Aside from making sure to keep Islam out of the government in the south....
That's a BIG aside!
Iraq itself is an artificial entity forced together by distant colonial powers
It is, but then again their are no natural political entities. 19/20th Century European history shows the folly (at the cost of great human suffering) of attempting to define the Nation in terms of language, religion or ethnicity. Still I agree there is no overwhelming need to maintain Iraq as an entity
What good reason is there to keep it together? Just like there is no good reason to insist that Kosovo remain a colonial territory of Serbia.
The Serbs are going to disagree with your view of Kosovo as a colony, since they regard it as their heartland, lost to the Turks in the 14thCentury.
In any case a separate Kurdisthan is going to be opposed by Turkey (which still controls the majority of Kurdish lands) and it will lead to (even more) instability in Iran and Syria. This added to the real possibility that a Southern Iraqi (Shia) state would go 'Iranian,' are probably the policy reasons underlying the decision to maintain the integrity of the Iraqi state.
... which you were apparently to (sic.) dense to discern...
You're quite the skilled debater, aren't you?
I was alluding to the fact the government, in an attempt to make life easier, does in fact make life more difficult.
That is no fact, that is a generalisation. And it'
s a false generalisation at that. Take a vacation from your ideology for just a moment and have a look at the real world. Note what happens when there is a total collapse of state functionality. Now put your hand on your heart and tell yourself that life under those conditions really is easier. Now stop lying to yourself!
It is true that some of the best intentions can, and do, go horribly wrong. It is even more true that those who succeed in laying their hands on political power do not necessary have the best intentions. This is what makes the democratic process so important. As Karl Popper observed, the strength of democracy lies not in the fact that we can elect people to power, but that we can elect to throw them out.
That being said, it is also true that the good intentions of our elected representatives can, and do, result in good outcomes. As an example of this you need look no further than to the government sponsored introduction of standards for weights and measures, and all the obvious economic benefits that flow from such standards.
So in other words, you want the government to make life simpler for you?
Well in a Democracy, or even in a democratic Republic, the government belongs to the people. So naturally the people want to government to do their bidding. Why have servants, unless they make life easier for us?
Or do you prefer a government that makes life more difficult for you?
95 is an impressively long time for a human being to live. I would bet that all the nuclear materials Teller worked with somehow mutated him into having extraordinary longevity.
Leni Riefenstahl died the same (previous?) day aged 101! Maybe making Nazi propaganda movies is the secret to longevity?
u know i'm from australia and... if u decide to bring someone up its your responsibility and yours only.. not the media, not the teachers but yours alone.
Mate I'm from Australia too, and I have just one (1) word for you "Fucken Bullshit!" (*In Australian English the word 'fucken' doesn't count as a word, cause you don't even realise you are using it half the time.)
Yes as a parent you bear a LARGE responsibility, absolutely. The parent poster above is to be commended, or rather, this is what we should expect of every parent. I totally agree that too many parents are just way to passive in deciding which influences will be formative of their offspring.
HOWEVER, as a parent you are just never going to have 100% control over what influences your kid is exposed to. Well not unless you belong to some wierd religious cult that keeps kids locked away from the real world.
To think it makes no difference what the kind of teachers kids have, or what kind of educational environment they are exposed to is just delusional. By law, you have to surrender your children to the tender mercies of some educational facility for something like 30 hours a week. (Again unless you are some whacko cultist, or a hippy homeschooler or something). If the school I send my kids to fucks up in some major way in regard to them, you can bet your life on this, I'll sue their fucken arses off!
And if you think the media have no influence, you are just living on cloud cuckoo-land!
The media, teachers, the producers of entertainment will hopefully enjoy a large measure of freedom of speech, as is fit to any democractic society. We wouldn't want it any other way. However, that doesn't mean they can simply shrug off their responsibility for the calculable effects their contribution produces. If Hezbollah TV (which until recently was screening in Australia), exorts young children to become suicide bombers (which it does), Hezbollah TV bears at least some repsonsibility for the outcome their utterances were calculated to produce.
In fact, children learn not only from parents, teachers, the media etc, they learn from every person they see doing something. And this doesn't only apply to children! Remember: Every act you commit in public, serves as a model for others to emulate. As individuals, we have more power than we realise, to influence the culture we inhabit.
Indeed! Not so much as a mention of what kernel version (specfically if it is up to RedHat9 in terms of hyperthreading support). Seems likes the author attaches a bit too much importance to the eye-candy side of things to me.
