I'm sorry but what did this post have to do with the story? Roxio is not Apple and Apple hasn't crippled their CD burning in iTunes or the Finder the way Roxio has with Toast.
The BSD people where so desperate for someone to use their os that they didn't realize this is just another corporate exploitation...
I don't know that "desperation" was part of it. That is the whole POINT of the BSD license (well at least part of the point). They WANT their software used as widely as possible, even by money grubbing corporations.
What exactly is wrong with being a money grubbing corporation anyway? How exactly do you feed and clothe yourself? Subsistance farming? Even if you are working for a non-profit, the government or a university where do you think the money people donate came from? Sure "money grubbing" can be taken to obnoxious and even evil extremes but "money grubbing" seems to be a necessary and in itself morally neutral activity.
I would have thought slashdot people would at least be able to see through apples marketing hype but i guess not.
I think we can. At best the marketing hype gives some indication as to HOW a company may try to "grub for money" and they will abandon "enlightened" money grubbing methods if they fail to grub enough money. I'd even argue that they have a higher moral obligation to do so than to make you happy with their enlightened policy. They are responsible to pay their employees paychecks & benefits and still have enough left over to fund the retirements of many thousands of people who bought the stock in their IRA or own it through their employee pension fund. If you like their product enough to give them your money then you have nothing to complain about. If you don't like their product enough to give them money in return for it (or if you ARE a subsistance farmer to barter a few chickens & a cow) then they will change it so that you DO like it - because they are money grubbing and it's your money (or chickens) they want to grub.
Vison Quest's windfarm of 67 turbines generate a peak capacity of 43.5 MW
Yes, but that is it's *peak* capacity, what can it be *relied* upon to produce. I'm betting it's normal operating capacity is significantly lower than it's peak. New York CIty isn't going to stop using electricity just because the wind has been calm for a couple of days. 43.5MW seems pretty pitiful when what you need is 10,470 MW for just one (albeit our largets) city. And that is without even starting to convert our transportation energy consumption to electric.
It seems that without huge windfarms covering hundreds (thousands?) of square miles wind power is not going to fulfill even a fraction of our energy needs. That may be a feasible plan but I'll bet there are hidden costs, including significant environmental costs.
I got the 3.8% number from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) document "Western Military Balance and Defense Efforts" Here it is as a PDF form. I was only looking at their latest numbers which were for the year 2000.
I'm sure like all such worldwide statistics it is easy to manipulate. I'm not exactly sure what biases CSIS has, they claim to be bipartisan and their congressional Advisory board is made up of congressmen from both parties and both conservative and liberal. (I thought there might be a slight liberal tilt since many of the republicans are "gypsy moth republicans" but there are a few western and southern conservatives too). I'd imagine that the Stolkohlm Peace Research Institute has it's own axe to grind too.
I'm perfectly willing to assume that the US is spending somewhat above the worldwide average, frankly I was suprised that the CSIS numbers showed the opposite. I had assumed that it would be higher since we have a significant military presence worldwide that most other nations don't. Not only that but some of the nations where we have a military presense we are effectively subsidizing the host nations defense budget. They don't need to spend as much of their own money to effectively defend themselves as they would have to if we were not present. For instance South Korea would probably have to spend much more on defense to effectively deter North Korea if it weren't for our troops on the border. I suppose this may be cancelled out by North Korea (and other nations in a similar postition) feeling the need to increase their defense spending, but N. Korea is spending more than it can afford as it is and It's likely that they would have to max out their spending whether we were there or not. To some degree we are in a Pax Americana and should the USA decrease it's spending it is likely that at least some of our allies that previously had lower spending would have to increase their spending to offset the loss of American troops & influence.
In any event if the USA is spending more on the military than the rest of the world (as a percentage of GDP) it is not spending very much from a historical perspective. It's overwhelming military superiority is not primarily a result of that higher percentage being spent but is a result of how much bigger a GDP that percentage is being drawn from.
I'm honestly interested. The footprint of an individual windmill is small but how large would the footprint need to be for a wind farm large enough to reliably power a large metropolitan area - Say Boston for an example? How large would it have to be for the same sized city if we started converting the cars to electric in a major way?
Out of curiosity who does? I can't find any country that even comes close to the USA's $9.6 Trillion (year 2000 current US$). Japan comes closes with $4.5 Trillion (which is larger than Germany, France and the UK combined). Even the combined total of the European Monetary Union is only $6.6 Trillion.
you're not the leading edge in science or economics any more.
Well I think we have settled the economics side of things so I'll be generous and grant you the scientific leading edge since I'm not exactly sure how to measure that. I'm still not sure who IS on the leading edge though. Europe taken as a whole seems the only likely contender - still it seems that Europe and the US are peers in terms of scientific research and advances rather than one dominating the other.
Except for your oversized bloated miliary you're just an average western industrial nation.
I'll grant you we have a bloated military, in fact we account for about 37% of ALL military spending in the entire world. Then again we can afford it - we only spend about 3% of our GDP on the military which is less than the worldwide average of 3.8%. and significantly less than Russia's 5%. In terms of sheer numbers our military (1,369,000 men under arms) is dwarfed by china (2,310,000) and even Europe's combined total is larger (3,459,000) so despite our massive spending we don't have an inordinately large military just a spectacularly well equipped one;).
The problem (if it is a problem) is America's hegemony is a fact that flows naturally from the vast size of it's economy. Despite all the resentments and sour grapes this engenders elsewhere in the world we are probably all lucky that it is the USA that weilds such an unbalanced economic (and thus military and cultural) power. There are other nations and other cultures that would not have been so restrained in the use of such dominance. Considered through the lense of history America has been remarkably restrained, if she wanted she has the resources to be an actual empire in FACT not just in her opponents rhetoric. All the weight that is thrown around is only a fraction of what it could be - with military spending only 3% of GDP it could double or even triple without much effort (It was 6% in 1985, at the same time the soviet Union was spending better than 12% of their GDP on the military). Fortunately American culture ISN'T militarised or imperialistic.
I didn't really know this. This would make an interesting argument for keeping the old english system since it is BINARY, can't get much more "scientific" or "advanced" than that;)
there is religious freedom in china... as long as the religion is domestic
What you are saying is that there is religious freedom in China as long as the religion is government approved and only practiced in private. That is a strange definition of "freedom."
You argue that since introduced religions or the public display of religion can be disruptive, religious organizations should (or MUST) have a "strong relationship with the government... as it should be". That religious practices should be private and any group of people that practice their beliefs in public or believe something that is not government approved should be stomped out by active persecution (loss of jobs, blacklisting, prison, labor camps, etc.)
