"At least ECS dosen't melt and then catch on fire"
Au contraire; the company I work for, when we did some retail business, sold a computer with an ECS mainboard (K7SEM maybe?) to someone just before Christmas. Just after Christmas, they brought it back complaining that it didn't turn on anymore and they smelled something 'funny' from it. When we opened it up, the power supply connector was fused to the mainboard connector. I saw another ECS board where the rear USB connector that was included with the board was miswired. Result? When the machine was powered on, the USB cable literally went up in flames.
We made the decision to switch to Asus and MSI shortly thereafter, and we haven't looked back since.
"It does boggle the mind that you people still use that stupid system of weights and measures. I guess the trillions it would cost to change over aren't worth spending now."
That was the statement from the Lockheed Martin engineering group. They simply didn't have the money to completely change all their systems, software, hardware, and equipment over to using metric; not to mention the massive blow to manpower efficiency you take when you suddenly switch units on the guys who've been doing the same thing for 20 years with one unit.
As for us changing everything over, I think it'll happen very gradually. We have liter and two-liter soda bottles. The trouble is when you try and get an entire population to conceptualize things in a new way. Am I getting a good deal at X dollars per liter? I don't know - I've only ever bought gas by the gallon. Even if the units make more sense from a systemwide point of view, they're still arbitrary individually. Thus, it's honestly not any easier for us to switch from US to metric than it would be for, say, New Zealand to switch from metric to US.
By the way, your country looks absolutely beautiful (I'm assuming you're from New Zealand judging by the website you have listed), and it's very high on my list of international places to visit.:)
The previous poster wasn't talking about the Mars Polar Lander, they were referring to the $125 Million Mars Climate Orbiter.
"nothing as dramatic as confusing the two measures of distance - that would be unthinkable - and not even NASA is dumb enough to make such a mistake."
Someone should inform NASA of this. They admitted that this is precisely what happened. Actually, though, Lockheed Martin built the spacecraft, and it was their engineers who used English units. NASA, like everyone else in the (scientific) world, uses metric.
"No, the problem was that the conversion variables were not of sufficient accuracy, and over a period of 18 months where the computers used the conversion many thousands of times, the eventual height that the motors cut out was too high to allow the craft to survive."
If you're referring to the Mars Polar Lander, then that's also inaccurate. NASA's internal report states that the most likely cause of the loss of the Polar Lander is that its engines cut off upon deployment of its three 'legs'. Onboard sensors believed the craft had landed due to incorrect sensor readings, so the engines cut off and the craft plumeted to its doom.
However, the previous poster did make one mistake. The Mars Climate Orbiter likely did not crash into "the body it was orbiting". Due to the units conversion problem, the navigation system did not begin its burn to slow the spacecraft into a proper Mars orbit until it was far too close to the planet already. The result was that the Orbiter was travelling far too fast, its thrusters overheated during their burn and shut down, the craft plowed through the atmosphere, and continued on its way. Speculation is that it currently holds an orbit around the sun.
"But your little environment variable, as well as being harder to type, doesn't actually look up user's home directories. What if people's home directories are on different filesystems, possibly NFS mounts from various machines?"
You're serious?
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are.
Assume c: is the main system drive, d: is a secondary drive, and x: is a remote file share. Bill's "home" directory is on c:, John's is on d:, and Mike's is on x:.
SET ~bill=c:\docume~1\bill SET ~john=d:\users\john SET ~mike=x:\share\public\users\mike
echo %~bill% c:\docume~1\bill
echo %~john% d:\users\john
echo %~mike% x:\share\public\users\mike
Gee, that was tough. As for it being "harder to type", if you're sweating over two characters, it's probably time to take a vacation.
System variables exist for looking up the base filesystem path of the current user, no matter where it is. These would simply be for convenience.
Fanboys should do some more homework before deriding Windows. Windows has plenty of real problems to complain about without having to make things up on the fly.
"They are making out the average Mexican / immigrant to be this huge National security risk even though they arent. Sterotyping sucks."
One million sex offenses by illegal immigrants since 1997 certainly seems like a risk. In Los Angeles, 95% of all outstanding homocide warrants are for illegal immigrants. Two-thirds of fugitive felony warrants are for illegal aliens. A report from 1995 stated that 60% of the 18th Street Gang in southern California is illegal aliens. In 2002, an estimated 60% of the leadership of the Columbia Lil' Cycos gang were illegals. 33% of the US prison population is made up of non-citizens. An estimated 38% of illegal aliens are on welfare.
This site carries story after story of what some illegal alien criminals have done to Americans. And before you say it's not all illegals, remember that each and every one of these crimes would have been prevented if we had a truly effective measure of control over our southern border.
Illegal aliens - just doing the raping, robbing, murdering, child molesting, man slaughter, and child abduction Americans refuse to do...
"Find an illegal immigrant online, then call your local chapter of The Minutemen to take em out."
The Minutemen simply watch, then report violations to law enforcement (generally the US Border Patrol). If you're going to call someone, it may as well be the US Border Patrol directly. The Minutemen are there to watch and observe; not to "take em out".
