...I'd have my lawyer send their lawyer a query asking why they're willfully reducing the quality of the product I've purchased (knowingly reducing the number of eyeballs seeing my Ad)? Naturally, the query would be in legalese.
Oh, I know. We're on the friggin' security council?
And, what does the U.S. being on the Security Council have to do with the U.N.'s resolution 687 being violated by Iraq?
As the resolution by the U.N. was for Iraq to follow, any violation was a matter for the U.N. Again, are we the U.N.? If we're so wound up about Iraq not following the U.N.'s resolution, why do we violate U.N. laws in attacking another country? The answer is simple, and the world knows it even if most of us Americans don't want to say the word: hypocrisy. Frankly, we've proven by a simple act of impatience that we don't wish to practice what we preach.
...why don't you find a legitimate legal authority that actually considers the recent invasion of Iraq as a contravention of international law?
No problem. You only need to first provide me with a method of proving the legitimacy of legality and authority other than with the strength of arms. Short of that, you'll have to simply settle for this.
The US has gone to war without the UN's approval before. The mere lack of UN approval does not make a war a violation of the UN charter.
Ah, now I see where the difference in opinion stems from. I was getting curious where you were getting your legal standing from. In this reality, not the simplistic Cowboys and Indians fantasy world Shrub appears to operate in, you're quite wrong. In reality, it actually is in violation of the U.N. charter to attack a country that isn't attacking you. By design, it is also against our own Constitution. That Constitution certainly is a bothersome document isn't it?
...because the US did have plenty of legitimate reasons to invade Iraq.
So says the U.S., but not the U.N. One more visible flouting of U.N. rules by the U.S. would've brought up the question of why the U.N. doesn't enforce it's laws against rogue acts such as that about to be perpetrated by one of its members. To compound the difficulty, what if those countries were two of the founding members (U.S. + U.K.)? What could they do, confront them directly in a military showdown? Not going to happen. Rather than protect a nation that was in violation of their resolution, they let one of their members tear that nation apart in appeasement, furthering their own slide towards irrelevancy.
*sigh* (again)
Shortness of breath can be associated with heart disease. Consider a checkup.
Bush's press harped on the one nuclear reason, which really was the only one that could have carried the war by itself if it had been true.
Despite the U.N.'s inspectors' protest that there was no evidence of Weapons of Mass Destruction as stated by the U.S., the impatient Shrub couldn't resist the opportunities presented. Chief U.N. Weapons Inspector Blix was unwarrantably maligned by the Shrub administration, and the rest of the world remembers it even if we Americans don't.
you're not engaging in a reasonable discussion. You're resorting to childish name-calling...
Not agreeing with you doesn't warrant accusations of not engaging in reasonable discussion. Don't make the mistake of equating reasonableness with acquiescence. I at least try to provide reference for the arguments I make, whereas you haven't.
...and what is really unsupportable allegations of criminal malice on the part of the President.
Aside from his previous arrests, flagrant violation of International and U.S. Constitutional law is a criminal act. Not mere allegation, but now a fact in world and U.S. history.
And the UN didn't even try a "no, don't bomb Iraq US" vote.
I think you mean the Security Council. And, where would that have gotten them, another flagrant disregard of international law from the U.S.? What would publicizing another violation from us get them? They certainly weren't going to attack us militarily on it like we were about to attack Iraq.
As for the rest of your critizisms: just because you don't agree with a reason doesn't make it dishonest. It might make it "wrong", but hardly not "honest."
Um, it's dishonest when it is meant to knowingly mislead. Not that I don't think that you believe the points you made were the reasons for our invasion. But, the Shrub administration and Faux News channel used these arguments to sway public opinion while all the time knowing these were not the real reasons. It is Shrub and Faux who were dishonest, not you for simply stating what they claimed. And, their biggest reason for invasion, Weapons of Mass Destruction (which ran on the news day and night and day and night and day...), had not been verified, only conjectured. The terrible result is that contemporary Iraq does have religious terrorists. We invited them there by removing the only remotely secular government in the Islamic region that was as evil as they were, and then providing them an unresistable opportunity to kill us as foreign invaders. So, yes, terrorists have now been reportedly flocking to Iraq in droves.
Rank-and-file Iraqi troops were convinced that, while their unit didn't have WMD, some more-secret unit of the Iraqi army did.
