In any case, it will do you no good to use CORBA as it is today. Instead, use a dynamic, high-level language for user-level functionality, and just let applications people deal with objects in the language's natural idiom, making no syntactic distinction between "local" and "remote" objects.
CORBA is already location transparent (that's how GNOME works), it's been around forever, used a lot, and carefully maintained. I would suggest going with CORBA as opposed to creating Yet Another custom inter-process communication mechanism. CORBA already lets's applications deal with CORBA objects as if they were normal objects in the language's syntax...that's what bindings are for.
I'm less paranoid than I should be. The media does control the "collective unconscious" as you put it...or at least those who watch that mind and soul sucking marketing tool called television. What do you eat? What do you wear? What do you like? What do you feel about other people? Hell, what is your perception of politics and candidates? If you are not careful the media is there is insert all these perceptions for you. Of course I'm not saying it's a conspiracy, but the media cater to the lowest common denominator, and those in control of the media *can* control what people think and feel (that at least should be obvious). But enough from me, I have to take my three medications to relieve my allergies, headaches, and panic attacks so I can search for information on that great new car I need, purchase one of Oprah's books of the week, and get that great body that I've always dreamt about.
Look, we're a *nation* (talking about US here). It is ludicrous that everybody should just make up their own local governments. Sounds great on paper, but tell me, how do we handle international trade, and law? How do we decide foreign policy, let along domestic? How do we even ensure the constitution is being respected, which is at least the essential function of the federal government anyway? Sorry, I don't want to live in some balkanized confederation. The US hasn't been a confederation in a long time, and amen. I want the same rights in California that I do in New York. I also want goods and services to be about the same, and I want public services to be available. There is simply a mandate for federal government of *some* type. Now, sure, we can trim down government to get it out of our business, but there has to be some (theoretically neutral) party to ensure the constitution is being abided by. If we don't have a federal government we might as well not even be a nation and just dissolve into seperate nation-states or something.
Well, the way they suggest helping the poor is basically through charity (unless I'm mistaken). It is my opinion that instead of designing a system that enables wild extremes of wealth and then "hoping" the wealthy give some back to the poor, we should design the system so that there aren't such wild extremes in the first place. I don't care what you think, Bill Gates is not ($4 billion / ~$28,000) times a better human than the average person. Sure the system is broken now. That's not an excuse to do *nothing*.
I also challenge the view that government is the wolf itself. Sure government can be corrupted (um, for instance by billions of corporate dollars). Remember this thing called "government" is what we created to get out of the "natural state", that we all agreed in the 1800's was no good. What we need to do is fix the system, and enact barriers to corrupting influence (for one, strike down the law that makes corporations full-fledged citizens, that's just bullshit; and two, publicly finance elections - no PAC money...both positions Nader is taking). Removing the system because you think that order is inherently evil will just land you back in the "natural state". Fortunate for some of the people who espouse this, this is exactly where they want to be.
Oh, yeah? What "long-haired hippy" chose Windows 2000 + IIS for Bush? The answer is none. A suit with money coming out his pores probably did. And that does shed a light on Bush: he's a fortunate son of an oil tycoon.
There are many dimensions to political view. I think two of the major ones are liberal/conservative, and then libertarian/authoritarian. Most geeks would have a libertarian streak to them, but that does not really dictate whether they are liberal or conservative...for instance, I'm a libertarian liberal.
A few people have mentioned that they think voting for a minority candidate is a "waste": not so. Visible support for a minority candidate causes the majority candidates to shift policy in the hope of preventing too great a vote loss.
No joke. Remember, Bush is a "Reformer with Results", and Gore is now co-opting Nader's anti-corporation stance to help stanch the bleeding of liberal votes. If anything, voting your conscience makes the other two parties move to accomodate you (which they are all too willing to do, they'll accomodate any vote they can, which is why they're both drifting towards the center. Around 2012 we should have a merged Republicrat party whose logo is an animal with an elephant and donkey's head coming out both of its asses).
OOPS...did I say recording industry redefining free speech...I should've said instead infringing on consumer rights. MPAA is the one challenging DeCSS (although the digital audio cases will have bearing on free speech also).
Sorry, slip of the tongue (it would really be nice if slashdot allowed editing of messages).
