I think there should be no difficulty if Wikipedia is treated as hearsay. In other words, my father might tell me a relevant fact, which then gives me the framework I need to look it up, but I can't very well cite "my father told me" as my research source (again, with the very rare exception).
A company can only do that if they don't have any competitors snapping at their heels. Otherwise, it's often more important to be first on the market with a new product than to have it work perfectly. Of course, if the product quality is too low, that strategy can backfire, too.
Did you not actually read anything beyond the headlines of the first day?
He was NOT fleeing, he was acting normally.
Nobody asked him to stop, presumably because, if he had been a terrorist, that would have given him a chance to detonate the explosives. They took him down and immediately shot him in the head.
Brief and Vedit were the 2 popular editors where I worked, back in those days. I'm still using Vedit, though the Windows XP version has a few more features than the CP/M version did:-)
Now if you had a hundred MILLION people who felt that way, you could do something about it. But most of them simply couldn't care less, or are dumb enough to believe everything they are told, and so those guys keep getting elected.
From the article: "the Justice Department argued that terrorists could deploy model rockets to shoot down commercial airliners"
So let me see if I understand this correctly: It's really important that you can get guns and ammunition easily, but model rockets could be used as a weapon, so they shouldn't be allowed. But if they were officially a weapon, then it would be okay.
Guns in the US are used to murder other Americans, not to rise up against an oppresive government. You just try to use your guns to fight the government and see what happens! You are not allowed to own actual effective weaponry, like, say, private cruise missiles, that could be used to overthrow the government. Nor should you be. In fact, the ability to communicate with whoever you want without surveillance is probably FAR more important to any potential citizen resistance to an oppressive government than handguns are, and you can see which way that right is going.
Why do you kid yourselves?
I just read a very interesting quote: "If Hayden were confirmed, military officers would run all the major spy agencies, from the ultra-secret National Security Agency to the Defense Intelligence Agency. On the one hand, it's fascinating to watch to the US drive over the cliff. On the other hand, it's pretty scary to be in the passenger seat as we are."
2) Years later, NTP sent RIM a letter saying "we think you are infringing on one of our 5000 patents."
3) RIM replied, asking "what patent are we infringing?", but got no reply.
4) NTP sued.
5) During the court case, RIM demonstrated prior art. However, on the same computer, there was another program, irrelevant to the demonstration, which was dated later than the patent date, so the demonstration was called "fraud", and RIM was not allowed to repeat the demonstration with that program removed from the computer. Yes, this appears to have been incompetence on the part of someone at RIM setting up the demonstration.
6) RIM and NTP reached a settlement, but for some reason, NTP decided that they could do better. My guess is that the original settlement may have included a requirement to repay some of the money if the patents were eventually invalidated.
7) Under threat of an injunction to shut down US operations, RIM settled again, as the injunction would have taken effect before the patent office was finished with its process.
So, no, it's not just a case of someone getting caught doing something wrong.
I never could understand this. My wife and I saw Ishtar when it came out, and found it hilariously funny. Casting Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman directly contrary to their "usual" types made it all the funnier. Did most people who saw it not have the intelligence to see that it was all tongue-in-cheek?
Sometimes I really wonder about the comments people make about movies and books.
I've seen a discussion about possible future movie versions of the rest of the Chronicles of Narnia, where somebody said that they need to get rid of all the religious allusions.
I saw a discussion of a science fiction novel by Lois McMaster Bujold (I forget the title right now), whose entire THEME was coincidences and whether they were somehow manifestations of supernatural intervention, whose plot hinged on these coincidences and how unlikely they were, yet how they all fit together, and some bright person commented about how he liked the book, but he felt that it just seemed like too much of a coincidence that (some event) and (some other event) both happened to the same person. Well, DUH!
