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User: FatherOfONe

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  1. He could just drive... on Senator Blacklisted by No-Fly List · · Score: 0, Troll

    But given that he has killed more people in his car than I have with my gun; it is probably better for him to fly.

    I guess it would be safe for him to drive as long as there isn't any water around, and you could keep him off the wagon for a few hours.

  2. Re:Take off your... on Hackers Take Aim at Republicans · · Score: 1

    After the U.S.A. said that war was comming they gave the U.N. one last chance and asked France and Germany how much time was needed. They wouldn't give a timeframe. They then asked if they would ever support the use of force and both said publicly that they wouldn't.

    Why would they sign the original document if they never planned on backing it up? That would make no sense. Unless there were other reasons. Reasons far more reaching than just their distain for the United States.

  3. Re:Take off your... on Hackers Take Aim at Republicans · · Score: 1

    Wow. Going to name calling...

    It sounds like we actually agree that when the money from oil goes away most of the problems will go away. The countries you mentioned in the middle east all get their funds from oil countries. So yes the terrorist were funded by oil sales. When that goes away so does a lot of their ability to harm others.

    North Koria is a somewhat valid point. However last time I checked they were not located in the middle east.

    Trade with Saudi Arabia: --- how does that benifit Joe Hookah in Riyadh? Well is Joe is a radical Muslem terroriest he gets funded by his buddies in Saudi.

  4. Re:Take off your... on Hackers Take Aim at Republicans · · Score: 1

    Not bullshit. I did not say oil exports. There were government contracts setup between Germany and Iraq that had little to do with Oil.

    As for your point about retaliation, that is somewhat valid, but look at Sept 11th. Look at the mass graves that Saddam caused in southern Iraq. He proved that he didn't mind using them on his own people. He proved that he hated the United States. He also proved that he was a consistant liar. He proved that he would not hesitate to attack other countries. Just change the name and you would have Hitler all over again. Only this time he got stopped before he could cause the damage that Hitler did.

    I like Germany, and most of the people in Germany but I find it ironic that most Germans distrust the U.S. and yet totally trust their own goverment. Does Germany have a free press system or is it like the BBC?

    Also don't you think that it is a bit odd that the UN voted to give Saddam a set amount of time to comply with the sanctions or face the threat of war, only to have Germany and France say that they would never support war. Seems very weird to me that they would sign that sanction and then when the real threat of war comes up change their mind. That doesn't make sense? Unless they had no real intintion of allowing a war. Why?

  5. Re:Take off your... on Hackers Take Aim at Republicans · · Score: 1

    Germany had major contracts with Iraq, they knew that if a war broke out they would loose a ton of money. The same is true with France. It was in both county's financial interest to support Iraq as long as possible.

    In short the WMD was just ONE reason for going to war not the entire reason. Do you forget how many times Iraq kicked out the inspectors. Germany and France kinda get screwed in the long haul over this war because of all the close ties with the Saddam and his government. If this plays out correctly in around 20 years the U.S.A. will have another somewhat friendly nation in that reigon, along with Afganistan and Israel. This is a radical change from what would probably have happened if the war didn't take place. Saddam and or his sons would have eventually gained WMD and used them against the U.S.A. and or Isreal. Nobody disputes that Saddam thought he had a WMD program, so it is logical to believe that he would have found out he didn't and corrected that mistake. Or it is possible that he actually did (mobile weapons lab) and they have not been found .

    Now that just leaves Iran....

    Lastly, if the world ever finds another valid form of energy, the problems in the middle east region will go away. It is very very very hard to fund all this "military" activity with little to no income.

    On a much lighter note. Since you are from Germany, how is the Linux migration going over there, and more specifically is it getting any news coverage?

    Also why is it that CNN is being shown in Canada and not Fox News? It is blocked. Why?

  6. Re:Cybernectics and sports on Gene Doping: Genetically Engineered Athletes · · Score: 1

    I agree with your statement, but where do you draw the line.
    Vitamins?
    Custom diet?
    Special shoes?

