I think that the heart of the argument (as flawed as it is) is that both Hitler and Bush came to power via democratic institutions.
That having been said, It could also be argued that both got into power via the subversion of democratic institutions, rather than in a clean electoral process -- That is where the similarity ends.
Hitler got into power by, among other things, subversion violence and threats behind the scenes, after an election which gave him nowhere near a majority.
Bush (who'se GF was a hitler supporter, BTW) got in by the skin of his electoral teeth, and on the backs of some serious statistical anomalies.
Chavez won a reasonably clean election with a very clear majority (almost 2/3 of the vote).
It's fine to cite Hitler, but make sure that you get the context and the facts clear.
Taking over companies isn't anti-democratic. It may be anti-capitalist (unless you do it like Microsoft), but it's got little (if anything) to do with democracy.
As for shutting down 'the press', a number of media entities have been pushing for the overthrow of the government by force, and even contributed to the attempted coup in (2002, was it?). It was the worst of these that were (AFIK) shut down.
Press, or not, I would consider advocating, and then participating in a coup attempt against a democratically elected government (with 60%+ support by the populace) to be far more undemocratic than shutting down openly traitorous entities (press, or otherwise).
'Freedom of the press' does not (and will not) cover treason in any sane democracy that I know of (( pretty much by definition )).
For fuck sake people, everyone you dislike is NOT a terrorist. Well, I think that that's the point of the GGP post.
It was actually meant as a joke.
The US government is really serious about convincing people that anybody that they don't like is "a terrorist".
The reason for justify calling someone a terrorist is that it can be used to justify just about any action against that group (and their friends).. and even
'collateral damage' like infringing the civil rights of innocent civilians.
... and, yeah, it's all bullshit.
A really good example of 'tagging' someone as evil, is the way that they've been slagging the Chavez government of Venezuela for being a 'un/anti-democratic regime' despite the fact that he has been elected twice (in acceptedly clean elections) -- with a 62.84% majority in his second election, and even put up with a mid-term referendum on whether he should step down (one could only pray that Bush and his cronies would be so kind).
Having successfully tagged him as anti-democratic (and pro-terror (??!)), Bush has now taken this as an excuse to do things like impose a military embargo.
So, I think it's a good thing to try and destroy the implication of (now) arbitrary tags like 'terrorist' and 'anti-democratic'.
The problem is that if I can figure out what your brother's platoon is doing during peacetime maneuvers, I can figure out what they're doing when they're doing wartime maneuvers against my country's platoon.
But don't worry. They won't be doing those maneuvers for long.
About the only way that you're likely to read it that way is if you take that sentence in isolation from the previous one about Microsoft's approach.
Microsoft programs such as Windows or Office run on proprietary source software, meaning the underlying computer code is restricted and guarded by patent and other intellectual property protections.
Open-source software such as Linux, on the other hand, encourages individuals to add to or modify the software without fear of legal repercussions, so long as they abide by the conditions of the general public licence, which stipulates that the program must remain open and sharable.
It's a comparative description.
I.e. unlike Microsoft's software which has EULAs that ban you from figuring out why it's broken, GPL software goes so far as to even encourage you to not only figure out what's wrong with it, but even download the source code, fix it and distribute the fixes you made.
I clearly read the "without fear of legal repercussions" to apply to threats from the originators of the GPL code, not some magical protection from being charged with murder because you used some GPL robotics code to make your robot kill your ex.
The Patent for those records would have expired right around 1933. The resulting destabilizeation of the economy is what really caused the Black Friday market crash and the
'dirty thirties'. My friend from the RIAA just told me so.
Linux switch causes 800% increase in information requests.
"Since the switchover", Gregg Ferrie, manager of information technology for the district said, "requests have gone from almost Nothing to a regular occurrence". "Sometimes we can barely keep up with the requests," he continues. "This was something we weren't expecting".
It's not like there weren't early signs of trouble though. The IT Staff revolt was so severe at one point, The district paid $25,000 Canadian to bring in a trainer for two weeks -- just to prevent massive resignations in the department, and slow down the union grievances.
The effect that the change from Windows to Linux would have on the people was underestimated. Senior manager Gregg Ferrie, looks back on the problems of the switchover: "We were dealing with people, not machines," he said, "and one lesson I learned is that people are still the biggest component, and you've got to engage them. In all fairness, we were asking them to do a lot."