They cease to be liable the moment you click "I Agree"
That depends on the various sales of goods statutes of the several jurisdictions in which M$ products are sold. It is not uncommon for such exemption clauses to be explicitly limited or even completely abrogated by legislation.
So what did the people from africa thousands of years ago actually look like? Has human physical appearance changed over time... who knows.
Well the anthropologists (and forensic scientists) do actually. Techniques for reconstructing the face based on the skull have existed for some time.
What is new about this technology is that it does on a puter, what till now has been doen by physical modelling methods. No more getting the hands dirty with putty!
Seriously though, I think the bigger problem is from the lack of light!
I know you think in terms of binary oppositions, but it's just possible that there is an optimum, and that going too far below it, or going too far above it is the problem.
I think Germany can take credit for being the first country.
Country?! This isn't the federal government, it's the city administration of Munich, as you might have gathered from the article the federal government is in the process of reaching a sweatheart deal with Microfoft.
Anyway, Munich isn't really in Germany proper anyway, it's in Bavaria:p
It's easy to talk about UNIX® ** without being sued. Just follow a few simple guidlines, and you can put UNIX® in your posts all day long. Let's try the original post with lawsuit-resistant terminology:
In fact unless you are using the term UNIX (even sans the Registered Trademark Symbol) in any way other than as a trademark you shouldn't be sued (well for using 'UNIX' anyway). However the "logolike GIF that shows a metal plate bearing the words 'Unix Based'" reportedly employed by Apple comes dangerously close to a trademark usage of the term. Which is obviously why it is the use that X/Open is "least fond of."
Can anybody tell me why de-regulation is necessarily a good thing?
If any one tells you de-regulation is necessarily a good thing they are being ideological. However, looking at the actual functioning of any particular market, it happens to be the case the de-regulation is often a good thing. IMHO, the onus must be upon a regulating authority to prove that their activities result in an outcome at least better than that which the unregulated market would produce, on measureable criteria, that at least a majority of citizens agree are desireable.
I just wonder who is liable when a company sells a surplus laptop on eBay but gets their inventory control screwed up and reports it as stolen.
That's a no-brainer. Whoever was responsible for inventory control and whoever has vicarious liability in regard to that person. Since that latter person will be the company who sold the lap-top they'll probably be liable in contract as well as in negligence.
anti-trust laws have traditionaly been used very sparingly, a conservative/pro-big bussiness court is usually the reason why
More specifically the jurisprudence of 'Chicago-School' lawyers (ie judges) such as Posner and Bork basically castrated anti-trust law. Part of their doctrine was to diffuse the idea that a monopoly was of itself a bad thing. It's illuminating to read the original Sherman Act and the debate surrounding it to see how far anti-trust law has been degraded from its original intention, which was to protect the kind of democracy made up of small independent businessmen from the onslaught of the giant corporation and the ineluctable errosion of democracy that would bring.
If you say that software can not be patentable, then no one will develop (or a better word: innovate) software since it can just be "stolen".
Not so, software would still be protected by copyright, and moreover, for a much longer period than that granted by a patent. Yes it could be reverse engineered, but not stolen (at least not lawfully).
The original reason for patents was to protect free thought.
Absolute bullshit! The original reason for patents was to grant trading monopolies to select companies favoured by the crown. If you learnt some history you might even be equipped to understand what is happening in your world today, rather than sprouting this kind of naive crap.
They ['liberty' and 'freedom'] are not only buzzwords. They have been used too long as propaganda during the cold war era by the government...Population was led to believe that soviets were monsters because they didn't have the freedom that americans had, but most americans couldn't even figure out what freedom really meant.
True, but you should note that as part of the effort to potray themselves as better during the cold war, Western governments did institute freedoms and better conditions for the population (eg. shorter working hours, social welfare etc etc.) Now that the cold war has been won, it's back to business as usual. Working hours go up, and liberties become more abstract (ie negative) or are simply abrogated, well at least in the Anglosphere, Europe is still lagging behind on that front. This was so even before Sept 11.
The guy isn't guilty of any crime, but he had to settle as if he were? Someone enlighten me...
Technically, you're not 'guilty' of a crime until you've been convicted.
You don't 'settle' a criminal prosecution. You might plea bargain, but settling before trial definitely (hopefully?) belong in the real of civil ligitgation.