"What about all those people in the world who aren't lucky enough to live in a country along your southern border (like me). Are they doomed to never be allowed into your country legally because Mexicans are illegally flooding into your country, illegally filling whatever "immigrant" quota exists (unofficially, of course)?"
I must apologize, as an American, for the difficulty someone like you has in trying to come here legally. You seem to understand that our country can't possibly take every single person who wants to come here at the same time, and that a major part of the problem is the unabated flow of illegal immigrants coming across our largely unguarded border. The American people are as fed up with the problem as you are, and it looks like we're finally going to see some results in the form of real progress. Much of that progress is coming from regular citizens forming groups like the Minutemen whose goal is vigilance; not violence. If we can avoid our idiot politicians stuffing amnesty down our throats (here's hoping the House holds strong against the Senate amnesty bill), perhaps we can get to work reforming our broken immigration citizen so we can start taking in more legal immigrants with less hassle.
I'm about as big a border security person as you're going to find, and I'm the first to say we need to make it less hassle for people around the world to come here legally. We need to screen out criminals, terrorists, and other threats, but we also need to ensure that our screening process moves along as quickly and efficiently as possible so we don't lose out on the incredibly valuable contributions of law-abiding people around the globe who simply want to come here to give their children a better life.
If you truly want to come here, live here, and integrate with our society while making contributions, then I hope with all my heart that you have the opportunity to do so.
If you want to talk about Xenophobia, let's look at some of these ridiculous laws:
No immigrant may legally enter the country to search for work
Foreigners legally living in the country may not own any property without restrictions on its location and use. (For instance, an immigrant may not own valuable beech-front property in many areas.)
No social services may legally be provided to legal or illegal immigrants living in in the country.
No immigrants, legal or otherwise are not allowed to participate in political demonstrations, or protests of any kind.
Foreigners may not in any way participate in the political affairs of the country.
Immigrants who illegally cross into the country are simply jailed.
According to the law, citizens "shall have priority over foreigners" for all government employment.
All immigrants (even naturalized citizens) are banned from serving as officers in the military, flagged ships and airline crew, and chiefs of seaports and airports.
Immigrants (including naturalized citizens) are banned from becoming federal lawmakers or Supreme Court members.
Immigrants are also banned from becoming members of the clergy.
Citizens are allowed to arrest and detain any foreigner accused of breaking the law.
The Executive branch of the government is allowed, by law, to expel any foreigner at any time for any reason without due process.
That sounds pretty xenophobic to me, how about you?
By the way, the country I was talking about is Mexico, and most of those law are actually a part of the Mexican constitution.
"Why arent they putting camera's on the borders to Canada?"
Because Texas doesn't share a border with Canada? Because we don't have 12 million Canadians illegally living in the United States? Need I go on?
"the 9/11 terrorists crossed from Canada"
No, they didn't. They also weren't CIA agents, and there really isn't a large group of space aliens trying to read your mind through your tinfoil hat.
"Canada's border is bigger and less secure."
The border with Canada is larger, but they actually control it a lot better than Mexico controls its northern border. Incidentally, Mexico has militarized their southern border, much like many other countries around the world. Why? Because masses of people streaming across your borders unchecked is a national and economic security threat to your nation.
"The US Govt led by Republicans is about as racist as it gets."
Two Democratic governors are sending National Guard troops to the border. It was a Republican governor in California who held off agreeing to do so the longest. Aside from that, what's "racist" about controlling your borders? Is Spain racist for controlling their's? Is Mexico racist for controlling their southern border? Was it racist when President Clinton ordered the construction of border security fences in the San Diego sector of the border using military designs? Wait, what party was he from again?
"No I'm not Mexican but have been best friends with mainly Mexican Americans and it pisses me off to see this shit happening right in front of our faces."
Are they Mexican citizens, or American citizens? In this country, we do not allow dual citizenship. Aside from that, perhaps you could ask your friends a few questions for me:
Let's start with asking why an American citizen cannot legally enter Mexico to look for a job.
Then you can ask them why American immigrants living in Mexico may not own any property in Mexico without restrictions on its location and use? (For instance, an American immigrant in Mexico may not own valuable beech-front property in many areas.)
Then ask your friends why Mexico allows no social services to be provided to legal American immigrants living in Mexico.
Ask them why American or other immigrants in Mexico are not allowed to participate in political demonstrations, or protests of any kind.
Find out for me why "Foreigners may not in any way participate in the political affairs of the country".
Ask them why Americans who illegally cross into Mexico are jailed.
Ask them why the Mexican constitution specifically says that Mexican citizens "shall have priority over foreigners" for all government employment.
Ask them why all immigrants in Mexico (even naturalized citizens) are banned from serving as officers in the military, Mexican-flagged ship and airline crew, and chiefs of seaports and airports.
Ask them why immigrants (including naturalized citizens) are banned from becoming federal lawmakers or Supreme Court members in Mexico.
Ask them why it's illegal in Mexico for legal immigrants to become members of the clergy.
Ask them why Article 11 allows Mexican citizens to arrest and detain any foreigner accused of breaking the law.