I think the most pressing issue these days is the effect corporate power has on the political system. Look at any of the recent online/computing/internet issues and they all lead back to massive corporate power controlling government, whether it is the MPAA raiding a kid in Norway, the recording industry redefining freedom of speech, or Microsoft slapping on huge premiums and entering into illicit anti-competitive dealings with computer manufacturers. I've traced these issues back to inordinate corporate power corrupting politics...and when I got there, I realized that it was the foundation of many other non-computer/internet related issues. The fact is that until the system is reformed, and special interests removed, the system is NEVER going to work for any of us. It won't work for us geeks, it won't work for anybody. So that is why I'm voting for Nader. Both of the other candidates talk a good talk, but they won't walk the walk. They are both funded by hundreds of millions of dollars from PACs, corporations, and special interests. How much money did you donate to them? Do you think you could possibly compare to the influence bought by those hundreds of millions?
Where Nader strays from my beliefs (well, it so happens he doesn't, but let's just make a hypothetical), he makes up for it and more for being the only one with genuine integrity and passion for fixing the system, and for allowing it to work the way it was meant. I have faith that when the system is fixed and people can have their voices heard, things will be better all around, even though there are those with opinions that run counter to mine. This is the basic premise of free speech: allow everyone to talk, and the good of the whole will eventually outweighs any bad of the parts.
Please open up the debates (http://www.debatethis.org/), and give all candidates a voice. Americans deserve more than just two choices.
And if you want anecdotal evidence of character of the candidates' just check http://www.netcraft.com/whats/ to see what they're running (Bush runs Windows 2000 + IIS, Nader runs BSD/OS + Apache...I find that rather indicative).
Once populations got past a certain size, pure democracies stopped working, and republics had to be set up where people elect delegates to represent them, and these delegates in turn vote on the issues. Of course with this came greater opportunity for corruption, with candidates pandering during election time, and doing whatever they wanted while in office, relying on the power of their office, media control and spindoctoring to slide through. For a long time the excuse has been that since pure democracy is impossible, that these are just the evils we have to live with for the next best thing. However, I can see the internet enabling a pure democracy. Imagine instead of relying on mr. politician up on capitol hill, hoping that he votes in line with your opinion, hoping that PAC money isn't coloring his vote, knowing that there is pretty much nothing you can do about it if he doesn't (until the next election when you'll again have to choose the lesser of two evils), that you just sit down at your computer (or at some public voting facility) and vote *directly*. I do not believe the amount of bills Congress votes on (or your local government for that matter) is too large for the average citizen to handle. For instance, in California, as far as I understand, they have public voting on individual issues. Imagine, in a matter of a few hours, the consensus of the nation could be tapped...instead of each special interest buying chunks of media to feed a perception to the populace, then waiting then rehashing all over again. Think of all the hotbutton topics...you have a poll *blam* there you go - irrefutable, discussion over. Of course there are the technical and logistical issues, but I think these can be surmounted. I'm just talking about an ideal situation here, but I would love to just be able to come home, have dinner, and spend 15 minutes casting my vote on the issues that mattered to me (not to say that 15 minutes would be the only time I thought about these), and feel good fulfilling my responsibility as a citizen, rather than waste years filtering out media noise just to vote for the candidate that will screw me less hard.
Of course for a democracy of any kind to work, citizens must be informed (witness our own democracy). But I have faith that populism will create better citizens - give people a reason to care, and they will.
I think they bought that technology from Norton utilities. At least at one point the two looked almost identical. With the latest NT-based windows they just rely on DiskKeeper (they bought the it to put in the Windows 2000 defrag).
Or set the default to images off. Have a notice saying that images are off by default and you can turn them on at your own "risk". If people turn them on they accept the risk of what they might see. Have some inactivity timeout that sets the default back and forces them to log back in (hit an OK button or something).
Of course the other solution is for parents to supervise their kids and not let them run around in laundromats looking for porn.
