"It has been pointed out again and again that the main sticking point is Israel's blatant mistreatment of Palestinians, and America's support behind it. That alone is the greatest cause of anger in the Muslim world. Osama's message is not illogical or fanatical - it is, dare I say in a most politically incorrect way, passionate."
If you've ever actually read OBL's transcripts from the videos, you'd have also seen that you're _wrong_. OBL usually just tacks it on for solidarity - his primary bitching has always been about US troops in Saudi Arabia.
I mean, I'm sure he's pissed about the Israel thing, but that's been true since 1948, so I'm skeptical that it's suddenly a great big problem for him. Arabs all over have hated Israel for existing, but why attack America over that when Israel is much, much closer?
I'm sure the Israelis could also put out some tapes threatening to detonate nukes in every Arab capital unless they surrender and stop fucking bothering them, but that wouldn't make it right or acceptable, either, no matter how politically incorrect or passionate it's stated.
I'm not sure about that. A gigabit is still 125+ megabytes a second - it might bottleneck your burst rate, but it's unlikely your array is going to saturate it besides that. Especially if multiple people are using them at once.
If you're really concerned about bandwidth, I would buy a second NIC for all your computers and simply make a "storage network". That's something of a hack, but I think it would work pretty decently.
"Let's see... political instability, daily violence, rampant crime, devestated infrastructure, terrorist activity, and a huge civillian death toll. I fail to see how it's better. Certainly worse for all those dead people."
Yes, and it was probably like that after the American revolution, too. But we got our act together, and from then on, things were pretty good for us.
One can hope that it'll be the same for the Iraqis.
-Erwos
Re:Americans talk about freedom
on
Press freedom
·
· Score: 0, Flamebait
"If the level of civilization is measured by how will it treats the old, sick and poor, then the USA if full of a lot of hot air."
The number of working elderly has actually been going down over the past 40 years. We also have this thing called "Social Security" for them. As for the sick, we've got Medicaid. And for the poor, we have welfare (EITC).
Don't believe the European rhetoric that the US has no help for those in need. Perhaps not as much help as in Western Europe, but this country's culture is one of helping yourself. I know it hurts to do research or find information that conflicts with your world view, but humor us all and try to take the pain.
And the rest of the "civilized world"[1] _DOES NOT_ always have our freedoms. In the UK, the press can be censored. They also have the right to search your home without a warrant. In France, until a few years ago, encryption for non-authentication purposes was totally banned. In Germany, you can't even give free legal advice because the Fuhrer said you couldn't.
Do you see what I'm trying to say? Personally, I find it more disturbing that Europeans[2] are so damn complacent that "oh, our press is unbiased, and we have more rights and freedoms than you" when, in fact, that is not true.
There are sheep everywhere, and Europe is no exception. Not by a long shot.
-Erwos
[1] The same quest for a "civilized world" also lead to the subjugation of untold millions of people in the European colonization days - and still causes them problems to this day.
[2] This is not to imply you're a European - I don't know whether you are or not, this is just a good excuse for a rant.
Honestly, it just makes you want to kick them in the nuts.
The Rio Karma _could_ have been the killer digital music player. It had the ethernet cradle, the OGG/FLAC support, a good interface, and a decent price.
But they just dropped the ball halfway. There's no USB mass storage support (yes, I know they have their own FS), which is a deal-breaker for those of us who need storage on the go. It won't export to Samba on the network.
Frankly, I'm more likely to buy an iRiver and make the thing work with an NSLU2.
I have, but anyone who's used VB knows that it's not the same thing.
Remember that code generation is now deprecated in Glade, and you've got to handle it all through libglade. This doesn't really compare to how VB pops up a bodyless function for you to fill in with a couple clicks.
The thinking is that businesses are the ones who need synchronous connections. Therefore, in order to help differentiate between the customers (you charge businesses a LOT more), you alter the features so that the customer gets a lot of what he needs (download) and businesses don't get as much of what they need (upload). This forces businesses to pay the higher prices they're "supposed to".
Basic economics, in other words. Especially if you're a local phone monopoly.
At $30 a month for 5/2, I'll be all over this in a second. ESPECIALLY if I can get a static IP.
