seems pretty silly of them not to update the damn bittorrent.mozilla.org domain. They could probably put a dent on bandwidth on announcement days if they did so.
Right now, that is hardly less feasible than a space elevator, which requires cable material no one has come anywhere close to inventing yet.
We know carbon nanotubes will have enough tensile strength, and we know we can make it. After that, its an engineering problem. Not much different than the space program. We didn't have integrated circuits or high reliability rocket propulsion when the US started out.
It would be senseless to leave before the terrorists are defeated.
It is senseless to experience 2% casualties out of 140K patriots every year, when there is no hope to defeat the terrorists with that troop strength. That is called a loser, retard strategy (ala Vietnam). Triple the number of foot soldiers, then you can secure the borders, secure major population centers from organized guerilla recruitment, protect infrastructure, and pursue operations to destroy the cells.
Q: Do we let 1800 patriots die in vain? Or do we wait for it to mount to 57,000 KIA, before punking out, just like we did in Vietnam? Needless to say, Anonymous Coward, you're all about volunteering someone else to go die in Iraq.
What did it teach?
It should have taught:
1) Never undertake a military operation unless its critical to national security
2) That there is a viable military strategy in place, and an exit strategy if the goals cannot be attained.
3) That civilians leaders should not be dictating to the military how to conduct its operation. If your 3 star general tells you he needs 500K men to occupy the country, you give him those numbers, or don't invade the country. Which leads to:
4) That there are enough forces to ensure sucess
5) That the citzenry are willing to make the blood sacrifice to conduct the military operation.
6) Oh yeah, you do not lie to the citizenry as to why you are invading the country. And then hand over their dead children and tell them good luck with the next administration.
The profound lesson that the left lies about foreign policy?
I don't recall LBJ saying we needed to invade Vietnam because they had WMD.
Many hundreds of thousands of genocide victims and refugees who died or fled South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos after the "anti-war movement's' heroes in Hanoi won have a lesson to teach as well
Yes, don't start a war you won't finish. At least with Vietnam, the US had the balls to draft its soldiers.
Are you ready to be part of the draft that would be necessary to get the 500K soldiers into Iraq for the next 4 years?
in any criminal investigation of a wealthy person in the US, _everything_ is weighted _heavily_ in favor of the defendent.
Not if you're an individual and the federal gov't has a vendetta on you. Milken was in the upper hundreds of millions in assets. He would had to have lost a good chunk of that to defend himself against the feds for the next 10 years. And then leave his family destitute if the feds won and got RICO damages. The financial situation was analogous to pleading guilty to murder in order to avoid the death penalty. It doesn't matter if you think you're innocent; if you get convicted guilty, you're dead. Its extortion by the legal system, whether its financial or criminal
Well, my response to that: if you want to be a jerk, don't accumulate so much money without learning some manners-and wise up and learn you _will_ be held to a higher standard and do some things that defend your position.
If you're rich and a jerk, you should be destroyed by the federal gov't? What kind of communist or fascist are you???
I just don't see that the existance of Milken made any positive effect in my life-or those I care about.
And that is irrelevant. My point should be obvious. Milken did not remotely inflict the level of crime commeasurate the damage committed by Lay and Ebbers. He shouldn't be lumped with them. The latter should be punished much more severely than Milken.
Its sad. To destroy the rich, you'd be willing to remove any legal restraint that keeps the non-rich protected from the federal gov't.
excuse the question, but what on earth are you doing still running Slackware 9.1? If the 2.4 kernel is under version 25, its probably either a horrible memory leaker, or has kernel security issues.
Note I am not saying your firefox problem is directly related to the kernel. I still use mozilla on Slackware, and have not been experiencing the problems you claim to experience.
Despite some propaganda to the contrary, insurance salesmen and lawyers do not run this country.
Once again, demonstrating the average American citizens' utter cluelessness. Have you bothered to review the former professions of the elected legislative body and the Supreme Court?
Okay, here's your choice Earth. The USA or North Korea getting the high ground?
Once again, the Rush Limbaugh ditto heads demonstrates their mental acuity and grasp of rhetoric. North Korea has enough economic resources to recreate a physics experiment from the 1940's. You're actually claiming they would be able to hold the LaGrange highground? Posing that ridiculous argument in favor of the US is the same as posing the question, "How can you be against world peace? Do you hate non-Americans? Is that why you go overseas to kill them?"
