The drops were more for show of force and scientific testing (ever wonder why they weren't dropped on an industrustrial target?)
The Nagasaki bomb was intended to be used against an industrial target. It missed, by a few miles, instead hitting the residential area of the city.
The allies have been made out to be the good guys in the war but no one can deny dresden and the like were cold blooded massacres.
Also the allies, especially the US, were very eager to get their hands on certain "scientific research" from both Germany and Japan that they effectivly pardoned the war criminals who had carried it out. Even offered some of them US citizenship. Remember than both the US and Russian space programs relied upon German scientists too.
The victims of September 11th _are_ dead. They are dead because of a terrorist attack by those who wish to exterminate us and our way of life, not due to some natural disaster. The associates of the criminals who committed that atrocity wish to commit many more of similar or greater scale.
We still don't know who was actually responsible. Several of the supposed hijackers have since turned up alive and the apparent victims of identity theft. That morning some combination of the FAA, NORAD and the USAF seriously failed to follow well established procedure. If they had done their jobs fully fewer people might have died. Similarly someone in WTC2 gave the "all clear" before that tower was hit, quite likely sending people to their deaths.
The US and its allies are trying to prevent them from succeeding.
If their aim was to "destroy the US way of life" they may have succeded, with the help of the US government.
Is it not the US that is the rogue state, given the disrespect we have shown for several nuclear weapons treaties?
Not just on that count, there is also the Kyoto environment treaty, walking out of a conferance on racism. A motion was placed before the UN security council condeming terrorism and was vetoed by the US. A similar motion before the general assembly had only two nations opposing it, the US and Israel...
George W and his cronies seem to have the opinion that only the US should be aggresive in foreign policy,
This is nothing new, the US has been persuing the same kind of foreign policy for over a century. The only suprise is that there havn't been more "terrorist attacks" against the US.
so while you're sniffing daisies and wizzing on the flag people are eating bark in north korea, nevermind dog. their backs are against the wall, the best thing they could do right now is to invade south korea.
Then why havn't they? Don't you think that if South Korea though this was a serious threat the would publically ask for help.
just like the USSR, communism is inherently flawed, the only way it can survive is to rape new lands.
The USSR is long gone. However hijacking other people's nations was never something exclusive to the USSR. e.g. Hawaii...
Now the U.S.'s policy is to reply in kind, but to avoid unnecessary civilian casualties (e.g., we didn't send a fleet of 747s to Afghanistan in late September).
There were plenty of civilian casualties in Afganistan. That they generally wern't US citizens does not make them any less civilians. Anyway even if the US had sent fleets of comandeered civilian aircraft to the area they would have been carrying (and quite probably crewed by) soldiers.The U.S., however, doesn't have chemical or biological weapons,
The US has vast stockpiles of these agents and counteragents. Also there are plenty of chemical weapons which don't need to be stockpiled since they can easily be manufactured.
Quite simply the US has had a standing policy that any attack on the US with weapons of mass destruction, be it chemical, biological, nuclear or otherwise, will be responded to with a nuclear strike.
Wonder what standing policy the nations mentioned have in the case of being attacked. No doubt these would include "terrorism" when facing a foe such as the US.
I have to ask, what makes you think you know everything that goes on in Russia, Korea or anywhere else behind closed doors?
The latter bit applies to any government. Including those which are supposedly democratic. If anything a "democratic" government has more reason to keep anything even slightly dodgy unseen by the public.
I was reading when I was 5, so perhaps that's why I think its strange whenever I see a sign or a letter in a hollywood movie and the main character has to read it out loud; I guess this makes it more accessible to the illiterate but it does seem strange to me.
One strange thing you sometimes see on documentries is someone speaking English subtitled in English (sometimes with the subtitles not following what the person is saying very well.) Typically only where the speaker is from Africa or India, even though there are accents harder to understand from other parts of the world.
ObTopic: Too bad this movie doesn't touch on any language barrier; it would have been very appropriate and cute for the Eloi people to speak Toki Pona [tokipona.org].
