Bad news for you, but there are a couple things mitigating against China winning a war against Taiwan:
1. Taiwan has nukes. China has all of their cities on a densely populated coast. Do the math. 2. The US typically keeps an aircraft carrier in the region when things get hot. The idea of the Chinese being able to invade Taiwan in the first place is extremely debatable. They simply do not have the amphibious assets to do so. And, even if they did, American air support would blow them to bits. Don't kid yourself about what a single carrier group can do, especially to a non-Western military. 3. The Chinese government would fall immediately when the rest of the world embargoed them. They're simply NOT self-sufficient, and with nowhere to import/export, their economy would collapse.
You misinterpret the situation. You still need to buy the original - the media is for download if you don't have a Windows partition to yank the NWN directory from. You still need a CD-key from the original to play.
It's not like RedHat just handed them a site and told them to get on with it. RedHat employees are very actively involved with the whole thing, and are contributing tons of code.
I've personally been working (internally so far) on a website of modern-day Orthodox-Jewish responsa to various issues of Jewish law, so this is an issue I've given some thought to.
To say this is some kind of problem specific to the web is misleading. There are old, well-quoted sources of Jewish thought whose texts are simply lost to us in this current day and age. Example: a famous and extremely popular commentary on the Talmud and Torah, Rashi, is missing for at least a few chapters of Talmud. That would be the equivalent of IEEE misplacing some standards papers and then NO ONE having copies, just lost to the sands of time. Yet it did happen, proving this at least _was_ a serious issue.
However, these days, with such things as the Way-Back Machine and Google caching, actually LOSING entire web pages doesn't happen very often, and, I'd bet, it happens far less frequently than the loss of books.
Buy the acadmic version of RHEL. You can get a site license for $2500 and install it on as many computers as you want, AND get support. A good deall, it seems.
Nice try, but the Geneva Conventions also allows for a certain amount of collateral damage, provided it's not way out of proportion to the military value of the primary target.
Assuming the hospital as collateral damage: Using an e-bomb to disable a PDA would be probably be a violation. Using an e-bomb to disable a tank division would not be.
" Most of the people that play NWN don't play the orginal story outside of maybe one time through."
I have my doubts about this. Maybe not in _multi-player_. But I get the distinct impression from listening to people that single-player is an excellent place to gain some initial levels (to, say, 15).
I can see using this for my laptop. My desktop box is powerful, and I don't mind a bit of instability with Fedora, but my P166MMX laptop is primarily for note-taking, and I wouldn't mind something stable and long-lasting for it.
"Now RedHat decides to come back and offer support for schools, but how long until they decide to stop it again once they realize that it's "not making any money"?"
I guess you just have no clue what a service-level agreement is, do you? When RedHat sells you that software, they formally promise you that they WILL support it for 5 years.
In this case, since it's based off RHEL, supporting the academic versions is absolutely free for them, since they're already doing it for their core customers.
I'd like to also point out that those volunteers are under absolutely no obligation towards you. Do you like to rely on people doing things out of kindness, or out of legal responsibility? I can tell you which _I_ would rather have.
How does _RedHat_ recompense these people? Have _they_ been compensating RedHat? Why does RedHat own them anything?
If RedHat had decided "hey, we're killing RHL completely, no Fedora, good-bye" tomorrow, I would be annoyed with them, but I have no grounds for compensation. Do you always ask for your money back when you get a free product that you rely on and is then discontinued?
"It looks like China is serious about their space program, and is taking an incremental approach."
Is this opposed to, say, the "do it all at once" approach?
The Chinese have put a man into orbit. That's a great success for them, considering there ain't too many other countries that have done it. But just assuming that, hey, it's a short trip to the moon is naive. There's no way they would have been able to take another flight straight to the moon, if only for lack of experience.
I'm not offended, but I really would appreciate it if you would shut off the "you're a stupid American" tone. If I were to call you "a stupid Canadian", you'd just claim more proof of "American hubris". But you calling me "a stupid American" makes you an intelligent and cultured Canadian, at least in your own eyes. Think about that. Doesn't it point to at least a little bit of "hubris" on your part?
And the Civil War thing was indeed an embarassing slip, and I did mean the War of Independence. Thank you for giving me that much credit.:) Of course, you do know why France wasn't involved in the Civil War, right? The French got themselves beaten in Mexico in 1861 or 1862. You better believe they would have jumped right in if they had the chance:).
As for the rest, it's your viewpoint, and you are entitled to it. I think stereotyping people and trying to make believe "you're better" is somewhat distasteful, but that is your choice. Do you criticize, say, the cultures of the Middle East or East Asia as vehemently?