USPS for perfect on-time unmangled catalog deliveries
The USPS is an awesome example of gov't appointed organization. Who else in the world can send correspondence among its citizens for only $0.37 USD??? If the USPS did such a horrible job delivering catalogs, commercial enterprises can move their business to UPS or FedEx. No, it doesn't look like it, you commie pinko, maligning a branch of the United States!
but getting away with it because they somehow got weaseled onto one council or another and the secretary general happened to like their politics over the western world
Only because America put the Secretary General in place, and US capitalist entities implemented the corruption. Yeah, I want those ethically pristine Americans like Tom DeLay and Dick Cheney establishing access to space... (Damn, I hope I didn't just scare the world into a struggle for outer space....)
Even though the EU has not demonstrated any ability to exert its will outside or within their borders, collectively they are wealthy enough to insert their presence.
And the Japanese are currently the second richest nation on earth. Perhaps they have enough financial resources to make a go of it.
Rocket fuel is not the same kind of fuel used to power our cars or our airplanes. As long as oil can be acquired, its not going to be significantly competing in price with automobile fuel, diesel fuel, airplane fuel, or heating oil.
Also, if humanity focused its efforts on a working space elevator, the energy expended in operation will be limited to moving a cargo container up a cable. One nuke plant would probably easily cover the operation.
What saddens me is that scientific illiteracy in this country has spread to the point the populace cannot even evaluate possible options.
I still firmly believe that the Chimp did not win the election, but that it was rigged. Just look what happened in Ohio, for example.
Ohio was obviously rigged, and perhaps Florida too, but you are ignoring the obvious. From a popular vote point of view, 57 million people decided they wanted a Chimp to run our country. Even if you categorize 15% of those votes as fraud, that is still a lot of disgracefully stupid Americans. I am no Kerry cheerleader, and I am no Nader basher. but it was pretty obvious on principle a voter had to kick out Bush on incompetence and malfeasance. UNLESS you thought the most important deciding factor in selecting President was whether the Supreme Court justices he would appoint would reflect one's Shiite fundamentalist point of view.
Also, while voter turnout was higher, it was still not really that high. Therefore, I don't think that the majority of the people actually support this guy.
That's irrelevant. What the non-voting majority decided was that they were okay with whomever won the election. They did not fulfill their patriotic duty to determine their local and federal gov't. They are JUST as culpable as the people who DID vote for Bush. If you don't vote, you don't count.
While it may be true to some extent that the individual's vote does not really count, I think that the widely held belief that this is so is more the cause than the result.
That is like saying the individual soldier doesn't count. Of course, both do. Your individual desires doesn't matter and doesn't determine outcomes, but your participation makes a difference (just ask your unit members). When mass participation does not make a difference, then there is no democracy.
As I said in the GP, I just hope that it is not too late.
It is obviously too late. The only tool the non-rich citizen has is their ability to kick out the current scoundrel. If they believe their participation does not matter, that critical analysis is unpatriotic, and that they can rely on rich people to tell them what is the truth and what in their interest, its over. The only question we are left to ask is "Can I really change enough minds of incredible dumbasses, or will shooting the right people make a positive difference?" Right now, I'm not seeing either as a realistic option.
Oh come on, the reason why Milken had such a dominant position in the junk bond market was because he pretty much CREATED it from a marketing point of view. You don't send the gov't to cut businessmen down because they're just so damn sucessful, "they must have done something wrong". (And I'm certainly not claiming Gates is another victim of the federal gov't. Microsoft's monopolistic practices were quite well known, documented, and could be described as extortion.)
I am not aware of Milken extorting money out of investors or companies. I am not aware of Milken perpetrating fraud in his financial transactions. The only way they could get Milken on the FTC violation was by getting Boesky to roll on him. And Boesky obviously had more crime on his hands. Milken did not destroy pension funds the way Lay did. Milken did not perpetrate fraud the way that Ebbers, et. al. did.
If you want to label Milken a criminal, fine, but don't put him in the same company as those pieces of garbage. Mitnick was a criminal too, but apparently you don't see any problem in keeping him prison for five years for the criminal equivalent of joyriding (and he didn't even damage the car).
Envy and suspicion are two very poor reasons to conduct federal vendettas against individuals. You may start to understand that when you are compelled to plead guilty to tax evasion because the gov't decided they don't like your politics.
Don't put Milken in the same category as Lay or Ebbers. Its like putting Mitnick in the same company as John Wayne Gacy and Ted Bundy.