Ask why Article 33 allows the Mexican government to expel any foreigner at any time for any reason without due process.
You want to talk about racism and xenophobia, let's start there.
The best defense against this sort of action which I can think of would be to amend the suit to add charges of criminal conspiracy between the Executive branch of the Federal government and the telecos. Allege that a pattern of controlled, organized, criminal behavior has been occuring, thus invoking the criminal enterprise definitions from RICO. At that point, so long as you can sustain the criminal conspiracy charges, you can argue that successful invocation of the "state secrets" privilege would be a furtherance to the interests of the criminal conspiracy by one of the parties thereof.
It's a bit of a long shot, but it's about the only thing you could put forth to fight the government on something it calls national security.
"How about making a list of known bugs available to your customer prior to purchase?"
There are several reasons not to do this. Not the least of which is simply that most customers don't want to know what's going on inside the application. They want to click "Button A" and have "Box X" pop up and start flashing - or whatever. They don't know that 300 lines of code went into making that happen and they're fine with not knowing that. They certainly don't want to be forced to actually understand what each of those 300 lines of code are doing. Try to explain it to them and watch their eyes glaze over in a hurry. You can try to simplify the explanation for them, but it'll never be enough because they can't grasp the problem without understanding what goes in to making it work; a necessity in understanding why it doesn't.
The point is that when you get into listing bugs, you have a number of caveats. First of all, in their eyes, you're telling them that the application you're selling them is broken. Sure, those bugs may never actually affect them. They may even be in parts of the code that aren't even used yet because it's part of a feature not currectly activated. But hey, you're selling them a broken program. Remember the Pentium floating point fiasco Intel had to suffer through? What was wrong with their processor? Nothing that isn't wrong with anything ever manufaturered: minor defects that rarely or never manifest under normal operating conditions. What happened when the news got out about the floating point bug that didn't affect more than a hundreth of a percent of buyers - if that? The 'public' went ballistic about it and Intel was eventually forced to do a recall of CPUs that were perfectly functional. Nevermind the fact that AMD and Intel routinely publish a long (and growing) list of 'errata' for their processors that are chock full of bugs. The moment the public got news of a single errata (which, again, didn't even affect them), they demanded replacement "working" products. Are you, as a company, going to expose yourself to that kind of liability?
Basically, the customer doesn't understand the inner workings of your application, doesn't want to understand the inner workings of your application, and if you try to make them understand anyway, bad things will likely happen to you. People can handle unexpected behaviors (bugs) when they're discovered and a promise is made to make it right (patch, updates, etc). But if/when they get wind that you knew the bug was there, and that there were others? That's a receipe for disaster.
What geeks/coders need to understand is that we make up a vastly small minority of software users. Unless and until a vendor is selling products to, and only to those who are informed, knowledgable, and intelligent about computer code, you will never see a list of known bugs right on the box. If it's there at all, it'll be made as obscure as possible so that your average Joe can't find it. Why? Because average Joe will go nuts regardless of how inconsequential the bug is, or how much it would push back the release of the product to stamp out all the (known) bugs.
Personally, I don't blame developers and vendors one bit for obscuring the known problems. When I run into a bug in something like MySQL or PHP, I can find out about it, whereas slightly-above-average Joe (beginner PHP page creator) would have a heck of a time. I find that to be ideal, as I can find the information I need and Joe's not taking up the vendor/developer's valuable time whining about 10,000 bugs he'll never see in his life.
If you're attempting to insult my intelligence, knock it off.
"The Declaration of Independence separated us from England. When the Constitution was put in effect 1789, we were quite happily separate from the Crown."
The Crown most certainly did not see it that way (again, see: War of 1812)
"I believe the relevant expression is: The constitution is not a suicide pact."
"Let's think about this for a moment - a group of farmers, lawyers, and businessmen sign their names to an open declaration of treason against the Crown, which controls the largest empire and the most powerful military the world has ever seen, and whose punishment for treason is generally death, and it's *NOT* a suicide pact?! I just love that one. Had the revolution turned out the way that any logically thinking person would have expected (it certainly hadn't completely succeeded just yet - see: War of 1812), every man whose name appeared on that Constitution would have been executed to serve as an example of what happens to traitors. These men put liberty far above their personal safety in the face of nearly certain death - but hey, it's not a suicide pact or anything." - NJ_Gent (2004)
"In a related story Microsoft announced that Windows Vista"... "will ship in" 8 - 12 "months."
The Remote Desktop software that's built into Vista is essentially the same as the Citrix based 'Hydra', formally known as Windows NT 4.0 Terminal Server Edition, which was released in 1998. It has clients for Windows CE, Windows for Workgroups 3.11, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 2003, and can also be accessed through a web browser.
Apple's Remote Desktop software was introduced in 2002, 4 years after Microsoft's product. It only works with OSX. (Microsoft's product works with Windows NT 4.0 Terminal Server, the entire Windows 2000 server family, Windows XP Professional, and the entire Windows Server 2003 family) ARD 2 was released in 2004 and was based on VNC. Apple abandoned their own product for the more reliable, secure, functional, and proven protocol found in VNC. The only clients I see for Apple's Remote Desktop software are restricted to MacOS only.
