...the US President/Ambassadors signed a treaty and then the Senate/Congress simply forgot to ratify it.
That's because we live in a country ruled by law. And the law says that the President is not vested with the power to ratify treaties- which is a good thing. We believe in letting our duly elected representatives make decisions on our behalf.
...strangely enough, that as far as the US is concerned its completely unenforcable, and can be tossed aside any time they like.
Why on earth should this seem strange to you? The treaty is not ratified by a sovereign country and is therefore not binding to them. Just because a bunch of unelected bureaucrats come up with some lame-ass idea does not make it binding on the United States, no matter what everyone else thinks of it.
The United States of America is a sovereign nation. We will not be ruled by some international debating society. If the UN attempts to prove otherwise they will get to find out why we get to keep guns.
Fine, you go ahead and content yourself with knowing that you were right- they currently have a lot of subscribers. That's like arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin- it's meaningless.
In the meantime, the rest of us will analyze how well they can hold on to those customers- something that in the real world is meaningful.
You may be right on the sheer numbers but their churn rate is astronomical. There will come a point where every man, woman, and child has at one time been a (paying) AOL subscriber. Any business plan that does not involve keeping customers and keeping them happy is not going to last long.
You can deny it all you want, but it is a fact that AOL has more dial-up subscribers than any other ISP on the planet.
But for how long? That number means absolutely nothing if you can't keep them. There is no way in hell that AOL can continue to spend the kind of money they do on marketing to attract new customers. Sooner or later you have to please the ones you have attracted. This farce is gonna end soon.
You consider millions, I repeat, MILLIONS of customers damn few real assets?
I call bullshit on this. AOL has been keeping their investors happy with inflated numbers like this for years.
The walls are caving in now that everyone is wising up to the fact that some dolt putting a free 19,000 FREE HOURS!! AOL CD in their new Christmas computer does not a customer make.
Still, a lot of people are wasting there time with this.
Agreed that the "dicsussion" phase can sometimes drag on a bit. I've found that the people that continue to argue after the argument is done simply like to argue. It is up to you to determine when it crosses the line from useful discussion to waste of your time.
...Havent we had enough of this "dangers of open source" crap?
Absolutely not! Only through open and honest (painful) discussion of the merits and weaknesses of anything can it be strengthened. If it was too weak in the first place, it will not stand up to the scrutiny- otherwise it will be strengthened.
Take some time to read this paper for enlightenment on why open discussion by people with differing viewpoints is a good thing.
Funny thing is that closed source people don't want discussion of their warts...I would think OS would be different.
...if you steg something into a source file and then convert to JPG.
Huh? I don't believe anyone said anything about stegging into a image file and then converting to jpg.
One takes a bit of text, the length of which has to be somewhat proportionally smaller than the image into which one will steg the text, and uses a steganography program to place the text into the image. Recompressing or converting will undoubtedly ruin the text, but who would do that?
The amount of text you can insert into a certain size jpg is limited but not so much so that you cannot get quite a bit of text into a 150k jpg before you begin to visibly affect the image itself and give away that something is amiss.
...*Cheap Shot* You mean like President Bush? *Cheap Shot*...
For someone who seems so interested in rules, legitimacy and truth your propaganda methods are straight out of the Bolshevik handbook- When you lose fairly and according to the rules, make it appear as if the rules were broken, even if they were not. President Bush was elected by the rules of law. Just because you didn't like the outcome doesn't mean he wasn't elected.
Your use of this lie really undermines any arguments that follow.
I'll address them anyway, even though most of them are false and have been proven so.
...was fed to US citizens and the world under false pretenses.
The main pretense of the war was a provable danger to the United States and its citizens. The first and foremost function of the government is not being a welfare state but protection of its citizens. We really don't care about how this affects Syria, Iran, etc. We shouldn't either in anything other than an ancillary way.
...this is not the way that diplomacy should be done in the modern era.
And pray tell, how is it done? The Franco-German way? Hmmmm?? Block any action in the UN that endangers your financial interests? Unless and until the UN can show that it is anything more than a convenient forum for petty dictators and loudmouth bureaucrats we have no obligation whatsoever to pay any amount of attention to them.
I am gonna stop here because I am wasting my time on your unsubstantiated, specious arguments that are mainly fed by your willful ignorance of the facts.
...to make the invasion have some resemblance of legitimacy.
Please explain to me how an unelected body composed of a majority of countries governed by dictators can grant anything legitimacy?
Good try though....