Milken was convicted of insider trading. He didn't destroy pension funds of hundreds of thousands of people. Or commit fraud or steal from shareholders. Part of the reason the gov't couldn't get plaintiffs against Milken was because he had made all of them big money.
Yes. And when the FBI finally makes warez distribution unprofitable (ha ha), the criminal element can focus on more profitable crime, like identity theft.
Is it too much to ask the FBI to focus their resources on crimes that actually hurt the taxpayer, like identity theft and terrorist attacks?
If you had bothered to read my tagline, then the answer should be obvious. I guess you don't find it odd how mainstream media responds to news items it doesn't seem to want to focus on.
Fortunately I don't think it has anything to do with the rest of us though.
Until 20% of the males of a billion people are sent to take back Taiwan. And then teach Japan a lesson about WW II. And then for sake of national security decide to clean up the mess the Imperialist Capitalists have made of the Middle East.
The reason why you do not grasp the problem is that the thought police has decided they would rather make a buck off of China, rather than indulge in fearmongering. And that you're stupid enough to think that what is taught in public school is the only education you need, and that the news media exists only to report the truth to YOU. You can bet they will be back yammering about the evil Chinese once China decides they're done floating American currency. Your only hope is that you're too old to be dying in Iraq right now, or that you don't mind sacrificing your children on the altar of War.
Besides being a programmable day runner with alarm, Besides keeping cheatsheets, notes, & reference files
You get a program that will keep passwords and encrypt the datafile. Not just is it unlikely someone will be able to "steal" your passwords, but a backup copy of the data will be available when you sync the PDA.
I know this will be unpopular, but I think it was time for Enterprise to go. I also think that it's time for The Simpsons to go,
Yes! A man who actually appreciates quality entertainment, not brain-dead worship of necrotic garbage.
of Star Trek creators an opportunity to get some perspective on Star Trek, and let whatever the next thing is return to what made Star Trek so great: Captains who bang green chicks in mini-skirts.
You truly understand what makes great Star Trek. You must be angling for that future Trek producer job. Unfortunately, Peter Principle means you don't have a shot in hell of getting that job. Here is the critical question: can you actually be a bigger, more clueless a-hole than Rick Berman?
I always think of Shatner's "Get a life people" when I consider thanking Nimoy or Wheaton. On balance, I suppose that whatever thanks I offer would seem hollow (esp wrt Nimoy, whose character has so influenced my own personality) in comparison to the impact they've had on me.
And that's why you hang around on Slashdot and don't get to bang the attractive girls.
India and China may win for 30 or 40 years, but they'll lose for another couple hundred afterwards.
Schadenfreude is no philosophy to base one's life on. (Or being fat and stupid.) Particularly when you will have to worry about feeding yourself, and the electricity to watch your TV. Or when you'll have the time to watch TV. Are you content with going home to suffer and die because you cannot afford a medical remedy? You'll fit right in with the New World Order.
Also, I'd like to see China, or anyone for that matter, collect from us.
They'll collect the same way we collected on Argentina and the USSR. You're not fat & stupid? Then you either understand the reference, or can look it up.
This decision is a victory (if you can call it that) for states rights because the court ruled that states have control over their own domain (no Seinfeld jokes thank you). It is the states who can decide who can build what and under what circumstances.
No, its the Supreme Court being an arbitrary tool of corporations. The Supreme Court had some form of jurisdiction with the 6th amendment. What the majority decided was that the federal courts did not have the business of determining what was "public use". The Supreme Court can interfere in how a state can run its election process, it can interfere in production of a medicinal herb, even though the herb was for personal use and consumption occured without crossing state lines, but now it decides localities have purview to decide that homeowners' property can be confiscated if a municipality decides it can make a profit on the transaction. How consistent of them to look out for "states rights"
In essence, the conservatives of the country got what they've asking for: limited federal intrusion onto the right of a state to conduct its affairs.
Except its was the most conservative members of the SCOTUS that went against the decision. There is nothing conservative about the decision, any more than Dred Scott. Don't try to imply it hypocrisy on Conservatives' part.
Pulling JDS because its runs on SUSE Linux makes about as much sense as Sun's decision to piddle around with eDirectory (then NDS) and not actually implement it on Solaris (this after Novell *gave* them the source code for the purpose of putting NDS on Solaris).
Eventually Novell got tired on Sun sitting on its thumbs and took it all back and did it themselves. Another opportunity lost by Sun.