This is what Gene Kan of Gnutella was talking about in the "Future of Digital Music" hearing I believe: incentivizing "pirates" to create new legitimate business models. Well here's one. A virtualization of the street performer's protocol. Think of a street performer: some people walk by and drop a coin in a hat, others do nothing, thereby technically "pirating" the performer's music without compensation. The recording industry's answer is to jail everybody who doesn't pay, or create some cumbersome locks on the music so that nobody will want to even listen to it, and the whole business is driven away and dissolves. A protocol like this recognizes that some people *won't* pay, but those with a good heart will. I recognizes you simply can't *stop* people from not paying, but you *can* make it easy for those who want to.
Even better, this money goes *right* to the artist (sounds like it at least) circumventing every middle-man down the line slicing his share off. I think this could turn the tables so that now *artists* are in control, and instead pay for the services of the recording industry.
A lot of this is the patent office's fault in the first place by setting precedent for idiotic patents. I'm sure a lot of companies patent things that are just ridiculous just because if they don't do it first their competitor will. Hey, how about taking just a little bit of my tax money that goes to corporate subsidies and actual employ some sentient people in the patent office?
Well, let's not all go home *just* yet. I don't think this really fixes anything. They fundamental system is *still* backwards. Artists may get their copyright back in 35 years. How *generous*. I don't see artists as 8 to 5 employees clocking in and out. IMO artists create, and own, their music and they should be in control of it. They should be using the *services* the recording industry provides. Not the other way around: the recording industry exploiting the "services" of a labor group of artists. Labels provide a service to artists: studio stuff, equipment, marketing, distribution. At least two of those can happen online or done individually. Labels should now be competing on terms of their service, not artists competing with each other to see who gets to be exploited.
Well I think a lot of people on the net have a libertarian streak, as I do. But I part with pure libertarianism when it approaches plain irresponsibility. I think taken to the extreme (anarchy), pure libertarianism is just replicating the "natural state" we form governments to avoid in the first place. The next best thing, libertarianism in the form of citizen, consumer, and labor rights, and removal of big business influence over government and policy, but not forgetting a few fundamental responsibilities we do have to each other as a nation (respecting commonly owned property, like the air, water, etc., basic guidelines for products and services, fraud, etc.), is Nader and the Green party.
Well at least it was under the guise of "national security" and protecting the world. Now it is just about who can patent what gene or chemical or process the fastest and market it. I think a lot of that could be considered typical "public domain" work that universities used to do.
The only thing that is surprising about this "corporatization" is that people are surprised. Big corporations feed the media, and the media in the hands of a precious few own a monopoly on perception. Here is just one example: the presidential debates, the single most important deciding factor of the next leader of the last superpower of the western world is funded by tax-deductable donations from corporations like Anheuser-Busch, and AT&T (and previously Philip Morris), and controlled by a commission run by Republicans and Democrats funded by big corporations, which virtually sprung up overnight to impose an arbitrary and artificially high 15% barrier to entry (3 times the threshhold for federal matching funds). History showed us what effect this can have: Ross Perot, whom one out of five Americans (~19%) voted for in '92, was reduced to 8% after being refused admission for the presidential debates in '96. And Perot also had billions of his own money he could spend to fight the system in the first place.
"Grilled tenderloin for fundraiser: $1,000 a plate. Campaign ads filled with half-truths: Over $10 billion. Finding out the truth: Priceless."
"to use the oft cited collolary - books - if a books is out-of-print, do you as a public citizen have the right to make copies for people?"
Yup. It's called public domain. After a certain (currently inordinately long) time, the public does have the right to do these things, whether or not other people are making profit from it. It becomes even more suspicious if *nobody* is currently making profit or attempting to make profit, or even supporting in any manner the items. Even *more* so with software because the lifetime of a piece of software is *years* not decades or centuries, like books, etc.
In any case pirates don't copy games. They roam the seas steal loot, bury it, and kill people. Pirate is a loaded word that doesn't make sense in digital copying. Digital copying does not "deprive" the originator of the work, and is not stealing per se. That is not to say it is good or legal, but that it means something different with respect to digital, conceptual, and other non-tangible things. See the FSF and Jefferson's opinion on this.