Yes. VB is a must-have for rapid prototyping. If you want to do HCI testing, it is much, much easier to try different GUI configurations with VB than most other programs.
Considering that HCI issues tend to be considered as one of Free software's weak points, this is definitely not an unimportant development.
Yes, what you're saying is true. Memory accesses are still one of the slowest things your CPU does, and it does it quite a lot.
No, the advent of massive L2 caches, onboard memory controllers, and bigger/faster buses has reduced this problem somewhat in recent times. Thermal issues are starting to become the real limit to CPU performance.
If you read the article, you'd notice that, in general, AMD is going to have fewer memory problems when it comes to dual core. Intel is still on a shared bus, and it's becoming increasingly obvious that they're being handicapped by it. Factor in the internal memory controllers and comparable L2 cache, and you get a very worrisome picture of Intel's dual core efforts compared to AMD's. It just seems like there's every reason to believe the dual core A64 is going to smoke the dual core P4.
Would you be willing to pay a thousand bucks for it?
Even the A768i is still running for $400 or so on eBay. Retail, it's going for about $600.
Adding all the stuff you would want, qa'ing it, and then redesigning the hardware to accomodate would push the price to at least $800. What's worse is that you'd still have anemic performance, and battery life would get worse due to the additional memory and larger display.
This is not to mention any potential size or interface issues.
While this doesn't help you much, here in the US of A, you can use Samsung phones (VGA1000 is a good one) with Sprint to do so.
You simply buy a data cable, subscribe to the PCS Vision data plan ($20 a month for unlimited data), and plug in your phone to your laptop via USB. It will be recongized as a modem. Dial out using the number #777, and you're set.
This is not officially supported by Sprint, but there have been no reports of them cracking down, either. Just don't abuse it.
I'm always reminded of the paper I wrote on the World Bank and IMF riots in Seattle and DC - specifically on the topic of riot control.
"The Battle of Seattle" happened because there were inadequately trained cops confronted by a huge number of unruly protesters. They _didn't_ take steps to crack down on the situation, and things spiralled rapidly out of control.
A good account from the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/54 7581.s tm
The part to take away from there is that, indeed, some people come to these events for violent reasons.
Compare this to DC. In DC, the situation was almost as intense, but the cops raided a bunch of organizations the day before, and made quite a few arrests on the first day. While this was of dubious legality, DC didn't experience massive rioting, either.
In case you didn't follow my logic, "excessive force" can often prevent an unruly protest from turning into a full-blown riot. No, this is not a blanket statement intended to justify everything the police do - but/.'ers hundreds or thousands of miles away are not really in the position to say whether or not the situation calls for it.
Now, the measures taken here don't compare to Seattle or DC. I've seen the cops shooting pepperballs at people who were rioting after the Maryland-Duke game, and while they hurt, they're hardly going to permenantly injure people. Bullhorns don't work for this sort of thing, and pepper balls are a damned sight better than nightsticks and fire hoses.
Most likely, the cops got shoved around a bit and over-reacted. I am sympathetic to the protesters, but the cops are always put in a bad situation by these sorts of events, too.
Crying "FASCISM!" because some county cops were scared and probably somewhat badly trained is laughable. No one even got hurt, for crying out loud!
This is no Kent State, in other words. Not even close.
" the Bible praises those who are expert cultivators and breeders"
I'm pretty sure the Bible specifically forbids you from grafting one part of a plant onto another different kind (in order to make a new, better plant). I don't think it mentions cross-pollination, though.
In any case, you're kind of misrepresenting the Bible's view. It's not entirely gung-ho on this sort of thing.
As for playing G-d, well, He made us in His image, so I don't seem much problem playing as Him. It's certainly not a sentiment found in Orthodox Judaism, anyways.
Van Hollen is no white knight of morality, either. The guy launched more attack ads in the DC area than I'd ever seen before. There was no reason whatsoever that Connie shouldn't have been voted back into office - she was moderate and made good decisions.
As for this: if it's got to do with Van Hollen in 2004, they can use vanhollen2004.com legally. Even if he is being a bastard about it.
A lot of mourning over an organization that made Fox News look like it was completely unbiased. Good riddance to them.
I know this comment's a karma burner, but to hell with it. I'm sick of people who bitch about CNN being biased, and then point to IndyNews as the "accurate" source of information.