Actually, these partnerships work the other way. Microsoft rarely goes to the new platform or new hardware; the 3rd party players front up all the porting costs. It makes no sense for Sun to lead the effort to port eDirectory. Its straightforward to cross-compile eDirectory. But its going to take Novell engineers to figure out why eDirectory would glitch out in situation X. Sun should have just donated hardware and a couple of engineers. But agreed, Sun is pretty stupid for arranging the agreement conditions it did in the first place, and not realizing what a goldmine that eDirectory represents.
I *like* Sun. I use a lot of their hardware and I cut my UNIX sysadmin teeth on SunOS and Solaris. But its getting disheartening watching them stumble from one stupid decision to another.
Me too. I don't look at their decisions as being stoopid. They really are between a rock and a hard place. But they have to see the future at this point. They are dead if they continue on their present course. Stupid is throwing willy-nilly a half dozen initiatives to the wall, and seeing what sticks. That's not vision. (I'd love to see their internal analysis which tells how much money their making with Java.)
Which is *another* reason I'm sharpening my Linux skills.
Except its not gambling in NYC. The law here defines gambling as a game of chance. There is no chance in chess, and there is no law here against betting on games of skill.
Bottom line, head out to Washington Square Park, and drop your money down again a willing opponent. No cop will arrest you for playing chess with a wager on the winner.
Slashdot Mirror
seems pretty silly of them not to update the damn bittorrent.mozilla.org domain. They could probably put a dent on bandwidth on announcement days if they did so.
We know carbon nanotubes will have enough tensile strength, and we know we can make it. After that, its an engineering problem. Not much different than the space program. We didn't have integrated circuits or high reliability rocket propulsion when the US started out.
It is senseless to experience 2% casualties out of 140K patriots every year, when there is no hope to defeat the terrorists with that troop strength. That is called a loser, retard strategy (ala Vietnam). Triple the number of foot soldiers, then you can secure the borders, secure major population centers from organized guerilla recruitment, protect infrastructure, and pursue operations to destroy the cells.
Q: Do we let 1800 patriots die in vain? Or do we wait for it to mount to 57,000 KIA, before punking out, just like we did in Vietnam? Needless to say, Anonymous Coward, you're all about volunteering someone else to go die in Iraq.
It should have taught:
1) Never undertake a military operation unless its critical to national security
2) That there is a viable military strategy in place, and an exit strategy if the goals cannot be attained.
3) That civilians leaders should not be dictating to the military how to conduct its operation.
If your 3 star general tells you he needs 500K men to occupy the country, you give him those numbers, or don't invade the country. Which leads to:
4) That there are enough forces to ensure sucess
5) That the citzenry are willing to make the blood sacrifice to conduct the military operation.
6) Oh yeah, you do not lie to the citizenry as to why you are invading the country. And then hand over their dead children and tell them good luck with the next administration.
I don't recall LBJ saying we needed to invade Vietnam because they had WMD.
Yes, don't start a war you won't finish. At least with Vietnam, the US had the balls to draft its soldiers.
Are you ready to be part of the draft that would be necessary to get the 500K soldiers into Iraq for the next 4 years?
Ah, a Republican Coward. Not all simple strategies are correct. Vietnam taught that to people who listened to reality, and not the gov't.
Not if you're an individual and the federal gov't has a vendetta on you. Milken was in the upper hundreds of millions in assets. He would had to have lost a good chunk of that to defend himself against the feds for the next 10 years. And then leave his family destitute if the feds won and got RICO damages. The financial situation was analogous to pleading guilty to murder in order to avoid the death penalty. It doesn't matter if you think you're innocent; if you get convicted guilty, you're dead. Its extortion by the legal system, whether its financial or criminal
If you're rich and a jerk, you should be destroyed by the federal gov't? What kind of communist or fascist are you???
And that is irrelevant. My point should be obvious. Milken did not remotely inflict the level of crime commeasurate the damage committed by Lay and Ebbers. He shouldn't be lumped with them. The latter should be punished much more severely than Milken.
Its sad. To destroy the rich, you'd be willing to remove any legal restraint that keeps the non-rich protected from the federal gov't.
excuse the question, but what on earth are you doing still running Slackware 9.1? If the 2.4 kernel is under version 25, its probably either a horrible memory leaker, or has kernel security issues.
Note I am not saying your firefox problem is directly related to the kernel. I still use mozilla on Slackware, and have not been experiencing the problems you claim to experience.