Well I'm a Java "enterprise" programmer by day, which basically means I work on middleware implemented in Java (CORBA, RMI, messaging, database access, etc.). It is pretty heavily OO. While the gui libraries may be bloated, and you may think they are over-designed (well, what do you expect for a *completely* cross-platform gui), I think Java in general has pretty much fulfilled it's promise of being lightweight, robust, reliable, and cross-platform. Those benefits far outweigh any apocryphal "bloat" or abuse of OO. Of course OO is not a silver bullet, and I think only OO bigots would claim that. OO is a concept and a tool and like any other can be abused for the worse. Perhaps worse than that, since it is a complicated area with many subtleties, novices can easily munge things and come up with something much worse than what they could have with a non-OO language. OO requires understanding and discipline as with anything, and it should not be used as a panacea. It should be used for what it is good for: designing complex systems, on a high level, with robustness and reliability. OO is not for hello world.
By the way, I don't know if you'd call us a "shop" (we're a "middleware"ish dept of the IT dept of a university), but we have gone pretty much entirely to CORBA and Java and other departments describe us as completing miracles weekly. All our new applications (both end-user, and "internal") are entirely Java, and communicate with CORBA/Java middleware which in turn hits the back end. It's scalable and robust.
I'm reading the NPPA site and the light cast on Peltier is looking worse and worse. However I still reserver a healthy skepticism of the FBI's and government's behavior in the case. I'm still trying to hunt down real court transcripts...
What am I taking at face value - that the alleged "most glaring mistake" in the article doesn't exist? That's a fact.
Casados has a red pickup with a white tent top on the back. I can see that as being described as a "red and white vehicle". A "pickup", not van, was also seen leaving the scene. Unless the agents specified a red and white van, which I haven't read anywhere, I can see them following Casados's truck. Why does that matter? Because that is at least one point that prosecution is using to tie Peltier to the scene, and as one of the people who stepped out and fired.
That there was testimony from multiple eyewitnesses, not from a single mentally unstable woman? You sure backed down from that assertion quick enough.
I don't back down. There were allegations of coercion of witnesses which I don't entirely disbelieve. Anderson indicated he was coerced and from what I've read Long Visitor identified three people who got out of the red and white vehicle, not including Peltier, and then later saw Peltier leaving.
Peltier told the RCMP officer who arrested him in Canada that he shot the agents.
To my knowledge Peltier has said that he shot *at* the agents, and also said that one point in time he saw the bodies of the agents. I'll have to find out if he actually explicitly stated he committed the two murders.
Slashdot Mirror
I know...and what about applied materials research just to "keep things real".
CORBA is already location transparent (that's how GNOME works), it's been around forever, used a lot, and carefully maintained. I would suggest going with CORBA as opposed to creating Yet Another custom inter-process communication mechanism. CORBA already lets's applications deal with CORBA objects as if they were normal objects in the language's syntax...that's what bindings are for.
My plain old text documents are compatible with every word processor. And my HTML slides are pretty much compatible with every browser.
I'm less paranoid than I should be. The media does control the "collective unconscious" as you put it...or at least those who watch that mind and soul sucking marketing tool called television. What do you eat? What do you wear? What do you like? What do you feel about other people? Hell, what is your perception of politics and candidates? If you are not careful the media is there is insert all these perceptions for you. Of course I'm not saying it's a conspiracy, but the media cater to the lowest common denominator, and those in control of the media *can* control what people think and feel (that at least should be obvious). But enough from me, I have to take my three medications to relieve my allergies, headaches, and panic attacks so I can search for information on that great new car I need, purchase one of Oprah's books of the week, and get that great body that I've always dreamt about.
Look, we're a *nation* (talking about US here). It is ludicrous that everybody should just make up their own local governments. Sounds great on paper, but tell me, how do we handle international trade, and law? How do we decide foreign policy, let along domestic? How do we even ensure the constitution is being respected, which is at least the essential function of the federal government anyway? Sorry, I don't want to live in some balkanized confederation. The US hasn't been a confederation in a long time, and amen. I want the same rights in California that I do in New York. I also want goods and services to be about the same, and I want public services to be available. There is simply a mandate for federal government of *some* type. Now, sure, we can trim down government to get it out of our business, but there has to be some (theoretically neutral) party to ensure the constitution is being abided by. If we don't have a federal government we might as well not even be a nation and just dissolve into seperate nation-states or something.