While there might be some criminal liability attached to what he did, the word 'crime' is used in English in a non-technical as well as a stricly legal sense. In the former sense it means something that is generally recognised as 'a crime,' such as murder, rape, theft etc, not something that is criminal merely because the legislature (out of step with popular opinion) has sought to criminalise some behaviour by statute.
It depends if the claim is based in contract or in tort.
Nice try, but not entirely on the money. The point of exception clauses in contracts is precisely that they allow the parties to contract out of tortious liability. That is, by accepting the such terms in a license, the licensee enters into a contract to rescind their right to sue the lincensor in negligence for any matter arising out of the said license.
However there are often provisions of sales of goods legislation that create a kind of statutory guarantee that goods sold shall be fit for their purpose. Commonly such legislation explicity nullifies any attempt by the licensor to contract out of such liability. Again this is a win for free (as in beer) software.
Slashdot Mirror
Aside from making sure to keep Islam out of the government in the south....
That's a BIG aside!
Iraq itself is an artificial entity forced together by distant colonial powers
It is, but then again their are no natural political entities. 19/20th Century European history shows the folly (at the cost of great human suffering) of attempting to define the Nation in terms of language, religion or ethnicity. Still I agree there is no overwhelming need to maintain Iraq as an entity
What good reason is there to keep it together? Just like there is no good reason to insist that Kosovo remain a colonial territory of Serbia.
The Serbs are going to disagree with your view of Kosovo as a colony, since they regard it as their heartland, lost to the Turks in the 14thCentury.
In any case a separate Kurdisthan is going to be opposed by Turkey (which still controls the majority of Kurdish lands) and it will lead to (even more) instability in Iran and Syria. This added to the real possibility that a Southern Iraqi (Shia) state would go 'Iranian,' are probably the policy reasons underlying the decision to maintain the integrity of the Iraqi state.
Buy one a few streets back from the beach instead ;)
Clearly Occam's Razor dictates that we go with the alien slow death ray theory!
You're quite the skilled debater, aren't you?
I was alluding to the fact the government, in an attempt to make life easier, does in fact make life more difficult.That is no fact, that is a generalisation. And it' s a false generalisation at that. Take a vacation from your ideology for just a moment and have a look at the real world. Note what happens when there is a total collapse of state functionality. Now put your hand on your heart and tell yourself that life under those conditions really is easier. Now stop lying to yourself!
It is true that some of the best intentions can, and do, go horribly wrong. It is even more true that those who succeed in laying their hands on political power do not necessary have the best intentions. This is what makes the democratic process so important. As Karl Popper observed, the strength of democracy lies not in the fact that we can elect people to power, but that we can elect to throw them out.
That being said, it is also true that the good intentions of our elected representatives can, and do, result in good outcomes. As an example of this you need look no further than to the government sponsored introduction of standards for weights and measures, and all the obvious economic benefits that flow from such standards.
Well in a Democracy, or even in a democratic Republic, the government belongs to the people. So naturally the people want to government to do their bidding. Why have servants, unless they make life easier for us?
Or do you prefer a government that makes life more difficult for you?
Leni Riefenstahl died the same (previous?) day aged 101! Maybe making Nazi propaganda movies is the secret to longevity?
Mate I'm from Australia too, and I have just one (1) word for you "Fucken Bullshit!" (*In Australian English the word 'fucken' doesn't count as a word, cause you don't even realise you are using it half the time.)
Yes as a parent you bear a LARGE responsibility, absolutely. The parent poster above is to be commended, or rather, this is what we should expect of every parent. I totally agree that too many parents are just way to passive in deciding which influences will be formative of their offspring.
HOWEVER, as a parent you are just never going to have 100% control over what influences your kid is exposed to. Well not unless you belong to some wierd religious cult that keeps kids locked away from the real world.
To think it makes no difference what the kind of teachers kids have, or what kind of educational environment they are exposed to is just delusional. By law, you have to surrender your children to the tender mercies of some educational facility for something like 30 hours a week. (Again unless you are some whacko cultist, or a hippy homeschooler or something). If the school I send my kids to fucks up in some major way in regard to them, you can bet your life on this, I'll sue their fucken arses off!
And if you think the media have no influence, you are just living on cloud cuckoo-land!
The media, teachers, the producers of entertainment will hopefully enjoy a large measure of freedom of speech, as is fit to any democractic society. We wouldn't want it any other way. However, that doesn't mean they can simply shrug off their responsibility for the calculable effects their contribution produces. If Hezbollah TV (which until recently was screening in Australia), exorts young children to become suicide bombers (which it does), Hezbollah TV bears at least some repsonsibility for the outcome their utterances were calculated to produce.