    Then were do you draw the line on people that are physically hurt and get a replacement part. An example would be a runner who gets an artificial eye . The eye doesn't help him run, except perhaps to see. It seem obvous that you would let the guy run. But would that same person be allowed in a marksmanship event?

  7. Re:Aim a little lower.... on Attracting Women Into Computer Science · · Score: 1

    Please understand that these are my observations. Many companies around here with large, greater than 100 IT people) tend to only hire women for new roles. They will only hire a white male when the role is extreemly important to the business and no other "qualified" candidate applies.

    Now what women get paid vs men is general is also a huge issue. You are correct, this must be stopped. As much as anyone getting hired for anything other than their qualifications.

    You also mention the "glass ceiling" effect on women. I agree that this is also a HUGE offence but understand that with so many unqalified women getting in positions that they don't deserve, it forces steriotypes for all women. Hense quota/affirmative action is bad.

    There is a lot of work that needs to be done.

  8. Re:Aim a little lower.... on Attracting Women Into Computer Science · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'm sorry what was it you said again... :-)

    My wife and I have been in I.T. for more than 15 years now and I can say without a doubt that women in I.T. get far far far more breaks than men. Specifically if you are a black woman, and are willing to work a little bit, then you are on the fast track to promotions and greater wealth.

    I have to laugh at some of the larger I.T. shops around town when I see that they are 50% women. I continually look at CPT majors in college (over the last 20 years) and they are almost ALL white males that are in 300-400 classes. It is almost always like 95% white males. So this means that the company doesn't think jack of I.T. and they want to fill their QUOTA with women in places that they feel won't do much harm to the company.

    So some guys in I.T. that meet I.T. women have seen a trend in that most can't do their job. Please note that I said most not all. That festers and promotes steriotypes and hurts the women that do know what they are doing.

    So in short, if you want respect, then help get rid of the large mass of incompetent women in I.T, and more specifically get rid of quotas/ afirmative action. While you are working on that I (being a white male) will work on all the other white upper management males that behave like idiots and still only promote other white males to positions of power, and abuse their power, which makes all the rest of the white males look bad.

    Together we can make a difference :-)

  9. Not Macintosh but IBM's Power5 stuff.... on Solaris Coming to IBM's Power Architecture? · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I don't know why everyone is saying Macintosh, no where in the article did he mention Apple. I believe he means running Solaris on IBM's mid range PowerPC systems. The ones that are running AIX now. It is my belief that Sun wants to convince customers that they could standardize on Solaris instead of Linux.

    The meat of the article was that he feels that open means no vendor lock in. His point is that if you use Java and don't use any proprietary junk you could move your code with little effort. I agree in principle, but if I write the stuff in Java, then I am locked in to Java. Not that this is bad, but it would make sense for Sun to change the VM (perhaps open source it and go to the standards body and get it approved as a standard) and then get other languages to run on it. In a way it would be somewhat like .Net, but be open.

  10. Re:hrm... on Technology Review Profiles Miguel de Icaza · · Score: 1

    I personally don't care either way, but here is what Microsoft could do. They could release a patch that will work in both the supported way and then in the broken way. Let that "patch" sit out there for a year or so and then relase an update. This would break the linux version.

    In the end, it comes down to trust. If you have bought in to the whole .NET/Microsoft thing; what platform are you going to run it on? Would you run it on Linux? Most won't. The market for this is very very small. However, I am glad that someone is doing this work, because people like me that have standardized on Linux may not be forced to implement a Windows box. However even someone like me would probably have to yeald and implement one because it would be impossible to get support on most .NET apps running on anything but Windows.

    I wish Novell well, but I don't see any advantage of using the .Net stuff on Linux over say Java. Everything he mentioned can also be done in Java. The only difference is that you won't have to be at Microsoft's mercy, but you will have a "few" doors opened because you can play nice with them. Hopefully Novell has chosen has made a wise choice here. In my opinion, this is their last chance of staying alive as a company, and I could have made a fortune betting against Novell in the last 10 years.