Well, the way they suggest helping the poor is basically through charity (unless I'm mistaken). It is my opinion that instead of designing a system that enables wild extremes of wealth and then "hoping" the wealthy give some back to the poor, we should design the system so that there aren't such wild extremes in the first place. I don't care what you think, Bill Gates is not ($4 billion / ~$28,000) times a better human than the average person. Sure the system is broken now. That's not an excuse to do *nothing*.
I also challenge the view that government is the wolf itself. Sure government can be corrupted (um, for instance by billions of corporate dollars). Remember this thing called "government" is what we created to get out of the "natural state", that we all agreed in the 1800's was no good. What we need to do is fix the system, and enact barriers to corrupting influence (for one, strike down the law that makes corporations full-fledged citizens, that's just bullshit; and two, publicly finance elections - no PAC money...both positions Nader is taking). Removing the system because you think that order is inherently evil will just land you back in the "natural state". Fortunate for some of the people who espouse this, this is exactly where they want to be.
Oh, yeah? What "long-haired hippy" chose Windows 2000 + IIS for Bush? The answer is none. A suit with money coming out his pores probably did. And that does shed a light on Bush: he's a fortunate son of an oil tycoon.
There are many dimensions to political view. I think two of the major ones are liberal/conservative, and then libertarian/authoritarian. Most geeks would have a libertarian streak to them, but that does not really dictate whether they are liberal or conservative...for instance, I'm a libertarian liberal.
see: http://www.self-gov.org/quiz.html
No joke. Remember, Bush is a "Reformer with Results", and Gore is now co-opting Nader's anti-corporation stance to help stanch the bleeding of liberal votes. If anything, voting your conscience makes the other two parties move to accomodate you (which they are all too willing to do, they'll accomodate any vote they can, which is why they're both drifting towards the center. Around 2012 we should have a merged Republicrat party whose logo is an animal with an elephant and donkey's head coming out both of its asses).
OOPS...did I say recording industry redefining free speech...I should've said instead infringing on consumer rights. MPAA is the one challenging DeCSS (although the digital audio cases will have bearing on free speech also).
Sorry, slip of the tongue (it would really be nice if slashdot allowed editing of messages).
I think the most pressing issue these days is the effect corporate power has on the political system. Look at any of the recent online/computing/internet issues and they all lead back to massive corporate power controlling government, whether it is the MPAA raiding a kid in Norway, the recording industry redefining freedom of speech, or Microsoft slapping on huge premiums and entering into illicit anti-competitive dealings with computer manufacturers. I've traced these issues back to inordinate corporate power corrupting politics...and when I got there, I realized that it was the foundation of many other non-computer/internet related issues. The fact is that until the system is reformed, and special interests removed, the system is NEVER going to work for any of us. It won't work for us geeks, it won't work for anybody. So that is why I'm voting for Nader. Both of the other candidates talk a good talk, but they won't walk the walk. They are both funded by hundreds of millions of dollars from PACs, corporations, and special interests. How much money did you donate to them? Do you think you could possibly compare to the influence bought by those hundreds of millions?
Where Nader strays from my beliefs (well, it so happens he doesn't, but let's just make a hypothetical), he makes up for it and more for being the only one with genuine integrity and passion for fixing the system, and for allowing it to work the way it was meant. I have faith that when the system is fixed and people can have their voices heard, things will be better all around, even though there are those with opinions that run counter to mine. This is the basic premise of free speech: allow everyone to talk, and the good of the whole will eventually outweighs any bad of the parts.
Please open up the debates (http://www.debatethis.org/), and give all candidates a voice. Americans deserve more than just two choices.
And if you want anecdotal evidence of character of the candidates' just check http://www.netcraft.com/whats/ to see what they're running (Bush runs Windows 2000 + IIS, Nader runs BSD/OS + Apache...I find that rather indicative).