Just one recent step in the switchover cost the small school district more than $45,000, and that's money that the district can ill afford. "Every penny counts", said Ferrie.
The problems with these systems have nothing to do with the consumer-experience-enhancing DRM software installed in Vista. We will sue anybody who says otherwise.
The real reason why is that Malware purveyors know good software when they see it and, thus, they prefer to use Microsoft software.
That's my story, and I'm sticking to it!
This bodes well for the guy who's suing Dell over the claim that they gave him a computer so broken that he couldn't even read the Adhesion contract that supposedly took away his right to go to court.
Nah. They're afraid that publicly declaring a conversation a dupe is a violation of Microsoft's IP (since they make extensive use of dupes), and so they've removed the reference from their website to avoid a lawsuit.
I'm not sure that that many Americans would actually cheer Bush's assassination. I can, however, see a large, collective sigh of relief. Unfortunately, It's quite possible that that sigh might be short-lived. I'm not at all convinced that 'shure-shot' Cheney would make a much better president than Bush. On the (somewhat) bright side, I doubt that he could be much worse.
Linux improves so fast because if there's an itch, I don't have to wait for some giant corporate bheomoth to change it for me. I can make the fix and contribute it to the commons. (and I've had a couple of (small) changes that I've made added to the pool).
The really nice thing about Linux is that, if linux (or any of the big distributors) works hard enough at ignoring what the people want (especially if the want it enough to implement the fix themselves), there's always the threat of a fork.
Microsoft says "well, if you don't like it you can always write your own". Linux actually gives you the tools to do just that.
Take for example Excel 2003 (not really OS but still related in the menu structure)
If you open a CSV file and add formulas and formatting, and then save it will warn you that if you save as a CSV it won't of course save the the formatting and formulas and asks if you are sure you want to save the file as CSV format. Actually, Excel will give you that warning even if you don't change the contents of the file.
It will also give you that warning if you store the file in a format completely capable of storing the changes you made (like making row one bold, or just adding 2 numbers).
The conspiracy theorist in me concludes that this is more about discouraging users from using portable formats than really protecting them.
Things like RCS are good when you want it, but forcing (or even pushing) a user into formats (s)he doesn't want isn't user friendly. Sometimes I want CSV, and when I want CSV, that is what I want. Let me have that, and leave me alone. I'm fine with a warning (as long as I can turn it off), but if you keep hounding me to save in SgR format, one day I'm gonna hunt you down and fry your ass.
This kind of thinking is what Microsoft uses to justify forcing people to write their CDs in a non-portable format , not offering backwards compatible formats for their Office applications (unless their monopoly is being threatened by the likes of Open Office), and beating you over the head if you want to use a format other than their blessed (and ever-changing).doc format.
Putting a ring through your users' nose, and forcing them to walk a specific path just because you think they should isn't being user friendly. It's being intolerant.
Let the users do what they want to do. Give them the choice to protect themselves, but if they really don't want it, don't presume to know what they want better than they do.
or as my great aunt once told my mom (when she was young)
I say you're tired, and if I say you're tired, then you're tired.
(( My mother, at least, was more honest. She'd explain that I needed some rest, and she needed some time to herself. That, at least, made some sense to me. ))
This is not to say it's nothing, but it doesn't by itself mean that the
company is going down in flames. True. But in this case, the company *is* going down in flames, and the gunners that shot it down are getting more hits on (what's left of) the flaming fuselage as it gets closer to the (eagerly awaiting) ground.
SCO has poison pill provisions which mean that, if you buy out the company, Darl, his partners in crime and BSF get oodles of money. Then, when IBM finally wins the lawsuit and goes after the executive and board, they find you holding an axe. It won't do either you or IBM any good.
At this point, the best thing to do is allow IBM and Novell to beat the company into a whimpering pulp and then (hopefully) go after the executives and BSF for the blood money that is no longer in the company.