  11. Race Back? on Soyuz To The Moon? · · Score: 1

    Didn't the U.S.A. have more than one mission to the moon. Also while it is true that they would be second, it would be second by over 30 years. That's probably longer than quite a few slashdot readers out there.

  12. What would stop a terrorist? on Open Source a National Security Threat · · Score: 1

    What would stop a another country from paying off a developer from a proprietary software company to do the same thing as open source?

    As said here about 100X the issue is testing.

  13. Re:Kill the sick/poor? on Congress Cuts NASA's Budget On Apollo Anniversary · · Score: 1

    The difference I see between you and me is that I believe the government will do a worse job taking care of the sick/old than the people will themselves. Do you believe that someone on Medicare at 60, will get round the clock great heathcare? Do they now?

    Do you honestly believe that someone who gets hit by a bus and "needs" pain killers all day will get them? Do they now?

    Think about what you are saying. People manage their own finances far better than the government. Also for a lot of people that are scared something might happen (like myself), we spend a LOT on insurance. So if I get hit by a bus or develop some bizzar disease then my family is covered. Now do I expect the best healthcare money can buy? Nope, I can't afford it, nor can my family. That makes me want to work harder/smarter. Do I expect to get the same type of care that say Bill Gates gets? Nope.

    Now to your point that some people will not make enough and then take that money and spend it on food/shelter etc. Well I say, it their CHOICE. Does that mean some people would suffer? yep. Do people suffer now? Yep. Will there allways be poor people suffering? Yep.

    People don't rush to the United States because of all the socialist programs we have, or at least they didn't.... they come here for the opportunity to better their lives. That plus the freedoms we have.

    Yes the U.S. military is doing well. I am very glad of that, but is it efficient? Ask some people in the military that have been there more than 4 years. As I mentioned they had over 500 accounting systems.

    "Thankfully, I'm in Canada. Most people up here are far, far too civilized to even consider such a barbaric strategy of cutting our poor and sick loose to die."

    You do let your poor and sick die. You may not want to admit it but you do. How many new drugs have been developed by a firm in Canada? I don't want to get in to a country bashing thing. I personally think every country has some great people and some not so great people.... but I will answer my own question. Canada has developed 0 new drugs in the last 20 years.

    I guess you would have to live here to understand how poor our public school system is. But if you want I will compare it to the current crop of private schools. I don't think you want me to do that though... Specifically the Catholic schools that do far more with far less money...

    The main point of this is: Do you believe that you know how to manage your money better than the government. Is the government efficient about it?

    I say NO WAY and you say yes. I say that it looks like social security will go bankrupt in less than 20 years, and that Medicare/Medicade/social programs is by far the biggest amount of the countries budget. It like all government programs is very very very inefficient. You seem to think it is efficient, or at least efficient enough. Lastly, even if it was 100% effient, you and I would strongly disgree on who could do a better job with it. I believe that most people are not stupid and would do the wise things, you seem to believe that the government knows whats best for the people.

    The difference is socialism vs capitalism. Why is it that most pro atheletes don't want to play for any Canadian teams? Could it be that Canada's taxes are so bad?

  14. Re:Mod the Parent Down on Congress Cuts NASA's Budget On Apollo Anniversary · · Score: 1

    this has nothing to do with NASA getting more or less funding, but I will respond to your post.

    Yes medicare/medicade and social security should be removed from the U.S. government. Yes if you as a person did not save enough during your lifetime to take care of yourself, then the rest of America should not have to flip the bill for you. Or better yet all the extra money that you would have earned in that lifetime without the additional taxes on you, you could have invested and been far better off than what is currently provided.

    Now having said all this, we (America) have an obligation to those people that are currently on medicare/medicade and SS, and to those about to get on it, BUT for those that are under 40, we do NOT, AND if you asked those people if they would rather have their money now, to invest (or waist) almost all of them would want it now.