If we are to start fighting wars based on opinions, in spite of facts, then I feel sorry for any country that is not in line with our opinion. I also feel sorry for us should such a country feel desperately paranoid enough to treat us as we've preemptively treated others. In attacking, invading, and occupying a sovereign foreign country on unsubstantiated opinions, we've violated international law and our own constitution. Now that we've violated international law that we helped create, we are at worst criminals and best practicioners of vigilantism and at least hypocrites. What punishment should we expect? Or, is it that only other countries can behave criminally, and that we don't have to follow the rules we expect others to?
According to some reports, Saddam himself thought that he had WMD before the war.
Psychics notwithstanding, how would anyone know what he thought? Let's leave Dione Warwick out of this.
And regardless of what he knew, the former Butcher of Baghdad certainly didn't act like a man with nothing to hide.
It's called international poker where world leaders try to gain every inch they can from other world leaders. A game he lost, as he didn't realize that we're crazier than we look. There's no excuse for Saddam's behavior towards his own people, and to a lesser extent towards the international community (we're in violation of quite a few international laws ourselves). His failure was to note that while Bush I was a sane and intelligent individual, that Bush II The Unelected barely graduated out of a university that under normal circumstances wouldn't have dreamt of letting him attend in the first place.
Because all of those nations are engaging in active and productive diplomacy with us.
You mean when N.Korea kicked nuclear inspectors out after our invasion of Iraq and now have a few nuclear warheads (you remember N.Korea, they sell missiles to disgruntled countries)? Or, perhaps Iran's declaration that they will be pursuing a nuclear program once they realized the U.S. can drop in on them anytime they want to. Or, how about Saudi
Was that a response to us attempting to assassinate Saddam? Or, Kaddafi, or Castro, or [insert long list of U.S. successful and unsuccessful attempts to assassinate foreign leaders from South America to Asia]?
Giving aid and comfort to terrorists
Who? TheU.S.? If it were that, then why not invade North Korea, or Iran, or Pakistan, or Saudi Arabia...etc? The answer is below.
Refusing to cooperate with the UN.
Again, are we the U.N.?
Being a rat-bastard tyrant
Finally, the honest answer. But, only partially honest. His daddy was made a fool by Saddam, and everyone knew that if Shrub got into office, the Iraqis would pay. Shrub's Secretary of the Treasuryreports that plans for invading Iraq were in the making only within a few days of Shrub's theft of the election. If it were simply a matter of being a rat-bastard, there are plenty of others further along the road to bastard-hood: North Korea's loony leader for one. The problem is, no oil there, so no business drive to get there. Afghanistan proved a perfect, inarguable cause. Not for the one you think. True, Bin-Loonie was there, but that was simply the inescapable argument for invasion. If we could tame that country (only an asteroid dropped from space could achieve that), we could finally lay that oil pipeline we've been planning on for the past 30 years. Unfortunately, CNN and FauxNews channels don't cover this little bit of history, but we've been in a chess game with the Russians and Chinese for this bit of inhospitable land for quite a while. By the way, this is also why we're "friends" with Pakistan.
Simple failture of Washington/Baghdad diplomacy
No. Simple failure of Shrub Administration/U.N. diplomacy. His daddy was better at it, but this numbskull couldn't control his trigger finger. His only half-way feasable argument (even Powell had to excise some of the outright lies from the deceptive rhetoric he was forced to spew to the U.N.'s collective face) of Weapons of Mass Destruction have vanished into thin air, leaving a unpleasant odor that the rest of the world blames us for.
'they're trying to get nukes'
Again, why not invade SaudiArabia, Iran, North Korea, or Pakistan? They're the biggest terrorist threats outside of Afghanistan. They've been attempting to get nuclear long before Iraq, and have actual terrorist ties. The reason is this was a personal vendetta and business agenda, and he used to this country to fulfill it. If he should force Iraq's oil wells within U.S. corporate controls in the process of taking revenge, all the better. This monkey has to go come November.
You're right in that Shrub didn't attack Iraq simply for Weapons of Mass Destruction. That's just what he used to sell it.
The truth is, the rest of the world was behind us going into Afghanistan because that's where t
...scientists around the world have begun cautiously experimenting with devices implanted in patients' bodies to deliver precisely targeted electrical stimulation to the brain in hopes of treating otherwise hopeless behavioral, neurological and psychiatric disorders.