Your comments about Lynch are dead on, and those about the coups as well. I'd be foolish to argue about those, because I agree. Have you ever heard that before from an American?
However, consider this: European countries have a good deal of skeletons in the closet due to their earlier colonial exploits. That Middle East thing? Direct result of the French and British colonization, and pulling out before getting the region into a proper order. Rampant poverty in the Third World? You better believe it. Civil war in India right after independence? Hmm, that's right, blame the Brits!
The only difference is that, hey, those things happened a longer time ago, so the European governments responsible have found time to blame someone else. The point I'm trying to make is, other countries are guilty, too. If you took, say, the whole of the EU, and compared it to the whole of the US (population is comparable), I don't think you could claim that the EU is doing that much better historically.
Like I said before, I am not offended, and I do thank you for replying. In a free society (which/. is a microcosm of, interestingly enough), dialog is the fastest way to understanding. I hope, perhaps, you gain some sort of understanding that not all Americans are stupid and materialistic, and that stereotyping them is as silly as stereotyping, say, all Canadians. In return, I believe I have gained some insight into your views on Americans, for both right and wrong.
Isn't this enough for you? Five mainstream newspapers! Even if it's not, it's pretty well apparent to me that you're wrong.
"Please review these works to understand the foundation of the US Constitution. "
Why is it that you must CONSTANTLY treat me like an idiot? Do you have any friends, or do you just treat Americans like that? I was originally a government and politics major in university. I know a thing or two about the Constitution. I sure as hell don't need you to lecture to me about the French Revolution, either, or their assistance during the Civil War. Dare I ask how well most Canadians know their history?
"Which I would describe as a weekness. Stagnation is death. Change and adaptation is the wellspring of life. The admininstration of a Morbund government does not a Democracy make."
I would describe it as "stability", actually. Adaptation is something the Constitution provides for, in the form of amendments. We've used them. They've, for the most part, been steps forward.
"Please read this book: A People's History of The United States by Howard Zinn If you wont read this book, at least come to understand what it contains, and how perspective will reward you."
As someone who regularly reads anti-globalization literature, I'm, again, well-acquainted with views other than my own. Just because someone writes a book doesn't mean that all the things in it are right or true. I'm sure Zinn makes all sorts of good points about how the US screwed its people over - but then again, does he raise all the good things the US has done? No idea - haven't read the book. But it's best not to forget that as a world power, the US is a lot better than, say, the USSR.
Every nation has skeletons in its closet and many of them. This doesn't bother me. The trick is to stop putting so many of them in there nowadays.
"This is slashdot, so I had better include a disclaimer - Yes, I'm British, not American, although my fiance is American, so I have no bias:)"
You weren't biased at all. Amending the Constitution, again, is something they thought of, because no one's able to predict all possibilities. And thanks for using American, my British friend:). At least you guys don't have such problems with figuring out what to call citizens of your country - or maybe the Scots get uppity about it?
As for the 200 vs. 1000 thing, well, if only one country made it for 200, don't you think that's a pretty good accomplishment? It was merely a contrast to the idea of the UN, which is relatively new in comparison.
For the record, I find the UK's unwritten system to have some interesting benefits and drawbacks as compared to the US'. No form of government is perfect, of course. But, I think that all of the "Western" nations have something to be proud of, compared to the whole of human political history...
"ONLY YOUR HUBRIS prohibits you from understanding that assuming an "american" is a of the "USA variety" is not ok."
And it's only your intellectual arrogance which prevents you from understanding my reasoning. For the longest time, the world has used American to mean "citizens of the United States of America". You are NOT an American. You are a Canadian. Get over it. You are a North American. Just slap an extra word in there.
What else makes sense? "Statesian?" "United Statesian" "United States of American" Answer: none of them. That's why we use "American". Now please get over your hubris. No one think you're referring to the continent when you say that, except for ignoramuses like yourself.
"Yankee" typically has a bad connotation, you realize. But, hey, if you hate all Americans, maybe it'll work for you.
As far as I'm concerned, our founding fathers hit a massive home run with the Constitution. You realize that the USA is pretty much the only country in the world that HASN'T needed to change their form of government? In other words, they were pretty damn smart, and while they did make mistakes (slavery comes to mind, although that was only a compromise!), I'm not yet convinced that they are yet, for the reasons I outlined so well in my parent post.
The UN is NOT a democracy. You can claim it is all day, but that does not make it so. The fact that you have a big "vote green" for a sig tells me that you and I probably have far different politics, anyways, and probably won't ever agree on this particular issue.
