You're removing an iPod from the market and adding a Zune.
Minor correction. By taking the iPod in exchange you aren't taking away from iPod's market share (The percentage of players sold that are iPods - that iPod has already been sold) but from it's installed base (the percentage of players being used that are iPods).
Taking away from your competitors installed base would be helpful in indirect ways (shrink the market for iPod accessories & iTMS) but it won't affect the market share numbers that people tend to pay more attention to.
I admitted my mistake, and again I'm sorry. My criticism is valid for the attitudes and expressed opinions of many main-stream journalists and news publishers. But, I admittedly had no reason to suspect the same of Reporters without Borders simply because they made a similar criticism.
Anyway, no state, and I doubt any country, has a general right enjoyed by all citizens to refuse to testify in court when they have relevant knowledge about a criminal proceeding. Any criminal justice system attempting to conduct fair trials with any hope of arriving at the truth of a matter must have the power to compel reluctant witnesses to testify and/or produce evidence when they have knowledge or documentation relevant to the court proceeding. Now, there are valid arguments that some people in certain occupations, or at most engaging in some particular activities ("acting as a journalist in the matter at hand"), should be exempt from such compulsion that the rest of us are subject to because of the value to society their activity has.
My problem is that any such exemption to be workable must have some limits and those limits will most likely result in enshrining a special privilege for a particular class of citizens "The Press". Many members of "The Press" already all too often perceive themselves as a specially privileged class. At least in the USA, they truly believe that "freedom of the press" in the US constitution is talking about "them" and not everybody else as well. As such they think that such privileges are not just a good idea (and one that is open to debate) but actually a constitutional right, again, not enjoyed by others. I'm much more concerned about "freedom of the press", the freedom of everyone to not just speak, opine etc. but to publish and promote their speech and opinions, a right that is actually IN the constitution and is also under attack and disappearing without much dissent, ESPECIALLY from the press. I'm just plain less concerned about a private right to *investigate* which is what protecting sources is about. Being compelled to speak in a court does not limit anyone's ability to speak, and publish, elsewhere. It has nothing to do with "freedom of the press" (the freedom to speak and publish) but it does perhaps make private investigation more difficult for those who wish to publish the results of those investigations. (it of course makes public investigation easier though).
Where do you get this impression? Trade guilds restrict their membership. "Reporters" is a group anyone may join by picking up a pen. This group wants these freedoms for everyone. They advocate for this set of freedoms, as oposed ot others, because this set is particularly impotant to members of their profession. A profession they specifically want anyone to be free to join at any time by picking up a pen.
I'm perhaps being unfair to this particular group & their report. I'll admit I'm basing my criticism more on reading the editorials & complaints by the press that are actually found in other venues and not in this report itself (though I suspect the specific attitudes I'm critical of found their way into the questionnaires used to compile this report). I have two basic criticisms of the editorializing by the press, on this issue that I see in the USA.
One, there is often an assertion of a special rights reserved for journalists to refuse to testify at trial as to the identity of sources. Any normal person with knowledge of a crime can be subpoenaed and compelled to testify as to what it is they know. Journalists assert to have a special exception to this responsibility based on their occupation. It is possible that journalists would like this to be a general right (though that seems like a profoundly unserious proposal) but I've never seen the press reporting in scandalized tones when a member of the general public who doesn't want to is forced to testify at a trial.
The other criticism I have is the often approving tone of reporting, and positive editorials in "The Press" when freedom of the press is taken away from the general public as long as it's not also taken from "The Press". Look at the editorializing and press coverage of McCain-Feingold which restricts my right to publish & publicize my criticism of my elected officials, yet the press by-and-large reported on this without any protest and largely in an approving manner. McCain Fiengold is perhaps the most radical restrictions of freedom of the press (in the lower-case, individual right usage) our nation has ever witnessed and yet it doesn't merit mention in the report because "The Press" has been largely spared from being subjected to it. Which is profoundly shortsighted, reasonable interpretation of the law certainly COULD apply to any number of things that the press does every day... and mainstream news organizations have faced threats of lawsuits from disgruntled candidates based on their reporting.
As to the specific complaints in the report. The first is largely meaningless. (The Bush administration is "suspicious" of it's critics who happen to be in the press) no indication at all though that this "suspicion" led to any concrete denials of press freedoms, based on some of the hyperventilating op-eds from a year or two back about "chilling effects" and the like I suspect this is largely opinion journalists offended that their own opinions (sometimes harshly) critical of the administration were themselves (sometimes harshly) criticized. Probably good for a "Yes" on a question about intimidation of the press and if so an insult to journalists elsewhere facing actual intimidation. The second is the special right to protect sources that I criticized above. And finally three concrete cases. A blogger who's videos were confiscated and testimony was compelled (same special rights issue as above). And, two journalists imprisoned in war zones (one now at Guantanamo and one in Iraq). Bilal was arrested when he was found in the company of a couple of Al-Queada leaders at a weapons cache (possibly an interview, however he's a photographer not an investigative journalist) and although Reporters without Borders alleges that Sami is in Guantanamo only because the administration "has it in for Al-jazeera" it is at least an outside possibility that his imprisonment has less to do with his association with Al-Jazeera and more to do with the two jobs he held prior to that with a couple of charities identified by the State Department as fronts for Al Quaida's financial support. (That being said I think both guys should either have a trial or possibly be held as normal POW's with the rights enjoyed by the same)
Are they wanting reporters to be above the law or what?
Yes. This is a report by a trade guild that wants special legal status for members of their guild. They want a special class of people who are not subject to certain laws that would apply to normal people. Frankly, I'm not interested in special rights that apply only to particular classes. Such special rights are generally a bad thing in in their own right. But practically it's also open to abuse and increases the leverage of those in power. If their is a distinction in press freedoms based on membership someone must have the power to decide who is a member or not. That person will by definition be someone "in power" and will have tremendous influence over The Press. Freedom of "The Press" is more secure if it's founded on a general freedom of the press (the freedom of EVERY citizen to publish) than if it's founded on belonging to a special class of people.
Historians have argued that the first amendment to the U.S. constitution is concerned about that general, individual right. At the time "The Press" was not used as a synonym for the "news media" as it is today. It just meant "the printing press". "Freedom of the press" meant the freedom of ANY individual to publish their opinions. Societies that have special freedom of "The Press" may not have very good "freedom of the press". Indeed it seems to me they are *less* likely to.