You may have good historical and logical reasons to make such arguments. But you should have the courage of your convictions and say what you mean rather than this disingenous claim that what you describe is "freedom of religion". The most Orwellian thing about your post is not the system you defend (though that is very Orwellian) but the "freedom is slavery" style abuse of the language.
Considering Falun Gong's trouble with the chinese government this is a very stupid move as it gives the government more arguments in attacking and arresting Falun Gong members.
This is a valid point. Except that the government doesn't need any more "arguments" they ARE attacking and arresting Fulan Gong members. At this point Fulan Gong's options are to surrender/recant or counterattack. Fulan Gong has decided to attack (You are right this WAS a direct attack), attempting to undermine the government and agitate for reform or a change of regime. Whether it is "stupid" or not really depends on how important their beliefs are to them (which is subjective) and on their likelyhood of success (which is hard to know).
In FG's favor totalitarian dictatorships are powerful BUT also brittle, if FG can use these propoganda stunts to undermine the populaces confidence in, and loyalty too, the government they have a decent chance of success. The tienanmen square student protests had to be put down by troops from remote regions ignorant (aside from government propoganda) of the protests nature and it's goals. They did this because the government feared the local, more informed and sympathetic troops, might not prove loyal. Even so there was some indication that the government feared opposition from some military units - remember the footage of TANK BARRIERS at major intersections. (rather useless against pedestrian protestors). Remember also the troops in Romania just a few years before who not only refused to fire on a similar protest but joined the protesters and toppled the government.
By broadcasting their protest throughout the provinces Fulan Gong may create a situation where the government has NO troops whose loyalty is assured by their ignorance.
supposedly spirtual" was added because it's not a spiritual movement. It's a political movement.
Hmm.. They weren't agitating for regime change BEFORE they started getting thrown in jail for their beliefs. I'm sure their beliefs (like all others) had political implications, but they were not overtly political. The main political implication as far as the Chinese goverment was concerned was that there was a large group of people that had a loyalty to something other than the Government. That is an anathema to a totalitarian dictatorship. A system which gets it's name from wanting to "dictate" the "totality" of you existance and the "spirtual" part most of all since that is the center of your other motivations and loyalties.
They are not out to reform the Chinese government like the civil rights groups here in american have been. they are out to topple it. and if they do, millions upon millions will die -- starving to death -- because Falungong has no plan as to how to keep 1.3 billion people properly fed.
No, there is no difference. The civil rights groups in the south also agitated for a REGIME CHANGE, you might have noticed VOTER DRIVES and other activities calculated to "overthrow" the existing regime and replace it with one more to the activists liking. It is the Chinese governments fault that there is no mechanism for a peaceful and orderly change of regime in China - NOT the fault of activists with legitimate grievances who find the current regime intolerable
Also, The same silly criticism about "plans" DOES apply to the Civil Rights activist. They too had no plan to feed the millions of people that would be affected by the regime changes or reforms they sought.
It is silly to suggest that an activist needs to have a comprehensive plan for government before they even start communicating that there are problems with the government they DO have. Fulan Gong is not saying the Chinese Government is doing a poor job of feeding people (though in many regions that is a perfectly valid criticism.) They are saying that they want freedom to practice their "supposedly spiritual" beliefs without going to jail for holding them - Just as they did before the government decided to repress them.
So far, they have led to thing such as iTunes or iDVD or whatever. They don't charge, strictly speaking, for this stuff.
Yes, very good consumer tools for driving hardware sales to people that would NEVER spend the money on the original professional tools. If you are actually IN THE MARKET for these tools, (i.e. a professional with the money to spend) iMovie and iDVD don't cut it and you BUY Final Cut Pro and DVD Studio Pro. Apple is getting ALL the revenue they were ever going to get from selling professional tools AND driving hardware sales with bundled consumer apps.
As for the pro tools not being on windows - Apple hardware has a reasonable hope of dominating the markets these apps are targetted at. If they are successful Apple can have their cake and eat it too making $$$ on ALL the hardware and on the software in that niche. Selling these apps on windows just throws half of that $$$ out the "window" (if you'll pardon the pun)
Not a good idea for Jobs to piss off Gates over something insignificant, to lose something of value.
You're on crack! Gates is NOT going to suspend development of Office or IE for the mac because of an audio application with a piddling 70,000 windows users! As you point out that's insignificant. The entire audio, video, creative market Apple is going after isn't worth that much to Gates and he views Apples competition for that niche as fair game. Micro$oft develops the software for three reasons.
It makes a tidy profit.
If Microsoft isn't making that profit someone else WILL and with that profit and a safe haven without any competition from Microsoft a competitor has an opening to make a move into competing on the windows platform starting with users that need to interoperate with macs or UNIX. Apple is safe as long as they keep their marketshare large enough for a company (microsoft OR a competitor) to make a profit.
Anti-trust litigation insurance. Who knows how trying to kill their one competitor on the desktop would play in court? Probably not very well.
Continued development of Office and IE was part of the quid pro quo for Apple dropping their patent infringement lawsuit against Windows 95. (this may no longer be an issue since the patent cross-licensing agreement between Apple and Microsoft has lapsed. But we really aren't privy to the details of the settlment agreement)
ANd hardware is not the market to make money, otherwise it would be Intel telling Microsoft what to do, not vice versa
That is true to some extent, but hardware is the business Apple is stuck with whether they like it or not. Attempting a transition from a very large Hardware company (around 6 billion in revenue) to a small software company with (a few hundred million in revenue) would likely be too traumatic to survive. Even if all things being equal they could survive, all things are NOT equal, Apple software inc. would be in direct competition with Microsoft and that is bad place to be. Apple has decide to play the hand they were dealt (or chose back in the early history of PC's) and focus on selling hardware. There's plenty of money to be made in the hardware business, especially when you are also a hybrid company that can use your own software to give that hardware unique advantages that translate directly into higher profit margins than your competitors.
And Apple does have a very nice software business on the side. It's just not big enough to tempt them away from their hardware business or to sustain them if they ever wanted to leave the hardware business. Maybe all these recent purchases will join FinalCut Pro in a suite of creative apps that would represent a more significant revenue stream but it would have to be very significant to justify
and get over the myth that mac software is so much more profitable than PC software is. it takes just as long to write, test, re-write, sell, patch, re-patch etc as PC softare does, and it sells far fewer copies, with the same percentae of piracy issues.