Along the same line, one of my problems with, say, movie adaptations of books, is that sometimes the screenwriter or director or somebody, I don't know who, don't really understand some aspect of the book. There are some changes that need to be made, because movies do much better at portraying things visually, whereas they are much worse than books at other things. For instance, the air raid scene at the beginning of LWW was excellent, and gave background that would not have been necessary in the book. Gollum was great in LOTR. The ideas were preserved, yet presented in perhaps different forms. There are other changes that seem to be made for dramatic effect, yet seem to betray a lack of understanding of the original: In LOTR, the scene where Faramir is tempted by the ring, yet he resists the temptation, commenting about how Frodo is lucky that he is not that kind of person, gets changed in the movie so that Faramir in fact does NOT resist the temptation, and is only stopped by external events. This makes the whole contrast between the characters of the two brothers not make any sense (as it is no longer a contrast), and it makes their father's different feelings about the two of them not make any sense either. So you end up changing what is both an adventure story and a psychological drama into just an adventure story -- you lose a whole level of meaning, unnecessarily.
I can think of more examples, but I think I'd better stop here. Some of the examples that spring to mind, of people missing the whole POINT of something, would be wildly off topic (although, after all, this IS Slashdot) and/or controversial.
I've worked on products that had no OS at all, just a loop that called various functions in sequence. I've worked on products where the company wrote the realtime OS from scratch. I've worked on products where the company used a commercial OS, but bought a source code licence. I've worked on products which used an off-the-shelf Microsoft OS. It all depends on your requirements.
Are there realtime requirements? Do you know what hardware will be used, or will you need to support different kinds of displays, for example? What are the reliability requirements -- will this be used in life-critical applications, or will it be used for games? Will you want to upgrade to the latest version of the OS from time to time, or will you pick a good one and make zillions of copies of your product based on that one version? I'm sure there are other questions you should be asking yourself (help me, fellow Slashdotters).
Figure out your requirements first, then figure out how to meet those requirements. Don't just pick a solution and then try to make it fit.
Thank you for your insightful comment. I agree that it is not very intelligent to form one's opinion about what is going on in the world with information from only one source. I have never, to my recollection, watched Fox News, so I can't really judge it myself, but it certainly doesn't have a reputation of being a useful source in any case (except possibly to find out what Americans are being told).
However, you've totally missed my point. My question was not "Where are the peaceful Muslims?", but rather, "Where are the 10,000-strong demonstrations against Al Quaeda?". The cartoonists drew some pictures which, when you come right down to it, may be offensive but don't actually hurt anyone. Al Quaeda kills people. Which humiliates Mohammed more, someone who draws a caricature of him, or someone who tells the world that he taught his followers to kill innocents? Which is the greater danger to Islam, some nobody who makes fun of the Prophet, or some follower of his who distorts his teachings so criminally?
If there is outrage at the minor thing, why is there no outrage at the major thing? Or, if there is only limited outrage at the major thing, why is there so much outrage at the minor thing?
But I don't think there's much point continuing the discussion in this forum. This is already old, and few people are continuing to follow it.
What's your point? I'm sure such cartoons exist, yet the embassies of the countries they come from are not being burned.
Besides, the cartoons in question deal with: terrorism in the name of Islam, the (supposed) position of women in Islam, fear of violence if one draws a picture of Mohammed, people not knowing what Mohammed looked like, the interpretation that the cartoons were a publicity stunt, and a few that I don't get the point of. What would be the point of the cartoon you suggest? It sounds like it would be for the SOLE PURPOSE of offending people, and I'm not completely convinced that that's what the Mohammed cartoons were meant for. Then again, maybe they were. I'm not sure if anybody is completely innocent here.
Your comparison to Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson is apt. I don't know how much of this I should quote without running into copyright issues, so I have snipped most of the article (sorry, I can't find the URL):
Pat Robertson: An embarrassment to the church by Jim Wallis
Pat Robertson is an embarrassment to the church and a danger to American politics.
Robertson is known for his completely irresponsible statements...
It's clear Robertson must not have first asked himself "What would Jesus do?" But the teachings of Jesus have never been very popular with Robertson. He gets his religion elsewhere, from the twisted ideologies of an American brand of right-wing fundamentalism that has always been more nationalist than Christian....
Robertson's American fundamentalist ideology gives a lot of good people a bad name. World evangelical leaders have already responded with alarm and disbelief. Robertson's words will taint and smear other evangelical Christians and put some in actual jeopardy, such as Venezuelan evangelicals. Most conservative evangelical Christians are appalled by Robertson's hateful and literally murderous words, and it's time for them to say so. To their credit, the World Evangelical Alliance and the National Association of Evangelicals have already denounced Robertson's words. When will we hear from some of the groups from the "Religious Right," such as the Family Research Council, Southern Baptists, and other leaders like James Dobson, Tony Perkins, and Chuck Colson?