Polish is not "eye candy". Eye candy is merely flashiness. Polish is everything being intentionally designed, fully thought out, finished. Something can have a lot of eye candy but still be very rough & incomplete. Something can be polished yet very visually simple (though certainly designed). "Eye candy" is often a way to compensate for, or distract from, a lack of polish.
A few good examples of what people mean by polish are in TFA under #8 "Lots of other nice little things". Not a single one of them is "eye candy" they are not even related to visual design at all... but they are exactly what people mean when they say that Mac OS X is polished.
Because YouTube removed the flag after all the coverage on it. It WAS indeed flagged as inappropriate and you needed to log in and confirm you were over 18 to view it at that time.
It's not YouTube per say, it's people flagging the video as inappropriate. That causes the restriction to be put on
This is wrong. According to YouTube people flagging the video only notifies YouTube of that fact. THEY review it and if they agree that it is inappropriate they flag it as such and restrict access to it... which they did in this case (until backing down).
While the source of the story is suspect it does raise a valid issue. This is not the only instance where videos have been flagged as inappropriate that didn't violate any of the *stated* reasons for being flagged but WERE outspoken expressions of one political viewpoint (and biting in their criticism of the other end of the political spectrum). It would be interesting to find out if this censorship is for all political expression that is deemed offensive by the other side or if it's only applied to one side of the political spectrum but not another. Otherwise in terms of merely being offensive or insulting YouTube doesn't seem to have particularly high standards.
That was my entire point, and that is where the Geneva Convention was breached. Using cluster bombs on cities full of civilians is explicitly against the rules.
OK, I'll grant that. Your point about the AA gun in a Hospital muddied the waters for me. legally, It's a legitimate target, but not for cluster bombs.
One other caveat, there are conditions where cluster munitions would still be legal despite the presence of (at least some) civilians. Basically the rule is you can't use a weapon that effects a wide area to get multiple, separate and distinct targets if those targets are separated by a bunch of civilians. It's a general principle not an explicit rule about cluster bombs per se (any weapon that affects an area significantly bigger than the target would qualify). One big target occupying roughly the same amount of space as the area of effect of the weapon would be a legal target for that weapon (at least according to the rule). For example cluster bombs affect an area roughly the size of a couple football fields... using cluster bombs on a large military installation would be legal even if that installation is in the middle of a city. An armored column all bunched together coming down a four lane highway is another target where cluster munitions would arguably be legal. The same column dispersed into the surrounding neighborhood is very clearly not.
You are misunderstanding the term "freedom of action". It is a military term, and the policy is a policy of military preparedness. You also misunderstand my use of the term "adversary"... I didn't mean political adversary but a *military* one in which we are engaged in a real, live shooting war. As I said before this policy merely says: "We want satellites an enemy can't shoot down and we also want to have weapons that can shoot down an enemy satellite". It is NOT saying: "We'll shoot down, unprovoked, the satellites of countries whose policies we disagree with"
I'm confused... are you saying you supported military action against North Korea?
If (only for the sake of argument) you accept that Bush thought that both Iraq and North Korea had nuclear programs the difference in the way they were dealt with still makes sense. To date after a brief conventional war and a much longer and deadly unconventional war we have lost a little over 3,000 troops KIA. A war in Korea would result in that many military casualties in the first few hours (maybe minutes depending on the circumstances under which the war started). With South Korea's capital and most populous city within range of several hundreds of well fortified North Korean heavy artillery pieces there would be many more South Korean civilian deaths on the first day than the most pessimistic estimates of the current TOTAL number of civilian deaths to date in Iraq. The Pentagon estimated at least four months of high intensity conflict and 52,000 US military casualties within the first 90 days when they did an assessment for President Clinton in '93 and hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties.
There is NO military option for dealing with North Korea... Sadly there isn't really a diplomatic option either. Clinton tried the bilateral give-em-whatever-they-ask-for approach that has been urged on Bush... and it failed miserably (they took the offered goodies and just continued with the program in secret anyway). When we found out they'd cheated on the program Bush tried pressure (via China) and that failed just a miserably (China just hasn't cooperated). Maybe this test will move things in our direction. China may finally decide that the risks of a nuclear North Korea out-weigh the risks of the whole place collapsing and start exerting some real pressure.
China has been reluctant to muzzle its maddog little psycho neighbor since it frightens the hated Japanese more than anyone else, but surely China can see now how North Korea's insane belligerence threatens China's economy just as much as it gives the Japanese nightmares.
Good point. Though NK has in the past been useful to China as a sharp stick to poke both it's regional rivals (Japan & South Korea) and the USA at this point I think China is sheltering NK now only because they are afraid of what would happen if the NK government collapsed. All those millions of starving Koreans would be streaming north to the opulent wealth of China.
Other than that fear I suspect NK has become a huge strategic liability for China. They may wants the other regional powers *distracted* by NK but not provoked into an arms race. Japan has already started to change it's attitudes and policies in response to constant North Korean provocation in ways that China can't possibly welcome: Loosening their rules on military deployments, becoming more assertive in regional power-politics, joining the USA's anti-ballistic missile program etc. (a program which would likely be used to shield Taiwan in any conflict). I'm sure North Korea's provocations aren't the ONLY reason for these changes but having a well armed neighbor who is continually voicing dire threats, shooting missiles over your head and kidnapping your citizens off of your territory has GOT to be a contributing factor for the cultural shift away from post WWII pacifism. China most fears a re-militarized Japan but North Korea is steadily pushing Japan in that direction.
...two people slapping each other with equations over the exact number of neutrinos from a North Korean nuclear test makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.
Which is much better than neutrinos from a North Korean nuclear test making you all warm and fuzzy inside.
Re:I have plenty of reasons to dislike Microsoft..
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Aunt Bessy goes to OfficeMax and picks out that fancy new HP gadget that everyone is talking about.
And why just "Aunt Bessy" getting a gadget for no reason other than "everyone is talking about" it? It's not just her... there are plenty of very, very smart (smarter than most of us geeks probably) professional people that aren't, and *shouldn't have to be*, knowledgeable about computer security. I worry more about the small businesses and professionals out there who may know a lot about their profession and even know the computer tools used in their profession and the basics of administering their machines that *don't* know how bad the security environment is for their PC. Likely your accountant, lawyer, doctor, and the owner of the small boutique where you bought a gift for your wife (and who uses their PC to run batch Credit Card transactions) all have the same problems keeping their machine secure as your Aunt Bessy does.