The original poster's comment about IE WAS wrong. But mainly because it is, as you point out, free so profit isn't part of the equation. As for Mac Software being more profitable it has been argued in some studies (I'm not brave enough to say 'proven') that Mac software development IS more profitable PER CAPITA for a couple of reasons. (I'm too lazy to look up the study, sorry. But if you're really interested I'm sure you can Google as well as I can)
1) The average Mac user spends more on software than the average PC user. I don't believe the study went into WHY this was the case but I would imagine it is because a higher percentage of mac users are buying macs to DO something specific rather than just to "get a computer" or to use a bundled office app. Those specific things (desktop publishing, video, audio etc.) usually require a lot of expensive 3rd party software. I wonder though if the advent of iApps bundled with the machine is changing this dynamic.
2) Less competition. A small software publisher on the PC might have a much bigger *potential* market but it also has many more competitors for that market. On the mac your potential market is smaller but it is easier to gain 'mindshare'. Among mac users there are lots of little software developers that have become "household" names that wouldn't even be a blip on the radar on the PC side of things
3) This was not from that study and my own personal experience is too limited to say this BUT I'll stick my neck out and say it anyway in typical slashdot style as unsupported heresay -- I've HEARD that Macs ARE in fact easier to write, test, re-write, sell, patch, repatch etc than PC's especially for those using Cocoa. I'm not in a possition to judge whether this is a myth or not so take it for what it is worth.
There is an unrelated reason why Microsoft continues to make software for the mac. The market may be small but it is big enough for a competitor to thrive and profit in. As long as that is the case Microsoft will sell Office and IE will be available on the mac just to deny a profitable safe haven to a competitor.
Killing off the windows version is fine with me, but when it is 35% (inferred from statement that macintosh is 65%) of revenues sounds rather stupid.
Even that 35% of Emagic's revenue is INSIGNIFICANT to Apple. Apple is NOT buying this company (or any of their other recent purchases) for their pitiful revenues. They are buying them so that Apple HARDWARE (where Apple makes it's REAL money) will dominate a certain niche markets. The software is a means to the end of selling hardware - if it pays for itself through software sales thats just a bonus.
not to be a troll, but it is stupid business decisions like this that hampers the growth of apple. steve jobs is good for some things, but i don't think long range planning is one of them (he is great for revitalizing the 'look and feel' of things though).
Let me see if I get this straight: You are criticising Steve Jobs for his lack of business acumen an long range planning. Yet your business advise is that a company with $6 billion dollars in annual revenue should make software for it's competitors just so it can preserve a few hundred thousand dollars of revenue?
As a resident of Rhode Island I'm terrified of the possibility that one of those floods "the size of Rhode Island" or wildfires "the size of Rhode Island" will someday actually happen IN Rhode Island.
It's not that uncommon among mac users. I suppose it is to distinguish Mac's from Wintel machines (both of which are "PC's" - Personal Computers)
Anyway, once you compare specs, Macs cost a lot more. Especially when you consider such things as standard ports and floppy drives which come on almost all PC's,
I'm not sure what is non-standard about 10/100/1000 ethernet, firewire & USB. I'll grant the lack of legacy ports & it is a nuisance. Ironically the only loss I really regretted was the decidedly NON-standard ADB port because not having it meant I had to get a new Wacom tablet.
As for the "missing" floppy drive - I can honestly say I have never missed having a floppy drive. On my last mac that had one I think I used maybe twice a year (& even then I had other options). Do you even have ANYTHING small enough to fit on a floppy that you can't just email to the recipient? Or are you backing up your system on 10,000 floppies?
Not this old hokum again. Computers are a tool, people. They exist to solve problems and help us with our jobs. Comparing Macs to PCs is pointless and trollish. What you need to do is ask what task you need solved.
For "old hokum" it seems that the article is making EXACTLY the same point as you are.
For instance, my mom needed a computer that she could use to check her email and maybe do a little web browsing. The iMac is perfect for her.
Sounds just like one of the conclusions of the author.
I need something that will let me run a quality office suite, a standard development environment and all the latest games but not cost me an arm and a leg. The only rational choice for any of those things is a PC running Windows XP.
Hmm, The ONLY rational choice for ANY of these things? Microsoft Office isn't the quality office suite you are looking for? ProjectBuilder & Interface Builder that come with the package aren't exactly standard I guess, you could always get CodeWarrior. And the BSD environment, GCC 3, Java 2 etc. etc. etc. seem pretty standard.
As for "an arm and a leg" I'll grant that Macs tend to sell at a premium but when you are considering the actual specs in detail they are not that much higher, and in some cases are actually lower than comperable PeeCee's.
There are many games available but for the hardcore gamer a PeeCee is still the way to go.
A computer is a tool and this particular tool may not meet your particular needs but of the four needs you mentioned you seem to be mistaken about the Macs ability to meet three of them. It is common misconceptions like yours which prompted the author to write this "old hokum".
But was the user interface *Better*? and in what way? I am very interested in UI and often take a look at interesting UI projects. Some of them are interesting, some are "cool" but very few seem to be all that much better at what they are FOR than what we currently have. Zooming around in a 3D environment is cool for a game but doesn't add much other than eye-candy to a file browser. Some of the projects using innovative meta-data are interesting and are the ones most likely to lead to some real advances.
Don't get me wrong, the research is worthwhile and over time someone will have a new idea with the potential to revolutionise UI. But for now there doesn't seem to be anything out there that is worth the kind of fundamental shift that Dvorak is blaming Apple for not making RIGHT NOW.
As an aside I DO tell my mp3 player what I want to listen to;) Granted it's just a couple of brain dead Applescripts in the speakable items folder rather than some amazing UI improvement.
Lots of things have been described as "Orwellian" lately, and this just follows the trend...
Yes, this story is VERY Orwellian, though not in the way you seem to mean. As I recall 1984 no one could question the governments data even when it was obviously wrong:
'How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?
'Four.'
'And if the party says that it is not four but five --
then how many?'
'Four.'
The word ended in a gasp of pain...
'You are a slow learner, Winston,' said O'Brien gently.
'How can I help it?' he blubbered. 'How can I help seeing
what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four.
Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes
they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You
must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.'
Obviously our government doesn't generally torture people until the acknowledge that 2+2=5. But government agencies are perfectly capable of getting hold of data that is just as obviously wrong (or at the very least debatable) and making decisions from that bad data that can have a profound impact on peoples lives. Even the sainted EPA which I'm sure would NEVER skew data for political purposes must *occasionally* get something wrong. It's not a BAD thing that there is a route of appeal (even for the invariabley EVIL businessman) other than: "'Four! five! Four! Anything you like. Only stop it, stop the pain!'"