Considering the restrictions of the original ARD software, one could reasonably argue that Apple's counterpart to RDP only became comparable in 2004 with the release of ARD 2. In that case, Apple was no less than 6 long years behind Microsoft with the ARD product.
Your posts would have more credibility if you could point the rest of us in the direction of something you've designed, built, and had launched into space which is superior to the American NASA Mars rovers. Thus far, I see no functional equipment; just empty rhetoric.
We currently have two clutchless working Mars rovers on the surface of Mars sending back useful scientific information. How many do you have on Mars, Venus, the Moon, or in space at all?
"the only reason for it to drag the wheel instead of freerolling it is that it is an American design."
Yes, yes, Americans only make crap and it never works right. That's why Voyager 1 is no longer func... err wait.. Voyager 2 is no longer func... damn.. the Mars rovers are no longer func... oh, hmm, why Americans never got a man on the moo... nope, that's not it.
If you can see past your anti-Americanism for three seconds, you may want to notice that we have, by far, the most successful space exploration program in the history of the world. We've gone farther and faster than the Russians or anyone else. If the non-American design is so amazingly superior, why's it rusting in an Earth-bound junkyard instead of rolling across the landscape of a foreign world?
Think you can do better than NASA? Get your own design onto Mars with your country's space program or apply to work at NASA. Otherwise, you're just the guy on Slashdot blowing smoke while NASA's American designs are kicking up dust on Mars.
And who can forget the recall of the Intel Pentium III chips at 1.13GHz that were defective because the clock speed was pushed beyond the capabilities of the die? Hurray for Intel, selling overclocked PIIIs and ripping off their customers left and right.
Any nation has the right to defend its citizens against what it considers illegal or unfair judicial acts. In most cases of this, the US will go through all diplomatic channels to try and help its citizens in countries where the legal system is generally considered to be somewhat lacking. In no case that I can remember has the US gone in militarily to extract a citizen from a court case or judicial punishment laid down by a recognized government, except in times of war (as in the case of POWs). The 'international criminal court' is a new and different animal, and all we're doing is keeping our options open. It's a shame that not all nations are able to defend their citizens, but we shouldn't limit ourselves to the options of a country like Kuwait just to make things "fair". The world isn't fair, and the US isn't Kuwait. We have the ability and the option to protect our citizens from show trials in jurisdiction-lacking pseudo-courts.
"Well your whole argument seems to boil down to US is good and others are bad."
No, my argument boils down to the fact that the world is not an inherently peaceful and sunny place, and that not every situation is black and white. My argument is that, in the three situations we've spoken of thus far, the United States is within its inherent rights as a sovereign nation.
"North Korea and/or Iran would be 100% justified in pre-emptively attacking the US right? So you fully support North Korea and/or Iran taking such action and defend it as completely justifiable right? No?"
Considering they're the cause of the potential military threat from the US, I'd consider such reasoning as circular logic. They cannot justify a response to a situation which their own actions have created. The United States was not a threat to Iraq until it began brutally murdering its own citizens en masse with chemical weapons and attacking its neighbors. The United States was not a threat to North Korea until it began developing nuclear weapons and long-range missile technologies, selling those technologies to other nations (Iran, for instance), and threatening its neighbors with complete obliteration. Now that the US has moved in to put pressure on all fronts for them to stop such activities (and succeeded in stopping Iraq's activities via military action), they cannot turn around and say that the US' response to their actions justifies a response of their own.
Of course, if Iran or North Korea wishes to engage the United States military in a massive conflict, they're welcome to give it their best shot. You realize, of course, that it is only by the mercy and humanity of the United States that there is anyone left alive in Iran, Iraq, and North Korea; yes? If the US were anything like the nations of old in its response to threats, North Korea would glow from space and Iran and Iraq would be layered in burnt shards of glass. Imagine, if you will, if the Romans had nuclear weapons, and what their response to attacks from Carthage would have been.
"Its just the concept of pre-emptively waring with other nations to avoid waring with other nations which I find illocical and unjustifiable."
Let me ask you this: with hindsight available, would a pre-emptive stike against Germany by Europe's nations prior to the invasion of Poland be justifiable? Again, assume all the knowledge of WWII and beyond in making the decision. Once you arrive at that decision, ask yourself, what good is the study of history if we don't learn from our mistakes? If it was a mistake to allow someone like Hitler to spread throughout Europe essentially unopposed, then how is it not learning from mistakes when we contain threatening tyrants like Saddam as much as possible, and then act pre-emptively when it's shown that containment is failing? How many nations must fall, and how many people must die, before a war against an Iran or a North Korea becomes justifiable to you? If we're going to have a war anyway, let's get it over with as quickly and painlessly as possible. I'd rather have our troops going against someone like Saddam before he's got nuclear weapons strapped to mid-range missiles taking out everyone in sight. Doesn't that make sense?
"and killing anyone who looks at you funny and makes you a bit nervous."