What you want is the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. It's an agreement between the major super-powers that no Earthly country will own celestial bodies, and that these places exist for the exploration of all mankind.
Such a treaty will be a dead letter the moment there is something worth owning in space that someone also has the ability to "own" in the meaningful sense of being able to physically possess, exploit to their advantage and, possibly, defend against anyone else's interference. We'll work out some treaties that will simply codify the simple reality that "possession is 9/10ths of the law". Those nations (or "that nation") capable of obtaining actual physical possession of something of real value will do so, and treaties will be written that legitimize their possessions. I hope this doesn't come across as implying any immorality to such a situation & I don't mean it to sound cynical. Possession is where the concept of "ownership" comes from in the first place and in a region previously under no legal authority the laws legitimizing (and going into the future, regulating) ownership will start with the raw fact of physical possession. A legal structure containing an idealistic sounding fiction like "these places exist for the exploration of all mankind." is liable to cause as much or more injustice as it's actual implementation reflects the reality of the situation while it's idealistic wording (pretends to) deny it.
"ensure freedom of action in space, and, if directed, deny such freedom of action to adversaries"
... means "ensure only we have freedom of action in space"
... which means "no freedom of action in space".
Add "for a military adversary" to the last statement and that is exactly what it means. Despite the current +5 Insightful rating don't exert too much effort patting yourself on the back. The meaning of the statement wasn't a hidden one, no deception was intended. You correctly picked up on clear meaning the statement was intended to convey. No "logic advisor" or special insight should have been necessary.
Nor is it (by necessity) particularly evil. In practical terms it means: "Make sure our military satellites can't be knocked down, and in the event of a war that we can knock down an enemy's". A pretty standard goal of all militaries when talking about military assets (ensure them for ourselves, deny them to our enemy)... or stated much more broadly and simply: "in the event of a war... try to win."
not using it on civilians means not using it on civilians and not some sickening bit of spin. If your enemy is uncivilised and puts an anti-aircraft gun on the front law of a hospital - tough - if you want to remain on the list of civilised countries you don't go bombing civilian targets with weapons like these.
You have obviously not ever read the Geneva convetions. They are VERY clear on this exact subject. Hospitals are given special protections by the 4th Geneva convetion. BUT having an AA gun on the front lawn would change that:
"Art. 19. The protection to which civilian hospitals are entitled shall not cease unless they are used to commit, outside their humanitarian duties, acts harmful to the enemy."... if that AA gun is used the hospital looses it's status under the 4th Geneva Convention. Even it's presence is probably sufficient to lose it's status. The only weapons allowed in a Hostpital that would NOT lose it it's protected status is "small arms and ammunition taken from such combatants and not yet been handed to the proper service," (also article 19). Hospitals (but not other civillian targets in a similar situation) enjoy the additional protection that they must be given a warning prior to being attacked (unless that attack is self-defence from a combatant taking fire from the hospital)
Other than that the presense of a valid military target makes it a valid military target regardless of the presence of civilians. Placing such a target among civillians in an attempt to use the civillians as a shield is itself the war crime, attacking that target is NOT. The attacker is still expected to try to minimise civillian casualties and there is a rule of proportionality that says the risk (or certainty) of civillian casualties must have some proportionality to the value of the target. And, there is a rule about "indiscriminate attacks" which would cover using a weapon with a wide area of effect on a small target surrounded by civillians. Using a cluster bomb on an armored column in the middle of the desert is perfectly valid (a weapon with a wide effect used on one big target far from civillians), using a cluster bomb on a village because there is an AA gun on either end is NOT valid (using a weapon with a wide effect on two distinct targets separated by a lot of civillians) . Using a cluster bomb on an armored column in the middle of a village is debatable it's arguably one big target and using one big weapon to take it out in one fell swoop is probably valid according to the Geneva convetion. Though you still have the proportionality principle to deal with... doing so in the middle of a heated battle for a vital military objective would be different from doing so when it's just a target of opportunity without much military value.
Actually (IIRC) it's that the story is wrong. It's not a database of the budget but a database of "earmarks". Earmarks are set asides of dictating that particular money must be spent on specific projects rather than going into the general fund of the department being funded. So if congress says the Department of Transportation gets 200 billion dollars that's not in the database... but if it says "the DOT must spend $225 Million on a bridge to Gravina Island, Alaska" that IS in the database. The administration doesn't decide what gets into the database or not, congress does by either earmarking spending or not.
This is purely a political move.
Yes but so is most earmarking. It's hoped that it will put pressure on congressmen to give up the worst of their pork barrel spending. Sadly though this might backfire. I'm sure most lawmakers don't want to be known as the biggest spenders of pork on the hill, but the whole point of pork is that it gets votes. Many an election has been won by saying "I wasted the rest of the countries money on meaningless projects and jobs for you guys in my district"
The problem with profiling is not just that it's wrong or not "PC," but that it doesn't work. Remember, the terrorists aren't dummies. If the authorities start pulling every Arab off of every plane, the terrorists groups will soon get wise to that. They will search their ranks for the least Arab looking members or recruit radicalized westerners. Narrowing the focus of your search just gives your target a chance to adapt.
Absolutely *nothing* "works" in the way you mean (a complete and total solution). However some things "help" (are an incomplete, part of a larger solution). The problem you describe with profiling is true of *anything* that helps. They will all actually hurt if you think they are a complete infallible solution. Profiling only causes the problem you describe if it's seen as a panacea rather than as one fallible tool among others.
Look at your same "doesn't work" scenario again: "They will search their ranks for the least Arab looking members " could be stated "They will dramatically reduce the size of their talent pool" and "forced to engage in previously unnecessary deceptions (Your caucasian looking Mohammed Atta will also now need a caucasian sounding alias) "...or recruit radicalized westerners." could be stated: "forced to communicate with and trust outsiders, massively increasing the risk of discovery and even infiltration". Your definition of failure sounds like a reasonably successful policy. It's not about finding one magic bullet with a guaranteed 100% success rate but of an array of policies that will increase the odds that you catch the bad guys before they strike. Your failure does just that... you've made things more difficult for them and given yourself more opportunities to catch a lucky break yourself. You still have to keep an eye on that octogenarian Swedish grandmother traveling with her grandkids - it's true that she may really be a radical islamist with a great disguise, but it's hardly the height of stupidity to keep an even closer eye on the 25 year old fellow with a Saudi passport traveling on a one-way ticket paid for with cash (especially if four apparently unrelated fellows all matching the same profile coincedently pop up on the same flight)
Gomes is refuting Andersons thesis by saying that 20% of the items still make up 80% of the sales (percentages of the old 80/20 rule used for illustration)
Anderson's response though is that with essentially *unlimited* inventory percentages aren't always the best or only way to measure the "tail". Anderson's definition has to do with the absolute numbers that used to get cut off. So Gomes is counting a bunch of sales as "head" which Anderson is counting as "Tail".