...the damage already done to the US's image
If the US made decisions based on how it "affected our image" the world would have long ago descended into brutal dictatorial chaos, while we sat on the sidelines wringing our hands worries about "our image"
Here's the deal with encrypting with PGP (GPG, etc.):
It leaves a telltale header "-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----"
This makes it very easy to find encrypted messages as you can apply a simple filter.
One of the benefits of steganography is that is looks like a JPG file being emailed or a JPG(PNG) sitting there on a website. Without very special software there is no easy way of even knowing that the picture of grandpa on the tractor is anything but a picture of grandpa on the tractor.
When I was playing with it, I would encrypt the text using PGP then embed it in a image using JSteg. It was fun but not particularly useful since nothing I had to say or email was worth anything to anyone important. Having said that, should (when) the revolution comes it will not be televised, it will be stegged so I'm keeping those skills.
The UN is most assuredly not a governing entity. Government is a right granted by the people. I granted them nothing, not even indirectly, therefore they are not a governing body- a debating society perhaps but certainly not a governing body.
I don't want any part of the internet under UN control.
I find it hilarious that the same Slashdot crew that was screaming for UN control of the Iraq situation now wants nothing to do with the UN when it comes to the Internet. Seems to me the desire for the UN to intervene was mere anti-Bush propganda.
Changing your position when it suits you is intellectually dishonest and is known as hypocrisy. Have the balls to hold your position.
The UN has no business in anything. Intelligent people can look at their track record and come to the conclusion that they are more fucked up than a football bat.
At my company we had five seperate systems, each with their own passwords. Each system had a different set of password rules, and each had a different expiration cycle.
Net result: I wrote down the damn passwords in a file on my desktop named passwords.txt
I felt like the security nazis had this attitude of "We've done what we should do by requiring passwords of between 9-11 characters that have at least five numbers and three special characters and requiring that they be changed every ten days. My ass is covered."
Let's remember that we're here to do business and the very moment password policy makes me (and the company) inefficent, password bullshit becomes financially burdensome and therefore needs to be re-evaluated.
Until then, all you security fanatics need to repeat this mantra:
"The technology is in support of the organization, not the other way around."
The solution is clear - RAICHS: Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Corporate Headquarters. Which slashdotter will be first to market with this exciting technology?!
A bit defensive, aren't we? It's Slashdot. Just mellow out and ignore the stupid people.
Defensive? You try being the one damn person here who dares question the status quo. For all the talk about open-mindedness and acceptance, I have found Slashdot to be the least tolerant of all online societies that I have chosen to be a part of, and I started in Usenet way back in 1994.
The comment you reference was there for two reasons:
1- To send the "stupid people" elsewhere to make their immature comments. I hate threads that degenerate into flame wars and it's hard to insult someone that has insulted themselves first- makes it kinda pointless.
2- To let people know that I was indeed serious and not just trolling.
..and you earn a living offering services to support or actually use the software you're developing.
And what happens when there is no more software available to offer services for because the programmers can't make money on Free software and move on to something else, leaving all those leeching a living from providing services out in the cold, living off of a host destroyed by a virus? Sooner or later someone has to be able to live off of writing software. Maybe this is a bad assumption?
I ask this in all seriousness and appreciate the cordiality so far.
..we're not communist, penniless, command-line hippies...
Hmmmm...interesting reply. Exactly the education that I seek. I appreciate you not being so cynical as to dismiss my question out of hand.
You and another fellow made me start to think about commodities and how most products end up being commoditized, but only if forced to. Having one's product commoditized is the bane of all businesses and to be avoided at all costs. Your comment about the space shuttle made me consider software in this light- where specialized software may remain profitable but other sotware gets turned into a commodity, a quite normal chain of events.
Your reply was intelligent and well put. You have obviously spent some time considering this question.
Do you mind if I challenge some of your assertions for the purpose of compelling you to expand on some of them for my edification? I suppose if you do mind, you just won't answer.
...until it happens it is not a serious issue.
It appears as if you are advocating a "head in the sand" approach to an issue that has serious consequences but has been little discussed in this forum, likely due to the fact that this forum allows little dissent (moderation). Do you really believe that this is not an issue until we wake up one day and realize that a huge paradigm shift has occurred and good or bad, some cleanup must be done? Proactive or reactive?
...that is the best way to manage a "commons"
The commons concept intrigues me. Any recommendations on further reading on this angle?
... lower the barrier to technology transfer to poorer nations and schools (a good thing)
Why is this a good thing(tm)? I am not saying that it isn't, I just would like to challenge the fait accompli assumption and learn why you feel that way.
