Perhaps this is a silly question, but why not simply modify the Bradley so that the turret is enlarged to carry multiple coaxial weapons, in addition to the Bushmaster auto-cannons, with the ability for the gunner to fire any combination of the available guns simultaneously?
By placing the CPU on the backside of the motherboard and let it protrude out from the case it would be very feasable to use passive cooling.
This is true, but mounting the CPU outside of the case has downsides as well. The computer takes up more space and delicate parts are not protected against bumps, jolts, and other accidents (the infamous juice or beer spill) that tend to happen in the consumer environment. It would only take one errant toddler to bump into the exposed heat sink, which would then act as a lever against the exposed CPU, and that would be the end of that. No, for the majority of the people out there the box is the best solution.
The Sony name has just as much cache now as it has ever had among the general public which likes their DVD players and televisions, doesn't have a clue about what DRM is or means (until their kid starts screaming that their favorite Disney DVD will not play anymore because it is heavily scratched. Then, when the parent buys another one and looks to make a VHS copy that the kid can destroy, they find out about the wonderful world of Macrovision) and absolutely ZERO knowledge of what a "rootkit" is and why that is a bad thing for their spyware and spambot infested windows desktop.
Perhaps this will make no difference to Sony in the marketplace, but I think it is fair to say that among geeks, who buy lots of technology products and have money to spend, the Sony name has taken a hit. I will not purchase a Play Station 3 for precisely that reason at any price. There are plenty of other worthwhile games and platforms to spend my time and money on instead. Sony may work for Joe Sixpack, but it doesn't work for me anymore (I was never a big fan of Sony before the rootkit and battery debacles anyway) and I suspect that there are many others here on Slashdot that feel the same way.
Because some things (including quality of life) should not have a price.
This is a common sentiment among the left and it sounds good during an election year (i.e. won't somebody please think of the children?), but it is not grounded in the reality of a world with limited resources and competing priorities. The chance that any individual citizen will ultimately benefit from stem cell research, for example, is so small relative to the cost of the research and the probability that the research will not turn up anything substantially useful, at least in the short term, that most rational people (i.e. people who think with their head when it comes to the spending of their money) would elect not to fund the research at this time. The expectation of a return on their investment given the amount of risk and the expense is simply too low and we would be happier spending our limited resources on other priorities.
Companies exist to make money, and that's all there is to it.
I agree no question about that...
Some research fields should be protected from capitalism because a lack of profitability does not mean a lack of virtuousness.
The problem lies in the fact that taxes (i.e. public funds) are not discretionary and one is compelled to pay them, ostensibly to provide for a limited number of necessary public goods (i.e. justice system, national defense, and basic infrastructure). It is the height of arrogance for the intellectual elites on the left to claim that they know best how to spend MY money, which is essentially what they are doing by advocating increased government spending for everything and increased taxes to pay for it. If you believe that the research is so virtuous then why not spend a greater portion of your own money funding it (i.e. invest in companies which do stem cell research or start your own)? I am a firm believer in the economic theories of Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, and the Chicago School or to put it more simply...markets work and governments don't. So you spend your money how you wish and I will decided how I ought to be spending mine.
Re:reminds me of qualcomm
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· Score: 4, Insightful
If I recall, the US govt paid Qualcomm over 100 million dollars to do R&D on RF technology for military communications.
If Qualcomm did the R&D work as part of an open bid contract to develop a product or provide service to the government AND the product or service was indeed provided on time and per the terms of the agreement then I am not against Qualcomm profiting from their work on the contract in future dealings. However, if this money was given as a grant or the product or service was NOT delivered as per the terms of the agreement then Qualcomm has some explaining to do.
Then just as the technology started to become developed in the market, they patented the shit out of everything to do with CDMA.
If the entire arrangement was above board (which it probably was not) then there is no problem with this, especially if Qualcomm had language in the contract stating that they had the right to patent any technology that came out of the research (probably in return for granting a perpetual license to the government). However, I am generally against funding research projects with public money (there are too many projects that would want funding) and especially when the project could feasibly be funded with private investment. This is the reason why I voted AGAINST the stem cell research bonds here in California. If the investors feel so poorly about an opportunity that they do not want to risk their own money then why should the public be forced to take that risk? It is also the case, as you have already said, that if the risk DOES pay off then the public gets screwed out of their rightful return on the investment. The same thing goes for airline bailouts and most other forms of corporate charity. If the taxpayers do not share in the rewards then why should we share in the pain when these business ventures fail?
I always thought that was sort of unfair, after all my tax money paid for that R&D, and even if it didn't - it seemed like there was incentive was already out and that it was going to be invented anyhow.
It is unfair and if something is really that worthwhile then there usually is enough incentive already out there for private investment to develop it. The few projects that are left (i.e. stem cell research, farm products research, and other bogus or risky projects funded by taxpayers) are usually lemons or very risky (junk bond type investments with high risks and long payoff horizons) and the public gets stuck holding the bag.
There was a time when governments were experimenting with applications for civilian nuclear powered ships including nuclear powered ice breakers and even a few cargo ships. However, a combination of factors conspired to more or less seal the fate of civilian nuclear powered ships.
First, since most of these ships, with the possible exception of soviet nuclear icebreakers, were designed as demonstration platforms for public promotion by the government they tended to incorporate features that were not desirable in the strictest practical sense for carrying cargo. This took the form of sleeker hull designs, like what one might see on high end private yachts, or more staterooms at the expense of cargo carrying capacity and efficiency on what was supposed to be a cargo vessel. This was compounded by the fact that these vessels were introduced during a transitional period in international shipping where containerized supertankers were taking over roles traditionally filled by non-containerized cargo ships. The NS Savannah was a good example of these limitations.
Second, the difficulty of providing adequate facilities in major ports to service these vessels both for routine maintenance and in the event of an accident severely limited the number of ports that were either willing or able to service nuclear powered cargo ships.
Finally, the advent of the nuclear non-proliferation treaties combined with a greater appreciation of the dangers of non-state actors effectively ended promotion of civilian nuclear power abroad by the United States. In the light of the political climate during the Cold War the idea of a fleet of nuclear powered civilian cargo ships became an increasingly quaint anachronism in a world were the nuclear arms race was creating serious concerns about the future of the human race. The rise of international terrorism during the early 1970s and continuing on until today was really the final nail in the coffin. It was simply too much to risk for too little economic benefit. Given these limitations and the fact that the difficulties with both proliferation and terrorism have become even more pronounced, it is exceedingly unlikely that the nuclear powered cargo vessels will ever be reintroduced.