A Gallon of biodiesel or a gallon of ground diesel will both produce the same poundage of CO2 in similar engines over similar distances. Biodesil can be worse than ground diesel, in this respect, if you are also doing something stupid like growing corn and using it just to make biodiesel. The reason why is that so much oil and pesticides go into growing something like corn that, when you burn a gallon of corn-grown diesel, you're actually responsible for putting almost (and sometimes more than a gallon's worth of CO2 into the atmosphere.
(ground diesel also has a similar effect -- just not as bad as corn diesel).
Where Biodiesel can claim to be.... well, not really good for the environment, but at least not as bad as ground diesel,... is when you use waste products like restaurant grease as the feedstock. At least, then, you're using something that would otherwise end up in a landfill or our water supply. It still doesn't do much to solve the global warming problem, but at least it helps somewhere.
The only problem with that is, if you use only the documented APIs, then Microsoft products (which use the undocumented APIs which sometimes produce much faster/prettier results) are going to eat you for lunch.
Yep. Naming is everything. A 'development box' that runs Solaris/X86, has a monitor and keyboard would probably cost you about $200 less than a second desktop. It would make you more productive, and wouldn't require you to dual-boot the Wintendos box or anything stupid like that..... and it "is not a desktop". Only Windows and Mac boxes are desktops (nudge, nudge, wink, wink).
In the alternative, you could just get the box without keyboard and mouse and pay $80 for a KVM switch. That'll confuse the bureaucrats even more.
You can always sue them for slander and defamation. A proper DMCA notice requires that they say that they are the legal copyright holder and that the posting is a violation of their copyright rights. If that's not true, then you can sue them for making a false statement that causes you problems.
Slashdot Mirror
That having been said, It could also be argued that both got into power via the subversion of democratic institutions, rather than in a clean electoral process -- That is where the similarity ends.
- Hitler got into power by, among other things, subversion violence and threats behind the scenes, after an election which gave him nowhere near a majority.
- Bush (who'se GF was a hitler supporter, BTW) got in by the skin of his electoral teeth, and on the backs of some serious statistical anomalies.
- Chavez won a reasonably clean election with a very clear majority (almost 2/3 of the vote).
It's fine to cite Hitler, but make sure that you get the context and the facts clear.As for shutting down 'the press', a number of media entities have been pushing for the overthrow of the government by force, and even contributed to the attempted coup in (2002, was it?). It was the worst of these that were (AFIK) shut down.
Press, or not, I would consider advocating, and then participating in a coup attempt against a democratically elected government (with 60%+ support by the populace) to be far more undemocratic than shutting down openly traitorous entities (press, or otherwise).
'Freedom of the press' does not (and will not) cover treason in any sane democracy that I know of (( pretty much by definition )).
Obviously they're not fully backwards-compatible, hardware wise, or they'd also be asking for Lisa addresses..
- It was actually meant as a joke.
- The US government is really serious about convincing people that anybody that they don't like is "a terrorist".
- The reason for justify calling someone a terrorist is that it can be used to justify just about any action against that group (and their friends)
.. and even
'collateral damage' like infringing the civil rights of innocent civilians.
... and, yeah, it's all bullshit.
A really good example of 'tagging' someone as evil, is the way that they've been slagging the Chavez government of Venezuela for being a 'un/anti-democratic regime' despite the fact that he has been elected twice (in acceptedly clean elections) -- with a 62.84% majority in his second election, and even put up with a mid-term referendum on whether he should step down (one could only pray that Bush and his cronies would be so kind).Having successfully tagged him as anti-democratic (and pro-terror (??!)), Bush has now taken this as an excuse to do things like impose a military embargo.
So, I think it's a good thing to try and destroy the implication of (now) arbitrary tags like 'terrorist' and 'anti-democratic'.
But don't worry. They won't be doing those maneuvers for long.
I.e. unlike Microsoft's software which has EULAs that ban you from figuring out why it's broken, GPL software goes so far as to even encourage you to not only figure out what's wrong with it, but even download the source code, fix it and distribute the fixes you made.
I clearly read the "without fear of legal repercussions" to apply to threats from the originators of the GPL code, not some magical protection from being charged with murder because you used some GPL robotics code to make your robot kill your ex.
The Patent for those records would have expired right around 1933. The resulting destabilizeation of the economy is what really caused the Black Friday market crash and the 'dirty thirties'. My friend from the RIAA just told me so.
I just got the message. I'm on my way to the Lotto store now.