It's a problem with a lot of Sci-Fi where you have aliens speaking perfectly good American English for no good reason all. If they really must a horrible mixture of American, British and Australian English idiomatically incorrect half the time would make more sense.
You try fitting in 400 (I forget the exact count and it depends on the version anyways) pages, 9+ fully developed charcters, numerous subplots and a heap of other stuff in a 3 hr movie. For the most part I believe that translating a book into a is almost impossible. My general rule of thumb is "good book=bad movie" and "good movie=bad book"
Typically translating even an average length novel into a movie results in many missing scenes. Quite a few "classic stories" are a lot longer than average, e.g. 20,000 leagues under the sea. That's before you get plots rewritten to conform with Hollywood stereotypes. When a novel is made from a movie often quite a bit extra has to go in to avoid having a very thin book.
It seems they were afraid that we would have such febble minds we couldn't distinguish between the reality of Columbine and a fictional account of a nuclear explosion near town.
Remember these are the same people who though that people couldn't distinguish between a real shooting and a throwaway line in an episode set in a ficticious town in California.
But I think it will be entertaining, though after reading several reviews I expect it to be inferior to the 1960 version in all aspects except effects.
The 1960's version also covers nuclear war anyway...
I replied mostly to complain about this continuing trend of chopping scenes out of movies so as not to offend people still haunted by the terrorist attacks.
At least they havn't started chopping up pre-existing movies. The WTC is still there in "Trading Places", even in "Pushing Tin" and "Meteor".
And they'll call him an American Indian (or native american or whatever the PC expression is), and destory the remains, as per Kennewick Man.
What was done with Kennewick man isn't even remotly funny though. (Other than the obvious irony of being discovered on the "Columbia River".) About the only thing we can be sure of is that he was Neolithic.Which is thousands of years before any Vikings, Chinese or Hispanic sponsored Italians came anywhere near America.
Why oh why can Linux users not understand that Linux is too hard to use for normal people.
Actually in many ways if is no harder to use that Windows. Indeed quite a few things are easier for the user since they are explicitally prevented from doing the kind of mainatinance tasks which they should never have been expected to do in the first place. But which often with Windows they can find themselves obliged to do.
Of course, free software produces dramatic costs
decreases but it does limit the exchange of value
that creates a robust market.
Whilst this might be an issue to companies who sell software does it matter to the vastly greater number who simply use software. Whilst proprietary software and data formats may be useful to the likes of Microsoft they are at best an inconvenience to those buying their software.
I can see it, and here is why: As technology spreads throughout the world, the devices are going to become easier and easier to come by. Soon they will just be a part of life for everyone. Look at how televisions are in every household now, and a radio in every car.
People are generally not expected to maintain their own television sets, radios, washing machines, cars, etc. But oddly people don't make a big fuss about Windows expecting end users to carry out maintance tasks. Whilst they do about unix type systems having separation between these two.
Even though it's Windows, rather than unix, which is at odds with just about every other piece of technology...
Perhaps what Alan was unconsciously advocating was the promotion of terminal services like those being developed by LTSP [ltsp.org] and perhaps companies offering terminal/computer services to employees,
One major issue about a thin client setup is that it dosn't matter that much if the machine sat in front of the user fails, blows up, drinks too much coffee. Whereas with a Windows workstation they may lose all the work since the last time they logged in, all their emails, etc...
This was one area of Lawrence Lessig's proposals [gilder.com] that I really liked./I>
Maybe what's needed are more such radical ideas
He suggests a short copyright term (five years) that can be renewed a large number of times, but requires active effort from the copyright holder to obtain each renewal. Further, he suggests that a fee be associated with the renewal and that the terms of the renewals become progressively more onerous.
Maybe something like x*2^y which would certainly put everything other than highly profitable works into the public domain within around 25 years.