Considering that decisions from the top can result in fatalities, I wonder if our President's numbskull antics the past four years have accelerated the research to cure stupidity.
No, I do not see how the FCC letting the individual states regulate this is anti-consumer.
This is not my opinion, its the court's. The court is saying that this is the FCC's responsibility, and they cannot shirk it. If you have trouble with the ruling, write the court. Or, write your congressman and senator and have him write legislation to change the FCC's mission.
Each state is going to have a much better understanding of its own local market, than the FCC would of that same market.
Whether what you believe is true or not, the FCC exists and has a job to do. The court simply stated they must do it, and they cannot brush it off to the states. This current FCC incarnation has been caught various times trying to shlep off work to outside entities. Work that Congress has not authorized them to hand off to others. Ironically, it is the courts that are trying to stop the FCC from enfeebling itself by shirking responsibilities assigned to it by Congress.
While you may make your arguments based on market analysis, I advise you to politically analyze the situation. It's all there within the divided ideology inside the FCC in how to execute its job according to the mission assigned to it by Congress. It is getting overwhelming signals from the White House via Powell's son that anything resembling regulation is not to be looked upon kindly. Yet, here it is with a mission from Congress to do the right thing. What's a politically squeezed quasi-governmental agency to do but to go all squishy? What comes out of it are wildly ineffectual attempts to pass the buck. It's a good thing we have courts, otherwise we'd be screwed.
That doesn't say anything other than it's just more proof for people who claim Clinton behaved more Republican than Democrat. Some say he was one of the best Republican presidents.
This isn't as simple a case as at first glance. What the courts are doing is telling the FCC that they're attempts are too weak, and must come up with something better than simply letting states decide how to handle the problem. The courts in this case are on the consumer's side. It's only by accident that Powell's son is also on the court's side as the FCC's rulings, as weak as they were, was far more restrictive than his monopolistic tastes could handle. Powell's son is not a good guy. He is anti-consumer. It just happens that the court would prefer a much more decisive FCC ruling and that the FCC must contend with the problem itself and not pawn in it off to the states. This is why the court chastised the FCC. The article is full of noise by other companies claiming that this was an approval of their business practice. That is incorrect, and simply posturing. The FCC will have to come up with a consumer friendly ruling, or face more rejections from the court. If they don't, this will be decided in the Supreme Court as other litigations are winding their way up. Then you're really gonna start hearing some noise from the companies. However, by then, Powell's son will have been given the boot. Talk about nepotism. I can't believe that loser actually got such a visible post.
All the books you've mentioned deserve special places in fiction as they've each contributed something to raise the bar, or have taken the general course another direction.
Having said that, Zelazny's protagonist in the Amber series was easily interchangeable with any of the other heroes in his other novels. The most complex character in the Amber series wasn't the hero, it was the hero's brother Random. The second most was their father, and that was only because he was missing during the majority of books, making him appear an enigma. The Amber series was more plot driven than character driven. For more complex characters by Zelazny, I would point out the ones in Lord of Light or Creatures of Light and Darkness.
Herbert's Dune is a novel about politics. Normally this would indicate complex personalities and character development. And, it's true that some of the characters are given opportunity to evolve, but only to a limited sense before they're killed off. The fault isn't Herbert's, I don't think his goal was to portray difficult personalities. If he did, it was dwarfed by the complexities of creating a massive, galactic-scaled, politico-religious thriller. No, the most complex character in Dune wasn't Paul, it was the good doctor who killed his father.
George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire came long after Donaldson, but has brought life back into a stagnating genre. Jaime is a wonderful update of Vance's most famous anti-hero. If it weren't for Gene Wolfe (who was inspired by Vance by the way) and his peers, fantasy and science fiction would be in a sad state. There are too many crud authors out there who are given more shelfspace than the top talent nowadays.
I haven't read the Liveship Traders series, but if you recommend it, I just may.
As for Vance, to be honest, his strength isn't complex personalities. It's his dialogue, plot twists, and most importantly the ability to create entire societies that are so alien and yet strangely familiar at the same time. It just so happens that if you're looking to read about an anti-hero, he has developed the character who is the anti-hero.