Once again, demonstrating the average American citizens' utter cluelessness. Have you bothered to review the former professions of the elected legislative body and the Supreme Court?
Once again, the Rush Limbaugh ditto heads demonstrates their mental acuity and grasp of rhetoric. North Korea has enough economic resources to recreate a physics experiment from the 1940's. You're actually claiming they would be able to hold the LaGrange highground? Posing that ridiculous argument in favor of the US is the same as posing the question, "How can you be against world peace? Do you hate non-Americans? Is that why you go overseas to kill them?"
The USPS is an awesome example of gov't appointed organization. Who else in the world can send correspondence among its citizens for only $0.37 USD??? If the USPS did such a horrible job delivering catalogs, commercial enterprises can move their business to UPS or FedEx. No, it doesn't look like it, you commie pinko, maligning a branch of the United States!
Only because America put the Secretary General in place, and US capitalist entities implemented the corruption. Yeah, I want those ethically pristine Americans like Tom DeLay and Dick Cheney establishing access to space... (Damn, I hope I didn't just scare the world into a struggle for outer space....)
...for greater justice!
(yeah, right)
Even though the EU has not demonstrated any ability to exert its will outside or within their borders, collectively they are wealthy enough to insert their presence.
And the Japanese are currently the second richest nation on earth. Perhaps they have enough financial resources to make a go of it.
Flawed facts lead to flawed conclusions.
Rocket fuel is not the same kind of fuel used to power our cars or our airplanes. As long as oil can be acquired, its not going to be significantly competing in price with automobile fuel, diesel fuel, airplane fuel, or heating oil.
Also, if humanity focused its efforts on a working space elevator, the energy expended in operation will be limited to moving a cargo container up a cable. One nuke plant would probably easily cover the operation.
What saddens me is that scientific illiteracy in this country has spread to the point the populace cannot even evaluate possible options.
Ohio was obviously rigged, and perhaps Florida too, but you are ignoring the obvious. From a popular vote point of view, 57 million people decided they wanted a Chimp to run our country. Even if you categorize 15% of those votes as fraud, that is still a lot of disgracefully stupid Americans. I am no Kerry cheerleader, and I am no Nader basher. but it was pretty obvious on principle a voter had to kick out Bush on incompetence and malfeasance. UNLESS you thought the most important deciding factor in selecting President was whether the Supreme Court justices he would appoint would reflect one's Shiite fundamentalist point of view.
That's irrelevant. What the non-voting majority decided was that they were okay with whomever won the election. They did not fulfill their patriotic duty to determine their local and federal gov't. They are JUST as culpable as the people who DID vote for Bush. If you don't vote, you don't count.
That is like saying the individual soldier doesn't count. Of course, both do. Your individual desires doesn't matter and doesn't determine outcomes, but your participation makes a difference (just ask your unit members). When mass participation does not make a difference, then there is no democracy.
It is obviously too late. The only tool the non-rich citizen has is their ability to kick out the current scoundrel. If they believe their participation does not matter, that critical analysis is unpatriotic, and that they can rely on rich people to tell them what is the truth and what in their interest, its over. The only question we are left to ask is "Can I really change enough minds of incredible dumbasses, or will shooting the right people make a positive difference?" Right now, I'm not seeing either as a realistic option.
Oh come on, the reason why Milken had such a dominant position in the junk bond market was because he pretty much CREATED it from a marketing point of view. You don't send the gov't to cut businessmen down because they're just so damn sucessful, "they must have done something wrong". (And I'm certainly not claiming Gates is another victim of the federal gov't. Microsoft's monopolistic practices were quite well known, documented, and could be described as extortion.)
I am not aware of Milken extorting money out of investors or companies. I am not aware of Milken perpetrating fraud in his financial transactions. The only way they could get Milken on the FTC violation was by getting Boesky to roll on him. And Boesky obviously had more crime on his hands. Milken did not destroy pension funds the way Lay did. Milken did not perpetrate fraud the way that Ebbers, et. al. did.
If you want to label Milken a criminal, fine, but don't put him in the same company as those pieces of garbage. Mitnick was a criminal too, but apparently you don't see any problem in keeping him prison for five years for the criminal equivalent of joyriding (and he didn't even damage the car).
Envy and suspicion are two very poor reasons to conduct federal vendettas against individuals. You may start to understand that when you are compelled to plead guilty to tax evasion because the gov't decided they don't like your politics.