For example: Imagine a market in which the old brick and mortar stores could stock only the 100 most popular items and that only 20 of those items made up 80% of the sales. In the new world of unlimited inventory there is an ecommerce store has a 100,000 items in stock and the top 20,000 account for 90% of the sales. So before the web the top 20% of items accounted for 80% of the sales but afterwards the top 20% accounts for a full 90% of the sales. Gomes says this means that Anderson is wrong and that the web made things even *more* hit centric. Anderson's "tail" includes items 101 through 20,000 which Gomes is including in the "head". This overlap between Anderson's "Tail" and Gomes's "head" used to be unmarketable "misses" but are now able to find a market & have even increased sales individually and also now make up a significant percentage of total sales to the retailer. Sales that previously didn't exist because the old brick & mortar store didn't have space for the product
As Anderson said. If Gomes had been a little more intellectually honest about his argument there could have been an interesting debate over how long the long tail is & what the limits of the phenomena are etc. Gomes does have a good point which he simply overstated. 20% of the products *are* still accounting for 80% of the sales, which Anderson's thesis *seemed* to undermine. To be fair Anderson (at least in the original article, I haven't read the book) doesn't dispute that 80/20 rule. Instead I think he could be summed up as saying that with unlimited inventory the 20% of inventory is a much bigger absolute number and also that retailers can profitably capture the 20% of sales that come from the 80% of the inventory that they used to have to forego for reasons of limited physical space.
Re:Editorial Oversight != Truth (i.e. FOX News)
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And fox news represents itself as being fair and balanced.
But it doesn't present Hannity, or that Jackass O'Rielly as "Fair" but as one side of "balanced". And, no they certainly don't achieve either fair or balanced.... which was the point of the grandparent post that Rather was *just as* biased.
What CBS did was to publish a story. The story was bought to them by another person. They did some due diligence but obviously not enough. Why is this Dan Rathers fault?
I'm sorry that just doesn't cut it... They were actively seeking a story for years (by their own account). They uncritically ran with a *really* bad forgery provided to them by a somewhat unhinged, partisan activist (the mirror image of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth but perhaps even less credible if that's possible). Their reporting cast their source (who they did not report on) as unbiased and competent and when called on the obviously forged nature of their documents they stonewalled for a week, even now they just can't quite see it. Why? because they are personally invested in the story because of their strong ideological opinions.
Finally all the facts in the memo are true. The memo may be fake but the facts it alleges have been backed up by both the secratary who would have written the memo and the commaning officer who would have dictated it. Probably the original memo is missing so it was recreated. The memo itself is fake but Bush really did go AWOL and he really was a fuckup.
Just the kind of "this is true because it supports my partisan opinions" rationale that made the forgeries so easy for Dan to believe despite the lack of substantiation and the problematic nature of what little substantiation does exist. Killian *didn't* back up the memo attributed to him because he'd been dead for a while. His secretary said they reflected Killian's views. HOWEVER she is contradicted on that point by both Killian's wife and his son (who was a member of the squadron) but most importantly by contemporary documents contained in Bush's actual files which consistently call Bush "exemplary" (to be fair phrases of praise such as "exemplary" or "outstanding" are massively overused in such documents and don't really mean much... though their *absence* would be telling)
In the end even if the worst came out... influence was exerted, bush was a screw-up you have at best only put concrete details into the party-boy slacker who found Jesus and a sense of responsibility at 40 official version of the Bush biography. It's always been Prince Hal becoming Henry the Vth with Bush.
So, when this loose behaviour I throw off
And pay the debt I never promised,
By how much better than my word I am,
By so much shall I falsify men's hopes;
And like bright metal on a sullen ground,
My reformation, glittering o'er my fault,
Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes
Than that which hath no foil to set it off.
Not that I think Bush planned ahead for this like Hal did... I don't think he had met Rove yet (though it looks like Hal had:)
Re:Editorial Oversight != Truth (i.e. FOX News)
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I happen to *hate* fox news for a lot of reasons. BUT... This is hardly a fair comparison. A commentator is *supposed* to be opinionated. They don't have to be rude, as in the cases you mentioned, but they are by definition biased. Dan Rather on the other hand is presenting himself, being represented by CBS and has (largely) been accepted as an objective, dispassionate reporter.
An "opinion journalist" who is blatant to the point of incivility in his biases is easily identified as biased. An ostensibly "objective" journalist who is influenced by opinions that are just as strong to downplay stories that contradict his positions and to emphasize stories that confirm them (or even becomes easily duped by false stories that confirm his opinion) is in many ways more dangerous because his biases are more difficult for his audience to identify and account for but the information provided to them is ultimately just as one-sided.
Huh? Free press? A guy video tapes somebody on his doorstep and suddenly that qualifies him as a member of the press?
You're both wrong. There is no such thing (in the constitution) as a *member* of the press. Constitutionally speaking "The press" is simply the printing press. The "freedom of the press" is the freedom of any and all citizens to publish their ideas and opinions. It is NOT about special freedoms that a class of people called "The Press" have that other citizens don't have. So, recording the cops at his door has nothing to do with "freedom of the press" one way or the other since recording isn't publishing or speaking.
"I could care less" was originally a sarcastic inversion of the (previously) more common "I couldn't care less". Just like saying "Tell me about it" actually means "(DON'T tell me about it), I already know". Both phrases, and others like them, crept into common usage & lost their sarcastic intonation to become idioms.
The article does not explain how reinforcing the casing or rotating the missile so it takes longer to heat effect the performance of the laser.
I recall a General being asked this question in a news conference a while back. He said something to the effect that spinning the missile would make the missile immune to the laser to roughly the same degree that a spinning ballerina is immune to a machine gun.