NASA fuels both interest and the work they do has far reaching impact for science (and not just pens that write upside down and expensive mattresses).
If the engineers and scientists at NASA want to reach the younger 18-25 crowd and get them interested in science and engineering careers then they have to work on some projects if for no other reason than to generate more public interest in science education. For example, how about getting a team of NASA engineers to work with local high school students to design and actually BUILD the ultimate souped up street racer car using materials and expertise from the space program? These types of "cool" engineering projects could be combined with regular course materials and curriculum to introduce science and engineering concepts in new and interesting ways...nothing says F=MA like 0-60 in 4.5 seconds after all.
Since science doesn't pay as well as non-productive professions like accountancy, law, and real estate sales, we need some way to inspire the next generation to do something other than make enough disposable income to buy the latest iPod.
While I will be the first to admit that certain professions...*ahem* marketing *ahem* are of rather dubious value to our civilization it is important to have competent administration (i.e. accountants) to make sure that resources are tracked and used efficiently among other things. Perhaps, if you are a physics or science teacher, you could spend one lesson discussing the electronics and engineering that went into that iPod which all of your students are currently enjoying. If you want to reach the younger generations then you have to meet them at their level so that they see why the underlying science and engineering is important in maintaining the modern existence that we all enjoy today.
What we do need is a real mission and real results.
The recent mars missions are examples of real missions with real scientific results that failed to capture much public interest beyond their initial sound bites and pictures. If the public knew that NASA was working on something more interesting, like warp drive or something really out there (they canceled the next generation propulsion project a while back) AND the scientists kept blogs with up to date discussions of experiments and results in terms that the public could understand (or at least the non-expert yet technically adept Slashdot crowd) then you might find some younger people, who are watching Battlestar Galactica, Stargate, and other science fiction programs more interested in what NASA is doing with their tax money.
X Windows, or something like it, comes with just about every version of a NIX OS and Windows XP comes with remote desktop client. If you want to go back more than six years then you can point to Windows 2000 Pro and other 9x Microsoft OSes not having this functionality pre-installed out of the box, but most people already have the tools they need with their base OS install (they just don't know that they have them). I cannot speak about the MacOS support during this time since I mostly didn't use MacOS during the past six years, but if they had remote access then it probably came with the pre-installed bundle on your shiny new Mac. The pre-installed issue is thus, not much of an issue.
I fail to see how any professional engineer could consider deployment of such wide-scale serveilence as an ethical and appropriate use of government power, outside of the four walls of a prison.
It pays the bills and puts a roof over the head and food on the table of some engineer and his family. One cannot eat principles after all and there are worse ways to make a living. If you want to blame someone then blame the government for funding it, not the engineer who builds and installs it.
There are already very effective generic anti-parasitic drugs, such as Praziquantel, available at reasonable prices. There may be human conditions which are not well treated because they are uncommon, but parasites are probably not the best example. In many cases, better access to clean water and increased use of certain pesticides like DDT would be much cheaper and more effective than continued use of drugs.
1. Stop advertising drugs on TV and in magazines. You are not a doctor. You shouldn't be "asking your doc" if zotramiphil is right for your itchy ass.
While I agree that the drug ads are pretty campy and share in your sentiment about asking my doctor if some drug is right for my itchy ass it does not diminish their right to advertise in the manner consistent with our laws. There is nothing misleading or obscene about asking your doctor if some drug is right for you or suggesting that someone else do the same in your ad (so long as you do not mention the itchy ass part in public). They have the same right to speech through advertising that we have to ignore them or speak out against them, its a free country after all.
2. Stop developing drugs for stupid shit. Yes, lots of people have Type2 diabetes. We already have a cure for that; a treadmill. Stop wasting money to develop a drug *just* to make money off a stupid disease.
Ahhh...but the stupid people have money to spend and are too lazy to get on a treadmill. I would be in favor of government funded programs telling people to get off their ass and use the treadmill instead of paying for the drugs, but so long as people are spending their own money there is not much that can be done about it. However, fear not...the gullible and their money are quickly parted and then they will have to get their ass on the treadmill anyway.
2a. Why can an old guy take a drug to make his dick hard when I can't smoke a joint?
This should be interesting...Well to make a long story short if the guy taking the penis pills is doing it in the privacy of his own home (hopefully anyway) and a doctor has prescribed for him a penis pill which has been approved by the FDA as safe for his long term health absent any disqualifying circumstances then he should be able to take his penis pills in peace. That being said there are other drugs, namely alcohol and tobacco that are known to be potentially or certainly harmful and are legal anyway. If you are asking me, "at what point are the side effects so harmful that the drug should be illegal?" Then I am afraid that I have no specific answer for you...Perhaps you could elaborate on what precisely you plan to put IN your joint before you smoke it? If the laws change to say that everyone is responsible for their own health care, that hospitals are not obligated to treat your drug damaged body if you cannot pay, and that I am allowed to shoot junkies trying to steal my stuff to cover their habit then we can make anything you want to take legal, but I don't really want to live in that society and you probably don't either. Does this answer your question?
3. If a company develops a truly amazing cure/drug, the government should step in and buy it for the cost of development. The drug should them be distributed for the cost of production inside the US and for twice the cost of production outside the US. Once the costs are recouped, it should be just the cost of production inside and outside the US.
If I wanted to borrow $100 from you right now and pay you back five years from now at 0% interest would you loan me the money? If you answered no to this question then you understand why companies would not want to produce drugs at break even prices when their capital could be better invested elsewhere and earning a profit.
4. Get rid of medical lawsuits. A judge and jury have no idea if what a doc did was right or wrong. Appoint a commission of well-respected docs and have all medical complaints go through that office. If the commission decides the doc was wrong, then the doc should be fired and the patient recouped in a fair way.
Tort reform is a worthy and necessary goal and it is almost a certainty in any case involving expert knowledge that the court would defer to the experts on points dealing with specialized knowledge (medicine in this case). However, the legal system is our cur
Since other people on this forum are either unwilling or unable to have a serious go at presenting the other side of the argument, then I suppose that I will take a shot at it being that I am an investor in companies which develop drugs and benefit from patents. First off, I do not consider myself or the companies which I invest in to be evil entities scheming to keep drugs out of the hands of the poor. The drug patent issue stirs passions in the debate like few others and especially when it is related to the issue of HIV/AIDS which really is a big problem in the third world countries as well as here in the west. However, we must allow ourselves to consider the merits logically or else we find ourselves hopelessly lost in the sway of an emotional argument and unable to see the reasonable points of the opposition. It is true that there are some drugs which are badly needed by poor people who are unable to get them because of high prices due primarily to some combination of high production costs, price fixing in some countries (creating shortages), low demand in countries where consumers are more willing or able to pay (epidemics of malaria are not common in the United States for example), and yes patents.