As other posters have pointed out we are NOT going to run out of oil. It's very unlikely we will EVER run out of oil. The world is not static, it's dynamic. As one variable changes (the availablitly of oil) the system responds to that change naturally. As oil gets more scarce the price will go up. As the price goes up new reserves of oil that are more expensive to access become economically feasible and will be exploited (stabilizing the price at a new plateau). Worst case scenario converting coal to synthetic petrol becomes economically viable, and we have LOTS of coal. At the same time other methods of obtaining energy that are currently uncompetitive compared to oil will become competitive. Long before we "run out" the price will be high enough that those alternatives will be used as a matter of course and the comparatively expensive oil will be used as a fuel only in applications where it has some unique advantage that makes it worth the price. To some degree this has already happened. We used to use a lot more oil to generate electicity, today we use very little for that purpose. Most of our oil consumption is for transportation because oil has unique advantages for that purpose. Technology may change that - as the price of oil goes up it will almost certainly change that.
Until we actually DO start "running out" of oil we will continue to use it and only play around with alternative fuels at the margins because oil is plentiful and cheap and the alternatives aren't.
Guillermo Gonzalez is also well known as a proponent of "Intelligent Design "
From your later statements referencing "pseodo-science" and "the limited minds of ID'ers" I assume that you believe that Gonzalez's theories are somehow invalidated by this. Of course that is an ad hominem fallacy - his motivation is irrelevent to the validity of his argument. It is an interesting observation about Gonzalez's possible motivation in formulating the rare earth hypothesis but it says nothing at all about whether it's true or not. He may very well be quite wrong, but his reasoning (whatever his motivation to pursue it) seems sound and his argument is convincing. I'm sure there are very convincing counter-arguments but "he's a closet creationist" isn't one of them.
Is a chemical that tranquilize enemy still a weapon?
Yes, at least for the purposes of international law. The Chemical Weapons Convention prohibits the use of Riot Control agents on the battlefield. (Article 1 clause 5). Though they can be used on rioting prisoners in a POW camp.
Ok, how much will it cost to get 36 gigs of SCSI with the Xserve?
From Apple $200 more for the Ultra 150 SCSI card - you can probably get it cheaper elsewhere. The drives don't appear to be available from apple but you can always buy the drives from someone else.
Gigabit ethernet is quite useless, even for a company using 10 Mbit of traffic, which is a HUGE amount...Like I said, for the price of Apple's lowend machine I could almost buy another gateway, just to serve our images.
Taking these two statements together I assume those images your are serving aren't the typically huge number of 10-30MB images that an imagesetting or design firm would be serving with this machine (8.5x11 cymk @ 300dpi = 32.2MB without alpha channels and a half dozen photoshop layers - and double that of course for a two-page spread - not THAT much maybe but it adds up when a dozen designers and art directors are slinging the stuff around the network - I can only imagine the files sizes that video guys are used to - I doubt Gigabit is really sufficient. 10 Mbits of traffic is not "HUGE" it's pitifully tiny and Gigabit ethernet is REALLY useful when all your clients have gigabit ethernet (as macs do) and you are moving a lot of big files back and forth.
There are *other* uses for servers beyond web serving and those other uses have somewhat different requirements. Apple is NOT really targetting web serving with this machine, The Xserve is targetted at intranet, file and print serving in mixed platform environments at design/video shops, schools and biotech. It also has a secondary target as a video production workstation (thus the firewire jack on the FRONT of the "server")
Yes he achieved his goals but sadly there are poorly done elements which undermine his achievement.
I think Lucas is good with the big picture. The epic sweep of his fantasy world's history is great. The basic fairytale story and epic myth with a dose of political intrigue is all well done.
Lucas is also very good with the fine visual details. The exotic, fantastic worlds are spectacular visual creations. Some of the little establishing scenes like the strange aquatic flying creature soaring past the clone factory on Kamino are capable of standing on their own as little works of art. They had the same effect on me that some of the better sci-fi or fantasy cover art did when I was a kid, they are beautiful, exotic, filled with mysterious portent.
Unfortunately between the grand sweep of the storyline and the fine details Lucas' failings as a storyteller emerge. The bulk of the problem in this film is the dialogue. The romance between Anakin and Amidala is fine, even excellent as a story. The actors even seem capable of pulling off the *telling* of that story - until they open their mouths and jabber on (and on) about it. The love story could have been told twice as effectively in half the time. Any chance feeling any "chemistry" is killed under a deluge of mostly unnecessary and entirely poorly written dialogue.
Then there are a whole slew of little details unnecessary to the larger story which only served to undermine that story. The comic relief was often ham handed (to match the dialogue?) and some of the action (Ok. really just all the jumping out of speeders) was so improbable as to strain my already tattered credulity beyond the bounds of my tattered suspended disbelief.
Finally, it's a minor point but it bugged me that Amidala was an *elected* queen, we even find out in AotC that she is term limited! Please, this is a fairytale with beautiful princesses (& Queens) emperilled by ugly villains & monsters and rescued by brave knights (& occasionally doing a little rescuing themselves as every plucky fairytale princess should) Let it be what it is without apologising for it. Perhaps this one little detail bugged me so much because it is emblamatic of the other failures - a storyteller intent on telling his story and concerned only with telling it well would not have included this little detail - or overexplained his characters motives - or beat us over the head with lame attempts at comic relief.
Two points: First off this article is clearly tongue in cheek - the politics of Star Wars are too comic-book simplistic to actually be subjected to serious analysis. That being said the author is using satire to make a serious critique of applying such comic-book poltical philosphy to the real world. In fictional worlds it is easy to write a happy ending (complete with annoying dancing Ewoks). In the real world actions inspired by good intentions but untempered by thoughtful considerations of ALL the consequences often lead to tragic results - sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.
Which brings us to the authors assesment of Pinochet. Sadly the brutally torture and murdered of thousands of political opponents IS "relatively benign" when compared to the history of other dictatorships. It could have been MUCH worse. Fortunately for the Chilean people his dictatorship was pragmatic and corrupt rather than "pure" and inspired by an "uplifting" millenialist ideology (indeed opposing such an idealogy was the raison de être of his movement and it's brutality).
The truly spectacular displays of inhumanity in history has been when such ideologies have succeeded. The thousands that Pinochet killed are orders of magnitude less than those who died to make "the new soviet man" achieve "year zero" or "pure blood" or to complete the "cultural revolution." To oppose the evil of Pinochet's regime was obviously the right thing to do. But uncritical support of some of his brutally oppressed opponents (those enthralled by such lofty ideologies) could have led to a far more monumental evil.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sorry but what did this post have to do with the story? Roxio is not Apple and Apple hasn't crippled their CD burning in iTunes or the Finder the way Roxio has with Toast.