In any case, what I was pointing out was that even with its serious flaws, the Covenant books reintroduced complex characters into the fantasy genre. The field was getting a little stale until Donaldson woke other authors up by showing it was okay to bring broken characters into the field. It might even be more appealing to do so. Most authors have ignored it and produced forgetable works. But, those that didn't, are the ones counted as today's best.
Covenant was too whiney and annoying to be a good hero, and too pathetic to be a good anti-hero.
I actually found Covenant more interesting before he passed into his "delusion". While his unbelief in his own "delusion" was a good plot mechanism at first (he "knew" it was a delusion because his leprosy was no longer part of his life), it soon began to wear on the reader. His "dependency" on his disease made his psychological make-up that much more complex. However, his continued passivity could truly be frustrating. Despite Covenant's excessive whininess, Donaldson deserves the credit for reintroducing complex characters back into fantasy.
I've long found the genre of anti-hero fiction to be fascinating. The characters' personalities tend to be more real than your standard protagonist; like non-fiction characters based on the real world. I'll make a recommendation here. If you haven't read this, you haven't met the most interesting anti-hero.
It's really simple. Those who care about reciprocation and that their evolving code should always be available to society can use the GPL. Those who don't care about such things don't need to hassle with BSD/MIT licenses. Just state that the code is in the Public Domain. No worries about such onerous things as licensing at all!
I agree with your assessment with just a minor clarification on the following point.
So even if somebody forked Sun's GPL code, it couldn't be called Java.
The nature of the GPL prevents permanent forks due to the enforced availability of the code. Were someone to add something to their implementation of Java, Sun or anyone else would be able to maintain compatability with ease. The same situation exists with Linux. Permanent forking isn't an issue with the GPL. In fact, temporary forks would simply be part of the evolutionary process.
Sun would have everything to gain from GPL'ing Java, while still maintaing the trademark just as Linus Torvalds does. The inclusion of Java with Linux as Linux makes their incursions into Microsoft territory would only be to its benefit. Who knows, maybe their stock performance would even eventually surpass Red Hat's?
Then, all Lindows would have to do is claim association with the X Window System by dropping the 's' in Lindows to be safe as Lindow. They could even keep it LindowS short for Linux Window System.
In addition, since the X Window System is commonly referred to by ALL users of the product for as long as it has existed as X Windows, Lindows can continue referring to itself as Lindows because Linux + X Windows = Lindows.
From the post: "software should more closely simulate the real world"
From the article:
"It's not the prevention of bugs but the recovery -- the ability to gracefully exterminate them -- that counts."
While the need to gracefully recover your design from bugs (bugs come from design, or lack of, not code) is laudable. The proper technique is to design without bugs in the first place. Assuming that you're actually meeting the business requirements or functional specifications, there is a straightforward method to flattening bugs before they become fruitfully overripe and multiply.
Once you have obtained the properrequirements (your goals), and after you've properly atomized it to its smallest component parts, you need to model those parts. Once you've modeled those parts, you need to test the model. This works in single process design, but it really shines in concurrency where anyone can truly screw up.
Get a goodbook on design. Then get a goodbook on modelling, mechanically analyzing, and testing those designed processes before commiting to code.
One of the main goals of the Patent Office is not to issue patents for things unpatentable. This is done by research and discovery of prior art or conflicting patents. They are clearly no longer able to provide this function.
The Patent office is obviously overwhelmed, underfunded, and in danger of becoming obsolete due to excessive rubber-stamping.
If you think about it, Slashdot is the most efficient and lowcost patent buster. It's an aggregator of ridiculous and clearly unenforceable patents where the issue is analyzed from every conceivable angle. The government should consider funding Slashdot for this service, as they are throwing our tax-money away by using the Patent Office who fail to provide it.
is this news because you would normally assume Apple to be parasitic and not give back to anyone?
Considering that Konqueror is GPL'd and KHTML is LGPL'd, it would be fruitless for Apple to even consider being parasitic. You're seeing the GPL family of licenses at work, where proprietary and open source companies mutually benefit one another. Everyone wins, specially the users.
Dr. Leon R. Kass, chairman of the President's Council on Bioethics, called for federal legislation to stop human cloning for any purpose.
"The age of human cloning has apparently arrived: today, cloned blastocysts for research, tomorrow cloned blastocysts for babymaking," Dr. Kass wrote in an e-mail message. "In my opinion, and that of the majority of the Council, the only way to prevent this from happening here is for Congress to enact a comprehensive ban or moratorium on all human cloning."