...eliminate the chokehold any single company would have on the "commons"
I wholeheartedly agree. However, I feel that in the rage against the Borg, we may go too far and end up one day saying "Oooops, went a little too far. Now we have massive unemployment." Right now the OSS is leeching from paid developers who write for fun. Are they still going to write for funsies when they are starving? My analogy about a virus destroying its host is appropriate I think.
What happens when Free software conquers all and all the software companies are put out of business, letting their programmers go?
Open source software doesn't feed the family so what do all those out of work developers do? It seems to me that OSS is like a virus that eventually consumes its host, thus ending its own life.
This is a serious question from one who seeks to be educated.
Oh yeah, I already know that I am an idiot and most likely a facist, capitalist, bozo, insertyourlabelhere so save those type of comments for your high school classmates and please seek to address the question.
Slashdot Mirror
That's because we live in a country ruled by law. And the law says that the President is not vested with the power to ratify treaties- which is a good thing. We believe in letting our duly elected representatives make decisions on our behalf.
Why on earth should this seem strange to you? The treaty is not ratified by a sovereign country and is therefore not binding to them. Just because a bunch of unelected bureaucrats come up with some lame-ass idea does not make it binding on the United States, no matter what everyone else thinks of it.
The United States of America is a sovereign nation. We will not be ruled by some international debating society. If the UN attempts to prove otherwise they will get to find out why we get to keep guns.
Oh come on, let the UN try to herd cats for a while. How much damage can they possibly do?
Fine, you go ahead and content yourself with knowing that you were right- they currently have a lot of subscribers. That's like arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin- it's meaningless.
In the meantime, the rest of us will analyze how well they can hold on to those customers- something that in the real world is meaningful.
You can deny it all you want, but it is a fact that AOL has more dial-up subscribers than any other ISP on the planet.
But for how long? That number means absolutely nothing if you can't keep them. There is no way in hell that AOL can continue to spend the kind of money they do on marketing to attract new customers. Sooner or later you have to please the ones you have attracted. This farce is gonna end soon.
I call bullshit on this. AOL has been keeping their investors happy with inflated numbers like this for years.
The walls are caving in now that everyone is wising up to the fact that some dolt putting a free 19,000 FREE HOURS!! AOL CD in their new Christmas computer does not a customer make.
Absolutely agree! I still have mine and loved learning photography on it. What a great suggestion.
Agreed that the "dicsussion" phase can sometimes drag on a bit. I've found that the people that continue to argue after the argument is done simply like to argue. It is up to you to determine when it crosses the line from useful discussion to waste of your time.
IBM credibility concerning a usable email client=0
Absolutely not! Only through open and honest (painful) discussion of the merits and weaknesses of anything can it be strengthened. If it was too weak in the first place, it will not stand up to the scrutiny- otherwise it will be strengthened.
Take some time to read this paper for enlightenment on why open discussion by people with differing viewpoints is a good thing.
Funny thing is that closed source people don't want discussion of their warts...I would think OS would be different.
Huh? I don't believe anyone said anything about stegging into a image file and then converting to jpg.
One takes a bit of text, the length of which has to be somewhat proportionally smaller than the image into which one will steg the text, and uses a steganography program to place the text into the image. Recompressing or converting will undoubtedly ruin the text, but who would do that?
The amount of text you can insert into a certain size jpg is limited but not so much so that you cannot get quite a bit of text into a 150k jpg before you begin to visibly affect the image itself and give away that something is amiss.
For someone who seems so interested in rules, legitimacy and truth your propaganda methods are straight out of the Bolshevik handbook- When you lose fairly and according to the rules, make it appear as if the rules were broken, even if they were not. President Bush was elected by the rules of law. Just because you didn't like the outcome doesn't mean he wasn't elected.
Your use of this lie really undermines any arguments that follow.
I'll address them anyway, even though most of them are false and have been proven so.
The main pretense of the war was a provable danger to the United States and its citizens. The first and foremost function of the government is not being a welfare state but protection of its citizens. We really don't care about how this affects Syria, Iran, etc. We shouldn't either in anything other than an ancillary way.
And pray tell, how is it done? The Franco-German way? Hmmmm?? Block any action in the UN that endangers your financial interests? Unless and until the UN can show that it is anything more than a convenient forum for petty dictators and loudmouth bureaucrats we have no obligation whatsoever to pay any amount of attention to them.
I am gonna stop here because I am wasting my time on your unsubstantiated, specious arguments that are mainly fed by your willful ignorance of the facts.
Please explain to me how an unelected body composed of a majority of countries governed by dictators can grant anything legitimacy?
Good try though....