However, it is also important to remember that many of the so called blockbuster drugs developed and patented are targeted at non-life threatening problems which are concentrated in the first world nations of Europe, Japan, the United States and others. For example, erectile disfunction and high cholesterol due to obesity are primarily first world problems and the fact that these particular medicines are patented probably doesn't make much difference to the poor people in Africa because they mostly do not need these medicines anyway. In those cases where the drug CAN be produced for some profit and sold to poor people in need, or to organizations who will turn around and use them to help the poor, it is usually done because the drug company earns $0 if the poor person dies when he and millions like him were willing and able to pay $1 for their prescription (or get it from the aid agency which pays $1 on their behalf). In fact it would be foolish for the drug company NOT to license for third world production since monopolies, which drug patents create, maximize profits by price discrimination (i.e. they charge each consumer the maximum price that they are willing and able to pay). In Africa that price might be $0.02 per dose while in the United States it might be $2 per dose or 100 times more expensive because that is what the markets will bear. There is no reason for a company to leave money on the table just because they want to be evil (this is not Dr. Evil here people)
The market for life saving generics is already well provided for by Indian and other foreign pharmaceutical companies who produce large quantities at lower costs and sell them profitably in these third world nations. The AIDS example is a notable one where this is NOT the case, but the main point is that these types of situations tend to be the exception rather than the rule. There are many reasons why the poor do not receive the medicines that they so desperately need including wars, poor government institutions, corruption, and myriad others but patents are really not the bogey man that they have been made out to be in restricting access of poor people to medicine. The AIDS issue merits special attention to be sure, but it does not mean that we should scrap drug patents for heart disease medications (thereby ensuring that they will not be produced) when doing so would make little or no difference to the plight of the people in Africa. The drug patents get scapegoated because they are an easy and politically attractive target, but scraping patents is not the answer. I would be in favor of more stringent review before patents are granted, like the aforementioned Indian traditional medicine patent, but that is another discussion.
There is nothing new about remote access to one's computer and there have been many solutions to this problem for many years now that all perform better or no worse than the web browser approach. There is X windows for NIXes which supports remote login sessions, there is remote desktop for Windows XP and 2003 and terminal services for Windows 2000, not to mention the numerous third party products which have been available for just as long including VNC, Timbuktu, PCAnywhere, and many others. The WebOS concept really doesn't offer anything that is substantially improved over the existing solutions and it actually does some things even less well. This sounds to me like yet another solution to a problem that is already well solved searching for an audience in an already crowded marketplace. I wouldn't invest dime one of my money in a WebOS company so that pretty well sums up my sentiments about the prospects of the WebOS concept. The people here on Slashdot are right to be unimpressed by this.
In addition to library management software, I would suggest that class scheduling and enrollment/registration software might be another area. Universities and schools pay millions for this software, and it's usually pretty primative stuff.
The scheduling problem at universities is a harder problem to solve than one might think at first glance, believe me...we had to develop exactly this type of system for the lower division software engineering course and the professor chose this problem on purpose because it was immediately familiar to all of his students, but at the same time sufficiently challenging as to present a worthy substitute for a final exam. It is in fact very difficult to design an algorithm which creates a schedule of classes such that the maximum number of classes that are likely to be selected by any individual student majoring in a wide variety of subjects can be taken, including the exam schedules, without conflict while allowing each student to take a full load of 16 quarter units. As it turns out many of these scheduling optimization problems are in the NP complete class of problems.
The MAC address can be changed in Windows as well, which is probably not such a bad idea all things considered. If you want any privacy these days you have to secure it for yourself because nobody else cares anymore and some are actively trying to subvert it.
It's a very valid thought, it's just the form that's bad: what you suggest is Microsoft pays black hats under the table to fix find flaws in their products for them. Quite a PR disaster, surely you'll agree.
It is not necessarily bad for Microsoft to pay these guys a bounty behind the scenes to find flaws in their products for them. Think of it this way, the CIA pays criminals and other unsavory people to be informants and agents acting in the interests of the government at the behest of their CIA case officers or handlers. The CIA does not deal with these people because it likes them or believes in their causes, but rather because they have something we want and they are willing to sell it to us for the right price. If the operation is done properly then the CIA and by extension the government can plausibly deny that any relationship exists should the transactions be made public. It doesn't have to be a PR disaster and it might be worth the risks if the operations are handled properly.
on a per-exploit-found basis (at "black market rate" if you will), only these hackers would be working for MS perfectly legally: they would get the same money, trouble-free, and Microsoft could boast they subject their products to the most stringent tests before release.
Unless the program was advertised extensively to the underground scene on the Internet there would probably not be enough responses or interest to attract the best talent. It is also unlikely that Microsoft, even with their giant cash reserves, could pay enough on a per exploit basis to offset the potential illegal profits that could be made by using the exploit instead. To use an analogy, if you had a key that would open 95% of the worlds' locks then you would probably not show up at the lock picker challenge day to demonstrate on the front doors of FBI headquarters for a pittance prize and a hand shake for being a good citizen.
I have noticed this as well and so have my friends and family. In fact, the number of daily spams caught and trashed by my Spam Bayes filter has nearly tripled in the last six months. The probable cause of this increase is a recent surge in the number of zombies now controlled by spam trojans in the bot networks. This was covered here on Slashdot last month in Bot Nets Behind Recent Spam Surge. As for the trusted email addresses, some of us are already doing this with whitelists, but as you say the good guys are losing right now. The one good thing, if you can call it that, that might come out of this whole scenario is that the spammers speed the coming of the day when classic e-mail is retired from general use and something better is put in its place. The greed of the spammers may ultimately prove to be their undoing as they collectively kill the goose that laid the golden eggs.
It was my understanding that provided the consumption occurs on base then it doesn't matter what the specific state law says...you are allowed to drink. If the bar is off base then that may be a different matter, but this probably doesn't come up as much as it once did and for the soldiers over there in Iraq who are under 21 it is probably safe to assume that so long as the drinking does not interfere with performance while on duty the commanders probably look the other way when the 19 year old has a few beers with the other soldiers in his unit...its good for morale anyway.
What Honda CAN do (and probably should be able to do anyways) is prevent anyone from putting the Honda LOGO on their knockoff parts, or the phrase "Genuine Honda" or similar such markings as it misrepresents the source of the aftermarket parts and leads consumers into making wrong assumptions about the quality, source, warranty, etc.