The Shrub and his right-wing religious fundamentalists appear to be insistent on offshoring our genetics lead. If this Luddite behavior keeps up, we'll be like Irish citizens who have to take a trip to England for an aborition without getting arrested. But, in this case, it'll be to send our aging parents to get a new lung, liver, kidney, spinal-cord repair, brain tissue repair, ocular replacements...etc. I wonder where all the exciting medical treatments and research of the future will be held, in the U.S., or in countries who were technically behind us only a few decades ago?
I found this reasonable advice from jemfinch during a related discussion:
"Learn Scheme. Download "DrScheme" and use it while you go through "How to Design Programs," a free online book for learning to program with Scheme. After that, go to half.com and buy "The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs" for around $10 (it'll be an old edition, but that's alright) and read through it, doing all the exercises it suggests.
If you do that, you'll not only know how to program, but you'll be a better programmer than probably 97% of the people on this board. Which doesn't say much, to be sure, but you'll find that the solid basis in programming that you've developed will allow you to learn any language you want easily. And you'll be able to program well in those languages."
Slashdot Mirror
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And, what does the U.S. being on the Security Council have to do with the U.N.'s resolution 687 being violated by Iraq?
As the resolution by the U.N. was for Iraq to follow, any violation was a matter for the U.N. Again, are we the U.N.? If we're so wound up about Iraq not following the U.N.'s resolution, why do we violate U.N. laws in attacking another country? The answer is simple, and the world knows it even if most of us Americans don't want to say the word: hypocrisy. Frankly, we've proven by a simple act of impatience that we don't wish to practice what we preach.
No problem. You only need to first provide me with a method of proving the legitimacy of legality and authority other than with the strength of arms. Short of that, you'll have to simply settle for this.
The US has gone to war without the UN's approval before. The mere lack of UN approval does not make a war a violation of the UN charter.
Ah, now I see where the difference in opinion stems from. I was getting curious where you were getting your legal standing from. In this reality, not the simplistic Cowboys and Indians fantasy world Shrub appears to operate in, you're quite wrong. In reality, it actually is in violation of the U.N. charter to attack a country that isn't attacking you. By design, it is also against our own Constitution. That Constitution certainly is a bothersome document isn't it?
So says the U.S., but not the U.N. One more visible flouting of U.N. rules by the U.S. would've brought up the question of why the U.N. doesn't enforce it's laws against rogue acts such as that about to be perpetrated by one of its members. To compound the difficulty, what if those countries were two of the founding members (U.S. + U.K.)? What could they do, confront them directly in a military showdown? Not going to happen. Rather than protect a nation that was in violation of their resolution, they let one of their members tear that nation apart in appeasement, furthering their own slide towards irrelevancy.
*sigh* (again)
Shortness of breath can be associated with heart disease. Consider a checkup.
Bush's press harped on the one nuclear reason, which really was the only one that could have carried the war by itself if it had been true.
Despite the U.N.'s inspectors' protest that there was no evidence of Weapons of Mass Destruction as stated by the U.S., the impatient Shrub couldn't resist the opportunities presented. Chief U.N. Weapons Inspector Blix was unwarrantably maligned by the Shrub administration, and the rest of the world remembers it even if we Americans don't.
you're not engaging in a reasonable discussion. You're resorting to childish name-calling...
Not agreeing with you doesn't warrant accusations of not engaging in reasonable discussion. Don't make the mistake of equating reasonableness with acquiescence. I at least try to provide reference for the arguments I make, whereas you haven't.
Aside from his previous arrests, flagrant violation of International and U.S. Constitutional law is a criminal act. Not mere allegation, but now a fact in world and U.S. history.
Kennedy-assassination nut
And, where did you get that?
And the UN didn't even try a "no, don't bomb Iraq US" vote.
I think you mean the Security Council. And, where would that have gotten them, another flagrant disregard of international law from the U.S.? What would publicizing another violation from us get them? They certainly weren't going to attack us militarily on it like we were about to attack Iraq.
As for the rest of your critizisms: just because you don't agree with a reason doesn't make it dishonest. It might make it "wrong", but hardly not "honest."