Besides being quite a logical approach, it's also a reasonable compromise. Copyright holders who really, really care can still maintain control of their IP for a long, long time (which would obviously appeal to Disney and the like), but nearly everything would fall into the public domain rather quickly.
There is also a side effect that anything which goes into the public domain will tend to have been recently published, so likely to be plenty of copies available. With the current scheme a book might have been out of print for nearly a century before entering the public domain. It's not impossible that there will be then be no usable copies left, or with current media such as CDs/DVDs no-one still alive who knows how to make use of the media...
Obviously, YANAL. If it were completely bogus, people would not have to argue so strenuously that the new law is unconstitutional.
In the case of the US there is an odd quirk that if an unconstitutional law gets passed (which is perfectly possible where laws can be lobbied for, even outright "bought") it's treated as though it is valid until the US supreme court strikes it down. Which can take a long time since this court appears to have been overloaded with other tasks not in it's original mandate, often dosn't act on its own initutive in striking down unconstitutional statutes and dosn't like being petitioned directly, dispite the first ammendment.
A hundred years of law has been estabished that copyrights are indeed transferable and licensable. How else could publishers publish works for authors?
Transfer and licencing are not the same thing. Also it would be perfectly possible for publishers to operate with only licencing...
It is nice to see that politicians are looking at possiblities to ban these technologies. I am thinking that there may already exist laws that prohibit this practice, at least in some countries. I know that in Norway government agencies are looking at taking legal action against Sony for illegal marketing as they are selling a product marketed as a CD and priced as a CD while it clearly is not a CD!
That's nothing to do with technology. It's about insisting that goods offered for sale must not be falsely described.
Slashdot Mirror
And even if a bomb did have to be used, why wasn't a Japanese entourage invited to watch the detination of a Bomb on some deserted island.
Or for that matter Trinity... Remember that the first atomic bomb the US detonated was on US soil.
The drops were more for show of force and scientific testing (ever wonder why they weren't dropped on an industrustrial target?)
The Nagasaki bomb was intended to be used against an industrial target. It missed, by a few miles, instead hitting the residential area of the city.
The allies have been made out to be the good guys in the war but no one can deny dresden and the like were cold blooded massacres.
Also the allies, especially the US, were very eager to get their hands on certain "scientific research" from both Germany and Japan that they effectivly pardoned the war criminals who had carried it out. Even offered some of them US citizenship.
Remember than both the US and Russian space programs relied upon German scientists too.
The victims of September 11th _are_ dead. They are dead because of a terrorist attack by those who wish to exterminate us and our way of life, not due to some natural disaster. The associates of the criminals who committed that atrocity wish to commit many more of similar or greater scale.
We still don't know who was actually responsible. Several of the supposed hijackers have since turned up alive and the apparent victims of identity theft.
That morning some combination of the FAA, NORAD and the USAF seriously failed to follow well established procedure. If they had done their jobs fully fewer people might have died. Similarly someone in WTC2 gave the "all clear" before that tower was hit, quite likely sending people to their deaths.
The US and its allies are trying to prevent them from succeeding.
If their aim was to "destroy the US way of life" they may have succeded, with the help of the US government.
Is it not the US that is the rogue state, given the disrespect we have shown for several nuclear weapons treaties?
Not just on that count, there is also the Kyoto environment treaty, walking out of a conferance on racism. A motion was placed before the UN security council condeming terrorism and was vetoed by the US. A similar motion before the general assembly had only two nations opposing it, the US and Israel...
George W and his cronies seem to have the opinion that only the US should be aggresive in foreign policy,
This is nothing new, the US has been persuing the same kind of foreign policy for over a century. The only suprise is that there havn't been more "terrorist attacks" against the US.
so while you're sniffing daisies and wizzing on the flag people are eating bark in north korea, nevermind dog. their backs are against the wall, the best thing they could do right now is to invade south korea.
Then why havn't they? Don't you think that if South Korea though this was a serious threat the would publically ask for help.
just like the USSR, communism is inherently flawed, the only way it can survive is to rape new lands.