You really think so? Where the f**k were those citizens 8 months ago? They found a lying chimp preferable to someone who actually served.
Don't put Milken in the same category as Lay or Ebbers. Its like putting Mitnick in the same company as John Wayne Gacy and Ted Bundy.
Milken was convicted of insider trading. He didn't destroy pension funds of hundreds of thousands of people. Or commit fraud or steal from shareholders. Part of the reason the gov't couldn't get plaintiffs against Milken was because he had made all of them big money.
Yes. And when the FBI finally makes warez distribution unprofitable (ha ha), the criminal element can focus on more profitable crime, like identity theft.
Is it too much to ask the FBI to focus their resources on crimes that actually hurt the taxpayer, like identity theft and terrorist attacks?
If you had bothered to read my tagline, then the answer should be obvious. I guess you don't find it odd how mainstream media responds to news items it doesn't seem to want to focus on.
Yes. Slashdotters are notoriously poor spellers.
Until 20% of the males of a billion people are sent to take back Taiwan. And then teach Japan a lesson about WW II. And then for sake of national security decide to clean up the mess the Imperialist Capitalists have made of the Middle East.
The reason why you do not grasp the problem is that the thought police has decided they would rather make a buck off of China, rather than indulge in fearmongering. And that you're stupid enough to think that what is taught in public school is the only education you need, and that the news media exists only to report the truth to YOU. You can bet they will be back yammering about the evil Chinese once China decides they're done floating American currency. Your only hope is that you're too old to be dying in Iraq right now, or that you don't mind sacrificing your children on the altar of War.
Besides being a programmable day runner with alarm,
Besides keeping cheatsheets, notes, & reference files
You get a program that will keep passwords and encrypt the datafile. Not just is it unlikely someone will be able to "steal" your passwords, but a backup copy of the data will be available when you sync the PDA.
Yes! A man who actually appreciates quality entertainment, not brain-dead worship of necrotic garbage.
You truly understand what makes great Star Trek. You must be angling for that future Trek producer job. Unfortunately, Peter Principle means you don't have a shot in hell of getting that job. Here is the critical question: can you actually be a bigger, more clueless a-hole than Rick Berman?
And that's why you hang around on Slashdot and don't get to bang the attractive girls.
Schadenfreude is no philosophy to base one's life on. (Or being fat and stupid.) Particularly when you will have to worry about feeding yourself, and the electricity to watch your TV. Or when you'll have the time to watch TV. Are you content with going home to suffer and die because you cannot afford a medical remedy? You'll fit right in with the New World Order.
They'll collect the same way we collected on Argentina and the USSR. You're not fat & stupid? Then you either understand the reference, or can look it up.
No, its the Supreme Court being an arbitrary tool of corporations. The Supreme Court had some form of jurisdiction with the 6th amendment. What the majority decided was that the federal courts did not have the business of determining what was "public use". The Supreme Court can interfere in how a state can run its election process, it can interfere in production of a medicinal herb, even though the herb was for personal use and consumption occured without crossing state lines, but now it decides localities have purview to decide that homeowners' property can be confiscated if a municipality decides it can make a profit on the transaction. How consistent of them to look out for "states rights"
Except its was the most conservative members of the SCOTUS that went against the decision. There is nothing conservative about the decision, any more than Dred Scott. Don't try to imply it hypocrisy on Conservatives' part.
Actually, these partnerships work the other way. Microsoft rarely goes to the new platform or new hardware; the 3rd party players front up all the porting costs. It makes no sense for Sun to lead the effort to port eDirectory. Its straightforward to cross-compile eDirectory. But its going to take Novell engineers to figure out why eDirectory would glitch out in situation X. Sun should have just donated hardware and a couple of engineers. But agreed, Sun is pretty stupid for arranging the agreement conditions it did in the first place, and not realizing what a goldmine that eDirectory represents.
Me too. I don't look at their decisions as being stoopid . They really are between a rock and a hard place. But they have to see the future at this point. They are dead if they continue on their present course. Stupid is throwing willy-nilly a half dozen initiatives to the wall, and seeing what sticks. That's not vision. (I'd love to see their internal analysis which tells how much money their making with Java.)
What, you need a reason?
Except its not gambling in NYC. The law here defines gambling as a game of chance. There is no chance in chess, and there is no law here against betting on games of skill.
Bottom line, head out to Washington Square Park, and drop your money down again a willing opponent. No cop will arrest you for playing chess with a wager on the winner.