Robertson's words fuel both anti-Christian and anti-American sentiments around the world....
It's time to name Robertson for what he is: an American fundamentalist whose theocratic views are not much different from the "Muslim extremists" he continually assails. It's time for conservative evangelical Christians in America, who are not like Islamic fundamentalists or Robertson, to distance themselves from his embarrassing and dangerous religion.
And it's time for Christian leaders of all stripes to call on Robertson not just to apologize, but to retire.
I think, however, it's not just a matter of "guilt by association". The Islamic terrorists are not just terrorists who happen to be Muslim, they are people who are doing what they do IN THE NAME OF ISLAM, which is why it's very important for other Muslims to contradict them publicly. Unless, of course, you think that they are accurately interpreting the teachings of the Prophet, which is what the world will assume you think unless you speak up.
As has been pointed out elsewhere in this thread, Muslims ARE speaking out about this, just not being covered by the mainstream media. But it does seem odd that SO MANY people are demonstrating angrily because cartoonists showed on paper what Bin Ladin and friends showed by their actions, yet the latter do not seem to be getting anywhere near the same scale of reaction.
Somebody has written that this is because Muslims in, say, Turkey, do not attach any particular importance to the fact that Bin Ladin and friends are Muslim, whereas caricatures of the Prophet do affect their religion. They seem not to realize that, to the rest of the world, unless they are contradicted by other Muslims, Bin Ladin and friends DO appear to speak for Islam. They are not only killing innocent people, THEY ARE TELLING THE WORLD THAT ISLAM TEACHES TO KILL INNOCENT PEOPLE. And if Muslims do not care about that, why in the world should they care about what some cartoonists in Denmark draw?
I am totally against Bush's adventures in the Middle East. I am totally against Bush's budget priorities of increasing military spending and giving tax breaks to the wealthy while CUTTING spending on, for example, health care for poor Americans. I think Bush's use of religious language and imagery to justify these sorts of things at least borders on blasphemy.
But I am not an American, and I don't live in the USA. I do support my own government's position on these matters.
I'm not sure if you actually want an answer to that, but I'd like to give one just for the record.
The way *I* understand it (i.e. I'm not speaking for anyone else), the Bible is a collection of separate writings that were written over the course of about 1000 years, and some of which were based on oral traditions that were even older than that. The Bible documents historical events from one (or sometimes more) point of view. It contains legal codes from more than two thousand years ago. It contains poetry about human nature and about themes related to being a human being in ANY time or place. It contains advice worth pondering, even if it is not necessarily to be taken in a particular circumstance. It expresses religious principles as spoken by people who claimed to be speaking for God. It contains inspirational stories, other stories that we can learn from the mistakes of, and others that just seem quaint. It contains people's writings about how to live, about the meaning of life, about the hopes and dreams of a people. It contains many different kinds of things, as might be expected of a collection of many people's writings over a thousand years.
Reading and thinking about these things can help us understand ourselves and other people. It can help us form our concepts of what is important, what is good, what justice demands, what God wants of us in our lives. It can give us perspective, a different perspective than we get from contemporary media. And so, by means of these records of different people's understanding of God, God can work in us.
The Bible is neither a literal recording of how the world was created, nor a lawbook telling us what our current laws should be. However, reading the LEGENDS of how the world was created, and THINKING about the laws of 3000 years ago, can give us insights that can help us right now.
I should point out that fundamentalist Christians do NOT (in general) see the Bible that way, and Muslims definitely do not see the Koran that way. However, contrary to what the US mainstream media might make you believe, most Christians are not fundamentalists.
I am greatly encouraged by all the responses to my post, pointing out that there IS widespread Muslim opposition to violence.
A number of years ago, my wife participated in a Toronto city-wide demonstration which, she says, was very much like a picnic. It was completely peaceful and friendly. Many people were there with their children. There was no violence AT ALL, nor any suggestion of it. But somewhere in the city, there was a confrontation, and somebody punched somebody else. Guess what was on the front page of every Toronto newspaper and leading the evening news on TV? So, yes, I believe what you say about the bias of the media.