Yes, but here the difference is that the AutoCAD software can check for the watermark or logo and REFUSE to open the file if the logo is not present. Honda may prefer that you purchase your spare or replacement parts from them, but the engine will not refuse to start if it somehow detects that you have used after market non-honda parts.
This whole case sounds very similar to the DMCA garage door opener case or the Lexmark anti-refill printer cartridge case in that the primary purpose of the "protection" device is to prevent interoperability with legitimate competing products and not to protect against copyright infringement.
Where I WOULD have a problem is if Autodesk were to use this signature to prevent interoperability
If they are not doing this already then you have to admit that it will become sorely tempting for them to start once there is more serious competition from open source and competing closed source CAD packages to produce more fully compatible DWG files. As for Autodesk moving into the dark side...well lets just say that they have been the evil empire of CAD for some time now what with their big bucks subscriptions, expensive upgrades, and onerous licensing terms.
You can be sure of one thing though...the closed format DWG is the linchpin of their whole system of control and they will not give this up without a fight.
Redmond is requiring that all titles use similar packaging and a distinctive logo. Along with the new gamer-centric features in Vista, and the tie-in to Xbox 360 with 'Live Anywhere', this is meant to reinvigorate the PC games market for the sometimes not-so-savvy consumer.
The PC platform is not like the consoles in that it is not generally possible for the operating system vendor, Microsoft in this case, to exclude third parties from writing software for the platform. This has both positive and negative consequences as the experience of Microsoft has demonstrated (i.e. third parties producing poor quality software which gives Microsoft Windows a bad name while at the same time giving more software choices on Microsoft Windows). I suppose that you could invent some logo scheme like "playsforsure" or "designed for windows" or "games for windows" or whatever and not allow use of the logo if the vendor will not play by the rules (combined with a FUD advertising campaign warning consumers about "untrusted" non-logo software), but how does this in any way help the consumer? People buy games because they hear about them from a friend or read about them in a gaming magazine, not because the game has some "games for windows" logo. The only place that I can see this making any difference is when grandma is at Walmart trying to purchase a "game" for her grandson and chooses "math blasters 2007" because it is a "game for windows" and it is educational so it has to be good right? Wrong.
The technical merits of public key cryptography are not in question, but rather the understanding of the public with regard to the proper use of these methods is and that is the real difficulty. If you cannot make the system completely workable without any knowledge or understanding on the part of the public then your efforts will fail because average people do not, will not, or cannot understand the basis for public key cryptography enough to be informed users of the system. I have personal experience with the glazed over looks that I get from the corporate top brass when I try and explain these things to them and these guys are smarter than the average Joe on the street (although just barely it seems).
The problem with the specific system that you describe is that it is based upon access to the physical credit card, but many credit card transactions are processed each day without sliding the actual card (i.e. Internet and phone transactions with just the numbers keyed in). How are you going to fix that loophole without making it such a hassle for the user that they just go to the physical store instead? How about trying to explain to the average guy in the event of a failure (and there WILL be failures because no implementation is perfect) why he cannot buy airline tickets to his grandmother's funeral because his card did not validate with the public key of his credit card company for whatever reason (i.e. maybe the data on the stripe got corrupted or something else went wrong)? These are real problems and they are difficult to solve without compromising either security or convenience or both.
If I had to guess then I would say that the development tools market is probably the SMALLEST market in which Microsoft is directly involved and that they produce these tools primarily to support development on their platform and not because doing so actually earns them much profit. This has both advantages and disadvantages for the developers...on the one hand you can be sure that the Microsoft development products cover the bases pretty well on the Microsoft platform and since most developers can easily spot piece of crap software (having written a bunch of it themselves), the development tools tend to be among the better quality products produced by Microsoft, although Visual Studio does have its moments just like any other piece of Microsoft software. The bad part about a large firm like Microsoft being in the developer tools market is that they tend to squeeze out smaller competitors here even more easily than they do in other markets and the first type of company that most software geeks try to start, probably because it pertains directly to what they know best, is you guessed it...a development tools company.
Look at it this way...its like self-serve vs full serve gasoline (yes some places still offer full serve but you have to look around a bit to find it). In the full serve model the station employee(s) check my tire pressure, wash my windows, and fill up my gas tank while I sit in the comfort of my BMW listening to the [name of city here] philharmonic playing Vivaldi OR I pull up in my beat up pickup truck, get my butt out of the truck, check the pressure in my own worn out tires, wash the bug grime off my own windows, and fill up my own gas tank with the cheapest 87 octane gas that I can find. The gasoline still powers my vehicle, but I didn't get any service. There is a market for both types of gasoline service and there is nothing wrong with that.
Having said that, I also have very little doubt this entire scenario was a knee-jerk reaction from political pressure to law enforcement agencies (both British and American) to find a real plot in the making, ANY plot no matter how far-fetched or improbable to acctually happen, and blow it way out of proportion.
Alright, but suppose next time they do nothing and many more British citizens are killed? Would you be willing to cut the government some slack for having lax security measures or would you blame the government for not acting decisively?
This allowed them convince the public that we are always on the verge of a major terrorist attack and we need to give the government more powers in order to protect us.
Then what is the average citizen supposed to do? They have already taken away just about every reasonable recourse to self defense in the UK and the courts have ruled that while the police are responsible for protecting society in general they cannot be held liable for failing to protect an individual citizen with whom they did not have a prior explicit agreement (i.e. witness protection). If you are against too much government power then how about putting more of that power back into the hands of the citizens? If people are supposed to protect themselves then you must allow them the means to do so (i.e. public carrying of defensive weapons) or else the government has to do it so take your pick.
The fact that the courts are not finding enough evidence to convict only support this theory.
Fine, so tag them with a tracking device and deport their butts back to Pakistan and when they show up at their next terrorist meeting we can bag the whole lot of them with a single hellfire missile.
Combine that with timing of the event, and the new scare policies implemented in Airports, along with the speeches made by certain political parties (i.e. better not vote for our opponents or next time this would have killed your newborn child, puppy dog, and a baby seal) and you have yourself what appears to be a bonified piece of engineered political propaganda.
That is the world of politics and all parties are guilty as charged...nothing new there.
Interesting, are the times we live; the methods used to influence public opinion, and therefore events and public control, are no different than they were 50-60 years ago when the world was in turmoil. We never really learn do we?
Indeed and the answer is probably not, but you can always vote for the other guy next time around if you think it will make any difference.