First of all, that would be "Americans", not USAians or whatever idiocy/.'ers have come up with lately. This is rightfully the proper way of saying it since "USA" stands for "United States of America". Last word is America, ergo, Americans. This is not inappropriate at all - you know who you're referring to, since addressing everyone of the continent would be "North Americans" (or for the folk down south, "South Americans").
Second, I'd like to point out that one of the founding fathers of the US, George Washington, warned our country of entering into foriegn treaties for exactly that reason. Why give away freedom of choice for no apparent benefit? So, you are exactly on the dot about why the US is leary of the UN, but you act as though this is something evil, rather than an intelligent and sane way of maneuvering tricky diplomatic waters.
As for "International Democracy" - I think not. What about the representatives from all those dictatorships? Who are they representing? Hint: not the people of their countries. There's also no adjustment in voting strength for population - why should a country with a thousand people have exactly as much power as one with a billion people?
In short, as an embodiment of international democracy, the UN is a joke. It is an inherently unfair system by recoginizing dictatorships as equals to democratic nations, and ignoring population differences.
They should not be controlling the internet, either.
"The average American income could increase from today's ~$35,000/y-person to more than $150,000/y-person."
Unfortunately, he doesn't exactly say how besides "increased investment opportunities". Uh huh. Ditto for the comment about raising the average third world income to $20k.
In fact, the entire testimony is rather short on details, and seems to omit such essential items as how much it would take to build the whole system.
Slashdot Mirror
Bad news for you, but there are a couple things mitigating against China winning a war against Taiwan:
1. Taiwan has nukes. China has all of their cities on a densely populated coast. Do the math.
2. The US typically keeps an aircraft carrier in the region when things get hot. The idea of the Chinese being able to invade Taiwan in the first place is extremely debatable. They simply do not have the amphibious assets to do so. And, even if they did, American air support would blow them to bits. Don't kid yourself about what a single carrier group can do, especially to a non-Western military.
3. The Chinese government would fall immediately when the rest of the world embargoed them. They're simply NOT self-sufficient, and with nowhere to import/export, their economy would collapse.
-Erwos
Have you ever considered that "real" people actually use local sendmail to send their email because they find it more reliable than their ISP's SMTP?
Don't delete. Bounce the email with some kind of message.
-Erwos
You misinterpret the situation. You still need to buy the original - the media is for download if you don't have a Windows partition to yank the NWN directory from. You still need a CD-key from the original to play.
-Erwos
Vanilla = "Red Hat standard", not the kernel.org ones.
Nothing = "Nothing bad - they work fine"
Must learn to preview!
-Erwos
It happens with the vanilla kernels that Fedora installs, too.
Hint: nothing happens if you install them anyways.
-Erwos
What do you think Fedora is?
It's not like RedHat just handed them a site and told them to get on with it. RedHat employees are very actively involved with the whole thing, and are contributing tons of code.
-Erwos
I've personally been working (internally so far) on a website of modern-day Orthodox-Jewish responsa to various issues of Jewish law, so this is an issue I've given some thought to.
To say this is some kind of problem specific to the web is misleading. There are old, well-quoted sources of Jewish thought whose texts are simply lost to us in this current day and age. Example: a famous and extremely popular commentary on the Talmud and Torah, Rashi, is missing for at least a few chapters of Talmud. That would be the equivalent of IEEE misplacing some standards papers and then NO ONE having copies, just lost to the sands of time. Yet it did happen, proving this at least _was_ a serious issue.
However, these days, with such things as the Way-Back Machine and Google caching, actually LOSING entire web pages doesn't happen very often, and, I'd bet, it happens far less frequently than the loss of books.
-Erwos
Buy the acadmic version of RHEL. You can get a site license for $2500 and install it on as many computers as you want, AND get support. A good deall, it seems.
-Erwos
Nice try, but the Geneva Conventions also allows for a certain amount of collateral damage, provided it's not way out of proportion to the military value of the primary target.
Assuming the hospital as collateral damage: Using an e-bomb to disable a PDA would be probably be a violation. Using an e-bomb to disable a tank division would not be.
-Erwos
" Most of the people that play NWN don't play the orginal story outside of maybe one time through."
I have my doubts about this. Maybe not in _multi-player_. But I get the distinct impression from listening to people that single-player is an excellent place to gain some initial levels (to, say, 15).
-Erwos
NWN Gold comes with Shadows of Udrentide.
Which, I may add, makes a nice alternative to the original campaign when you're levelling up your 50 characters...
-Erwos
I can see using this for my laptop. My desktop box is powerful, and I don't mind a bit of instability with Fedora, but my P166MMX laptop is primarily for note-taking, and I wouldn't mind something stable and long-lasting for it.