    So when the people that are say in their 30's now get to be 65, (me) they will have to be RESPONSIBLE enough to put money away.

    Let me ask you this. If you are under the age of 40 and the government offered to lower your taxes by say 15-20%, but you would not be eligable for any social programs later in life, would you take it?

    Lastly, name a program that the government HAS run well. Social Security... nope, Medicare... nope.... Public Schools.... nope, some may say the military, but having helped work with their 500+ accounting systems, I will say NOPE. There has to be a better way.

  15. Re:Bzzt on Former Windows Chief on Microsoft Vs. Open-Source · · Score: 1

    I don't agree. If we all had Atari's or Amiga's or Mac's or Sun boxes, we could still all be running Linux. He just would have taken "whatever" cheap hardware was out at the time and start an OS on it. I do agree that having a somewhat open platform in hardware did help Linus.

  16. Re:Depends on marketing strategy. on Novell as Open Source Hero? · · Score: 1

    Here is the problem Novell had.

    Novell comes in to upper management and talks about TCO and security and such. Managment agrees, and decides to keep Novell stuff for a while.

    Microsoft comes in and says "since you are running our clients, we will give you are server for free. This includes Exchange/SQL Server ect." We can do everything that Novell does and we will be cheaper AND you will only have to work with one vendor.

    Upper management then says that they are "standardizing" on Microsoft.

    Here is the kicker though... They can't do that with Open Source stuff. The tech guys just load more and more skunk work projects on Linux and the company kind of loves it because it is free. I am sure this kills Microsoft, but it is hard to compete against free, even when you can leverage your client os.

    Now for Novell they can stop spending development dollars on NetWare and focus on services. Specifically the can focus on managing the environment, and possibly making a great server for small business again. T

  17. Re:Too late on PlayStation 3 To Debut at E3 2005 · · Score: 1

    We could argue if it is beter than GT... Almost all the good games for the xbox come out for the PC. The difference is that on the pc they run in 1024X768 or much higher, in my case 1280X1024. So on a given game, it looks much better on the PC. Does that mean that there won't be a few games that are only for the xbox and not the pc? Yep, but they are few and far between. An example is Star Wars KOTOR. I could give many more (including Halo), but you get the point.

    Now you mention having a hacked Xbox to do stream your DivX.... I say how does that help you with games? I can do the same with my PC, you could to.

    So again, at what point do you consider the xbox a failure. How much money needs to be dumped in to this platform and how few machines need to be sold to consider it a complete failure? I say that given all the money that has went in to it, the cost to produce each system, and the limited amount of sales, the xbox has been a failure. That coupled with the fact that both Nintendo and Sony are close to having a new system(s) out, makes future xbox sales appear weak at best. Granted xbox2 will also be out, but that device appears to have abandoned backward compatibility, so current xbox owners are kinda screwed. Honestly, if this was Sega, Nintendo, or even Sony everyone would be comparing this console to the biggest flops in movie history. The xbox does kinda remind me of the movie water world, except far worse. Understand that I am NOT saying that all the games suck, or that it is not worth the money.

    These arguments remind me a lot of the BETA vs VHS arguments a few years back....

  18. Re:Too late on PlayStation 3 To Debut at E3 2005 · · Score: 1

    I somewhat agree with you but I have to ask...

    How many games do you have for your Xbox that you can't get for your PC? Specifically almost all the games that you talk about (cross platform games) look and play much better on a good gameing PC, yes they may come out a month later but so what, as you said it is the quality of the game that drives you to your purchase.

    Everyone I know who has an Xbox also has a great high end pc, and tends to play "some" games on it, but they then tend to focus on their PC games over time. Now people that own Nintendo or Sony... that appears to be another class of people. Those people tend to buy stock PC's (for work) and then have a console for their "kids".