The BSD people where so desperate for someone to use their os that they didn't realize this is just another corporate exploitation...
I don't know that "desperation" was part of it. That is the whole POINT of the BSD license (well at least part of the point). They WANT their software used as widely as possible, even by money grubbing corporations.
What exactly is wrong with being a money grubbing corporation anyway? How exactly do you feed and clothe yourself? Subsistance farming? Even if you are working for a non-profit, the government or a university where do you think the money people donate came from? Sure "money grubbing" can be taken to obnoxious and even evil extremes but "money grubbing" seems to be a necessary and in itself morally neutral activity.
I would have thought slashdot people would at least be able to see through apples marketing hype but i guess not.
I think we can. At best the marketing hype gives some indication as to HOW a company may try to "grub for money" and they will abandon "enlightened" money grubbing methods if they fail to grub enough money. I'd even argue that they have a higher moral obligation to do so than to make you happy with their enlightened policy. They are responsible to pay their employees paychecks & benefits and still have enough left over to fund the retirements of many thousands of people who bought the stock in their IRA or own it through their employee pension fund. If you like their product enough to give them your money then you have nothing to complain about. If you don't like their product enough to give them money in return for it (or if you ARE a subsistance farmer to barter a few chickens & a cow) then they will change it so that you DO like it - because they are money grubbing and it's your money (or chickens) they want to grub.
Vison Quest's windfarm of 67 turbines generate a peak capacity of 43.5 MW
Yes, but that is it's *peak* capacity, what can it be *relied* upon to produce. I'm betting it's normal operating capacity is significantly lower than it's peak. New York CIty isn't going to stop using electricity just because the wind has been calm for a couple of days. 43.5MW seems pretty pitiful when what you need is 10,470 MW for just one (albeit our largets) city. And that is without even starting to convert our transportation energy consumption to electric.
It seems that without huge windfarms covering hundreds (thousands?) of square miles wind power is not going to fulfill even a fraction of our energy needs. That may be a feasible plan but I'll bet there are hidden costs, including significant environmental costs.
I got the 3.8% number from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) document "Western Military Balance and Defense Efforts" Here it is as a PDF form. I was only looking at their latest numbers which were for the year 2000.
I'm sure like all such worldwide statistics it is easy to manipulate. I'm not exactly sure what biases CSIS has, they claim to be bipartisan and their congressional Advisory board is made up of congressmen from both parties and both conservative and liberal. (I thought there might be a slight liberal tilt since many of the republicans are "gypsy moth republicans" but there are a few western and southern conservatives too). I'd imagine that the Stolkohlm Peace Research Institute has it's own axe to grind too.
I'm perfectly willing to assume that the US is spending somewhat above the worldwide average, frankly I was suprised that the CSIS numbers showed the opposite. I had assumed that it would be higher since we have a significant military presence worldwide that most other nations don't. Not only that but some of the nations where we have a military presense we are effectively subsidizing the host nations defense budget. They don't need to spend as much of their own money to effectively defend themselves as they would have to if we were not present. For instance South Korea would probably have to spend much more on defense to effectively deter North Korea if it weren't for our troops on the border. I suppose this may be cancelled out by North Korea (and other nations in a similar postition) feeling the need to increase their defense spending, but N. Korea is spending more than it can afford as it is and It's likely that they would have to max out their spending whether we were there or not. To some degree we are in a Pax Americana and should the USA decrease it's spending it is likely that at least some of our allies that previously had lower spending would have to increase their spending to offset the loss of American troops & influence.
In any event if the USA is spending more on the military than the rest of the world (as a percentage of GDP) it is not spending very much from a historical perspective. It's overwhelming military superiority is not primarily a result of that higher percentage being spent but is a result of how much bigger a GDP that percentage is being drawn from.
I'm honestly interested. The footprint of an individual windmill is small but how large would the footprint need to be for a wind farm large enough to reliably power a large metropolitan area - Say Boston for an example? How large would it have to be for the same sized city if we started converting the cars to electric in a major way?
You don't have the worlds largest GNP
;).
Out of curiosity who does? I can't find any country that even comes close to the USA's $9.6 Trillion (year 2000 current US$). Japan comes closes with $4.5 Trillion (which is larger than Germany, France and the UK combined). Even the combined total of the European Monetary Union is only $6.6 Trillion.
you're not the leading edge in science or economics any more.
Well I think we have settled the economics side of things so I'll be generous and grant you the scientific leading edge since I'm not exactly sure how to measure that. I'm still not sure who IS on the leading edge though. Europe taken as a whole seems the only likely contender - still it seems that Europe and the US are peers in terms of scientific research and advances rather than one dominating the other.
Except for your oversized bloated miliary you're just an average western industrial nation.
I'll grant you we have a bloated military, in fact we account for about 37% of ALL military spending in the entire world. Then again we can afford it - we only spend about 3% of our GDP on the military which is less than the worldwide average of 3.8%. and significantly less than Russia's 5%. In terms of sheer numbers our military (1,369,000 men under arms) is dwarfed by china (2,310,000) and even Europe's combined total is larger (3,459,000) so despite our massive spending we don't have an inordinately large military just a spectacularly well equipped one
The problem (if it is a problem) is America's hegemony is a fact that flows naturally from the vast size of it's economy. Despite all the resentments and sour grapes this engenders elsewhere in the world we are probably all lucky that it is the USA that weilds such an unbalanced economic (and thus military and cultural) power. There are other nations and other cultures that would not have been so restrained in the use of such dominance. Considered through the lense of history America has been remarkably restrained, if she wanted she has the resources to be an actual empire in FACT not just in her opponents rhetoric. All the weight that is thrown around is only a fraction of what it could be - with military spending only 3% of GDP it could double or even triple without much effort (It was 6% in 1985, at the same time the soviet Union was spending better than 12% of their GDP on the military). Fortunately American culture ISN'T militarised or imperialistic.
I didn't really know this. This would make an interesting argument for keeping the old english system since it is BINARY, can't get much more "scientific" or "advanced" than that ;)
there is religious freedom in china... as long as the religion is domestic
What you are saying is that there is religious freedom in China as long as the religion is government approved and only practiced in private. That is a strange definition of "freedom."
You argue that since introduced religions or the public display of religion can be disruptive, religious organizations should (or MUST) have a "strong relationship with the government... as it should be". That religious practices should be private and any group of people that practice their beliefs in public or believe something that is not government approved should be stomped out by active persecution (loss of jobs, blacklisting, prison, labor camps, etc.)