"Since the switchover", Gregg Ferrie, manager of information technology for the district said, "requests have gone from almost Nothing to a regular occurrence". "Sometimes we can barely keep up with the requests," he continues. "This was something we weren't expecting".
It's not like there weren't early signs of trouble though. The IT Staff revolt was so severe at one point, The district paid $25,000 Canadian to bring in a trainer for two weeks -- just to prevent massive resignations in the department, and slow down the union grievances. The effect that the change from Windows to Linux would have on the people was underestimated. Senior manager Gregg Ferrie, looks back on the problems of the switchover: "We were dealing with people, not machines," he said, "and one lesson I learned is that people are still the biggest component, and you've got to engage them. In all fairness, we were asking them to do a lot."
Just one recent step in the switchover cost the small school district more than $45,000, and that's money that the district can ill afford. "Every penny counts", said Ferrie.
So there.
Er, um, They're all the same ... and they'll all get strung up after the revolution.
The problems with these systems have nothing to do with the consumer-experience-enhancing DRM software installed in Vista. We will sue anybody who says otherwise.
This bodes well for the guy who's suing Dell over the claim that they gave him a computer so broken that he couldn't even read the Adhesion contract that supposedly took away his right to go to court.
Nah. They're afraid that publicly declaring a conversation a dupe is a violation of Microsoft's IP (since they make extensive use of dupes), and so they've removed the reference from their website to avoid a lawsuit.
I'm not sure that that many Americans would actually cheer Bush's assassination. I can, however, see a large, collective sigh of relief. Unfortunately, It's quite possible that that sigh might be short-lived. I'm not at all convinced that 'shure-shot' Cheney would make a much better president than Bush. On the (somewhat) bright side, I doubt that he could be much worse.
The really nice thing about Linux is that, if linux (or any of the big distributors) works hard enough at ignoring what the people want (especially if the want it enough to implement the fix themselves), there's always the threat of a fork.
Microsoft says "well, if you don't like it you can always write your own". Linux actually gives you the tools to do just that.
If you open a CSV file and add formulas and formatting, and then save it will warn you that if you save as a CSV it won't of course save the the formatting and formulas and asks if you are sure you want to save the file as CSV format. Actually, Excel will give you that warning even if you don't change the contents of the file.
It will also give you that warning if you store the file in a format completely capable of storing the changes you made (like making row one bold, or just adding 2 numbers).
The conspiracy theorist in me concludes that this is more about discouraging users from using portable formats than really protecting them.
This kind of thinking is what Microsoft uses to justify forcing people to write their CDs in a non-portable format , not offering backwards compatible formats for their Office applications (unless their monopoly is being threatened by the likes of Open Office), and beating you over the head if you want to use a format other than their blessed (and ever-changing) .doc format.
Putting a ring through your users' nose, and forcing them to walk a specific path just because you think they should isn't being user friendly. It's being intolerant.
Let the users do what they want to do. Give them the choice to protect themselves, but if they really don't want it, don't presume to know what they want better than they do.
or as my great aunt once told my mom (when she was young)
(( My mother, at least, was more honest. She'd explain that I needed some rest, and she needed some time to herself. That, at least, made some sense to me. ))At this point, the best thing to do is allow IBM and Novell to beat the company into a whimpering pulp and then (hopefully) go after the executives and BSF for the blood money that is no longer in the company.
(ground diesel also has a similar effect -- just not as bad as corn diesel).
Where Biodiesel can claim to be .... well, not really good for the environment, but at least not as bad as ground diesel, ... is when you use waste products like restaurant grease as the feedstock. At least, then, you're using something that would otherwise end up in a landfill or our water supply. It still doesn't do much to solve the global warming problem, but at least it helps somewhere.
The only problem with that is, if you use only the documented APIs, then Microsoft products (which use the undocumented APIs which sometimes produce much faster/prettier results) are going to eat you for lunch.
In the alternative, you could just get the box without keyboard and mouse and pay $80 for a KVM switch. That'll confuse the bureaucrats even more.
You can always sue them for slander and defamation. A proper DMCA notice requires that they say that they are the legal copyright holder and that the posting is a violation of their copyright rights. If that's not true, then you can sue them for making a false statement that causes you problems.