Once populations got past a certain size, pure democracies stopped working, and republics had to be set up where people elect delegates to represent them, and these delegates in turn vote on the issues. Of course with this came greater opportunity for corruption, with candidates pandering during election time, and doing whatever they wanted while in office, relying on the power of their office, media control and spindoctoring to slide through. For a long time the excuse has been that since pure democracy is impossible, that these are just the evils we have to live with for the next best thing. However, I can see the internet enabling a pure democracy. Imagine instead of relying on mr. politician up on capitol hill, hoping that he votes in line with your opinion, hoping that PAC money isn't coloring his vote, knowing that there is pretty much nothing you can do about it if he doesn't (until the next election when you'll again have to choose the lesser of two evils), that you just sit down at your computer (or at some public voting facility) and vote *directly*. I do not believe the amount of bills Congress votes on (or your local government for that matter) is too large for the average citizen to handle. For instance, in California, as far as I understand, they have public voting on individual issues. Imagine, in a matter of a few hours, the consensus of the nation could be tapped...instead of each special interest buying chunks of media to feed a perception to the populace, then waiting then rehashing all over again. Think of all the hotbutton topics...you have a poll *blam* there you go - irrefutable, discussion over. Of course there are the technical and logistical issues, but I think these can be surmounted. I'm just talking about an ideal situation here, but I would love to just be able to come home, have dinner, and spend 15 minutes casting my vote on the issues that mattered to me (not to say that 15 minutes would be the only time I thought about these), and feel good fulfilling my responsibility as a citizen, rather than waste years filtering out media noise just to vote for the candidate that will screw me less hard.
Of course for a democracy of any kind to work, citizens must be informed (witness our own democracy). But I have faith that populism will create better citizens - give people a reason to care, and they will.
I think they bought that technology from Norton utilities. At least at one point the two looked almost identical. With the latest NT-based windows they just rely on DiskKeeper (they bought the it to put in the Windows 2000 defrag).
Or set the default to images off. Have a notice saying that images are off by default and you can turn them on at your own "risk". If people turn them on they accept the risk of what they might see. Have some inactivity timeout that sets the default back and forces them to log back in (hit an OK button or something).
Of course the other solution is for parents to supervise their kids and not let them run around in laundromats looking for porn.
This is what Gene Kan of Gnutella was talking about in the "Future of Digital Music" hearing I believe: incentivizing "pirates" to create new legitimate business models. Well here's one. A virtualization of the street performer's protocol. Think of a street performer: some people walk by and drop a coin in a hat, others do nothing, thereby technically "pirating" the performer's music without compensation. The recording industry's answer is to jail everybody who doesn't pay, or create some cumbersome locks on the music so that nobody will want to even listen to it, and the whole business is driven away and dissolves. A protocol like this recognizes that some people *won't* pay, but those with a good heart will. I recognizes you simply can't *stop* people from not paying, but you *can* make it easy for those who want to.
Even better, this money goes *right* to the artist (sounds like it at least) circumventing every middle-man down the line slicing his share off. I think this could turn the tables so that now *artists* are in control, and instead pay for the services of the recording industry.
A lot of this is the patent office's fault in the first place by setting precedent for idiotic patents. I'm sure a lot of companies patent things that are just ridiculous just because if they don't do it first their competitor will. Hey, how about taking just a little bit of my tax money that goes to corporate subsidies and actual employ some sentient people in the patent office?
I know, that ascii stick figure pr0n sucks.
Well, let's not all go home *just* yet. I don't think this really fixes anything. They fundamental system is *still* backwards. Artists may get their copyright back in 35 years. How *generous*. I don't see artists as 8 to 5 employees clocking in and out. IMO artists create, and own, their music and they should be in control of it. They should be using the *services* the recording industry provides. Not the other way around: the recording industry exploiting the "services" of a labor group of artists. Labels provide a service to artists: studio stuff, equipment, marketing, distribution. At least two of those can happen online or done individually. Labels should now be competing on terms of their service, not artists competing with each other to see who gets to be exploited.
Well I think a lot of people on the net have a libertarian streak, as I do. But I part with pure libertarianism when it approaches plain irresponsibility. I think taken to the extreme (anarchy), pure libertarianism is just replicating the "natural state" we form governments to avoid in the first place. The next best thing, libertarianism in the form of citizen, consumer, and labor rights, and removal of big business influence over government and policy, but not forgetting a few fundamental responsibilities we do have to each other as a nation (respecting commonly owned property, like the air, water, etc., basic guidelines for products and services, fraud, etc.), is Nader and the Green party.