One of the most important life lessons I've learned on/. is that "biased" is mostly defined as any opinion you don't agree with. Courts ruled a way you didn't like? Obviously they were biased because they were bought off (in some fashion never actually explained). Don't like the way a news story was written? Must have been the work of the evil Corporations/Americans/Israelis/Europeans/Arabs! Get a grip. It's impossible to report truth, because the facts lend themselves to any number of truths if you arrange them properly. And, no matter what you do, you MUST arrange the facts in order to report a story.
What's worse is that Europeans have been steadily conditioned by their news media to believe that they are somehow less susceptible to media bias, or that their media doesn't have any. I don't know what's scarier anymore: the obviously biased US news sources, or the more subtly biased European news sources. I pray that it is only European/.'ers who have this problem, but alas, I suspect it is far more than that.
In summary: shut up. You are not unbiased in any way, shape, or form. Your news sources are not unbiased in any way, shape, or form. You will need to use your head to discern facts from the truth that is given to you, and then use these facts to reconstruct a more likely truth about the situation. What's worse is that you will need to consider that other people can do this, yet come up with a different truth than you.
"But why did ANYBODY believe that just because "they are sony" they could pack that much of cpu and 3d power in a little package and expect to work it a tolerable time with a few batteries?"
Bad question - haven't you seen the idiots jumping around and talking about how the "Cell processor" is gonna have the power of 50 Crays?
You are ignoring the difference between tactical and strategic nuclear weapons.
Strategic nuclear weapons (usually mounted on ICBMs or those giant strategic bombers) are indeed designed to kill cities. They generally range in size from.5 to 10 megatons.
Tactical nuclear weapons are much, much smaller (50 to 250 kilotons) and are usually artillery mounted, or put on tactical aircraft (such as those launched off an aircraft carrier). They will indeed do a number on a civilian population, but are designed for real military engagements - ones where a huge amount of power is overkill and undesirable. This is the category that nuclear bunker busters fall into.
The article seems to imply we could use anti-matter weapons as tactical weapons - just put a very, very small amount of anti-matter into the bomb. The EMP usages are also interesting - the military's emphasis on disabling command and control infrastructure makes this a very tempting prospect.
The idea that it would be used to build "a bigger nuke" seems utterly idiotic. We have nukes, and they work just fine. Anything bigger than the current ones are just overkill anyways - you want to hit multiple targets, not hit one REALLY good.
Moreover, if you're interested in obliterating a city, you can do it without nukes or fancy antimatter weapons. The allies firebombed Dresden in WWII, and there wasn't all too much left when they were done,
In short: the likelihood of these weapons being used against a civilian population seems pretty minute, even in these tense days. The prevailing attitude in the US military is to reduce civilian casualties as much as possible (within "reason"), and bigger nukes don't fit into that game plan.
My own thesis is that this is related to space propulsion, not weapons (at least directly). If you want to play war in space, you can't do it with these ugly, slow space shuttles using chemical propulsion.
I see you've never actually tried running Linux on a real slate-style tablet. I have.
XP Tablet Edition is much, much better than Linux if you're actually trying to be productive with the thing. I know that's a minor heresy to admit on/., but the current Linux handwriting recognition (Xscribble being the best I've seen) software just doesn't compare in accuracy or ease of use. xvkbd fills some of the gaps, but you aren't going to write essays with it.
If you want to run Linux for Free software reasons on it, I can respect that. But, really, Linux simply isn't there yet on tablets. It's a bitch to set up, and you'll be cursing at the handwriting recognition the whole time.
Trust me, as crappy as XP is, it's the right choice for one of those.
Slashdot Mirror
The mature parents who started World War II?
Right.
-Erwos
It's funny that this is exactly how I feel about Europe.
-Erwos
"It has been pointed out again and again that the main sticking point is Israel's blatant mistreatment of Palestinians, and America's support behind it. That alone is the greatest cause of anger in the Muslim world. Osama's message is not illogical or fanatical - it is, dare I say in a most politically incorrect way, passionate."
If you've ever actually read OBL's transcripts from the videos, you'd have also seen that you're _wrong_. OBL usually just tacks it on for solidarity - his primary bitching has always been about US troops in Saudi Arabia.