-Erwos
"Now RedHat decides to come back and offer support for schools, but how long until they decide to stop it again once they realize that it's "not making any money"?"
I guess you just have no clue what a service-level agreement is, do you? When RedHat sells you that software, they formally promise you that they WILL support it for 5 years.
In this case, since it's based off RHEL, supporting the academic versions is absolutely free for them, since they're already doing it for their core customers.
I'd like to also point out that those volunteers are under absolutely no obligation towards you. Do you like to rely on people doing things out of kindness, or out of legal responsibility? I can tell you which _I_ would rather have.
-Erwos
My first thought was, how is a MIPS emulator annoying anyone?
Actually, this is some bad news for the SPIM project, since now their name will be associated with something bad.
-Erwos
Direct democracy is just the first step to tyranny by majority.
Day after 9/11, you get a referendum: "Deport all Muslims from the country?" I'd be rather worried that it would go through.
I'll take my republic, thanks.
-Erwos
own == owe, must preview in the future.
-Erwos
How does _RedHat_ recompense these people? Have _they_ been compensating RedHat? Why does RedHat own them anything?
If RedHat had decided "hey, we're killing RHL completely, no Fedora, good-bye" tomorrow, I would be annoyed with them, but I have no grounds for compensation. Do you always ask for your money back when you get a free product that you rely on and is then discontinued?
-Erwos
"It looks like China is serious about their space program, and is taking an incremental approach."
Is this opposed to, say, the "do it all at once" approach?
The Chinese have put a man into orbit. That's a great success for them, considering there ain't too many other countries that have done it. But just assuming that, hey, it's a short trip to the moon is naive. There's no way they would have been able to take another flight straight to the moon, if only for lack of experience.
-Erwos
I'm not offended, but I really would appreciate it if you would shut off the "you're a stupid American" tone. If I were to call you "a stupid Canadian", you'd just claim more proof of "American hubris". But you calling me "a stupid American" makes you an intelligent and cultured Canadian, at least in your own eyes. Think about that. Doesn't it point to at least a little bit of "hubris" on your part?
:) Of course, you do know why France wasn't involved in the Civil War, right? The French got themselves beaten in Mexico in 1861 or 1862. You better believe they would have jumped right in if they had the chance :).
/. is a microcosm of, interestingly enough), dialog is the fastest way to understanding. I hope, perhaps, you gain some sort of understanding that not all Americans are stupid and materialistic, and that stereotyping them is as silly as stereotyping, say, all Canadians. In return, I believe I have gained some insight into your views on Americans, for both right and wrong.
And the Civil War thing was indeed an embarassing slip, and I did mean the War of Independence. Thank you for giving me that much credit.
As for the rest, it's your viewpoint, and you are entitled to it. I think stereotyping people and trying to make believe "you're better" is somewhat distasteful, but that is your choice. Do you criticize, say, the cultures of the Middle East or East Asia as vehemently?
Your comments about Lynch are dead on, and those about the coups as well. I'd be foolish to argue about those, because I agree. Have you ever heard that before from an American?
However, consider this: European countries have a good deal of skeletons in the closet due to their earlier colonial exploits. That Middle East thing? Direct result of the French and British colonization, and pulling out before getting the region into a proper order. Rampant poverty in the Third World? You better believe it. Civil war in India right after independence? Hmm, that's right, blame the Brits!
The only difference is that, hey, those things happened a longer time ago, so the European governments responsible have found time to blame someone else. The point I'm trying to make is, other countries are guilty, too. If you took, say, the whole of the EU, and compared it to the whole of the US (population is comparable), I don't think you could claim that the EU is doing that much better historically.
Like I said before, I am not offended, and I do thank you for replying. In a free society (which
-Erwos
"Have you ever travelled outside the USA? This statement is false."
e _east/32604 31.stm
r t.jhtml?ite mNo=359205&sw=American
6 8/11249_Gua ntanamo.html
0 @2-3218,36- 341587,0.html
0 03520436,00 .html
BBC: says American:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middl
Ha'Aretz: says American:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShA
Pravda: says American:
http://english.pravda.ru/world/20/91/3
LeMonde.fr: says American:
http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-
GermanyTimes.com: says American:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2
Isn't this enough for you? Five mainstream newspapers! Even if it's not, it's pretty well apparent to me that you're wrong.
"Please review these works to understand the foundation of the US Constitution. "
Why is it that you must CONSTANTLY treat me like an idiot? Do you have any friends, or do you just treat Americans like that? I was originally a government and politics major in university. I know a thing or two about the Constitution. I sure as hell don't need you to lecture to me about the French Revolution, either, or their assistance during the Civil War. Dare I ask how well most Canadians know their history?