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Perhaps this is a silly question, but why not simply modify the Bradley so that the turret is enlarged to carry multiple coaxial weapons, in addition to the Bushmaster auto-cannons, with the ability for the gunner to fire any combination of the available guns simultaneously?
By placing the CPU on the backside of the motherboard and let it protrude out from the case it would be very feasable to use passive cooling.
This is true, but mounting the CPU outside of the case has downsides as well. The computer takes up more space and delicate parts are not protected against bumps, jolts, and other accidents (the infamous juice or beer spill) that tend to happen in the consumer environment. It would only take one errant toddler to bump into the exposed heat sink, which would then act as a lever against the exposed CPU, and that would be the end of that. No, for the majority of the people out there the box is the best solution.
Nothing? Hell...you don't need a million dollars to do nothing! Look at my cousin man he's broke and doesn't do shit.
The Sony name has just as much cache now as it has ever had among the general public which likes their DVD players and televisions, doesn't have a clue about what DRM is or means (until their kid starts screaming that their favorite Disney DVD will not play anymore because it is heavily scratched. Then, when the parent buys another one and looks to make a VHS copy that the kid can destroy, they find out about the wonderful world of Macrovision) and absolutely ZERO knowledge of what a "rootkit" is and why that is a bad thing for their spyware and spambot infested windows desktop.
Perhaps this will make no difference to Sony in the marketplace, but I think it is fair to say that among geeks, who buy lots of technology products and have money to spend, the Sony name has taken a hit. I will not purchase a Play Station 3 for precisely that reason at any price. There are plenty of other worthwhile games and platforms to spend my time and money on instead. Sony may work for Joe Sixpack, but it doesn't work for me anymore (I was never a big fan of Sony before the rootkit and battery debacles anyway) and I suspect that there are many others here on Slashdot that feel the same way.
Because some things (including quality of life) should not have a price.
This is a common sentiment among the left and it sounds good during an election year (i.e. won't somebody please think of the children?), but it is not grounded in the reality of a world with limited resources and competing priorities. The chance that any individual citizen will ultimately benefit from stem cell research, for example, is so small relative to the cost of the research and the probability that the research will not turn up anything substantially useful, at least in the short term, that most rational people (i.e. people who think with their head when it comes to the spending of their money) would elect not to fund the research at this time. The expectation of a return on their investment given the amount of risk and the expense is simply too low and we would be happier spending our limited resources on other priorities.
Companies exist to make money, and that's all there is to it.
I agree no question about that...
Some research fields should be protected from capitalism because a lack of profitability does not mean a lack of virtuousness.
The problem lies in the fact that taxes (i.e. public funds) are not discretionary and one is compelled to pay them, ostensibly to provide for a limited number of necessary public goods (i.e. justice system, national defense, and basic infrastructure). It is the height of arrogance for the intellectual elites on the left to claim that they know best how to spend MY money, which is essentially what they are doing by advocating increased government spending for everything and increased taxes to pay for it. If you believe that the research is so virtuous then why not spend a greater portion of your own money funding it (i.e. invest in companies which do stem cell research or start your own)? I am a firm believer in the economic theories of Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, and the Chicago School or to put it more simply...markets work and governments don't. So you spend your money how you wish and I will decided how I ought to be spending mine.
If I recall, the US govt paid Qualcomm over 100 million dollars to do R&D on RF technology for military communications.
If Qualcomm did the R&D work as part of an open bid contract to develop a product or provide service to the government AND the product or service was indeed provided on time and per the terms of the agreement then I am not against Qualcomm profiting from their work on the contract in future dealings. However, if this money was given as a grant or the product or service was NOT delivered as per the terms of the agreement then Qualcomm has some explaining to do.
Then just as the technology started to become developed in the market, they patented the shit out of everything to do with CDMA.
If the entire arrangement was above board (which it probably was not) then there is no problem with this, especially if Qualcomm had language in the contract stating that they had the right to patent any technology that came out of the research (probably in return for granting a perpetual license to the government). However, I am generally against funding research projects with public money (there are too many projects that would want funding) and especially when the project could feasibly be funded with private investment. This is the reason why I voted AGAINST the stem cell research bonds here in California. If the investors feel so poorly about an opportunity that they do not want to risk their own money then why should the public be forced to take that risk? It is also the case, as you have already said, that if the risk DOES pay off then the public gets screwed out of their rightful return on the investment. The same thing goes for airline bailouts and most other forms of corporate charity. If the taxpayers do not share in the rewards then why should we share in the pain when these business ventures fail?
I always thought that was sort of unfair, after all my tax money paid for that R&D, and even if it didn't - it seemed like there was incentive was already out and that it was going to be invented anyhow.
It is unfair and if something is really that worthwhile then there usually is enough incentive already out there for private investment to develop it. The few projects that are left (i.e. stem cell research, farm products research, and other bogus or risky projects funded by taxpayers) are usually lemons or very risky (junk bond type investments with high risks and long payoff horizons) and the public gets stuck holding the bag.
There was a time when governments were experimenting with applications for civilian nuclear powered ships including nuclear powered ice breakers and even a few cargo ships. However, a combination of factors conspired to more or less seal the fate of civilian nuclear powered ships.
First, since most of these ships, with the possible exception of soviet nuclear icebreakers, were designed as demonstration platforms for public promotion by the government they tended to incorporate features that were not desirable in the strictest practical sense for carrying cargo. This took the form of sleeker hull designs, like what one might see on high end private yachts, or more staterooms at the expense of cargo carrying capacity and efficiency on what was supposed to be a cargo vessel. This was compounded by the fact that these vessels were introduced during a transitional period in international shipping where containerized supertankers were taking over roles traditionally filled by non-containerized cargo ships. The NS Savannah was a good example of these limitations.
Second, the difficulty of providing adequate facilities in major ports to service these vessels both for routine maintenance and in the event of an accident severely limited the number of ports that were either willing or able to service nuclear powered cargo ships.
Finally, the advent of the nuclear non-proliferation treaties combined with a greater appreciation of the dangers of non-state actors effectively ended promotion of civilian nuclear power abroad by the United States. In the light of the political climate during the Cold War the idea of a fleet of nuclear powered civilian cargo ships became an increasingly quaint anachronism in a world were the nuclear arms race was creating serious concerns about the future of the human race. The rise of international terrorism during the early 1970s and continuing on until today was really the final nail in the coffin. It was simply too much to risk for too little economic benefit. Given these limitations and the fact that the difficulties with both proliferation and terrorism have become even more pronounced, it is exceedingly unlikely that the nuclear powered cargo vessels will ever be reintroduced.