I'm also glad that there IS a Christian voice that opposes the message given by the segment of the population who is in power in the USA, and that it is getting increasing press coverage. But yes, if I didn't know where to look, I might indeed think that Jesus was as you say. (I'm still amazed by people who are pro-death-penalty and pro-war but have the nerve to call themselves pro-life, but that's a different issue to be debated another time.)
Slashdot Mirror
I think there should be no difficulty if Wikipedia is treated as hearsay. In other words, my father might tell me a relevant fact, which then gives me the framework I need to look it up, but I can't very well cite "my father told me" as my research source (again, with the very rare exception).
Actually, yes, there are RIM employees who read and post to Slashdot.
A company can only do that if they don't have any competitors snapping at their heels. Otherwise, it's often more important to be first on the market with a new product than to have it work perfectly. Of course, if the product quality is too low, that strategy can backfire, too.
They took some mice that showed up a couple of days ago, and reversed evolution in them?
Did you not actually read anything beyond the headlines of the first day?
He was NOT fleeing, he was acting normally.
Nobody asked him to stop, presumably because, if he had been a terrorist, that would have given him a chance to detonate the explosives. They took him down and immediately shot him in the head.
Brief and Vedit were the 2 popular editors where I worked, back in those days. I'm still using Vedit, though the Windows XP version has a few more features than the CP/M version did :-)
Now if you had a hundred MILLION people who felt that way, you could do something about it. But most of them simply couldn't care less, or are dumb enough to believe everything they are told, and so those guys keep getting elected.
From the article: "the Justice Department argued that terrorists could deploy model rockets to shoot down commercial airliners"
So let me see if I understand this correctly: It's really important that you can get guns and ammunition easily, but model rockets could be used as a weapon, so they shouldn't be allowed. But if they were officially a weapon, then it would be okay.
(Shakes head in bewilderment)
Whereas if you were in the United States, that burglar would probably have a gun.
Excuse me?
Guns in the US are used to murder other Americans, not to rise up against an oppresive government. You just try to use your guns to fight the government and see what happens! You are not allowed to own actual effective weaponry, like, say, private cruise missiles, that could be used to overthrow the government. Nor should you be. In fact, the ability to communicate with whoever you want without surveillance is probably FAR more important to any potential citizen resistance to an oppressive government than handguns are, and you can see which way that right is going.
Why do you kid yourselves?
I just read a very interesting quote: "If Hayden were confirmed, military officers would run all the major spy agencies, from the ultra-secret National Security Agency to the Defense Intelligence Agency. On the one hand, it's fascinating to watch to the US drive over the cliff. On the other hand, it's pretty scary to be in the passenger seat as we are."
Not true. They have patents. Patent applications are not enforceable.
The patents were certainly granted. They may now be invalidated, but that is a second look AFTER the grant.
Yes, you certainly are missing something.
1) RIM developed a communication system.
2) Years later, NTP sent RIM a letter saying "we think you are infringing on one of our 5000 patents."
3) RIM replied, asking "what patent are we infringing?", but got no reply.
4) NTP sued.
5) During the court case, RIM demonstrated prior art. However, on the same computer, there was another program, irrelevant to the demonstration, which was dated later than the patent date, so the demonstration was called "fraud", and RIM was not allowed to repeat the demonstration with that program removed from the computer. Yes, this appears to have been incompetence on the part of someone at RIM setting up the demonstration.
6) RIM and NTP reached a settlement, but for some reason, NTP decided that they could do better. My guess is that the original settlement may have included a requirement to repay some of the money if the patents were eventually invalidated.
7) Under threat of an injunction to shut down US operations, RIM settled again, as the injunction would have taken effect before the patent office was finished with its process.
So, no, it's not just a case of someone getting caught doing something wrong.
I never could understand this. My wife and I saw Ishtar when it came out, and found it hilariously funny. Casting Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman directly contrary to their "usual" types made it all the funnier. Did most people who saw it not have the intelligence to see that it was all tongue-in-cheek?
Sometimes I really wonder about the comments people make about movies and books.
I've seen a discussion about possible future movie versions of the rest of the Chronicles of Narnia, where somebody said that they need to get rid of all the religious allusions.