Slashdot Mirror
Just getting the joke now?
You're removing an iPod from the market and adding a Zune.
Minor correction. By taking the iPod in exchange you aren't taking away from iPod's market share (The percentage of players sold that are iPods - that iPod has already been sold) but from it's installed base (the percentage of players being used that are iPods).
Taking away from your competitors installed base would be helpful in indirect ways (shrink the market for iPod accessories & iTMS) but it won't affect the market share numbers that people tend to pay more attention to.
I admitted my mistake, and again I'm sorry. My criticism is valid for the attitudes and expressed opinions of many main-stream journalists and news publishers. But, I admittedly had no reason to suspect the same of Reporters without Borders simply because they made a similar criticism.
Anyway, no state, and I doubt any country, has a general right enjoyed by all citizens to refuse to testify in court when they have relevant knowledge about a criminal proceeding. Any criminal justice system attempting to conduct fair trials with any hope of arriving at the truth of a matter must have the power to compel reluctant witnesses to testify and/or produce evidence when they have knowledge or documentation relevant to the court proceeding. Now, there are valid arguments that some people in certain occupations, or at most engaging in some particular activities ("acting as a journalist in the matter at hand"), should be exempt from such compulsion that the rest of us are subject to because of the value to society their activity has.
My problem is that any such exemption to be workable must have some limits and those limits will most likely result in enshrining a special privilege for a particular class of citizens "The Press". Many members of "The Press" already all too often perceive themselves as a specially privileged class. At least in the USA, they truly believe that "freedom of the press" in the US constitution is talking about "them" and not everybody else as well. As such they think that such privileges are not just a good idea (and one that is open to debate) but actually a constitutional right, again, not enjoyed by others. I'm much more concerned about "freedom of the press", the freedom of everyone to not just speak, opine etc. but to publish and promote their speech and opinions, a right that is actually IN the constitution and is also under attack and disappearing without much dissent, ESPECIALLY from the press. I'm just plain less concerned about a private right to *investigate* which is what protecting sources is about. Being compelled to speak in a court does not limit anyone's ability to speak, and publish, elsewhere. It has nothing to do with "freedom of the press" (the freedom to speak and publish) but it does perhaps make private investigation more difficult for those who wish to publish the results of those investigations. (it of course makes public investigation easier though).
Where do you get this impression? Trade guilds restrict their membership. "Reporters" is a group anyone may join by picking up a pen. This group wants these freedoms for everyone. They advocate for this set of freedoms, as oposed ot others, because this set is particularly impotant to members of their profession. A profession they specifically want anyone to be free to join at any time by picking up a pen.
I'm perhaps being unfair to this particular group & their report. I'll admit I'm basing my criticism more on reading the editorials & complaints by the press that are actually found in other venues and not in this report itself (though I suspect the specific attitudes I'm critical of found their way into the questionnaires used to compile this report). I have two basic criticisms of the editorializing by the press, on this issue that I see in the USA.
One, there is often an assertion of a special rights reserved for journalists to refuse to testify at trial as to the identity of sources. Any normal person with knowledge of a crime can be subpoenaed and compelled to testify as to what it is they know. Journalists assert to have a special exception to this responsibility based on their occupation. It is possible that journalists would like this to be a general right (though that seems like a profoundly unserious proposal) but I've never seen the press reporting in scandalized tones when a member of the general public who doesn't want to is forced to testify at a trial.
The other criticism I have is the often approving tone of reporting, and positive editorials in "The Press" when freedom of the press is taken away from the general public as long as it's not also taken from "The Press". Look at the editorializing and press coverage of McCain-Feingold which restricts my right to publish & publicize my criticism of my elected officials, yet the press by-and-large reported on this without any protest and largely in an approving manner. McCain Fiengold is perhaps the most radical restrictions of freedom of the press (in the lower-case, individual right usage) our nation has ever witnessed and yet it doesn't merit mention in the report because "The Press" has been largely spared from being subjected to it. Which is profoundly shortsighted, reasonable interpretation of the law certainly COULD apply to any number of things that the press does every day... and mainstream news organizations have faced threats of lawsuits from disgruntled candidates based on their reporting.
As to the specific complaints in the report. The first is largely meaningless. (The Bush administration is "suspicious" of it's critics who happen to be in the press) no indication at all though that this "suspicion" led to any concrete denials of press freedoms, based on some of the hyperventilating op-eds from a year or two back about "chilling effects" and the like I suspect this is largely opinion journalists offended that their own opinions (sometimes harshly) critical of the administration were themselves (sometimes harshly) criticized. Probably good for a "Yes" on a question about intimidation of the press and if so an insult to journalists elsewhere facing actual intimidation. The second is the special right to protect sources that I criticized above. And finally three concrete cases. A blogger who's videos were confiscated and testimony was compelled (same special rights issue as above). And, two journalists imprisoned in war zones (one now at Guantanamo and one in Iraq). Bilal was arrested when he was found in the company of a couple of Al-Queada leaders at a weapons cache (possibly an interview, however he's a photographer not an investigative journalist) and although Reporters without Borders alleges that Sami is in Guantanamo only because the administration "has it in for Al-jazeera" it is at least an outside possibility that his imprisonment has less to do with his association with Al-Jazeera and more to do with the two jobs he held prior to that with a couple of charities identified by the State Department as fronts for Al Quaida's financial support. (That being said I think both guys should either have a trial or possibly be held as normal POW's with the rights enjoyed by the same)
Are they wanting reporters to be above the law or what?
Yes. This is a report by a trade guild that wants special legal status for members of their guild. They want a special class of people who are not subject to certain laws that would apply to normal people. Frankly, I'm not interested in special rights that apply only to particular classes. Such special rights are generally a bad thing in in their own right. But practically it's also open to abuse and increases the leverage of those in power. If their is a distinction in press freedoms based on membership someone must have the power to decide who is a member or not. That person will by definition be someone "in power" and will have tremendous influence over The Press. Freedom of "The Press" is more secure if it's founded on a general freedom of the press (the freedom of EVERY citizen to publish) than if it's founded on belonging to a special class of people.
Historians have argued that the first amendment to the U.S. constitution is concerned about that general, individual right. At the time "The Press" was not used as a synonym for the "news media" as it is today. It just meant "the printing press". "Freedom of the press" meant the freedom of ANY individual to publish their opinions. Societies that have special freedom of "The Press" may not have very good "freedom of the press". Indeed it seems to me they are *less* likely to.