The USSR is long gone. However hijacking other people's nations was never something exclusive to the USSR. e.g. Hawaii...
Now the U.S.'s policy is to reply in kind, but to avoid unnecessary civilian casualties (e.g., we didn't send a fleet of 747s to Afghanistan in late September).
There were plenty of civilian casualties in Afganistan. That they generally wern't US citizens does not make them any less civilians. Anyway even if the US had sent fleets of comandeered civilian aircraft to the area they would have been carrying (and quite probably crewed by) soldiers.The U.S., however, doesn't have chemical or biological weapons,
The US has vast stockpiles of these agents and counteragents. Also there are plenty of chemical weapons which don't need to be stockpiled since they can easily be manufactured.
Quite simply the US has had a standing policy that any attack on the US with weapons of mass destruction, be it chemical, biological, nuclear or otherwise, will be responded to with a nuclear strike.
Wonder what standing policy the nations mentioned have in the case of being attacked. No doubt these would include "terrorism" when facing a foe such as the US.
I have to ask, what makes you think you know everything that goes on in Russia, Korea or anywhere else behind closed doors?
The latter bit applies to any government. Including those which are supposedly democratic. If anything a "democratic" government has more reason to keep anything even slightly dodgy unseen by the public.
And why isn't France on the list?...
Or even Cuba, which usually is near the top of the list of countries the US dosn't like that much.
I was reading when I was 5, so perhaps that's why I think its strange whenever I see a sign or a letter in a hollywood movie and the main character has to read it out loud; I guess this makes it more accessible to the illiterate but it does seem strange to me.
One strange thing you sometimes see on documentries is someone speaking English subtitled in English (sometimes with the subtitles not following what the person is saying very well.) Typically only where the speaker is from Africa or India, even though there are accents harder to understand from other parts of the world.
ObTopic: Too bad this movie doesn't touch on any language barrier; it would have been very appropriate and cute for the Eloi people to speak Toki Pona [tokipona.org].
It's a problem with a lot of Sci-Fi where you have aliens speaking perfectly good American English for no good reason all. If they really must a horrible mixture of American, British and Australian English idiomatically incorrect half the time would make more sense.
As for "9/11" itself, that particular date will always be said that way since 911 is the emergency number in the US, similar to 991 in the UK.
More usefully 999 or 112...
The irritating thing about LoTR was the changes he made were defended by "it would fit into Tolkien's universe if it happened this way".
One problem with LoTR is that it's actually one book. Even though it has been published as 3 books and evem 7 books...
You try fitting in 400 (I forget the exact count and it depends on the version anyways) pages, 9+ fully developed charcters, numerous subplots and a heap of other stuff in a 3 hr movie. For the most part I believe that translating a book into a is almost impossible. My general rule of thumb is "good book=bad movie" and "good movie=bad book"
Typically translating even an average length novel into a movie results in many missing scenes. Quite a few "classic stories" are a lot longer than average, e.g. 20,000 leagues under the sea. That's before you get plots rewritten to conform with Hollywood stereotypes. When a novel is made from a movie often quite a bit extra has to go in to avoid having a very thin book.
The creation of the machine was never explained in the book either.
There is a vague bit of explanation in the 1979 movie "Time After Time".
It seems they were afraid that we would have such febble minds we couldn't distinguish between the reality of Columbine and a fictional account of a nuclear explosion near town.
Remember these are the same people who though that people couldn't distinguish between a real shooting and a throwaway line in an episode set in a ficticious town in California.
But I think it will be entertaining, though after reading several reviews I expect it to be inferior to the 1960 version in all aspects except effects.
The 1960's version also covers nuclear war anyway...
I replied mostly to complain about this continuing trend of chopping scenes out of movies so as not to offend people still haunted by the terrorist attacks.
At least they havn't started chopping up pre-existing movies. The WTC is still there in "Trading Places", even in "Pushing Tin" and "Meteor".