I mean, I'm sure he's pissed about the Israel thing, but that's been true since 1948, so I'm skeptical that it's suddenly a great big problem for him. Arabs all over have hated Israel for existing, but why attack America over that when Israel is much, much closer?
I'm sure the Israelis could also put out some tapes threatening to detonate nukes in every Arab capital unless they surrender and stop fucking bothering them, but that wouldn't make it right or acceptable, either, no matter how politically incorrect or passionate it's stated.
-Erwos
"the bottleneck is in the networking"
I'm not sure about that. A gigabit is still 125+ megabytes a second - it might bottleneck your burst rate, but it's unlikely your array is going to saturate it besides that. Especially if multiple people are using them at once.
If you're really concerned about bandwidth, I would buy a second NIC for all your computers and simply make a "storage network". That's something of a hack, but I think it would work pretty decently.
Of course, you're SOL with wireless.
-Erwos
So, basically, you condemn RPM hell on one hand, yet think it's perfectly fine when it's with TGZs.
Sorry, that makes no sense.
-Erwos
"Let's see... political instability, daily violence, rampant crime, devestated infrastructure, terrorist activity, and a huge civillian death toll. I fail to see how it's better. Certainly worse for all those dead people."
Yes, and it was probably like that after the American revolution, too. But we got our act together, and from then on, things were pretty good for us.
One can hope that it'll be the same for the Iraqis.
-Erwos
"If the level of civilization is measured by how will it treats the old, sick and poor, then the USA if full of a lot of hot air."
The number of working elderly has actually been going down over the past 40 years. We also have this thing called "Social Security" for them. As for the sick, we've got Medicaid. And for the poor, we have welfare (EITC).
Don't believe the European rhetoric that the US has no help for those in need. Perhaps not as much help as in Western Europe, but this country's culture is one of helping yourself. I know it hurts to do research or find information that conflicts with your world view, but humor us all and try to take the pain.
And the rest of the "civilized world"[1] _DOES NOT_ always have our freedoms. In the UK, the press can be censored. They also have the right to search your home without a warrant. In France, until a few years ago, encryption for non-authentication purposes was totally banned. In Germany, you can't even give free legal advice because the Fuhrer said you couldn't.
Do you see what I'm trying to say? Personally, I find it more disturbing that Europeans[2] are so damn complacent that "oh, our press is unbiased, and we have more rights and freedoms than you" when, in fact, that is not true.
There are sheep everywhere, and Europe is no exception. Not by a long shot.
-Erwos
[1] The same quest for a "civilized world" also lead to the subjugation of untold millions of people in the European colonization days - and still causes them problems to this day.
[2] This is not to imply you're a European - I don't know whether you are or not, this is just a good excuse for a rant.
Honestly, it just makes you want to kick them in the nuts.
The Rio Karma _could_ have been the killer digital music player. It had the ethernet cradle, the OGG/FLAC support, a good interface, and a decent price.
But they just dropped the ball halfway. There's no USB mass storage support (yes, I know they have their own FS), which is a deal-breaker for those of us who need storage on the go. It won't export to Samba on the network.
Frankly, I'm more likely to buy an iRiver and make the thing work with an NSLU2.
-Erwos
I have, but anyone who's used VB knows that it's not the same thing.
Remember that code generation is now deprecated in Glade, and you've got to handle it all through libglade. This doesn't really compare to how VB pops up a bodyless function for you to fill in with a couple clicks.
-Erwos
The thinking is that businesses are the ones who need synchronous connections. Therefore, in order to help differentiate between the customers (you charge businesses a LOT more), you alter the features so that the customer gets a lot of what he needs (download) and businesses don't get as much of what they need (upload). This forces businesses to pay the higher prices they're "supposed to".
Basic economics, in other words. Especially if you're a local phone monopoly.
At $30 a month for 5/2, I'll be all over this in a second. ESPECIALLY if I can get a static IP.
-Erwos
Yes. VB is a must-have for rapid prototyping. If you want to do HCI testing, it is much, much easier to try different GUI configurations with VB than most other programs.
Considering that HCI issues tend to be considered as one of Free software's weak points, this is definitely not an unimportant development.
-Erwos
Yes and no.