Well at least it was under the guise of "national security" and protecting the world. Now it is just about who can patent what gene or chemical or process the fastest and market it. I think a lot of that could be considered typical "public domain" work that universities used to do.
The only thing that is surprising about this "corporatization" is that people are surprised. Big corporations feed the media, and the media in the hands of a precious few own a monopoly on perception. Here is just one example: the presidential debates, the single most important deciding factor of the next leader of the last superpower of the western world is funded by tax-deductable donations from corporations like Anheuser-Busch, and AT&T (and previously Philip Morris), and controlled by a commission run by Republicans and Democrats funded by big corporations, which virtually sprung up overnight to impose an arbitrary and artificially high 15% barrier to entry (3 times the threshhold for federal matching funds). History showed us what effect this can have: Ross Perot, whom one out of five Americans (~19%) voted for in '92, was reduced to 8% after being refused admission for the presidential debates in '96. And Perot also had billions of his own money he could spend to fight the system in the first place.
"Grilled tenderloin for fundraiser: $1,000 a plate. Campaign ads filled with half-truths: Over $10 billion. Finding out the truth: Priceless."
"to use the oft cited collolary - books - if a books is out-of-print, do you as a public citizen have the right to make copies for people?"
Yup. It's called public domain. After a certain (currently inordinately long) time, the public does have the right to do these things, whether or not other people are making profit from it. It becomes even more suspicious if *nobody* is currently making profit or attempting to make profit, or even supporting in any manner the items. Even *more* so with software because the lifetime of a piece of software is *years* not decades or centuries, like books, etc.
In any case pirates don't copy games. They roam the seas steal loot, bury it, and kill people. Pirate is a loaded word that doesn't make sense in digital copying. Digital copying does not "deprive" the originator of the work, and is not stealing per se. That is not to say it is good or legal, but that it means something different with respect to digital, conceptual, and other non-tangible things. See the FSF and Jefferson's opinion on this.
Well I'm a Java "enterprise" programmer by day, which basically means I work on middleware implemented in Java (CORBA, RMI, messaging, database access, etc.). It is pretty heavily OO. While the gui libraries may be bloated, and you may think they are over-designed (well, what do you expect for a *completely* cross-platform gui), I think Java in general has pretty much fulfilled it's promise of being lightweight, robust, reliable, and cross-platform. Those benefits far outweigh any apocryphal "bloat" or abuse of OO. Of course OO is not a silver bullet, and I think only OO bigots would claim that. OO is a concept and a tool and like any other can be abused for the worse. Perhaps worse than that, since it is a complicated area with many subtleties, novices can easily munge things and come up with something much worse than what they could have with a non-OO language. OO requires understanding and discipline as with anything, and it should not be used as a panacea. It should be used for what it is good for: designing complex systems, on a high level, with robustness and reliability. OO is not for hello world.
By the way, I don't know if you'd call us a "shop" (we're a "middleware"ish dept of the IT dept of a university), but we have gone pretty much entirely to CORBA and Java and other departments describe us as completing miracles weekly. All our new applications (both end-user, and "internal") are entirely Java, and communicate with CORBA/Java middleware which in turn hits the back end. It's scalable and robust.
I'm reading the NPPA site and the light cast on Peltier is looking worse and worse. However I still reserver a healthy skepticism of the FBI's and government's behavior in the case. I'm still trying to hunt down real court transcripts...
Casados has a red pickup with a white tent top on the back. I can see that as being described as a "red and white vehicle". A "pickup", not van, was also seen leaving the scene. Unless the agents specified a red and white van, which I haven't read anywhere, I can see them following Casados's truck. Why does that matter? Because that is at least one point that prosecution is using to tie Peltier to the scene, and as one of the people who stepped out and fired.
I don't back down. There were allegations of coercion of witnesses which I don't entirely disbelieve. Anderson indicated he was coerced and from what I've read Long Visitor identified three people who got out of the red and white vehicle, not including Peltier, and then later saw Peltier leaving.
To my knowledge Peltier has said that he shot *at* the agents, and also said that one point in time he saw the bodies of the agents. I'll have to find out if he actually explicitly stated he committed the two murders.
I don't think this is an open and shut case.