How long, honestly, have we been trying to deal with Iran, Iraq, and North Korea without military intervention? You supported the first Gulf war after just a handfull of years of trying to contain Saddam's forces without military force, yet after more than 10 years of failures in keeping Saddam's hands clean, keeping banned weapons out of the hands of his forces, enforcing the no-fly zones set up to protect his own people from getting killed en masse once again, and ensuring verifiable proof that he possessed no banned weapons, you now say you can't support the most recent war? We've dealt with Iran non-militarily since the early 1980s, but now we're threatning to attack them because
Slashdot Mirror
"At least ECS dosen't melt and then catch on fire"
Au contraire; the company I work for, when we did some retail business, sold a computer with an ECS mainboard (K7SEM maybe?) to someone just before Christmas. Just after Christmas, they brought it back complaining that it didn't turn on anymore and they smelled something 'funny' from it. When we opened it up, the power supply connector was fused to the mainboard connector. I saw another ECS board where the rear USB connector that was included with the board was miswired. Result? When the machine was powered on, the USB cable literally went up in flames.
We made the decision to switch to Asus and MSI shortly thereafter, and we haven't looked back since.
"It does boggle the mind that you people still use that stupid system of weights and measures. I guess the trillions it would cost to change over aren't worth spending now."
:)
That was the statement from the Lockheed Martin engineering group. They simply didn't have the money to completely change all their systems, software, hardware, and equipment over to using metric; not to mention the massive blow to manpower efficiency you take when you suddenly switch units on the guys who've been doing the same thing for 20 years with one unit.
As for us changing everything over, I think it'll happen very gradually. We have liter and two-liter soda bottles. The trouble is when you try and get an entire population to conceptualize things in a new way. Am I getting a good deal at X dollars per liter? I don't know - I've only ever bought gas by the gallon. Even if the units make more sense from a systemwide point of view, they're still arbitrary individually. Thus, it's honestly not any easier for us to switch from US to metric than it would be for, say, New Zealand to switch from metric to US.
By the way, your country looks absolutely beautiful (I'm assuming you're from New Zealand judging by the website you have listed), and it's very high on my list of international places to visit.
"IIRC - the demise of the Mars Polar Lander"
The previous poster wasn't talking about the Mars Polar Lander, they were referring to the $125 Million Mars Climate Orbiter.
"nothing as dramatic as confusing the two measures of distance - that would be unthinkable - and not even NASA is dumb enough to make such a mistake."
Someone should inform NASA of this. They admitted that this is precisely what happened. Actually, though, Lockheed Martin built the spacecraft, and it was their engineers who used English units. NASA, like everyone else in the (scientific) world, uses metric.
"No, the problem was that the conversion variables were not of sufficient accuracy, and over a period of 18 months where the computers used the conversion many thousands of times, the eventual height that the motors cut out was too high to allow the craft to survive."
If you're referring to the Mars Polar Lander, then that's also inaccurate. NASA's internal report states that the most likely cause of the loss of the Polar Lander is that its engines cut off upon deployment of its three 'legs'. Onboard sensors believed the craft had landed due to incorrect sensor readings, so the engines cut off and the craft plumeted to its doom.
However, the previous poster did make one mistake. The Mars Climate Orbiter likely did not crash into "the body it was orbiting". Due to the units conversion problem, the navigation system did not begin its burn to slow the spacecraft into a proper Mars orbit until it was far too close to the planet already. The result was that the Orbiter was travelling far too fast, its thrusters overheated during their burn and shut down, the craft plowed through the atmosphere, and continued on its way. Speculation is that it currently holds an orbit around the sun.
"But your little environment variable, as well as being harder to type, doesn't actually look up user's home directories. What if people's home directories are on different filesystems, possibly NFS mounts from various machines?"
You're serious?
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are.
Assume c: is the main system drive, d: is a secondary drive, and x: is a remote file share. Bill's "home" directory is on c:, John's is on d:, and Mike's is on x:.
SET ~bill=c:\docume~1\bill
SET ~john=d:\users\john
SET ~mike=x:\share\public\users\mike
echo %~bill%
c:\docume~1\bill
echo %~john%
d:\users\john
echo %~mike%
x:\share\public\users\mike
Gee, that was tough. As for it being "harder to type", if you're sweating over two characters, it's probably time to take a vacation.
System variables exist for looking up the base filesystem path of the current user, no matter where it is. These would simply be for convenience.
Fanboys should do some more homework before deriding Windows. Windows has plenty of real problems to complain about without having to make things up on the fly.
"Unfortunately, "c:\Documents and Settings\user" is a huge PITA to type, compared to ~/ or even /home/user."
Why would you type that huge, long string?
SET ~=c:\docume~1\user
cd %~%
or
SET home=c:\docume~1\user
CD %home%
Both work just as well as the *nix shortcuts, you just have to set them on your own.
"a steady supply of cheap, exploitable, never-talk-back labor has been taken for granted probably for as long as the US has been a nation."
Yes, but the last group was freed by Whites in the 1860s. Perhaps this latest group will be freed sometime soon as well.
Repeat after me: Slavery is wrong, no matter how cheap the [insert product here] is with it, or how expensive it'll be without it.