And they'll call him an American Indian (or native american or whatever the PC expression is), and destory the remains, as per Kennewick Man.
What was done with Kennewick man isn't even remotly funny though. (Other than the obvious irony of being discovered on the "Columbia River".) About the only thing we can be sure of is that he was Neolithic.Which is thousands of years before any Vikings, Chinese or Hispanic sponsored Italians came anywhere near America.
Why oh why can Linux users not understand that Linux is too hard to use for normal people.
Actually in many ways if is no harder to use that Windows. Indeed quite a few things are easier for the user since they are explicitally prevented from doing the kind of mainatinance tasks which they should never have been expected to do in the first place. But which often with Windows they can find themselves obliged to do.
Of course, free software produces dramatic costs decreases but it does limit the exchange of value that creates a robust market.
Whilst this might be an issue to companies who sell software does it matter to the vastly greater number who simply use software. Whilst proprietary software and data formats may be useful to the likes of Microsoft they are at best an inconvenience to those buying their software.
I can see it, and here is why: As technology spreads throughout the world, the devices are going to become easier and easier to come by. Soon they will just be a part of life for everyone. Look at how televisions are in every household now, and a radio in every car.
People are generally not expected to maintain their own television sets, radios, washing machines, cars, etc.
But oddly people don't make a big fuss about Windows expecting end users to carry out maintance tasks. Whilst they do about unix type systems having separation between these two. Even though it's Windows, rather than unix, which is at odds with just about every other piece of technology...
Perhaps what Alan was unconsciously advocating was the promotion of terminal services like those being developed by LTSP [ltsp.org] and perhaps companies offering terminal/computer services to employees,
One major issue about a thin client setup is that it dosn't matter that much if the machine sat in front of the user fails, blows up, drinks too much coffee. Whereas with a Windows workstation they may lose all the work since the last time they logged in, all their emails, etc...
This was one area of Lawrence Lessig's proposals [gilder.com] that I really liked./I>
Maybe what's needed are more such radical ideas
He suggests a short copyright term (five years) that can be renewed a large number of times, but requires active effort from the copyright holder to obtain each renewal. Further, he suggests that a fee be associated with the renewal and that the terms of the renewals become progressively more onerous.
Maybe something like x*2^y which would certainly put everything other than highly profitable works into the public domain within around 25 years.
Besides being quite a logical approach, it's also a reasonable compromise. Copyright holders who really, really care can still maintain control of their IP for a long, long time (which would obviously appeal to Disney and the like), but nearly everything would fall into the public domain rather quickly.
There is also a side effect that anything which goes into the public domain will tend to have been recently published, so likely to be plenty of copies available. With the current scheme a book might have been out of print for nearly a century before entering the public domain. It's not impossible that there will be then be no usable copies left, or with current media such as CDs/DVDs no-one still alive who knows how to make use of the media...
Obviously, YANAL. If it were completely bogus, people would not have to argue so strenuously that the new law is unconstitutional.
In the case of the US there is an odd quirk that if an unconstitutional law gets passed (which is perfectly possible where laws can be lobbied for, even outright "bought") it's treated as though it is valid until the US supreme court strikes it down. Which can take a long time since this court appears to have been overloaded with other tasks not in it's original mandate, often dosn't act on its own initutive in striking down unconstitutional statutes and dosn't like being petitioned directly, dispite the first ammendment.
A hundred years of law has been estabished that copyrights are indeed transferable and licensable. How else could publishers publish works for authors?
Transfer and licencing are not the same thing. Also it would be perfectly possible for publishers to operate with only licencing...
It is nice to see that politicians are looking at possiblities to ban these technologies. I am thinking that there may already exist laws that prohibit this practice, at least in some countries. I know that in Norway government agencies are looking at taking legal action against Sony for illegal marketing as they are selling a product marketed as a CD and priced as a CD while it clearly is not a CD!
That's nothing to do with technology. It's about insisting that goods offered for sale must not be falsely described.