NASA fuels both interest and the work they do has far reaching impact for science (and not just pens that write upside down and expensive mattresses).
If the engineers and scientists at NASA want to reach the younger 18-25 crowd and get them interested in science and engineering careers then they have to work on some projects if for no other reason than to generate more public interest in science education. For example, how about getting a team of NASA engineers to work with local high school students to design and actually BUILD the ultimate souped up street racer car using materials and expertise from the space program? These types of "cool" engineering projects could be combined with regular course materials and curriculum to introduce science and engineering concepts in new and interesting ways...nothing says F=MA like 0-60 in 4.5 seconds after all.
Since science doesn't pay as well as non-productive professions like accountancy, law, and real estate sales, we need some way to inspire the next generation to do something other than make enough disposable income to buy the latest iPod.
While I will be the first to admit that certain professions...*ahem* marketing *ahem* are of rather dubious value to our civilization it is important to have competent administration (i.e. accountants) to make sure that resources are tracked and used efficiently among other things. Perhaps, if you are a physics or science teacher, you could spend one lesson discussing the electronics and engineering that went into that iPod which all of your students are currently enjoying. If you want to reach the younger generations then you have to meet them at their level so that they see why the underlying science and engineering is important in maintaining the modern existence that we all enjoy today.
What we do need is a real mission and real results.
The recent mars missions are examples of real missions with real scientific results that failed to capture much public interest beyond their initial sound bites and pictures. If the public knew that NASA was working on something more interesting, like warp drive or something really out there (they canceled the next generation propulsion project a while back) AND the scientists kept blogs with up to date discussions of experiments and results in terms that the public could understand (or at least the non-expert yet technically adept Slashdot crowd) then you might find some younger people, who are watching Battlestar Galactica, Stargate, and other science fiction programs more interested in what NASA is doing with their tax money.
X Windows, or something like it, comes with just about every version of a NIX OS and Windows XP comes with remote desktop client. If you want to go back more than six years then you can point to Windows 2000 Pro and other 9x Microsoft OSes not having this functionality pre-installed out of the box, but most people already have the tools they need with their base OS install (they just don't know that they have them). I cannot speak about the MacOS support during this time since I mostly didn't use MacOS during the past six years, but if they had remote access then it probably came with the pre-installed bundle on your shiny new Mac. The pre-installed issue is thus, not much of an issue.
I fail to see how any professional engineer could consider deployment of such wide-scale serveilence as an ethical and appropriate use of government power, outside of the four walls of a prison.
It pays the bills and puts a roof over the head and food on the table of some engineer and his family. One cannot eat principles after all and there are worse ways to make a living. If you want to blame someone then blame the government for funding it, not the engineer who builds and installs it.
There are already very effective generic anti-parasitic drugs, such as Praziquantel, available at reasonable prices. There may be human conditions which are not well treated because they are uncommon, but parasites are probably not the best example. In many cases, better access to clean water and increased use of certain pesticides like DDT would be much cheaper and more effective than continued use of drugs.
Lets take this one point at a time shall we?
1. Stop advertising drugs on TV and in magazines. You are not a doctor. You shouldn't be "asking your doc" if zotramiphil is right for your itchy ass.
While I agree that the drug ads are pretty campy and share in your sentiment about asking my doctor if some drug is right for my itchy ass it does not diminish their right to advertise in the manner consistent with our laws. There is nothing misleading or obscene about asking your doctor if some drug is right for you or suggesting that someone else do the same in your ad (so long as you do not mention the itchy ass part in public). They have the same right to speech through advertising that we have to ignore them or speak out against them, its a free country after all.
2. Stop developing drugs for stupid shit. Yes, lots of people have Type2 diabetes. We already have a cure for that; a treadmill. Stop wasting money to develop a drug *just* to make money off a stupid disease.
Ahhh...but the stupid people have money to spend and are too lazy to get on a treadmill. I would be in favor of government funded programs telling people to get off their ass and use the treadmill instead of paying for the drugs, but so long as people are spending their own money there is not much that can be done about it. However, fear not...the gullible and their money are quickly parted and then they will have to get their ass on the treadmill anyway.
2a. Why can an old guy take a drug to make his dick hard when I can't smoke a joint?
This should be interesting...Well to make a long story short if the guy taking the penis pills is doing it in the privacy of his own home (hopefully anyway) and a doctor has prescribed for him a penis pill which has been approved by the FDA as safe for his long term health absent any disqualifying circumstances then he should be able to take his penis pills in peace. That being said there are other drugs, namely alcohol and tobacco that are known to be potentially or certainly harmful and are legal anyway. If you are asking me, "at what point are the side effects so harmful that the drug should be illegal?" Then I am afraid that I have no specific answer for you...Perhaps you could elaborate on what precisely you plan to put IN your joint before you smoke it? If the laws change to say that everyone is responsible for their own health care, that hospitals are not obligated to treat your drug damaged body if you cannot pay, and that I am allowed to shoot junkies trying to steal my stuff to cover their habit then we can make anything you want to take legal, but I don't really want to live in that society and you probably don't either. Does this answer your question?
3. If a company develops a truly amazing cure/drug, the government should step in and buy it for the cost of development. The drug should them be distributed for the cost of production inside the US and for twice the cost of production outside the US. Once the costs are recouped, it should be just the cost of production inside and outside the US.
If I wanted to borrow $100 from you right now and pay you back five years from now at 0% interest would you loan me the money? If you answered no to this question then you understand why companies would not want to produce drugs at break even prices when their capital could be better invested elsewhere and earning a profit.
4. Get rid of medical lawsuits. A judge and jury have no idea if what a doc did was right or wrong. Appoint a commission of well-respected docs and have all medical complaints go through that office. If the commission decides the doc was wrong, then the doc should be fired and the patient recouped in a fair way.
Tort reform is a worthy and necessary goal and it is almost a certainty in any case involving expert knowledge that the court would defer to the experts on points dealing with specialized knowledge (medicine in this case). However, the legal system is our cur
Since other people on this forum are either unwilling or unable to have a serious go at presenting the other side of the argument, then I suppose that I will take a shot at it being that I am an investor in companies which develop drugs and benefit from patents. First off, I do not consider myself or the companies which I invest in to be evil entities scheming to keep drugs out of the hands of the poor. The drug patent issue stirs passions in the debate like few others and especially when it is related to the issue of HIV/AIDS which really is a big problem in the third world countries as well as here in the west. However, we must allow ourselves to consider the merits logically or else we find ourselves hopelessly lost in the sway of an emotional argument and unable to see the reasonable points of the opposition. It is true that there are some drugs which are badly needed by poor people who are unable to get them because of high prices due primarily to some combination of high production costs, price fixing in some countries (creating shortages), low demand in countries where consumers are more willing or able to pay (epidemics of malaria are not common in the United States for example), and yes patents.