    Not to go on a rant here, but can't you just call the xbox a total failure? I mean with all the money Microsoft has put behind this device, they appear to still be behind Nintendo and Sony? (Some reports have them in second, but it is basically a tie between Nintendo and Microsoft for last) I guess my question is: "How few of machines have to be sold over a time to be considered a complete failure?"

    Now do I think it is the best hardware out there for games? Yep, but the facts speak for themselves, they could quadruple their sales for the next two years and not have as many machines as Sony has now. Again, at what point is this thing marked a failure? So why would any developer waist their time on this thing and not for the PC? I can only think of one reason, and that is that Microsoft is paying them to do so. That has got to get expensive after a while, and won't last forever.

  19. Re:6 year uptimes... on VAX Users See the Writing on the Wall · · Score: 1

    Ok, lets say that he is running a old version of Apache or MySQL and he has no access to the outside world with these machines AND he has it firewalled off so only TCP port 80 can connect to his app. That would take care of the security issues.

    Yes someone internal "could" possibly try and hack in, but in most shops that same user could walk in to the computer room and unplug the servers...

  20. Re:C/C++, not java on How Much Java in the Linux World? · · Score: 1

    As you mentioned.... Swing has improved in speed recently. I just downloaded 1.4.2_05 and looked at the SwingSet2.jar file, and it rocks. I set the look and feel to Windows (my platform), and it rocks.

    I also develop Java Gui apps and agree that the JVM issue is somewhat of a pain, but I am looking at Webstart to help solve that.

    You and I agree about native look and feel support, and I will add that when you develop a GUI you need to see what it will look like on that platform. With Swing, and a good IDE you get that. You also get the ability to use a common interface (Java look and feel) for apps that must look exactly the same on all platforms. Something that would be impossible for SWT.

    What types of issues did you have with Swing and apps not responding on Windows? Also Sun has just released some new api's that let you work with the native OS. Obviously this will kill cross platform stuff, but for in house development, it may be ok. (Can't find link...)

    Having said all this, I will say that Sun needs to address some issues with Swing, specifically tables are a pain to work with.

  21. Re:C/C++, not java on How Much Java in the Linux World? · · Score: 3, Informative

    You say Swing is slower than SWT. I say show me the benchmarks. Specifically I want to see how, in a standard business app doing something in SWT will increase a users productivity over Swing. I don't want to see stuff like this window opened in .001 seconds faster.

    I also say that we had AWT which is very similar in design to SWING. I have done some work with Java clients and found Swing to be a huge pain in the ass.... BUT one thing it has going for it is that you know what the heck the layouts are going to look like. Secifically if you develop something with SWT, and run it on different platforms, the windows will look different. That can flat out suck. From a developer perspective I "might" want to have a common look and feel for this app, and SWING provides that. SWT does not. The only advantage of SWT is that it is suppose to be faster, and have the native look and feel of the OS it is running on. I say show me SWT for NetWare? My PDA? My cell phone... you get the idea.

    So again I say show me the advantage of using SWT over Swing. Specifically in performance, that will relate to increase productivity to a user.

    Lastly, to be on topic :-)

    All of our Linux machines run Java in some shape or way. I would agree that Java has played a large factor in Linux growth. I would also say that a reason for Java's growth in the server world is largely in part to Linux and IBM. Without Linux, we would be an all Windows shop, and then we would have to ask why we develop in Java when we are all Windows. Without Java we would have to pick a language that we could easily develop on our desktops (Windows) and then move to test and production. That would probably be some Microsoft language.

    So I say to all the anti Java people who love Linux and open source... We need each other. The Java people want nothing more than for Linux/BSD to become THE OS of choice.

  22. Re:This Is Cool! on Indiana Launches Statewide Productivity System · · Score: 1

    Republicans are just as bad at spending as Democrats? Give an example of a time where a democrat wanted to spend less than a republican. I honestly can't think of any. Most republicans, when given less money than expected start to cut things, ALL democrats start talking about tax increases.

