, while the vast majority of these people are honest, it only takes a few to plant backdoors in dangerous places. These "enemy hackers" also don't have to be attacking from somewhere within country X--they could be within your own borders. It's worth noting that China uses a lot of open source software--maybe they're concerned about these kinds of vulnerabilities.
Of course, even script kiddies can do serious damage, as Microsoft recently found out. Imagine what a few thousand script kiddies could do if given a year and co-ordinated planning... Biggest DDoS you've ever seen, coming from everywhere all at once... While that attack was causing general chaos, the true 1337 h4X0rs would do the real damage.
It's nice to see that the Armed Forces have started thinking about all this.
I'm not normally one of the grammar nazis on Slashdot, but this is just getting ridiculous. They shouldn't even need a spell-checker to spot errors like that...
Next thing you know, Slashdot is going to switch its official language from English to 1337 5|>33|.
CmdrTaco and Hemos--why not incorporate a spell-checker into slashcode? It's badly needed.
WebCT was started by my Operating Systems prof, Murray Goldberg. He's a pretty cool guy, although he has to travel a lot to run the company.
As for WebCT itself, it's pretty good, but the discussion boards aren't well-suited for extremely active discussion (when it gets over 500 messages, it becomes hard to find things).
Live video is probably unnecessary. It's a rare teacher who can accomplish more though a video connection than could be done through well-designed online notes.
Hmmm. He's worth $72,273,900,000 right now, and his $100,000,000 is spread out over the next five years, so his yearly donation of $20,000,000 is worth a whopping 0.02767% of his net worth.
Bill Gates has donated in excess of $10 billion to charity. In both relative and absolute terms, that's extremely generous. Have you donated more than 10% of your net worth to charity? I doubt it. Have you donated more than $10,000,000,000 to charity? Not a chance. You are a jealous hypocrite. Bill Gates is not.
Be honest and admit you hate Bill Gates because he's more successful than you. Short of donating his entire fortune to charity, there's nothing he could possibly do to make you like him.
The same goes for all those people out there for bashing pharmaceutical companies for being greedy and spending only 33% of their income on R&D (a far greater percentage than any other industry).
What really pisses me off is all you people who scream about others being greedy when you haven't done anything to help others.
I know what you're going to say... Here's my response: learn basic economics. The economy is not a zero-sum game.
The closest I can come to figuring out what is actually taking place in a transaction over a virtual item is this: All well and good unless EverQuest doesn't want you to do it. The bits in question do reside on EverQuest's servers, after all.
I have no clue why EverQuest cares if people sell virtual stuff (well, OK, maybe it's because it makes their gamers look pathetic to be spending real money on imaginary things
That's great for people who can make it, but why not do a Slashdot-style interview with CmdrTaco, Hemos, CowboyNeal, and the rest of the gang?
We all have questions and suggestions for the Slashdot crew, and, while we can always email you guys, an open-forum discussion would be a good thing.