Polish is not "eye candy". Eye candy is merely flashiness. Polish is everything being intentionally designed, fully thought out, finished. Something can have a lot of eye candy but still be very rough & incomplete. Something can be polished yet very visually simple (though certainly designed). "Eye candy" is often a way to compensate for, or distract from, a lack of polish.
A few good examples of what people mean by polish are in TFA under #8 "Lots of other nice little things". Not a single one of them is "eye candy" they are not even related to visual design at all... but they are exactly what people mean when they say that Mac OS X is polished.
I just watched the video on YouTube.
Because YouTube removed the flag after all the coverage on it. It WAS indeed flagged as inappropriate and you needed to log in and confirm you were over 18 to view it at that time.
It's not YouTube per say, it's people flagging the video as inappropriate. That causes the restriction to be put on
This is wrong. According to YouTube people flagging the video only notifies YouTube of that fact. THEY review it and if they agree that it is inappropriate they flag it as such and restrict access to it... which they did in this case (until backing down).
While the source of the story is suspect it does raise a valid issue. This is not the only instance where videos have been flagged as inappropriate that didn't violate any of the *stated* reasons for being flagged but WERE outspoken expressions of one political viewpoint (and biting in their criticism of the other end of the political spectrum). It would be interesting to find out if this censorship is for all political expression that is deemed offensive by the other side or if it's only applied to one side of the political spectrum but not another. Otherwise in terms of merely being offensive or insulting YouTube doesn't seem to have particularly high standards.
That was my entire point, and that is where the Geneva Convention was breached. Using cluster bombs on cities full of civilians is explicitly against the rules.
OK, I'll grant that. Your point about the AA gun in a Hospital muddied the waters for me. legally, It's a legitimate target, but not for cluster bombs.
One other caveat, there are conditions where cluster munitions would still be legal despite the presence of (at least some) civilians. Basically the rule is you can't use a weapon that effects a wide area to get multiple, separate and distinct targets if those targets are separated by a bunch of civilians. It's a general principle not an explicit rule about cluster bombs per se (any weapon that affects an area significantly bigger than the target would qualify). One big target occupying roughly the same amount of space as the area of effect of the weapon would be a legal target for that weapon (at least according to the rule). For example cluster bombs affect an area roughly the size of a couple football fields... using cluster bombs on a large military installation would be legal even if that installation is in the middle of a city. An armored column all bunched together coming down a four lane highway is another target where cluster munitions would arguably be legal. The same column dispersed into the surrounding neighborhood is very clearly not.
You are misunderstanding the term "freedom of action". It is a military term, and the policy is a policy of military preparedness. You also misunderstand my use of the term "adversary"... I didn't mean political adversary but a *military* one in which we are engaged in a real, live shooting war. As I said before this policy merely says: "We want satellites an enemy can't shoot down and we also want to have weapons that can shoot down an enemy satellite". It is NOT saying: "We'll shoot down, unprovoked, the satellites of countries whose policies we disagree with"
I'm confused... are you saying you supported military action against North Korea?
If (only for the sake of argument) you accept that Bush thought that both Iraq and North Korea had nuclear programs the difference in the way they were dealt with still makes sense. To date after a brief conventional war and a much longer and deadly unconventional war we have lost a little over 3,000 troops KIA. A war in Korea would result in that many military casualties in the first few hours (maybe minutes depending on the circumstances under which the war started). With South Korea's capital and most populous city within range of several hundreds of well fortified North Korean heavy artillery pieces there would be many more South Korean civilian deaths on the first day than the most pessimistic estimates of the current TOTAL number of civilian deaths to date in Iraq. The Pentagon estimated at least four months of high intensity conflict and 52,000 US military casualties within the first 90 days when they did an assessment for President Clinton in '93 and hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties.
There is NO military option for dealing with North Korea... Sadly there isn't really a diplomatic option either. Clinton tried the bilateral give-em-whatever-they-ask-for approach that has been urged on Bush... and it failed miserably (they took the offered goodies and just continued with the program in secret anyway). When we found out they'd cheated on the program Bush tried pressure (via China) and that failed just a miserably (China just hasn't cooperated). Maybe this test will move things in our direction. China may finally decide that the risks of a nuclear North Korea out-weigh the risks of the whole place collapsing and start exerting some real pressure.
China has been reluctant to muzzle its maddog little psycho neighbor since it frightens the hated Japanese more than anyone else, but surely China can see now how North Korea's insane belligerence threatens China's economy just as much as it gives the Japanese nightmares.
Good point. Though NK has in the past been useful to China as a sharp stick to poke both it's regional rivals (Japan & South Korea) and the USA at this point I think China is sheltering NK now only because they are afraid of what would happen if the NK government collapsed. All those millions of starving Koreans would be streaming north to the opulent wealth of China.
Other than that fear I suspect NK has become a huge strategic liability for China. They may wants the other regional powers *distracted* by NK but not provoked into an arms race. Japan has already started to change it's attitudes and policies in response to constant North Korean provocation in ways that China can't possibly welcome: Loosening their rules on military deployments, becoming more assertive in regional power-politics, joining the USA's anti-ballistic missile program etc. (a program which would likely be used to shield Taiwan in any conflict). I'm sure North Korea's provocations aren't the ONLY reason for these changes but having a well armed neighbor who is continually voicing dire threats, shooting missiles over your head and kidnapping your citizens off of your territory has GOT to be a contributing factor for the cultural shift away from post WWII pacifism. China most fears a re-militarized Japan but North Korea is steadily pushing Japan in that direction.
...two people slapping each other with equations over the exact number of neutrinos from a North Korean nuclear test makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.
Which is much better than neutrinos from a North Korean nuclear test making you all warm and fuzzy inside.
Aunt Bessy goes to OfficeMax and picks out that fancy new HP gadget that everyone is talking about.
And why just "Aunt Bessy" getting a gadget for no reason other than "everyone is talking about" it? It's not just her... there are plenty of very, very smart (smarter than most of us geeks probably) professional people that aren't, and *shouldn't have to be*, knowledgeable about computer security. I worry more about the small businesses and professionals out there who may know a lot about their profession and even know the computer tools used in their profession and the basics of administering their machines that *don't* know how bad the security environment is for their PC. Likely your accountant, lawyer, doctor, and the owner of the small boutique where you bought a gift for your wife (and who uses their PC to run batch Credit Card transactions) all have the same problems keeping their machine secure as your Aunt Bessy does.