In fact, children learn not only from parents, teachers, the media etc, they learn from every person they see doing something. And this doesn't only apply to children! Remember: Every act you commit in public, serves as a model for others to emulate . As individuals, we have more power than we realise, to influence the culture we inhabit.
Woops! And I read the article too, apparently my comprehension could be a little better :/
Indeed! Not so much as a mention of what kernel version (specfically if it is up to RedHat9 in terms of hyperthreading support). Seems likes the author attaches a bit too much importance to the eye-candy side of things to me.
They cease to be liable the moment you click "I Agree"
That depends on the various sales of goods statutes of the several jurisdictions in which M$ products are sold. It is not uncommon for such exemption clauses to be explicitly limited or even completely abrogated by legislation.
Well the anthropologists (and forensic scientists) do actually. Techniques for reconstructing the face based on the skull have existed for some time.
What is new about this technology is that it does on a puter, what till now has been doen by physical modelling methods. No more getting the hands dirty with putty!
I saw it set up in at a computer shop here in .au in late June. They sell the aquarium window as well.
I know you think in terms of binary oppositions, but it's just possible that there is an optimum, and that going too far below it, or going too far above it is the problem.
The second one takes less time to understand.
for example:
Country?! This isn't the federal government, it's the city administration of Munich, as you might have gathered from the article the federal government is in the process of reaching a sweatheart deal with Microfoft.
Anyway, Munich isn't really in Germany proper anyway, it's in Bavaria :p
In fact unless you are using the term UNIX (even sans the Registered Trademark Symbol) in any way other than as a trademark you shouldn't be sued (well for using 'UNIX' anyway). However the "logolike GIF that shows a metal plate bearing the words 'Unix Based'" reportedly employed by Apple comes dangerously close to a trademark usage of the term. Which is obviously why it is the use that X/Open is "least fond of."
If any one tells you de-regulation is necessarily a good thing they are being ideological. However, looking at the actual functioning of any particular market, it happens to be the case the de-regulation is often a good thing. IMHO, the onus must be upon a regulating authority to prove that their activities result in an outcome at least better than that which the unregulated market would produce, on measureable criteria, that at least a majority of citizens agree are desireable.
That's a no-brainer. Whoever was responsible for inventory control and whoever has vicarious liability in regard to that person. Since that latter person will be the company who sold the lap-top they'll probably be liable in contract as well as in negligence.
More specifically the jurisprudence of 'Chicago-School' lawyers (ie judges) such as Posner and Bork basically castrated anti-trust law. Part of their doctrine was to diffuse the idea that a monopoly was of itself a bad thing. It's illuminating to read the original Sherman Act and the debate surrounding it to see how far anti-trust law has been degraded from its original intention, which was to protect the kind of democracy made up of small independent businessmen from the onslaught of the giant corporation and the ineluctable errosion of democracy that would bring.
Not so, software would still be protected by copyright, and moreover, for a much longer period than that granted by a patent. Yes it could be reverse engineered, but not stolen (at least not lawfully).
Absolute bullshit! The original reason for patents was to grant trading monopolies to select companies favoured by the crown. If you learnt some history you might even be equipped to understand what is happening in your world today, rather than sprouting this kind of naive crap.
True, but you should note that as part of the effort to potray themselves as better during the cold war, Western governments did institute freedoms and better conditions for the population (eg. shorter working hours, social welfare etc etc.) Now that the cold war has been won, it's back to business as usual. Working hours go up, and liberties become more abstract (ie negative) or are simply abrogated, well at least in the Anglosphere, Europe is still lagging behind on that front. This was so even before Sept 11.
How is that flamebait? The ACLU do have their hands full at the moment! Don't you keep abreast of what The State is doing to your rights?
Nice try, but not entirely on the money. The point of exception clauses in contracts is precisely that they allow the parties to contract out of tortious liability. That is, by accepting the such terms in a license, the licensee enters into a contract to rescind their right to sue the lincensor in negligence for any matter arising out of the said license.
However there are often provisions of sales of goods legislation that create a kind of statutory guarantee that goods sold shall be fit for their purpose. Commonly such legislation explicity nullifies any attempt by the licensor to contract out of such liability. Again this is a win for free (as in beer) software.