Um, it's dishonest when it is meant to knowingly mislead. Not that I don't think that you believe the points you made were the reasons for our invasion. But, the Shrub administration and Faux News channel used these arguments to sway public opinion while all the time knowing these were not the real reasons. It is Shrub and Faux who were dishonest, not you for simply stating what they claimed. And, their biggest reason for invasion, Weapons of Mass Destruction (which ran on the news day and night and day and night and day...), had not been verified, only conjectured. The terrible result is that contemporary Iraq does have religious terrorists. We invited them there by removing the only remotely secular government in the Islamic region that was as evil as they were, and then providing them an unresistable opportunity to kill us as foreign invaders. So, yes, terrorists have now been reportedly flocking to Iraq in droves.
Rank-and-file Iraqi troops were convinced that, while their unit didn't have WMD, some more-secret unit of the Iraqi army did.
If we are to start fighting wars based on opinions, in spite of facts, then I feel sorry for any country that is not in line with our opinion. I also feel sorry for us should such a country feel desperately paranoid enough to treat us as we've preemptively treated others. In attacking, invading, and occupying a sovereign foreign country on unsubstantiated opinions, we've violated international law and our own constitution. Now that we've violated international law that we helped create, we are at worst criminals and best practicioners of vigilantism and at least hypocrites. What punishment should we expect? Or, is it that only other countries can behave criminally, and that we don't have to follow the rules we expect others to?
According to some reports, Saddam himself thought that he had WMD before the war.
Psychics notwithstanding, how would anyone know what he thought? Let's leave Dione Warwick out of this.
And regardless of what he knew, the former Butcher of Baghdad certainly didn't act like a man with nothing to hide.
It's called international poker where world leaders try to gain every inch they can from other world leaders. A game he lost, as he didn't realize that we're crazier than we look. There's no excuse for Saddam's behavior towards his own people, and to a lesser extent towards the international community (we're in violation of quite a few international laws ourselves). His failure was to note that while Bush I was a sane and intelligent individual, that Bush II The Unelected barely graduated out of a university that under normal circumstances wouldn't have dreamt of letting him attend in the first place.
Because all of those nations are engaging in active and productive diplomacy with us.
You mean when N.Korea kicked nuclear inspectors out after our invasion of Iraq and now have a few nuclear warheads (you remember N.Korea, they sell missiles to disgruntled countries)? Or, perhaps Iran's declaration that they will be pursuing a nuclear program once they realized the U.S. can drop in on them anytime they want to. Or, how about Saudi
That agreement was with the U.N. Are we the U.N.?
Attempt to assassinate Bush Sr.
Was that a response to us attempting to assassinate Saddam? Or, Kaddafi, or Castro, or [insert long list of U.S. successful and unsuccessful attempts to assassinate foreign leaders from South America to Asia]?
Giving aid and comfort to terrorists
Who? The U.S.? If it were that, then why not invade North Korea, or Iran, or Pakistan, or Saudi Arabia...etc? The answer is below.
Refusing to cooperate with the UN.
Again, are we the U.N.?
Being a rat-bastard tyrant
Finally, the honest answer. But, only partially honest. His daddy was made a fool by Saddam, and everyone knew that if Shrub got into office, the Iraqis would pay. Shrub's Secretary of the Treasury reports that plans for invading Iraq were in the making only within a few days of Shrub's theft of the election. If it were simply a matter of being a rat-bastard, there are plenty of others further along the road to bastard-hood: North Korea's loony leader for one. The problem is, no oil there, so no business drive to get there. Afghanistan proved a perfect, inarguable cause. Not for the one you think. True, Bin-Loonie was there, but that was simply the inescapable argument for invasion. If we could tame that country (only an asteroid dropped from space could achieve that), we could finally lay that oil pipeline we've been planning on for the past 30 years. Unfortunately, CNN and FauxNews channels don't cover this little bit of history, but we've been in a chess game with the Russians and Chinese for this bit of inhospitable land for quite a while. By the way, this is also why we're "friends" with Pakistan.
Simple failture of Washington/Baghdad diplomacy
No. Simple failure of Shrub Administration/U.N. diplomacy. His daddy was better at it, but this numbskull couldn't control his trigger finger. His only half-way feasable argument (even Powell had to excise some of the outright lies from the deceptive rhetoric he was forced to spew to the U.N.'s collective face) of Weapons of Mass Destruction have vanished into thin air, leaving a unpleasant odor that the rest of the world blames us for.