"They are making out the average Mexican / immigrant to be this huge National security risk even though they arent. Sterotyping sucks."
One million sex offenses by illegal immigrants since 1997 certainly seems like a risk. In Los Angeles, 95% of all outstanding homocide warrants are for illegal immigrants. Two-thirds of fugitive felony warrants are for illegal aliens. A report from 1995 stated that 60% of the 18th Street Gang in southern California is illegal aliens. In 2002, an estimated 60% of the leadership of the Columbia Lil' Cycos gang were illegals. 33% of the US prison population is made up of non-citizens. An estimated 38% of illegal aliens are on welfare.
This site carries story after story of what some illegal alien criminals have done to Americans. And before you say it's not all illegals, remember that each and every one of these crimes would have been prevented if we had a truly effective measure of control over our southern border.
Illegal aliens - just doing the raping, robbing, murdering, child molesting, man slaughter, and child abduction Americans refuse to do...
"Find an illegal immigrant online, then call your local chapter of The Minutemen to take em out."
The Minutemen simply watch, then report violations to law enforcement (generally the US Border Patrol). If you're going to call someone, it may as well be the US Border Patrol directly. The Minutemen are there to watch and observe; not to "take em out".
"What about all those people in the world who aren't lucky enough to live in a country along your southern border (like me). Are they doomed to never be allowed into your country legally because Mexicans are illegally flooding into your country, illegally filling whatever "immigrant" quota exists (unofficially, of course)?"
I must apologize, as an American, for the difficulty someone like you has in trying to come here legally. You seem to understand that our country can't possibly take every single person who wants to come here at the same time, and that a major part of the problem is the unabated flow of illegal immigrants coming across our largely unguarded border. The American people are as fed up with the problem as you are, and it looks like we're finally going to see some results in the form of real progress. Much of that progress is coming from regular citizens forming groups like the Minutemen whose goal is vigilance; not violence. If we can avoid our idiot politicians stuffing amnesty down our throats (here's hoping the House holds strong against the Senate amnesty bill), perhaps we can get to work reforming our broken immigration citizen so we can start taking in more legal immigrants with less hassle.
I'm about as big a border security person as you're going to find, and I'm the first to say we need to make it less hassle for people around the world to come here legally. We need to screen out criminals, terrorists, and other threats, but we also need to ensure that our screening process moves along as quickly and efficiently as possible so we don't lose out on the incredibly valuable contributions of law-abiding people around the globe who simply want to come here to give their children a better life.
If you truly want to come here, live here, and integrate with our society while making contributions, then I hope with all my heart that you have the opportunity to do so.
That sounds pretty xenophobic to me, how about you?
By the way, the country I was talking about is Mexico, and most of those law are actually a part of the Mexican constitution.
Because Texas doesn't share a border with Canada? Because we don't have 12 million Canadians illegally living in the United States? Need I go on?
"the 9/11 terrorists crossed from Canada"
No, they didn't. They also weren't CIA agents, and there really isn't a large group of space aliens trying to read your mind through your tinfoil hat.
"Canada's border is bigger and less secure."
The border with Canada is larger, but they actually control it a lot better than Mexico controls its northern border. Incidentally, Mexico has militarized their southern border, much like many other countries around the world. Why? Because masses of people streaming across your borders unchecked is a national and economic security threat to your nation.
"The US Govt led by Republicans is about as racist as it gets."
Two Democratic governors are sending National Guard troops to the border. It was a Republican governor in California who held off agreeing to do so the longest. Aside from that, what's "racist" about controlling your borders? Is Spain racist for controlling their's? Is Mexico racist for controlling their southern border? Was it racist when President Clinton ordered the construction of border security fences in the San Diego sector of the border using military designs? Wait, what party was he from again?
"No I'm not Mexican but have been best friends with mainly Mexican Americans and it pisses me off to see this shit happening right in front of our faces."
Are they Mexican citizens, or American citizens? In this country, we do not allow dual citizenship. Aside from that, perhaps you could ask your friends a few questions for me:
You want to talk about racism and xenophobia, let's start there.
The best defense against this sort of action which I can think of would be to amend the suit to add charges of criminal conspiracy between the Executive branch of the Federal government and the telecos. Allege that a pattern of controlled, organized, criminal behavior has been occuring, thus invoking the criminal enterprise definitions from RICO. At that point, so long as you can sustain the criminal conspiracy charges, you can argue that successful invocation of the "state secrets" privilege would be a furtherance to the interests of the criminal conspiracy by one of the parties thereof.
It's a bit of a long shot, but it's about the only thing you could put forth to fight the government on something it calls national security.
"How about making a list of known bugs available to your customer prior to purchase?"
There are several reasons not to do this. Not the least of which is simply that most customers don't want to know what's going on inside the application. They want to click "Button A" and have "Box X" pop up and start flashing - or whatever. They don't know that 300 lines of code went into making that happen and they're fine with not knowing that. They certainly don't want to be forced to actually understand what each of those 300 lines of code are doing. Try to explain it to them and watch their eyes glaze over in a hurry. You can try to simplify the explanation for them, but it'll never be enough because they can't grasp the problem without understanding what goes in to making it work; a necessity in understanding why it doesn't.