    Indiana being non-progressive.... What do you mean? Give an example. The word progressive is thrown around a lot, and I am curious of your definition.

    Personally, I believe that most people in Indiana have a hard working, great attitude. Most of the people that have lived hear their whole life are honest and care a great deal about their family and friends. Most of their values are formed by their religious beliefs and as such their communities were built with those attitudes. Now in the last few years the makeup of Indiana has changed, due mostly in part by a large influx of certain ethnic groups. Because of this change, and the average life-long hoosier's caring of their neighbor, taxes and spending on social programs have gone way up. This coupled with the fact that the new ethnic groups tend to vote for people that will promis to give them stuff for free, adds to Indiana's problems.

    So what does Progressive mean to me.... Increase taxes to "help" people. Increase spending to fund new government programs. These programs of course will be run poorly, and hook future generations on then as well. Reward people for not working, and rase taxes even more so that any future business will not want to look at Indiana for it's home.

    What could "Progressive" mean.
    1. Lower everyones taxes.
    2. Create great incentives for current companies to stay in Indiana. Currently, the only way a business can get a tax break is to get an offer to move the company to another state, then Indiana will do something. Could you imagine if Lilly left?
    3. Look at the core business of Indiana (Medical, Agrocultural, Manufacturing), and focus on supporting businesses for those cores.
    4. Work on creating startup companies to help those core businesses, and be a leader in technology for those businesses as well.
    5. Promote hard work, while promoting family and religous values as well. We in Indiana don't ever want to have any type of Enron here, but we do have our Conceco's, and that should not ever happen again.

  23. Re:This Is Cool! on Indiana Launches Statewide Productivity System · · Score: 1

    Ok, I live in Indiana and have been in technology for over 15 years now, and here is what I see.

    Indiana was number one in lost jobs in the last few years (percentage wise)

    Indiana has some of the best schools but almost no startups.

    If not for Lilly, Indianapolis would be in far worse financial shape than it is now.

    Our local housing taxes just went up considerably and yet we were still in a huge deficit.

    Joe Kernan, and his predisessor Frank Obanion were and are the worst govenors Indiana has had in over 30 years. There current motto on the radio is
    "Indiana is the state with the most potental"
    Ummm yeah... if by that you mean you have raised taxes and are still in a deficate, and because of your incompetence Indiana could easily be a lot better; then I agree..

    Now this....
    Indiana has no money, yet this Lt Gov, like a lot of Democrats wants to spend money on stuff that adds little to no value to the State. Did I mention that we have NO MONEY!!! Why is she waisting it on this. Specifically she is taking my tax dollars and putting it on Microsoft technology.

    Lastly, their own freaking program that is trying to put jobs in the state was found to have outsourced their IT work to India... not Indiana but the country of India....

    Ok, one more point.
    Indiana had a fairly large surplus of money before O'banon took office. Granted the previous govenor tried to tax and spend like all democrats, but he was stopped.

    Hopefully, you will get one thing out of this rant... Indiana has no freaking money at all!!!!! Yet this lady chose to spend money she didn't have on a useless technolgy program that was probably developed and suppored by foreign workers.

    I pray Mitch Daniels crushes old incompentent Joe in the election, but it probably won't happen. Not that Mitch is a wonder-boy, but he at least understands how to manage a checkbook.

  24. Re:Finally! on Microsoft Planning on Opening Up More Source · · Score: 1

    the win.ini and system.ini stopped you.

    It was impossible to copy office, or almost any windows 3.1 program and get it to run. Not to mention the ton of .dll's that were installed.

    Now the Macintosh... that was another story. :-)

  25. Re:Why not? on Next-Gen Xbox To Lack Backwards Compatibility? · · Score: 1

    Yes they own Virtual PC, but they don't have code that runs on a PPC chip with some weird bios and os. It would still take time and effort to port virtual PC to a completely new platform. I question that they could even get the performance out of it.

    I bet Nvidia is laughing at this.