If the US made decisions based on how it "affected our image" the world would have long ago descended into brutal dictatorial chaos, while we sat on the sidelines wringing our hands worries about "our image"
Tut, tut
It leaves a telltale header "-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----"
This makes it very easy to find encrypted messages as you can apply a simple filter.
One of the benefits of steganography is that is looks like a JPG file being emailed or a JPG(PNG) sitting there on a website. Without very special software there is no easy way of even knowing that the picture of grandpa on the tractor is anything but a picture of grandpa on the tractor.
When I was playing with it, I would encrypt the text using PGP then embed it in a image using JSteg. It was fun but not particularly useful since nothing I had to say or email was worth anything to anyone important. Having said that, should (when) the revolution comes it will not be televised, it will be stegged so I'm keeping those skills.
The UN is most assuredly not a governing entity. Government is a right granted by the people. I granted them nothing, not even indirectly, therefore they are not a governing body- a debating society perhaps but certainly not a governing body.
I find it hilarious that the same Slashdot crew that was screaming for UN control of the Iraq situation now wants nothing to do with the UN when it comes to the Internet. Seems to me the desire for the UN to intervene was mere anti-Bush propganda.
Changing your position when it suits you is intellectually dishonest and is known as hypocrisy. Have the balls to hold your position.
The UN has no business in anything. Intelligent people can look at their track record and come to the conclusion that they are more fucked up than a football bat.
Net result: I wrote down the damn passwords in a file on my desktop named passwords.txt
I felt like the security nazis had this attitude of "We've done what we should do by requiring passwords of between 9-11 characters that have at least five numbers and three special characters and requiring that they be changed every ten days. My ass is covered."
Let's remember that we're here to do business and the very moment password policy makes me (and the company) inefficent, password bullshit becomes financially burdensome and therefore needs to be re-evaluated.
Until then, all you security fanatics need to repeat this mantra:
"The technology is in support of the organization, not the other way around."
Sorry, not a fair trade.
You know this is going to be abused...
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of those....
Defensive? You try being the one damn person here who dares question the status quo. For all the talk about open-mindedness and acceptance, I have found Slashdot to be the least tolerant of all online societies that I have chosen to be a part of, and I started in Usenet way back in 1994.
The comment you reference was there for two reasons:
1- To send the "stupid people" elsewhere to make their immature comments. I hate threads that degenerate into flame wars and it's hard to insult someone that has insulted themselves first- makes it kinda pointless.
2- To let people know that I was indeed serious and not just trolling.
Thanks for taking the time to answer my question.
And what happens when there is no more software available to offer services for because the programmers can't make money on Free software and move on to something else, leaving all those leeching a living from providing services out in the cold, living off of a host destroyed by a virus? Sooner or later someone has to be able to live off of writing software. Maybe this is a bad assumption?
I ask this in all seriousness and appreciate the cordiality so far.
You and another fellow made me start to think about commodities and how most products end up being commoditized, but only if forced to. Having one's product commoditized is the bane of all businesses and to be avoided at all costs. Your comment about the space shuttle made me consider software in this light- where specialized software may remain profitable but other sotware gets turned into a commodity, a quite normal chain of events.
Do you mind if I challenge some of your assertions for the purpose of compelling you to expand on some of them for my edification? I suppose if you do mind, you just won't answer.
It appears as if you are advocating a "head in the sand" approach to an issue that has serious consequences but has been little discussed in this forum, likely due to the fact that this forum allows little dissent (moderation). Do you really believe that this is not an issue until we wake up one day and realize that a huge paradigm shift has occurred and good or bad, some cleanup must be done? Proactive or reactive?
The commons concept intrigues me. Any recommendations on further reading on this angle?
Why is this a good thing(tm)? I am not saying that it isn't, I just would like to challenge the fait accompli assumption and learn why you feel that way.
I wholeheartedly agree. However, I feel that in the rage against the Borg, we may go too far and end up one day saying "Oooops, went a little too far. Now we have massive unemployment." Right now the OSS is leeching from paid developers who write for fun. Are they still going to write for funsies when they are starving? My analogy about a virus destroying its host is appropriate I think.
Thanks for your time.
Open source software doesn't feed the family so what do all those out of work developers do? It seems to me that OSS is like a virus that eventually consumes its host, thus ending its own life.
This is a serious question from one who seeks to be educated.
Oh yeah, I already know that I am an idiot and most likely a facist, capitalist, bozo, insertyourlabelhere so save those type of comments for your high school classmates and please seek to address the question.
I was just waiting for someone to associate this with Bush.
You have fun with what you know.