The point is that when you get into listing bugs, you have a number of caveats. First of all, in their eyes, you're telling them that the application you're selling them is broken. Sure, those bugs may never actually affect them. They may even be in parts of the code that aren't even used yet because it's part of a feature not currectly activated. But hey, you're selling them a broken program. Remember the Pentium floating point fiasco Intel had to suffer through? What was wrong with their processor? Nothing that isn't wrong with anything ever manufaturered: minor defects that rarely or never manifest under normal operating conditions. What happened when the news got out about the floating point bug that didn't affect more than a hundreth of a percent of buyers - if that? The 'public' went ballistic about it and Intel was eventually forced to do a recall of CPUs that were perfectly functional. Nevermind the fact that AMD and Intel routinely publish a long (and growing) list of 'errata' for their processors that are chock full of bugs. The moment the public got news of a single errata (which, again, didn't even affect them), they demanded replacement "working" products. Are you, as a company, going to expose yourself to that kind of liability?
Basically, the customer doesn't understand the inner workings of your application, doesn't want to understand the inner workings of your application, and if you try to make them understand anyway, bad things will likely happen to you. People can handle unexpected behaviors (bugs) when they're discovered and a promise is made to make it right (patch, updates, etc). But if/when they get wind that you knew the bug was there, and that there were others? That's a receipe for disaster.
What geeks/coders need to understand is that we make up a vastly small minority of software users. Unless and until a vendor is selling products to, and only to those who are informed, knowledgable, and intelligent about computer code, you will never see a list of known bugs right on the box. If it's there at all, it'll be made as obscure as possible so that your average Joe can't find it. Why? Because average Joe will go nuts regardless of how inconsequential the bug is, or how much it would push back the release of the product to stamp out all the (known) bugs.
Personally, I don't blame developers and vendors one bit for obscuring the known problems. When I run into a bug in something like MySQL or PHP, I can find out about it, whereas slightly-above-average Joe (beginner PHP page creator) would have a heck of a time. I find that to be ideal, as I can find the information I need and Joe's not taking up the vendor/developer's valuable time whining about 10,000 bugs he'll never see in his life.
"Ummmmmmm, do you know what the Constitution is?"
If you're attempting to insult my intelligence, knock it off.
"The Declaration of Independence separated us from England. When the Constitution was put in effect 1789, we were quite happily separate from the Crown."
The Crown most certainly did not see it that way (again, see: War of 1812)
"That's the Declaration, not the Constitution."
No, it's both, actually.
"In other words, you are advocating suicidal anarchy?"
No, I'm simply pointing out that the Constitution was then, and is now, every bit a suicide pact.
"(Please spare me the snide remarks about Bush being as oppressive as the King of England was."
The President was not mentioned in my post.
"I believe the relevant expression is: The constitution is not a suicide pact."
"Let's think about this for a moment - a group of farmers, lawyers, and businessmen sign their names to an open declaration of treason against the Crown, which controls the largest empire and the most powerful military the world has ever seen, and whose punishment for treason is generally death, and it's *NOT* a suicide pact?! I just love that one. Had the revolution turned out the way that any logically thinking person would have expected (it certainly hadn't completely succeeded just yet - see: War of 1812), every man whose name appeared on that Constitution would have been executed to serve as an example of what happens to traitors. These men put liberty far above their personal safety in the face of nearly certain death - but hey, it's not a suicide pact or anything." - NJ_Gent (2004)
"the software collapsed in on itself as it underwent a Massive Total Existence Failure."
I had no idea NASA was already using Windows Vista...
"In a related story Microsoft announced that Windows Vista" ... "will ship in" 8 - 12 "months."
The Remote Desktop software that's built into Vista is essentially the same as the Citrix based 'Hydra', formally known as Windows NT 4.0 Terminal Server Edition, which was released in 1998. It has clients for Windows CE, Windows for Workgroups 3.11, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 2003, and can also be accessed through a web browser.
Apple's Remote Desktop software was introduced in 2002, 4 years after Microsoft's product. It only works with OSX. (Microsoft's product works with Windows NT 4.0 Terminal Server, the entire Windows 2000 server family, Windows XP Professional, and the entire Windows Server 2003 family) ARD 2 was released in 2004 and was based on VNC. Apple abandoned their own product for the more reliable, secure, functional, and proven protocol found in VNC. The only clients I see for Apple's Remote Desktop software are restricted to MacOS only.
Considering the restrictions of the original ARD software, one could reasonably argue that Apple's counterpart to RDP only became comparable in 2004 with the release of ARD 2. In that case, Apple was no less than 6 long years behind Microsoft with the ARD product.
Good show, Apple.
Your posts would have more credibility if you could point the rest of us in the direction of something you've designed, built, and had launched into space which is superior to the American NASA Mars rovers. Thus far, I see no functional equipment; just empty rhetoric.
We currently have two clutchless working Mars rovers on the surface of Mars sending back useful scientific information. How many do you have on Mars, Venus, the Moon, or in space at all?