You may have good historical and logical reasons to make such arguments. But you should have the courage of your convictions and say what you mean rather than this disingenous claim that what you describe is "freedom of religion". The most Orwellian thing about your post is not the system you defend (though that is very Orwellian) but the "freedom is slavery" style abuse of the language.
Considering Falun Gong's trouble with the chinese government this is a very stupid move as it gives the government more arguments in attacking and arresting Falun Gong members.
This is a valid point. Except that the government doesn't need any more "arguments" they ARE attacking and arresting Fulan Gong members. At this point Fulan Gong's options are to surrender/recant or counterattack. Fulan Gong has decided to attack (You are right this WAS a direct attack), attempting to undermine the government and agitate for reform or a change of regime. Whether it is "stupid" or not really depends on how important their beliefs are to them (which is subjective) and on their likelyhood of success (which is hard to know).
In FG's favor totalitarian dictatorships are powerful BUT also brittle, if FG can use these propoganda stunts to undermine the populaces confidence in, and loyalty too, the government they have a decent chance of success. The tienanmen square student protests had to be put down by troops from remote regions ignorant (aside from government propoganda) of the protests nature and it's goals. They did this because the government feared the local, more informed and sympathetic troops, might not prove loyal. Even so there was some indication that the government feared opposition from some military units - remember the footage of TANK BARRIERS at major intersections. (rather useless against pedestrian protestors). Remember also the troops in Romania just a few years before who not only refused to fire on a similar protest but joined the protesters and toppled the government.
By broadcasting their protest throughout the provinces Fulan Gong may create a situation where the government has NO troops whose loyalty is assured by their ignorance.
supposedly spirtual" was added because it's not a spiritual movement. It's a political movement.
Hmm.. They weren't agitating for regime change BEFORE they started getting thrown in jail for their beliefs. I'm sure their beliefs (like all others) had political implications, but they were not overtly political. The main political implication as far as the Chinese goverment was concerned was that there was a large group of people that had a loyalty to something other than the Government. That is an anathema to a totalitarian dictatorship. A system which gets it's name from wanting to "dictate" the "totality" of you existance and the "spirtual" part most of all since that is the center of your other motivations and loyalties.
They are not out to reform the Chinese government like the civil rights groups here in american have been. they are out to topple it. and if they do, millions upon millions will die -- starving to death -- because Falungong has no plan as to how to keep 1.3 billion people properly fed.
No, there is no difference. The civil rights groups in the south also agitated for a REGIME CHANGE, you might have noticed VOTER DRIVES and other activities calculated to "overthrow" the existing regime and replace it with one more to the activists liking. It is the Chinese governments fault that there is no mechanism for a peaceful and orderly change of regime in China - NOT the fault of activists with legitimate grievances who find the current regime intolerable
Also, The same silly criticism about "plans" DOES apply to the Civil Rights activist. They too had no plan to feed the millions of people that would be affected by the regime changes or reforms they sought.
It is silly to suggest that an activist needs to have a comprehensive plan for government before they even start communicating that there are problems with the government they DO have. Fulan Gong is not saying the Chinese Government is doing a poor job of feeding people (though in many regions that is a perfectly valid criticism.) They are saying that they want freedom to practice their "supposedly spiritual" beliefs without going to jail for holding them - Just as they did before the government decided to repress them.
Yes, very good consumer tools for driving hardware sales to people that would NEVER spend the money on the original professional tools. If you are actually IN THE MARKET for these tools, (i.e. a professional with the money to spend) iMovie and iDVD don't cut it and you BUY Final Cut Pro and DVD Studio Pro. Apple is getting ALL the revenue they were ever going to get from selling professional tools AND driving hardware sales with bundled consumer apps.
As for the pro tools not being on windows - Apple hardware has a reasonable hope of dominating the markets these apps are targetted at. If they are successful Apple can have their cake and eat it too making $$$ on ALL the hardware and on the software in that niche. Selling these apps on windows just throws half of that $$$ out the "window" (if you'll pardon the pun)
Not a good idea for Jobs to piss off Gates over something insignificant, to lose something of value.
You're on crack! Gates is NOT going to suspend development of Office or IE for the mac because of an audio application with a piddling 70,000 windows users! As you point out that's insignificant. The entire audio, video, creative market Apple is going after isn't worth that much to Gates and he views Apples competition for that niche as fair game. Micro$oft develops the software for three reasons.
- It makes a tidy profit.
- If Microsoft isn't making that profit someone else WILL and with that profit and a safe haven without any competition from Microsoft a competitor has an opening to make a move into competing on the windows platform starting with users that need to interoperate with macs or UNIX. Apple is safe as long as they keep their marketshare large enough for a company (microsoft OR a competitor) to make a profit.
- Anti-trust litigation insurance. Who knows how trying to kill their one competitor on the desktop would play in court? Probably not very well.
- Continued development of Office and IE was part of the quid pro quo for Apple dropping their patent infringement lawsuit against Windows 95. (this may no longer be an issue since the patent cross-licensing agreement between Apple and Microsoft has lapsed. But we really aren't privy to the details of the settlment agreement)
ANd hardware is not the market to make money, otherwise it would be Intel telling Microsoft what to do, not vice versaThat is true to some extent, but hardware is the business Apple is stuck with whether they like it or not. Attempting a transition from a very large Hardware company (around 6 billion in revenue) to a small software company with (a few hundred million in revenue) would likely be too traumatic to survive. Even if all things being equal they could survive, all things are NOT equal, Apple software inc. would be in direct competition with Microsoft and that is bad place to be. Apple has decide to play the hand they were dealt (or chose back in the early history of PC's) and focus on selling hardware. There's plenty of money to be made in the hardware business, especially when you are also a hybrid company that can use your own software to give that hardware unique advantages that translate directly into higher profit margins than your competitors.
And Apple does have a very nice software business on the side. It's just not big enough to tempt them away from their hardware business or to sustain them if they ever wanted to leave the hardware business. Maybe all these recent purchases will join FinalCut Pro in a suite of creative apps that would represent a more significant revenue stream but it would have to be very significant to justify
and get over the myth that mac software is so much more profitable than PC software is. it takes just as long to write, test, re-write, sell, patch, re-patch etc as PC softare does, and it sells far fewer copies, with the same percentae of piracy issues.