"Which I would describe as a weekness. Stagnation is death. Change and adaptation is the wellspring of life. The admininstration of a Morbund government does not a Democracy make."
I would describe it as "stability", actually. Adaptation is something the Constitution provides for, in the form of amendments. We've used them. They've, for the most part, been steps forward.
"Please read this book: A People's History of The United States by Howard Zinn If you wont read this book, at least come to understand what it contains, and how perspective will reward you."
As someone who regularly reads anti-globalization literature, I'm, again, well-acquainted with views other than my own. Just because someone writes a book doesn't mean that all the things in it are right or true. I'm sure Zinn makes all sorts of good points about how the US screwed its people over - but then again, does he raise all the good things the US has done? No idea - haven't read the book. But it's best not to forget that as a world power, the US is a lot better than, say, the USSR.
Every nation has skeletons in its closet and many of them. This doesn't bother me. The trick is to stop putting so many of them in there nowadays.
-Erwos
Unite behind Fedora!
I mean, it makes as much sense as uniting behind Debian, right?
-Erwos
"This is slashdot, so I had better include a disclaimer - Yes, I'm British, not American, although my fiance is American, so I have no bias :)"
:). At least you guys don't have such problems with figuring out what to call citizens of your country - or maybe the Scots get uppity about it?
You weren't biased at all. Amending the Constitution, again, is something they thought of, because no one's able to predict all possibilities. And thanks for using American, my British friend
As for the 200 vs. 1000 thing, well, if only one country made it for 200, don't you think that's a pretty good accomplishment? It was merely a contrast to the idea of the UN, which is relatively new in comparison.
For the record, I find the UK's unwritten system to have some interesting benefits and drawbacks as compared to the US'. No form of government is perfect, of course. But, I think that all of the "Western" nations have something to be proud of, compared to the whole of human political history...
-Erwos
"ONLY YOUR HUBRIS prohibits you from understanding that assuming an "american" is a of the "USA variety" is not ok."
And it's only your intellectual arrogance which prevents you from understanding my reasoning. For the longest time, the world has used American to mean "citizens of the United States of America". You are NOT an American. You are a Canadian. Get over it. You are a North American. Just slap an extra word in there.
What else makes sense? "Statesian?" "United Statesian" "United States of American" Answer: none of them. That's why we use "American". Now please get over your hubris. No one think you're referring to the continent when you say that, except for ignoramuses like yourself.
"Yankee" typically has a bad connotation, you realize. But, hey, if you hate all Americans, maybe it'll work for you.
As far as I'm concerned, our founding fathers hit a massive home run with the Constitution. You realize that the USA is pretty much the only country in the world that HASN'T needed to change their form of government? In other words, they were pretty damn smart, and while they did make mistakes (slavery comes to mind, although that was only a compromise!), I'm not yet convinced that they are yet, for the reasons I outlined so well in my parent post.
The UN is NOT a democracy. You can claim it is all day, but that does not make it so. The fact that you have a big "vote green" for a sig tells me that you and I probably have far different politics, anyways, and probably won't ever agree on this particular issue.
-Erwos
First of all, that would be "Americans", not USAians or whatever idiocy /.'ers have come up with lately. This is rightfully the proper way of saying it since "USA" stands for "United States of America". Last word is America, ergo, Americans. This is not inappropriate at all - you know who you're referring to, since addressing everyone of the continent would be "North Americans" (or for the folk down south, "South Americans").
Second, I'd like to point out that one of the founding fathers of the US, George Washington, warned our country of entering into foriegn treaties for exactly that reason. Why give away freedom of choice for no apparent benefit? So, you are exactly on the dot about why the US is leary of the UN, but you act as though this is something evil, rather than an intelligent and sane way of maneuvering tricky diplomatic waters.
As for "International Democracy" - I think not. What about the representatives from all those dictatorships? Who are they representing? Hint: not the people of their countries. There's also no adjustment in voting strength for population - why should a country with a thousand people have exactly as much power as one with a billion people?
In short, as an embodiment of international democracy, the UN is a joke. It is an inherently unfair system by recoginizing dictatorships as equals to democratic nations, and ignoring population differences.
They should not be controlling the internet, either.
-Erwos
"The average American income could increase from today's ~$35,000/y-person to more than $150,000/y-person."
Unfortunately, he doesn't exactly say how besides "increased investment opportunities". Uh huh. Ditto for the comment about raising the average third world income to $20k.
In fact, the entire testimony is rather short on details, and seems to omit such essential items as how much it would take to build the whole system.
-Erwos