"the only reason for it to drag the wheel instead of freerolling it is that it is an American design."
Yes, yes, Americans only make crap and it never works right. That's why Voyager 1 is no longer func... err wait.. Voyager 2 is no longer func... damn.. the Mars rovers are no longer func... oh, hmm, why Americans never got a man on the moo... nope, that's not it.
If you can see past your anti-Americanism for three seconds, you may want to notice that we have, by far, the most successful space exploration program in the history of the world. We've gone farther and faster than the Russians or anyone else. If the non-American design is so amazingly superior, why's it rusting in an Earth-bound junkyard instead of rolling across the landscape of a foreign world?
Think you can do better than NASA? Get your own design onto Mars with your country's space program or apply to work at NASA. Otherwise, you're just the guy on Slashdot blowing smoke while NASA's American designs are kicking up dust on Mars.
And who can forget the recall of the Intel Pentium III chips at 1.13GHz that were defective because the clock speed was pushed beyond the capabilities of the die? Hurray for Intel, selling overclocked PIIIs and ripping off their customers left and right.
Any nation has the right to defend its citizens against what it considers illegal or unfair judicial acts. In most cases of this, the US will go through all diplomatic channels to try and help its citizens in countries where the legal system is generally considered to be somewhat lacking. In no case that I can remember has the US gone in militarily to extract a citizen from a court case or judicial punishment laid down by a recognized government, except in times of war (as in the case of POWs). The 'international criminal court' is a new and different animal, and all we're doing is keeping our options open. It's a shame that not all nations are able to defend their citizens, but we shouldn't limit ourselves to the options of a country like Kuwait just to make things "fair". The world isn't fair, and the US isn't Kuwait. We have the ability and the option to protect our citizens from show trials in jurisdiction-lacking pseudo-courts.
"It is sad that this once great country is now in such decline."
:)
Your wishful thinking amuses me. Please say more funny things like it.
Oh, and just out of curiosity, from which up-and-coming third world country do you hail?
"Well your whole argument seems to boil down to US is good and others are bad."
No, my argument boils down to the fact that the world is not an inherently peaceful and sunny place, and that not every situation is black and white. My argument is that, in the three situations we've spoken of thus far, the United States is within its inherent rights as a sovereign nation.
"North Korea and/or Iran would be 100% justified in pre-emptively attacking the US right? So you fully support North Korea and/or Iran taking such action and defend it as completely justifiable right? No?"
Considering they're the cause of the potential military threat from the US, I'd consider such reasoning as circular logic. They cannot justify a response to a situation which their own actions have created. The United States was not a threat to Iraq until it began brutally murdering its own citizens en masse with chemical weapons and attacking its neighbors. The United States was not a threat to North Korea until it began developing nuclear weapons and long-range missile technologies, selling those technologies to other nations (Iran, for instance), and threatening its neighbors with complete obliteration. Now that the US has moved in to put pressure on all fronts for them to stop such activities (and succeeded in stopping Iraq's activities via military action), they cannot turn around and say that the US' response to their actions justifies a response of their own.
Of course, if Iran or North Korea wishes to engage the United States military in a massive conflict, they're welcome to give it their best shot. You realize, of course, that it is only by the mercy and humanity of the United States that there is anyone left alive in Iran, Iraq, and North Korea; yes? If the US were anything like the nations of old in its response to threats, North Korea would glow from space and Iran and Iraq would be layered in burnt shards of glass. Imagine, if you will, if the Romans had nuclear weapons, and what their response to attacks from Carthage would have been.
"Its just the concept of pre-emptively waring with other nations to avoid waring with other nations which I find illocical and unjustifiable."
Let me ask you this: with hindsight available, would a pre-emptive stike against Germany by Europe's nations prior to the invasion of Poland be justifiable? Again, assume all the knowledge of WWII and beyond in making the decision. Once you arrive at that decision, ask yourself, what good is the study of history if we don't learn from our mistakes? If it was a mistake to allow someone like Hitler to spread throughout Europe essentially unopposed, then how is it not learning from mistakes when we contain threatening tyrants like Saddam as much as possible, and then act pre-emptively when it's shown that containment is failing? How many nations must fall, and how many people must die, before a war against an Iran or a North Korea becomes justifiable to you? If we're going to have a war anyway, let's get it over with as quickly and painlessly as possible. I'd rather have our troops going against someone like Saddam before he's got nuclear weapons strapped to mid-range missiles taking out everyone in sight. Doesn't that make sense?
"and killing anyone who looks at you funny and makes you a bit nervous."
How long, honestly, have we been trying to deal with Iran, Iraq, and North Korea without military intervention? You supported the first Gulf war after just a handfull of years of trying to contain Saddam's forces without military force, yet after more than 10 years of failures in keeping Saddam's hands clean, keeping banned weapons out of the hands of his forces, enforcing the no-fly zones set up to protect his own people from getting killed en masse once again, and ensuring verifiable proof that he possessed no banned weapons, you now say you can't support the most recent war? We've dealt with Iran non-militarily since the early 1980s, but now we're threatning to attack them because