The original poster's comment about IE WAS wrong. But mainly because it is, as you point out, free so profit isn't part of the equation. As for Mac Software being more profitable it has been argued in some studies (I'm not brave enough to say 'proven') that Mac software development IS more profitable PER CAPITA for a couple of reasons. (I'm too lazy to look up the study, sorry. But if you're really interested I'm sure you can Google as well as I can)
1) The average Mac user spends more on software than the average PC user. I don't believe the study went into WHY this was the case but I would imagine it is because a higher percentage of mac users are buying macs to DO something specific rather than just to "get a computer" or to use a bundled office app. Those specific things (desktop publishing, video, audio etc.) usually require a lot of expensive 3rd party software. I wonder though if the advent of iApps bundled with the machine is changing this dynamic.
2) Less competition. A small software publisher on the PC might have a much bigger *potential* market but it also has many more competitors for that market. On the mac your potential market is smaller but it is easier to gain 'mindshare'. Among mac users there are lots of little software developers that have become "household" names that wouldn't even be a blip on the radar on the PC side of things
3) This was not from that study and my own personal experience is too limited to say this BUT I'll stick my neck out and say it anyway in typical slashdot style as unsupported heresay -- I've HEARD that Macs ARE in fact easier to write, test, re-write, sell, patch, repatch etc than PC's especially for those using Cocoa. I'm not in a possition to judge whether this is a myth or not so take it for what it is worth.
There is an unrelated reason why Microsoft continues to make software for the mac. The market may be small but it is big enough for a competitor to thrive and profit in. As long as that is the case Microsoft will sell Office and IE will be available on the mac just to deny a profitable safe haven to a competitor.
Killing off the windows version is fine with me, but when it is 35% (inferred from statement that macintosh is 65%) of revenues sounds rather stupid.
Even that 35% of Emagic's revenue is INSIGNIFICANT to Apple. Apple is NOT buying this company (or any of their other recent purchases) for their pitiful revenues. They are buying them so that Apple HARDWARE (where Apple makes it's REAL money) will dominate a certain niche markets. The software is a means to the end of selling hardware - if it pays for itself through software sales thats just a bonus.
not to be a troll, but it is stupid business decisions like this that hampers the growth of apple. steve jobs is good for some things, but i don't think long range planning is one of them (he is great for revitalizing the 'look and feel' of things though).
Let me see if I get this straight: You are criticising Steve Jobs for his lack of business acumen an long range planning. Yet your business advise is that a company with $6 billion dollars in annual revenue should make software for it's competitors just so it can preserve a few hundred thousand dollars of revenue?
As a resident of Rhode Island I'm terrified of the possibility that one of those floods "the size of Rhode Island" or wildfires "the size of Rhode Island" will someday actually happen IN Rhode Island.
"PeeCee"? Odd spelling
It's not that uncommon among mac users. I suppose it is to distinguish Mac's from Wintel machines (both of which are "PC's" - Personal Computers)
Anyway, once you compare specs, Macs cost a lot more. Especially when you consider such things as standard ports and floppy drives which come on almost all PC's,
I'm not sure what is non-standard about 10/100/1000 ethernet, firewire & USB. I'll grant the lack of legacy ports & it is a nuisance. Ironically the only loss I really regretted was the decidedly NON-standard ADB port because not having it meant I had to get a new Wacom tablet.
As for the "missing" floppy drive - I can honestly say I have never missed having a floppy drive. On my last mac that had one I think I used maybe twice a year (& even then I had other options). Do you even have ANYTHING small enough to fit on a floppy that you can't just email to the recipient? Or are you backing up your system on 10,000 floppies?
Not this old hokum again. Computers are a tool, people. They exist to solve problems and help us with our jobs. Comparing Macs to PCs is pointless and trollish. What you need to do is ask what task you need solved.
For "old hokum" it seems that the article is making EXACTLY the same point as you are.
For instance, my mom needed a computer that she could use to check her email and maybe do a little web browsing. The iMac is perfect for her.
Sounds just like one of the conclusions of the author.
I need something that will let me run a quality office suite, a standard development environment and all the latest games but not cost me an arm and a leg. The only rational choice for any of those things is a PC running Windows XP.
Hmm, The ONLY rational choice for ANY of these things? Microsoft Office isn't the quality office suite you are looking for? ProjectBuilder & Interface Builder that come with the package aren't exactly standard I guess, you could always get CodeWarrior. And the BSD environment, GCC 3, Java 2 etc. etc. etc. seem pretty standard.
As for "an arm and a leg" I'll grant that Macs tend to sell at a premium but when you are considering the actual specs in detail they are not that much higher, and in some cases are actually lower than comperable PeeCee's.
There are many games available but for the hardcore gamer a PeeCee is still the way to go.
A computer is a tool and this particular tool may not meet your particular needs but of the four needs you mentioned you seem to be mistaken about the Macs ability to meet three of them. It is common misconceptions like yours which prompted the author to write this "old hokum".
Preperation A: Shrinks Asteroids. As well as relieves the burning associated with Astroid impacts.
But was the user interface *Better*? and in what way? I am very interested in UI and often take a look at interesting UI projects. Some of them are interesting, some are "cool" but very few seem to be all that much better at what they are FOR than what we currently have. Zooming around in a 3D environment is cool for a game but doesn't add much other than eye-candy to a file browser. Some of the projects using innovative meta-data are interesting and are the ones most likely to lead to some real advances.
;) Granted it's just a couple of brain dead Applescripts in the speakable items folder rather than some amazing UI improvement.
Don't get me wrong, the research is worthwhile and over time someone will have a new idea with the potential to revolutionise UI. But for now there doesn't seem to be anything out there that is worth the kind of fundamental shift that Dvorak is blaming Apple for not making RIGHT NOW.
As an aside I DO tell my mp3 player what I want to listen to
Thank you for pointing that out. By coincidence I was at that moment just trying to figure that out. I knew MacOSX could do it but wasn't sure how.
Yes, this story is VERY Orwellian, though not in the way you seem to mean. As I recall 1984 no one could question the governments data even when it was obviously wrong: Obviously our government doesn't generally torture people until the acknowledge that 2+2=5. But government agencies are perfectly capable of getting hold of data that is just as obviously wrong (or at the very least debatable) and making decisions from that bad data that can have a profound impact on peoples lives. Even the sainted EPA which I'm sure would NEVER skew data for political purposes must *occasionally* get something wrong. It's not a BAD thing that there is a route of appeal (even for the invariabley EVIL businessman) other than: "'Four! five! Four! Anything you like. Only stop it, stop the pain!'"