'they're trying to get nukes'
Again, why not invade Saudi Arabia, Iran, North Korea, or Pakistan? They're the biggest terrorist threats outside of Afghanistan. They've been attempting to get nuclear long before Iraq, and have actual terrorist ties. The reason is this was a personal vendetta and business agenda, and he used to this country to fulfill it. If he should force Iraq's oil wells within U.S. corporate controls in the process of taking revenge, all the better. This monkey has to go come November.
You're right in that Shrub didn't attack Iraq simply for Weapons of Mass Destruction. That's just what he used to sell it.
The truth is, the rest of the world was behind us going into Afghanistan because that's where t
Oh. Then why did we?
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Considering that decisions from the top can result in fatalities, I wonder if our President's numbskull antics the past four years have accelerated the research to cure stupidity.
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"Roh-oh!!" - Darl
"Zoinks!" - Bill
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This is not my opinion, its the court's. The court is saying that this is the FCC's responsibility, and they cannot shirk it. If you have trouble with the ruling, write the court. Or, write your congressman and senator and have him write legislation to change the FCC's mission.
Each state is going to have a much better understanding of its own local market, than the FCC would of that same market.
Whether what you believe is true or not, the FCC exists and has a job to do. The court simply stated they must do it, and they cannot brush it off to the states. This current FCC incarnation has been caught various times trying to shlep off work to outside entities. Work that Congress has not authorized them to hand off to others. Ironically, it is the courts that are trying to stop the FCC from enfeebling itself by shirking responsibilities assigned to it by Congress.
While you may make your arguments based on market analysis, I advise you to politically analyze the situation. It's all there within the divided ideology inside the FCC in how to execute its job according to the mission assigned to it by Congress. It is getting overwhelming signals from the White House via Powell's son that anything resembling regulation is not to be looked upon kindly. Yet, here it is with a mission from Congress to do the right thing. What's a politically squeezed quasi-governmental agency to do but to go all squishy? What comes out of it are wildly ineffectual attempts to pass the buck. It's a good thing we have courts, otherwise we'd be screwed.
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Having said that, Zelazny's protagonist in the Amber series was easily interchangeable with any of the other heroes in his other novels. The most complex character in the Amber series wasn't the hero, it was the hero's brother Random. The second most was their father, and that was only because he was missing during the majority of books, making him appear an enigma. The Amber series was more plot driven than character driven. For more complex characters by Zelazny, I would point out the ones in Lord of Light or Creatures of Light and Darkness.
Herbert's Dune is a novel about politics. Normally this would indicate complex personalities and character development. And, it's true that some of the characters are given opportunity to evolve, but only to a limited sense before they're killed off. The fault isn't Herbert's, I don't think his goal was to portray difficult personalities. If he did, it was dwarfed by the complexities of creating a massive, galactic-scaled, politico-religious thriller. No, the most complex character in Dune wasn't Paul, it was the good doctor who killed his father.
George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire came long after Donaldson, but has brought life back into a stagnating genre. Jaime is a wonderful update of Vance's most famous anti-hero. If it weren't for Gene Wolfe (who was inspired by Vance by the way) and his peers, fantasy and science fiction would be in a sad state. There are too many crud authors out there who are given more shelfspace than the top talent nowadays.
I haven't read the Liveship Traders series, but if you recommend it, I just may.
As for Vance, to be honest, his strength isn't complex personalities. It's his dialogue, plot twists, and most importantly the ability to create entire societies that are so alien and yet strangely familiar at the same time. It just so happens that if you're looking to read about an anti-hero, he has developed the character who is the anti-hero.
In any case, what I was pointing out was that even with its serious flaws, the Covenant books reintroduced complex characters into the fantasy genre. The field was getting a little stale until Donaldson woke other authors up by showing it was okay to bring broken characters into the field. It might even be more appealing to do so. Most authors have ignored it and produced forgetable works. But, those that didn't, are the ones counted as today's best.
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I actually found Covenant more interesting before he passed into his "delusion". While his unbelief in his own "delusion" was a good plot mechanism at first (he "knew" it was a delusion because his leprosy was no longer part of his life), it soon began to wear on the reader. His "dependency" on his disease made his psychological make-up that much more complex. However, his continued passivity could truly be frustrating. Despite Covenant's excessive whininess, Donaldson deserves the credit for reintroducing complex characters back into fantasy.