However, it is also important to remember that many of the so called blockbuster drugs developed and patented are targeted at non-life threatening problems which are concentrated in the first world nations of Europe, Japan, the United States and others. For example, erectile disfunction and high cholesterol due to obesity are primarily first world problems and the fact that these particular medicines are patented probably doesn't make much difference to the poor people in Africa because they mostly do not need these medicines anyway. In those cases where the drug CAN be produced for some profit and sold to poor people in need, or to organizations who will turn around and use them to help the poor, it is usually done because the drug company earns $0 if the poor person dies when he and millions like him were willing and able to pay $1 for their prescription (or get it from the aid agency which pays $1 on their behalf). In fact it would be foolish for the drug company NOT to license for third world production since monopolies, which drug patents create, maximize profits by price discrimination (i.e. they charge each consumer the maximum price that they are willing and able to pay). In Africa that price might be $0.02 per dose while in the United States it might be $2 per dose or 100 times more expensive because that is what the markets will bear. There is no reason for a company to leave money on the table just because they want to be evil (this is not Dr. Evil here people)
The market for life saving generics is already well provided for by Indian and other foreign pharmaceutical companies who produce large quantities at lower costs and sell them profitably in these third world nations. The AIDS example is a notable one where this is NOT the case, but the main point is that these types of situations tend to be the exception rather than the rule. There are many reasons why the poor do not receive the medicines that they so desperately need including wars, poor government institutions, corruption, and myriad others but patents are really not the bogey man that they have been made out to be in restricting access of poor people to medicine. The AIDS issue merits special attention to be sure, but it does not mean that we should scrap drug patents for heart disease medications (thereby ensuring that they will not be produced) when doing so would make little or no difference to the plight of the people in Africa. The drug patents get scapegoated because they are an easy and politically attractive target, but scraping patents is not the answer. I would be in favor of more stringent review before patents are granted, like the aforementioned Indian traditional medicine patent, but that is another discussion.
There is nothing new about remote access to one's computer and there have been many solutions to this problem for many years now that all perform better or no worse than the web browser approach. There is X windows for NIXes which supports remote login sessions, there is remote desktop for Windows XP and 2003 and terminal services for Windows 2000, not to mention the numerous third party products which have been available for just as long including VNC, Timbuktu, PCAnywhere, and many others. The WebOS concept really doesn't offer anything that is substantially improved over the existing solutions and it actually does some things even less well. This sounds to me like yet another solution to a problem that is already well solved searching for an audience in an already crowded marketplace. I wouldn't invest dime one of my money in a WebOS company so that pretty well sums up my sentiments about the prospects of the WebOS concept. The people here on Slashdot are right to be unimpressed by this.
In addition to library management software, I would suggest that class scheduling and enrollment/registration software might be another area. Universities and schools pay millions for this software, and it's usually pretty primative stuff.
The scheduling problem at universities is a harder problem to solve than one might think at first glance, believe me...we had to develop exactly this type of system for the lower division software engineering course and the professor chose this problem on purpose because it was immediately familiar to all of his students, but at the same time sufficiently challenging as to present a worthy substitute for a final exam. It is in fact very difficult to design an algorithm which creates a schedule of classes such that the maximum number of classes that are likely to be selected by any individual student majoring in a wide variety of subjects can be taken, including the exam schedules, without conflict while allowing each student to take a full load of 16 quarter units. As it turns out many of these scheduling optimization problems are in the NP complete class of problems.
The MAC address can be changed in Windows as well, which is probably not such a bad idea all things considered. If you want any privacy these days you have to secure it for yourself because nobody else cares anymore and some are actively trying to subvert it.
It's a very valid thought, it's just the form that's bad: what you suggest is Microsoft pays black hats under the table to fix find flaws in their products for them. Quite a PR disaster, surely you'll agree.
It is not necessarily bad for Microsoft to pay these guys a bounty behind the scenes to find flaws in their products for them. Think of it this way, the CIA pays criminals and other unsavory people to be informants and agents acting in the interests of the government at the behest of their CIA case officers or handlers. The CIA does not deal with these people because it likes them or believes in their causes, but rather because they have something we want and they are willing to sell it to us for the right price. If the operation is done properly then the CIA and by extension the government can plausibly deny that any relationship exists should the transactions be made public. It doesn't have to be a PR disaster and it might be worth the risks if the operations are handled properly.
on a per-exploit-found basis (at "black market rate" if you will), only these hackers would be working for MS perfectly legally: they would get the same money, trouble-free, and Microsoft could boast they subject their products to the most stringent tests before release.
Unless the program was advertised extensively to the underground scene on the Internet there would probably not be enough responses or interest to attract the best talent. It is also unlikely that Microsoft, even with their giant cash reserves, could pay enough on a per exploit basis to offset the potential illegal profits that could be made by using the exploit instead. To use an analogy, if you had a key that would open 95% of the worlds' locks then you would probably not show up at the lock picker challenge day to demonstrate on the front doors of FBI headquarters for a pittance prize and a hand shake for being a good citizen.
I have noticed this as well and so have my friends and family. In fact, the number of daily spams caught and trashed by my Spam Bayes filter has nearly tripled in the last six months. The probable cause of this increase is a recent surge in the number of zombies now controlled by spam trojans in the bot networks. This was covered here on Slashdot last month in Bot Nets Behind Recent Spam Surge. As for the trusted email addresses, some of us are already doing this with whitelists, but as you say the good guys are losing right now. The one good thing, if you can call it that, that might come out of this whole scenario is that the spammers speed the coming of the day when classic e-mail is retired from general use and something better is put in its place. The greed of the spammers may ultimately prove to be their undoing as they collectively kill the goose that laid the golden eggs.
It was my understanding that provided the consumption occurs on base then it doesn't matter what the specific state law says...you are allowed to drink. If the bar is off base then that may be a different matter, but this probably doesn't come up as much as it once did and for the soldiers over there in Iraq who are under 21 it is probably safe to assume that so long as the drinking does not interfere with performance while on duty the commanders probably look the other way when the 19 year old has a few beers with the other soldiers in his unit...its good for morale anyway.
What Honda CAN do (and probably should be able to do anyways) is prevent anyone from putting the Honda LOGO on their knockoff parts, or the phrase "Genuine Honda" or similar such markings as it misrepresents the source of the aftermarket parts and leads consumers into making wrong assumptions about the quality, source, warranty, etc.