What you want is the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. It's an agreement between the major super-powers that no Earthly country will own celestial bodies, and that these places exist for the exploration of all mankind.
Such a treaty will be a dead letter the moment there is something worth owning in space that someone also has the ability to "own" in the meaningful sense of being able to physically possess, exploit to their advantage and, possibly, defend against anyone else's interference. We'll work out some treaties that will simply codify the simple reality that "possession is 9/10ths of the law". Those nations (or "that nation") capable of obtaining actual physical possession of something of real value will do so, and treaties will be written that legitimize their possessions. I hope this doesn't come across as implying any immorality to such a situation & I don't mean it to sound cynical. Possession is where the concept of "ownership" comes from in the first place and in a region previously under no legal authority the laws legitimizing (and going into the future, regulating) ownership will start with the raw fact of physical possession. A legal structure containing an idealistic sounding fiction like "these places exist for the exploration of all mankind." is liable to cause as much or more injustice as it's actual implementation reflects the reality of the situation while it's idealistic wording (pretends to) deny it.
"ensure freedom of action in space, and, if directed, deny such freedom of action to adversaries"
... means "ensure only we have freedom of action in space"
... which means "no freedom of action in space".
... or stated much more broadly and simply: "in the event of a war... try to win."
Add "for a military adversary" to the last statement and that is exactly what it means. Despite the current +5 Insightful rating don't exert too much effort patting yourself on the back. The meaning of the statement wasn't a hidden one, no deception was intended. You correctly picked up on clear meaning the statement was intended to convey. No "logic advisor" or special insight should have been necessary.
Nor is it (by necessity) particularly evil. In practical terms it means: "Make sure our military satellites can't be knocked down, and in the event of a war that we can knock down an enemy's". A pretty standard goal of all militaries when talking about military assets (ensure them for ourselves, deny them to our enemy)
not using it on civilians means not using it on civilians and not some sickening bit of spin. If your enemy is uncivilised and puts an anti-aircraft gun on the front law of a hospital - tough - if you want to remain on the list of civilised countries you don't go bombing civilian targets with weapons like these.
You have obviously not ever read the Geneva convetions. They are VERY clear on this exact subject. Hospitals are given special protections by the 4th Geneva convetion. BUT having an AA gun on the front lawn would change that: "Art. 19. The protection to which civilian hospitals are entitled shall not cease unless they are used to commit, outside their humanitarian duties, acts harmful to the enemy."... if that AA gun is used the hospital looses it's status under the 4th Geneva Convention. Even it's presence is probably sufficient to lose it's status. The only weapons allowed in a Hostpital that would NOT lose it it's protected status is "small arms and ammunition taken from such combatants and not yet been handed to the proper service," (also article 19). Hospitals (but not other civillian targets in a similar situation) enjoy the additional protection that they must be given a warning prior to being attacked (unless that attack is self-defence from a combatant taking fire from the hospital)
Other than that the presense of a valid military target makes it a valid military target regardless of the presence of civilians. Placing such a target among civillians in an attempt to use the civillians as a shield is itself the war crime, attacking that target is NOT. The attacker is still expected to try to minimise civillian casualties and there is a rule of proportionality that says the risk (or certainty) of civillian casualties must have some proportionality to the value of the target. And, there is a rule about "indiscriminate attacks" which would cover using a weapon with a wide area of effect on a small target surrounded by civillians. Using a cluster bomb on an armored column in the middle of the desert is perfectly valid (a weapon with a wide effect used on one big target far from civillians), using a cluster bomb on a village because there is an AA gun on either end is NOT valid (using a weapon with a wide effect on two distinct targets separated by a lot of civillians) . Using a cluster bomb on an armored column in the middle of a village is debatable it's arguably one big target and using one big weapon to take it out in one fell swoop is probably valid according to the Geneva convetion. Though you still have the proportionality principle to deal with... doing so in the middle of a heated battle for a vital military objective would be different from doing so when it's just a target of opportunity without much military value.
The Web as Political Weapon
The old media complaint about this?
"Hey, No fair! That's our job!"
Actually (IIRC) it's that the story is wrong. It's not a database of the budget but a database of "earmarks". Earmarks are set asides of dictating that particular money must be spent on specific projects rather than going into the general fund of the department being funded. So if congress says the Department of Transportation gets 200 billion dollars that's not in the database... but if it says "the DOT must spend $225 Million on a bridge to Gravina Island, Alaska" that IS in the database. The administration doesn't decide what gets into the database or not, congress does by either earmarking spending or not.
This is purely a political move.
Yes but so is most earmarking. It's hoped that it will put pressure on congressmen to give up the worst of their pork barrel spending. Sadly though this might backfire. I'm sure most lawmakers don't want to be known as the biggest spenders of pork on the hill, but the whole point of pork is that it gets votes. Many an election has been won by saying "I wasted the rest of the countries money on meaningless projects and jobs for you guys in my district"
The problem with profiling is not just that it's wrong or not "PC," but that it doesn't work. Remember, the terrorists aren't dummies. If the authorities start pulling every Arab off of every plane, the terrorists groups will soon get wise to that. They will search their ranks for the least Arab looking members or recruit radicalized westerners. Narrowing the focus of your search just gives your target a chance to adapt.
Absolutely *nothing* "works" in the way you mean (a complete and total solution). However some things "help" (are an incomplete, part of a larger solution). The problem you describe with profiling is true of *anything* that helps. They will all actually hurt if you think they are a complete infallible solution. Profiling only causes the problem you describe if it's seen as a panacea rather than as one fallible tool among others.
Look at your same "doesn't work" scenario again: "They will search their ranks for the least Arab looking members " could be stated "They will dramatically reduce the size of their talent pool" and "forced to engage in previously unnecessary deceptions (Your caucasian looking Mohammed Atta will also now need a caucasian sounding alias) "...or recruit radicalized westerners." could be stated: "forced to communicate with and trust outsiders, massively increasing the risk of discovery and even infiltration". Your definition of failure sounds like a reasonably successful policy. It's not about finding one magic bullet with a guaranteed 100% success rate but of an array of policies that will increase the odds that you catch the bad guys before they strike. Your failure does just that... you've made things more difficult for them and given yourself more opportunities to catch a lucky break yourself. You still have to keep an eye on that octogenarian Swedish grandmother traveling with her grandkids - it's true that she may really be a radical islamist with a great disguise, but it's hardly the height of stupidity to keep an even closer eye on the 25 year old fellow with a Saudi passport traveling on a one-way ticket paid for with cash (especially if four apparently unrelated fellows all matching the same profile coincedently pop up on the same flight)
But did you read the blog post?