I saw a discussion of a science fiction novel by Lois McMaster Bujold (I forget the title right now), whose entire THEME was coincidences and whether they were somehow manifestations of supernatural intervention, whose plot hinged on these coincidences and how unlikely they were, yet how they all fit together, and some bright person commented about how he liked the book, but he felt that it just seemed like too much of a coincidence that (some event) and (some other event) both happened to the same person. Well, DUH!
Along the same line, one of my problems with, say, movie adaptations of books, is that sometimes the screenwriter or director or somebody, I don't know who, don't really understand some aspect of the book. There are some changes that need to be made, because movies do much better at portraying things visually, whereas they are much worse than books at other things. For instance, the air raid scene at the beginning of LWW was excellent, and gave background that would not have been necessary in the book. Gollum was great in LOTR. The ideas were preserved, yet presented in perhaps different forms. There are other changes that seem to be made for dramatic effect, yet seem to betray a lack of understanding of the original: In LOTR, the scene where Faramir is tempted by the ring, yet he resists the temptation, commenting about how Frodo is lucky that he is not that kind of person, gets changed in the movie so that Faramir in fact does NOT resist the temptation, and is only stopped by external events. This makes the whole contrast between the characters of the two brothers not make any sense (as it is no longer a contrast), and it makes their father's different feelings about the two of them not make any sense either. So you end up changing what is both an adventure story and a psychological drama into just an adventure story -- you lose a whole level of meaning, unnecessarily.
I can think of more examples, but I think I'd better stop here. Some of the examples that spring to mind, of people missing the whole POINT of something, would be wildly off topic (although, after all, this IS Slashdot) and/or controversial.
"Like it or not, Mr. Bush is dramatically reshaping our world, the nation and -- via tacit support of redistricting -- Texas."
I assume this is a parody site?
I've worked on products that had no OS at all, just a loop that called various functions in sequence. I've worked on products where the company wrote the realtime OS from scratch. I've worked on products where the company used a commercial OS, but bought a source code licence. I've worked on products which used an off-the-shelf Microsoft OS. It all depends on your requirements.
Are there realtime requirements? Do you know what hardware will be used, or will you need to support different kinds of displays, for example? What are the reliability requirements -- will this be used in life-critical applications, or will it be used for games? Will you want to upgrade to the latest version of the OS from time to time, or will you pick a good one and make zillions of copies of your product based on that one version? I'm sure there are other questions you should be asking yourself (help me, fellow Slashdotters).
Figure out your requirements first, then figure out how to meet those requirements. Don't just pick a solution and then try to make it fit.
Thank you for your insightful comment. I agree that it is not very intelligent to form one's opinion about what is going on in the world with information from only one source. I have never, to my recollection, watched Fox News, so I can't really judge it myself, but it certainly doesn't have a reputation of being a useful source in any case (except possibly to find out what Americans are being told).
However, you've totally missed my point. My question was not "Where are the peaceful Muslims?", but rather, "Where are the 10,000-strong demonstrations against Al Quaeda?". The cartoonists drew some pictures which, when you come right down to it, may be offensive but don't actually hurt anyone. Al Quaeda kills people. Which humiliates Mohammed more, someone who draws a caricature of him, or someone who tells the world that he taught his followers to kill innocents? Which is the greater danger to Islam, some nobody who makes fun of the Prophet, or some follower of his who distorts his teachings so criminally?
If there is outrage at the minor thing, why is there no outrage at the major thing? Or, if there is only limited outrage at the major thing, why is there so much outrage at the minor thing?
But I don't think there's much point continuing the discussion in this forum. This is already old, and few people are continuing to follow it.
He did more than call on God to smite his enemies, he called on the U.S. government to assasinate Hugo Chavez, the president of Argentina.
What's your point? I'm sure such cartoons exist, yet the embassies of the countries they come from are not being burned.
Besides, the cartoons in question deal with: terrorism in the name of Islam, the (supposed) position of women in Islam, fear of violence if one draws a picture of Mohammed, people not knowing what Mohammed looked like, the interpretation that the cartoons were a publicity stunt, and a few that I don't get the point of. What would be the point of the cartoon you suggest? It sounds like it would be for the SOLE PURPOSE of offending people, and I'm not completely convinced that that's what the Mohammed cartoons were meant for. Then again, maybe they were. I'm not sure if anybody is completely innocent here.