Yes, what you're saying is true. Memory accesses are still one of the slowest things your CPU does, and it does it quite a lot.
No, the advent of massive L2 caches, onboard memory controllers, and bigger/faster buses has reduced this problem somewhat in recent times. Thermal issues are starting to become the real limit to CPU performance.
If you read the article, you'd notice that, in general, AMD is going to have fewer memory problems when it comes to dual core. Intel is still on a shared bus, and it's becoming increasingly obvious that they're being handicapped by it. Factor in the internal memory controllers and comparable L2 cache, and you get a very worrisome picture of Intel's dual core efforts compared to AMD's. It just seems like there's every reason to believe the dual core A64 is going to smoke the dual core P4.
-Erwos
Yes, as far as I know, it's just a regular modem.
The #777 is what activates the data stuff on Sprint's network. There should be nothing stopping you from dialing any number you want, I think.
-Erwos
Would you be willing to pay a thousand bucks for it?
Even the A768i is still running for $400 or so on eBay. Retail, it's going for about $600.
Adding all the stuff you would want, qa'ing it, and then redesigning the hardware to accomodate would push the price to at least $800. What's worse is that you'd still have anemic performance, and battery life would get worse due to the additional memory and larger display.
This is not to mention any potential size or interface issues.
-Erwos
While this doesn't help you much, here in the US of A, you can use Samsung phones (VGA1000 is a good one) with Sprint to do so.
You simply buy a data cable, subscribe to the PCS Vision data plan ($20 a month for unlimited data), and plug in your phone to your laptop via USB. It will be recongized as a modem. Dial out using the number #777, and you're set.
This is not officially supported by Sprint, but there have been no reports of them cracking down, either. Just don't abuse it.
-Erwos
I'm always reminded of the paper I wrote on the World Bank and IMF riots in Seattle and DC - specifically on the topic of riot control.
4 7581.s tm
/.'ers hundreds or thousands of miles away are not really in the position to say whether or not the situation calls for it.
"The Battle of Seattle" happened because there were inadequately trained cops confronted by a huge number of unruly protesters. They _didn't_ take steps to crack down on the situation, and things spiralled rapidly out of control.
A good account from the BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/5
The part to take away from there is that, indeed, some people come to these events for violent reasons.
Compare this to DC. In DC, the situation was almost as intense, but the cops raided a bunch of organizations the day before, and made quite a few arrests on the first day. While this was of dubious legality, DC didn't experience massive rioting, either.
In case you didn't follow my logic, "excessive force" can often prevent an unruly protest from turning into a full-blown riot. No, this is not a blanket statement intended to justify everything the police do - but
Now, the measures taken here don't compare to Seattle or DC. I've seen the cops shooting pepperballs at people who were rioting after the Maryland-Duke game, and while they hurt, they're hardly going to permenantly injure people. Bullhorns don't work for this sort of thing, and pepper balls are a damned sight better than nightsticks and fire hoses.
Most likely, the cops got shoved around a bit and over-reacted. I am sympathetic to the protesters, but the cops are always put in a bad situation by these sorts of events, too.
Crying "FASCISM!" because some county cops were scared and probably somewhat badly trained is laughable. No one even got hurt, for crying out loud!
This is no Kent State, in other words. Not even close.
-Erwos
Could someone help me out? I don't know what IDK means.
-Erwos
Linen and cotton specifically, actually. But close enough. The fact remains that there's no real argument in the Bible against genetic modification.
-Erwos
" the Bible praises those who are expert cultivators and breeders"
I'm pretty sure the Bible specifically forbids you from grafting one part of a plant onto another different kind (in order to make a new, better plant). I don't think it mentions cross-pollination, though.
In any case, you're kind of misrepresenting the Bible's view. It's not entirely gung-ho on this sort of thing.
As for playing G-d, well, He made us in His image, so I don't seem much problem playing as Him. It's certainly not a sentiment found in Orthodox Judaism, anyways.
-Erwos
Van Hollen is no white knight of morality, either. The guy launched more attack ads in the DC area than I'd ever seen before. There was no reason whatsoever that Connie shouldn't have been voted back into office - she was moderate and made good decisions.
As for this: if it's got to do with Van Hollen in 2004, they can use vanhollen2004.com legally. Even if he is being a bastard about it.