As other posters have pointed out we are NOT going to run out of oil. It's very unlikely we will EVER run out of oil. The world is not static, it's dynamic. As one variable changes (the availablitly of oil) the system responds to that change naturally. As oil gets more scarce the price will go up. As the price goes up new reserves of oil that are more expensive to access become economically feasible and will be exploited (stabilizing the price at a new plateau). Worst case scenario converting coal to synthetic petrol becomes economically viable, and we have LOTS of coal. At the same time other methods of obtaining energy that are currently uncompetitive compared to oil will become competitive. Long before we "run out" the price will be high enough that those alternatives will be used as a matter of course and the comparatively expensive oil will be used as a fuel only in applications where it has some unique advantage that makes it worth the price. To some degree this has already happened. We used to use a lot more oil to generate electicity, today we use very little for that purpose. Most of our oil consumption is for transportation because oil has unique advantages for that purpose. Technology may change that - as the price of oil goes up it will almost certainly change that.
Until we actually DO start "running out" of oil we will continue to use it and only play around with alternative fuels at the margins because oil is plentiful and cheap and the alternatives aren't.
Guillermo Gonzalez is also well known as a proponent of "Intelligent Design "
From your later statements referencing "pseodo-science" and "the limited minds of ID'ers" I assume that you believe that Gonzalez's theories are somehow invalidated by this. Of course that is an ad hominem fallacy - his motivation is irrelevent to the validity of his argument. It is an interesting observation about Gonzalez's possible motivation in formulating the rare earth hypothesis but it says nothing at all about whether it's true or not. He may very well be quite wrong, but his reasoning (whatever his motivation to pursue it) seems sound and his argument is convincing. I'm sure there are very convincing counter-arguments but "he's a closet creationist" isn't one of them.
Is a chemical that tranquilize enemy still a weapon?
Yes, at least for the purposes of international law. The Chemical Weapons Convention prohibits the use of Riot Control agents on the battlefield. (Article 1 clause 5). Though they can be used on rioting prisoners in a POW camp.
Ok, how much will it cost to get 36 gigs of SCSI with the Xserve?
From Apple $200 more for the Ultra 150 SCSI card - you can probably get it cheaper elsewhere. The drives don't appear to be available from apple but you can always buy the drives from someone else.
Gigabit ethernet is quite useless, even for a company using 10 Mbit of traffic, which is a HUGE amount...Like I said, for the price of Apple's lowend machine I could almost buy another gateway, just to serve our images.
Taking these two statements together I assume those images your are serving aren't the typically huge number of 10-30MB images that an imagesetting or design firm would be serving with this machine (8.5x11 cymk @ 300dpi = 32.2MB without alpha channels and a half dozen photoshop layers - and double that of course for a two-page spread - not THAT much maybe but it adds up when a dozen designers and art directors are slinging the stuff around the network - I can only imagine the files sizes that video guys are used to - I doubt Gigabit is really sufficient. 10 Mbits of traffic is not "HUGE" it's pitifully tiny and Gigabit ethernet is REALLY useful when all your clients have gigabit ethernet (as macs do) and you are moving a lot of big files back and forth.
There are *other* uses for servers beyond web serving and those other uses have somewhat different requirements. Apple is NOT really targetting web serving with this machine, The Xserve is targetted at intranet, file and print serving in mixed platform environments at design/video shops, schools and biotech. It also has a secondary target as a video production workstation (thus the firewire jack on the FRONT of the "server")
Did Lucas do it? YES. Was it worth doing? YES.
Yes he achieved his goals but sadly there are poorly done elements which undermine his achievement.
I think Lucas is good with the big picture. The epic sweep of his fantasy world's history is great. The basic fairytale story and epic myth with a dose of political intrigue is all well done.
Lucas is also very good with the fine visual details. The exotic, fantastic worlds are spectacular visual creations. Some of the little establishing scenes like the strange aquatic flying creature soaring past the clone factory on Kamino are capable of standing on their own as little works of art. They had the same effect on me that some of the better sci-fi or fantasy cover art did when I was a kid, they are beautiful, exotic, filled with mysterious portent.
Unfortunately between the grand sweep of the storyline and the fine details Lucas' failings as a storyteller emerge. The bulk of the problem in this film is the dialogue. The romance between Anakin and Amidala is fine, even excellent as a story. The actors even seem capable of pulling off the *telling* of that story - until they open their mouths and jabber on (and on) about it. The love story could have been told twice as effectively in half the time. Any chance feeling any "chemistry" is killed under a deluge of mostly unnecessary and entirely poorly written dialogue.
Then there are a whole slew of little details unnecessary to the larger story which only served to undermine that story. The comic relief was often ham handed (to match the dialogue?) and some of the action (Ok. really just all the jumping out of speeders) was so improbable as to strain my already tattered credulity beyond the bounds of my tattered suspended disbelief.
Finally, it's a minor point but it bugged me that Amidala was an *elected* queen, we even find out in AotC that she is term limited! Please, this is a fairytale with beautiful princesses (& Queens) emperilled by ugly villains & monsters and rescued by brave knights (& occasionally doing a little rescuing themselves as every plucky fairytale princess should) Let it be what it is without apologising for it. Perhaps this one little detail bugged me so much because it is emblamatic of the other failures - a storyteller intent on telling his story and concerned only with telling it well would not have included this little detail - or overexplained his characters motives - or beat us over the head with lame attempts at comic relief.
Two points: First off this article is clearly tongue in cheek - the politics of Star Wars are too comic-book simplistic to actually be subjected to serious analysis. That being said the author is using satire to make a serious critique of applying such comic-book poltical philosphy to the real world. In fictional worlds it is easy to write a happy ending (complete with annoying dancing Ewoks). In the real world actions inspired by good intentions but untempered by thoughtful considerations of ALL the consequences often lead to tragic results - sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.
Which brings us to the authors assesment of Pinochet. Sadly the brutally torture and murdered of thousands of political opponents IS "relatively benign" when compared to the history of other dictatorships. It could have been MUCH worse. Fortunately for the Chilean people his dictatorship was pragmatic and corrupt rather than "pure" and inspired by an "uplifting" millenialist ideology (indeed opposing such an idealogy was the raison de être of his movement and it's brutality).
The truly spectacular displays of inhumanity in history has been when such ideologies have succeeded. The thousands that Pinochet killed are orders of magnitude less than those who died to make "the new soviet man" achieve "year zero" or "pure blood" or to complete the "cultural revolution." To oppose the evil of Pinochet's regime was obviously the right thing to do. But uncritical support of some of his brutally oppressed opponents (those enthralled by such lofty ideologies) could have led to a far more monumental evil.