I think, however, it's not just a matter of "guilt by association". The Islamic terrorists are not just terrorists who happen to be Muslim, they are people who are doing what they do IN THE NAME OF ISLAM, which is why it's very important for other Muslims to contradict them publicly. Unless, of course, you think that they are accurately interpreting the teachings of the Prophet, which is what the world will assume you think unless you speak up.
As has been pointed out elsewhere in this thread, Muslims ARE speaking out about this, just not being covered by the mainstream media. But it does seem odd that SO MANY people are demonstrating angrily because cartoonists showed on paper what Bin Ladin and friends showed by their actions, yet the latter do not seem to be getting anywhere near the same scale of reaction.
Somebody has written that this is because Muslims in, say, Turkey, do not attach any particular importance to the fact that Bin Ladin and friends are Muslim, whereas caricatures of the Prophet do affect their religion. They seem not to realize that, to the rest of the world, unless they are contradicted by other Muslims, Bin Ladin and friends DO appear to speak for Islam. They are not only killing innocent people, THEY ARE TELLING THE WORLD THAT ISLAM TEACHES TO KILL INNOCENT PEOPLE. And if Muslims do not care about that, why in the world should they care about what some cartoonists in Denmark draw?
The answer appears to be that they are both there, but get no media coverage.
I am totally against Bush's adventures in the Middle East. I am totally against Bush's budget priorities of increasing military spending and giving tax breaks to the wealthy while CUTTING spending on, for example, health care for poor Americans. I think Bush's use of religious language and imagery to justify these sorts of things at least borders on blasphemy.
But I am not an American, and I don't live in the USA. I do support my own government's position on these matters.
I'm not sure if you actually want an answer to that, but I'd like to give one just for the record.
The way *I* understand it (i.e. I'm not speaking for anyone else), the Bible is a collection of separate writings that were written over the course of about 1000 years, and some of which were based on oral traditions that were even older than that. The Bible documents historical events from one (or sometimes more) point of view. It contains legal codes from more than two thousand years ago. It contains poetry about human nature and about themes related to being a human being in ANY time or place. It contains advice worth pondering, even if it is not necessarily to be taken in a particular circumstance. It expresses religious principles as spoken by people who claimed to be speaking for God. It contains inspirational stories, other stories that we can learn from the mistakes of, and others that just seem quaint. It contains people's writings about how to live, about the meaning of life, about the hopes and dreams of a people. It contains many different kinds of things, as might be expected of a collection of many people's writings over a thousand years.
Reading and thinking about these things can help us understand ourselves and other people. It can help us form our concepts of what is important, what is good, what justice demands, what God wants of us in our lives. It can give us perspective, a different perspective than we get from contemporary media. And so, by means of these records of different people's understanding of God, God can work in us.
The Bible is neither a literal recording of how the world was created, nor a lawbook telling us what our current laws should be. However, reading the LEGENDS of how the world was created, and THINKING about the laws of 3000 years ago, can give us insights that can help us right now.
I should point out that fundamentalist Christians do NOT (in general) see the Bible that way, and Muslims definitely do not see the Koran that way. However, contrary to what the US mainstream media might make you believe, most Christians are not fundamentalists.
I am greatly encouraged by all the responses to my post, pointing out that there IS widespread Muslim opposition to violence.
A number of years ago, my wife participated in a Toronto city-wide demonstration which, she says, was very much like a picnic. It was completely peaceful and friendly. Many people were there with their children. There was no violence AT ALL, nor any suggestion of it. But somewhere in the city, there was a confrontation, and somebody punched somebody else. Guess what was on the front page of every Toronto newspaper and leading the evening news on TV? So, yes, I believe what you say about the bias of the media.
I'm also glad that there IS a Christian voice that opposes the message given by the segment of the population who is in power in the USA, and that it is getting increasing press coverage. But yes, if I didn't know where to look, I might indeed think that Jesus was as you say. (I'm still amazed by people who are pro-death-penalty and pro-war but have the nerve to call themselves pro-life, but that's a different issue to be debated another time.)
THANK YOU!
So where are the demonstrations by the rest of them? Why are they silent?