-Erwos
A lot of mourning over an organization that made Fox News look like it was completely unbiased. Good riddance to them.
/. is that "biased" is mostly defined as any opinion you don't agree with. Courts ruled a way you didn't like? Obviously they were biased because they were bought off (in some fashion never actually explained). Don't like the way a news story was written? Must have been the work of the evil Corporations/Americans/Israelis/Europeans/Arabs!
/.'ers who have this problem, but alas, I suspect it is far more than that.
I know this comment's a karma burner, but to hell with it. I'm sick of people who bitch about CNN being biased, and then point to IndyNews as the "accurate" source of information.
One of the most important life lessons I've learned on
Get a grip. It's impossible to report truth, because the facts lend themselves to any number of truths if you arrange them properly. And, no matter what you do, you MUST arrange the facts in order to report a story.
What's worse is that Europeans have been steadily conditioned by their news media to believe that they are somehow less susceptible to media bias, or that their media doesn't have any. I don't know what's scarier anymore: the obviously biased US news sources, or the more subtly biased European news sources. I pray that it is only European
In summary: shut up. You are not unbiased in any way, shape, or form. Your news sources are not unbiased in any way, shape, or form. You will need to use your head to discern facts from the truth that is given to you, and then use these facts to reconstruct a more likely truth about the situation. What's worse is that you will need to consider that other people can do this, yet come up with a different truth than you.
-Erwos
Kinda odd, I agree. I was wondering how they managed to get so ahead of everyone else on the release schedule.
Looks like a good release for the KDE fans, but I'll be waiting for Fedora Core 3 myself... gotta love Gnome 2.8.
-Erwos
"But why did ANYBODY believe that just because "they are sony" they could pack that much of cpu and 3d power in a little package and expect to work it a tolerable time with a few batteries?"
Bad question - haven't you seen the idiots jumping around and talking about how the "Cell processor" is gonna have the power of 50 Crays?
-Erwos
You are ignoring the difference between tactical and strategic nuclear weapons.
.5 to 10 megatons.
Strategic nuclear weapons (usually mounted on ICBMs or those giant strategic bombers) are indeed designed to kill cities. They generally range in size from
Tactical nuclear weapons are much, much smaller (50 to 250 kilotons) and are usually artillery mounted, or put on tactical aircraft (such as those launched off an aircraft carrier). They will indeed do a number on a civilian population, but are designed for real military engagements - ones where a huge amount of power is overkill and undesirable. This is the category that nuclear bunker busters fall into.
The article seems to imply we could use anti-matter weapons as tactical weapons - just put a very, very small amount of anti-matter into the bomb. The EMP usages are also interesting - the military's emphasis on disabling command and control infrastructure makes this a very tempting prospect.
The idea that it would be used to build "a bigger nuke" seems utterly idiotic. We have nukes, and they work just fine. Anything bigger than the current ones are just overkill anyways - you want to hit multiple targets, not hit one REALLY good.
Moreover, if you're interested in obliterating a city, you can do it without nukes or fancy antimatter weapons. The allies firebombed Dresden in WWII, and there wasn't all too much left when they were done,
In short: the likelihood of these weapons being used against a civilian population seems pretty minute, even in these tense days. The prevailing attitude in the US military is to reduce civilian casualties as much as possible (within "reason"), and bigger nukes don't fit into that game plan.
My own thesis is that this is related to space propulsion, not weapons (at least directly). If you want to play war in space, you can't do it with these ugly, slow space shuttles using chemical propulsion.
-Erwos
I see you've never actually tried running Linux on a real slate-style tablet. I have.
/., but the current Linux handwriting recognition (Xscribble being the best I've seen) software just doesn't compare in accuracy or ease of use. xvkbd fills some of the gaps, but you aren't going to write essays with it.
XP Tablet Edition is much, much better than Linux if you're actually trying to be productive with the thing. I know that's a minor heresy to admit on
If you want to run Linux for Free software reasons on it, I can respect that. But, really, Linux simply isn't there yet on tablets. It's a bitch to set up, and you'll be cursing at the handwriting recognition the whole time.
Trust me, as crappy as XP is, it's the right choice for one of those.
-Erwos