Yes, but here the difference is that the AutoCAD software can check for the watermark or logo and REFUSE to open the file if the logo is not present. Honda may prefer that you purchase your spare or replacement parts from them, but the engine will not refuse to start if it somehow detects that you have used after market non-honda parts.
This whole case sounds very similar to the DMCA garage door opener case or the Lexmark anti-refill printer cartridge case in that the primary purpose of the "protection" device is to prevent interoperability with legitimate competing products and not to protect against copyright infringement.
Where I WOULD have a problem is if Autodesk were to use this signature to prevent interoperability
If they are not doing this already then you have to admit that it will become sorely tempting for them to start once there is more serious competition from open source and competing closed source CAD packages to produce more fully compatible DWG files. As for Autodesk moving into the dark side...well lets just say that they have been the evil empire of CAD for some time now what with their big bucks subscriptions, expensive upgrades, and onerous licensing terms.
You can be sure of one thing though...the closed format DWG is the linchpin of their whole system of control and they will not give this up without a fight.
Redmond is requiring that all titles use similar packaging and a distinctive logo. Along with the new gamer-centric features in Vista, and the tie-in to Xbox 360 with 'Live Anywhere', this is meant to reinvigorate the PC games market for the sometimes not-so-savvy consumer.
The PC platform is not like the consoles in that it is not generally possible for the operating system vendor, Microsoft in this case, to exclude third parties from writing software for the platform. This has both positive and negative consequences as the experience of Microsoft has demonstrated (i.e. third parties producing poor quality software which gives Microsoft Windows a bad name while at the same time giving more software choices on Microsoft Windows). I suppose that you could invent some logo scheme like "playsforsure" or "designed for windows" or "games for windows" or whatever and not allow use of the logo if the vendor will not play by the rules (combined with a FUD advertising campaign warning consumers about "untrusted" non-logo software), but how does this in any way help the consumer? People buy games because they hear about them from a friend or read about them in a gaming magazine, not because the game has some "games for windows" logo. The only place that I can see this making any difference is when grandma is at Walmart trying to purchase a "game" for her grandson and chooses "math blasters 2007" because it is a "game for windows" and it is educational so it has to be good right? Wrong.
The technical merits of public key cryptography are not in question, but rather the understanding of the public with regard to the proper use of these methods is and that is the real difficulty. If you cannot make the system completely workable without any knowledge or understanding on the part of the public then your efforts will fail because average people do not, will not, or cannot understand the basis for public key cryptography enough to be informed users of the system. I have personal experience with the glazed over looks that I get from the corporate top brass when I try and explain these things to them and these guys are smarter than the average Joe on the street (although just barely it seems).
The problem with the specific system that you describe is that it is based upon access to the physical credit card, but many credit card transactions are processed each day without sliding the actual card (i.e. Internet and phone transactions with just the numbers keyed in). How are you going to fix that loophole without making it such a hassle for the user that they just go to the physical store instead? How about trying to explain to the average guy in the event of a failure (and there WILL be failures because no implementation is perfect) why he cannot buy airline tickets to his grandmother's funeral because his card did not validate with the public key of his credit card company for whatever reason (i.e. maybe the data on the stripe got corrupted or something else went wrong)? These are real problems and they are difficult to solve without compromising either security or convenience or both.
If I had to guess then I would say that the development tools market is probably the SMALLEST market in which Microsoft is directly involved and that they produce these tools primarily to support development on their platform and not because doing so actually earns them much profit. This has both advantages and disadvantages for the developers...on the one hand you can be sure that the Microsoft development products cover the bases pretty well on the Microsoft platform and since most developers can easily spot piece of crap software (having written a bunch of it themselves), the development tools tend to be among the better quality products produced by Microsoft, although Visual Studio does have its moments just like any other piece of Microsoft software. The bad part about a large firm like Microsoft being in the developer tools market is that they tend to squeeze out smaller competitors here even more easily than they do in other markets and the first type of company that most software geeks try to start, probably because it pertains directly to what they know best, is you guessed it...a development tools company.
The rest of your points are generally correct.
Look at it this way...its like self-serve vs full serve gasoline (yes some places still offer full serve but you have to look around a bit to find it). In the full serve model the station employee(s) check my tire pressure, wash my windows, and fill up my gas tank while I sit in the comfort of my BMW listening to the [name of city here] philharmonic playing Vivaldi OR I pull up in my beat up pickup truck, get my butt out of the truck, check the pressure in my own worn out tires, wash the bug grime off my own windows, and fill up my own gas tank with the cheapest 87 octane gas that I can find. The gasoline still powers my vehicle, but I didn't get any service. There is a market for both types of gasoline service and there is nothing wrong with that.
Having said that, I also have very little doubt this entire scenario was a knee-jerk reaction from political pressure to law enforcement agencies (both British and American) to find a real plot in the making, ANY plot no matter how far-fetched or improbable to acctually happen, and blow it way out of proportion.
Alright, but suppose next time they do nothing and many more British citizens are killed? Would you be willing to cut the government some slack for having lax security measures or would you blame the government for not acting decisively?
This allowed them convince the public that we are always on the verge of a major terrorist attack and we need to give the government more powers in order to protect us.
Then what is the average citizen supposed to do? They have already taken away just about every reasonable recourse to self defense in the UK and the courts have ruled that while the police are responsible for protecting society in general they cannot be held liable for failing to protect an individual citizen with whom they did not have a prior explicit agreement (i.e. witness protection). If you are against too much government power then how about putting more of that power back into the hands of the citizens? If people are supposed to protect themselves then you must allow them the means to do so (i.e. public carrying of defensive weapons) or else the government has to do it so take your pick.
The fact that the courts are not finding enough evidence to convict only support this theory.
Fine, so tag them with a tracking device and deport their butts back to Pakistan and when they show up at their next terrorist meeting we can bag the whole lot of them with a single hellfire missile.
Combine that with timing of the event, and the new scare policies implemented in Airports, along with the speeches made by certain political parties (i.e. better not vote for our opponents or next time this would have killed your newborn child, puppy dog, and a baby seal) and you have yourself what appears to be a bonified piece of engineered political propaganda.
That is the world of politics and all parties are guilty as charged...nothing new there.
Interesting, are the times we live; the methods used to influence public opinion, and therefore events and public control, are no different than they were 50-60 years ago when the world was in turmoil. We never really learn do we?
Indeed and the answer is probably not, but you can always vote for the other guy next time around if you think it will make any difference.