Gomes is refuting Andersons thesis by saying that 20% of the items still make up 80% of the sales (percentages of the old 80/20 rule used for illustration)
Anderson's response though is that with essentially *unlimited* inventory percentages aren't always the best or only way to measure the "tail". Anderson's definition has to do with the absolute numbers that used to get cut off. So Gomes is counting a bunch of sales as "head" which Anderson is counting as "Tail".
For example: Imagine a market in which the old brick and mortar stores could stock only the 100 most popular items and that only 20 of those items made up 80% of the sales. In the new world of unlimited inventory there is an ecommerce store has a 100,000 items in stock and the top 20,000 account for 90% of the sales. So before the web the top 20% of items accounted for 80% of the sales but afterwards the top 20% accounts for a full 90% of the sales. Gomes says this means that Anderson is wrong and that the web made things even *more* hit centric. Anderson's "tail" includes items 101 through 20,000 which Gomes is including in the "head". This overlap between Anderson's "Tail" and Gomes's "head" used to be unmarketable "misses" but are now able to find a market & have even increased sales individually and also now make up a significant percentage of total sales to the retailer. Sales that previously didn't exist because the old brick & mortar store didn't have space for the product
As Anderson said. If Gomes had been a little more intellectually honest about his argument there could have been an interesting debate over how long the long tail is & what the limits of the phenomena are etc. Gomes does have a good point which he simply overstated. 20% of the products *are* still accounting for 80% of the sales, which Anderson's thesis *seemed* to undermine. To be fair Anderson (at least in the original article, I haven't read the book) doesn't dispute that 80/20 rule. Instead I think he could be summed up as saying that with unlimited inventory the 20% of inventory is a much bigger absolute number and also that retailers can profitably capture the 20% of sales that come from the 80% of the inventory that they used to have to forego for reasons of limited physical space.
And fox news represents itself as being fair and balanced.
:)
But it doesn't present Hannity, or that Jackass O'Rielly as "Fair" but as one side of "balanced". And, no they certainly don't achieve either fair or balanced.... which was the point of the grandparent post that Rather was *just as* biased.
What CBS did was to publish a story. The story was bought to them by another person. They did some due diligence but obviously not enough. Why is this Dan Rathers fault?
I'm sorry that just doesn't cut it... They were actively seeking a story for years (by their own account). They uncritically ran with a *really* bad forgery provided to them by a somewhat unhinged, partisan activist (the mirror image of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth but perhaps even less credible if that's possible). Their reporting cast their source (who they did not report on) as unbiased and competent and when called on the obviously forged nature of their documents they stonewalled for a week, even now they just can't quite see it. Why? because they are personally invested in the story because of their strong ideological opinions.
Finally all the facts in the memo are true. The memo may be fake but the facts it alleges have been backed up by both the secratary who would have written the memo and the commaning officer who would have dictated it. Probably the original memo is missing so it was recreated. The memo itself is fake but Bush really did go AWOL and he really was a fuckup.
Just the kind of "this is true because it supports my partisan opinions" rationale that made the forgeries so easy for Dan to believe despite the lack of substantiation and the problematic nature of what little substantiation does exist. Killian *didn't* back up the memo attributed to him because he'd been dead for a while. His secretary said they reflected Killian's views. HOWEVER she is contradicted on that point by both Killian's wife and his son (who was a member of the squadron) but most importantly by contemporary documents contained in Bush's actual files which consistently call Bush "exemplary" (to be fair phrases of praise such as "exemplary" or "outstanding" are massively overused in such documents and don't really mean much... though their *absence* would be telling)
In the end even if the worst came out... influence was exerted, bush was a screw-up you have at best only put concrete details into the party-boy slacker who found Jesus and a sense of responsibility at 40 official version of the Bush biography. It's always been Prince Hal becoming Henry the Vth with Bush.
So, when this loose behaviour I throw off
And pay the debt I never promised,
By how much better than my word I am,
By so much shall I falsify men's hopes;
And like bright metal on a sullen ground,
My reformation, glittering o'er my fault,
Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes
Than that which hath no foil to set it off.
Not that I think Bush planned ahead for this like Hal did... I don't think he had met Rove yet (though it looks like Hal had
I happen to *hate* fox news for a lot of reasons. BUT... This is hardly a fair comparison. A commentator is *supposed* to be opinionated. They don't have to be rude, as in the cases you mentioned, but they are by definition biased. Dan Rather on the other hand is presenting himself, being represented by CBS and has (largely) been accepted as an objective, dispassionate reporter.
An "opinion journalist" who is blatant to the point of incivility in his biases is easily identified as biased. An ostensibly "objective" journalist who is influenced by opinions that are just as strong to downplay stories that contradict his positions and to emphasize stories that confirm them (or even becomes easily duped by false stories that confirm his opinion) is in many ways more dangerous because his biases are more difficult for his audience to identify and account for but the information provided to them is ultimately just as one-sided.
Huh? Free press? A guy video tapes somebody on his doorstep and suddenly that qualifies him as a member of the press?
You're both wrong. There is no such thing (in the constitution) as a *member* of the press. Constitutionally speaking "The press" is simply the printing press. The "freedom of the press" is the freedom of any and all citizens to publish their ideas and opinions. It is NOT about special freedoms that a class of people called "The Press" have that other citizens don't have. So, recording the cops at his door has nothing to do with "freedom of the press" one way or the other since recording isn't publishing or speaking.
"I could care less" was originally a sarcastic inversion of the (previously) more common "I couldn't care less". Just like saying "Tell me about it" actually means "(DON'T tell me about it), I already know". Both phrases, and others like them, crept into common usage & lost their sarcastic intonation to become idioms.
The article does not explain how reinforcing the casing or rotating the missile so it takes longer to heat effect the performance of the laser.
I recall a General being asked this question in a news conference a while back. He said something to the effect that spinning the missile would make the missile immune to the laser to roughly the same degree that a spinning ballerina is immune to a machine gun.