I've long found the genre of anti-hero fiction to be fascinating. The characters' personalities tend to be more real than your standard protagonist; like non-fiction characters based on the real world. I'll make a recommendation here. If you haven't read this, you haven't met the most interesting anti-hero.
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So even if somebody forked Sun's GPL code, it couldn't be called Java.
The nature of the GPL prevents permanent forks due to the enforced availability of the code. Were someone to add something to their implementation of Java, Sun or anyone else would be able to maintain compatability with ease. The same situation exists with Linux. Permanent forking isn't an issue with the GPL. In fact, temporary forks would simply be part of the evolutionary process.
Sun would have everything to gain from GPL'ing Java, while still maintaing the trademark just as Linus Torvalds does. The inclusion of Java with Linux as Linux makes their incursions into Microsoft territory would only be to its benefit. Who knows, maybe their stock performance would even eventually surpass Red Hat's?
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In addition, since the X Window System is commonly referred to by ALL users of the product for as long as it has existed as X Windows, Lindows can continue referring to itself as Lindows because Linux + X Windows = Lindows.
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"software should more closely simulate the real world"
From the article: "It's not the prevention of bugs but the recovery -- the ability to gracefully exterminate them -- that counts."
While the need to gracefully recover your design from bugs (bugs come from design, or lack of, not code) is laudable. The proper technique is to design without bugs in the first place. Assuming that you're actually meeting the business requirements or functional specifications, there is a straightforward method to flattening bugs before they become fruitfully overripe and multiply.
Once you have obtained the proper requirements (your goals), and after you've properly atomized it to its smallest component parts, you need to model those parts. Once you've modeled those parts, you need to test the model. This works in single process design, but it really shines in concurrency where anyone can truly screw up.
Get a good book on design. Then get a good book on modelling, mechanically analyzing, and testing those designed processes before commiting to code.
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The Patent office is obviously overwhelmed, underfunded, and in danger of becoming obsolete due to excessive rubber-stamping.
If you think about it, Slashdot is the most efficient and lowcost patent buster. It's an aggregator of ridiculous and clearly unenforceable patents where the issue is analyzed from every conceivable angle. The government should consider funding Slashdot for this service, as they are throwing our tax-money away by using the Patent Office who fail to provide it.
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"Throw off the shackles and learn to program network servers."
"Dividing code into stages is a complicated matter of program design, so there's not much I can offer there"
The inevitable disclaimer buried in the majority of all literature attempting to discuss concurrency. Try this for a practical remedy.
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Considering that Konqueror is GPL'd and KHTML is LGPL'd, it would be fruitless for Apple to even consider being parasitic. You're seeing the GPL family of licenses at work, where proprietary and open source companies mutually benefit one another. Everyone wins, specially the users.
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"The age of human cloning has apparently arrived: today, cloned blastocysts for research, tomorrow cloned blastocysts for babymaking," Dr. Kass wrote in an e-mail message. "In my opinion, and that of the majority of the Council, the only way to prevent this from happening here is for Congress to enact a comprehensive ban or moratorium on all human cloning."
The Shrub and his right-wing religious fundamentalists appear to be insistent on offshoring our genetics lead. If this Luddite behavior keeps up, we'll be like Irish citizens who have to take a trip to England for an aborition without getting arrested. But, in this case, it'll be to send our aging parents to get a new lung, liver, kidney, spinal-cord repair, brain tissue repair, ocular replacements...etc. I wonder where all the exciting medical treatments and research of the future will be held, in the U.S., or in countries who were technically behind us only a few decades ago?
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"Learn Scheme. Download "DrScheme" and use it while you go through "How to Design Programs," a free online book for learning to program with Scheme. After that, go to half.com and buy "The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs" for around $10 (it'll be an old edition, but that's alright) and read through it, doing all the exercises it suggests.
If you do that, you'll not only know how to program, but you'll be a better programmer than probably 97% of the people on this board. Which doesn't say much, to be sure, but you'll find that the solid basis in programming that you've developed will allow you to learn any language you want easily. And you'll be able to program well in those languages."
Dr. Scheme
How to Design Programs (Uses Scheme to teach programming)
The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (also uses Scheme to teach programming)
For those who're interested in Ruby, I've found a tutorial on that as well.
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