Might sound a tad tough but it is just pure bigotry. His definition of "pure" and his insistance that his way is right is down-right insulting. For me the whole point of Open Source is that I can do what I want with it, thats why I like the BSD license. Which basically trusts me to be a nice person and put stuff back, but also says "hell if you want to wrap it with summat else fine".
Open Source is about freedom of choice, if I choose to use proprietary stuff then so be it, that is my choice.
Anyone who mutters on about purity and ethos like this has me worried, I don't care how people use the Open Source stuff I've written, hell its nice that they have used it.
Freedom isn't about purity its about flexibility and choice.
STFU = Shut the Fuck Up. Kind of confrontational. isn't it ?
It is not abundantly clear from history that centralised goverment = loss of civil liberties. Germany has always had a distributed system of goverment. The UK has always had a centralised system. The Soviet Union had central and regional goverment in a similar way to the US.
One system of goverment is not always better than another by definition, it is the reaction of people within that system that determines the worth of it. Pure Communism by the book has more liberties than pure capitalism. Odds on Pure Communism happening with humans... zero. If you had studied history of various different countries and political systems then this would be apparent.
By the way "do a bit of whining" is also being agressive.
For godsake this sounds like the most hockum hooey I've heard in a long time. "Independence Day" as a movie to rent. Lets get this straight
30miles outside of Kabul there is a video shop (lets pretend that one is reasonable) which saved its copies of "Independence Day" which it was renting to an audience which in the vast majority of cases doesn't speak english.
Hokum, baloney and rubbish. This sounds about as likely as a lead balloon circumnavigating the globe. I've read some vomit inducing stuff here from Katz but this takes the biscuit. Quite simply unadulterated rubbish. Movies on a commadore, what browser is our Afghan friend using and what player ?
You've been had Katz by one of the most transparent hoaxes I've ever seen.
It going to revolutionise the way we work, I know its true. Bill said so. I don't need a command line, I need a telly tubby skin. I must have a voice controlled jukebox. And I don't want to interoperate with anyone. Bill is my friend, Bill invents
XP is the greatest invention of this or any time.
Its true I tell you. The wheel is nothing in comparison with XP. Fire is just a footnote to the chapters historians will dedicate to the wonder that is XP and how it changed the face of digital communication.
Oh yes all the voices agree, XP is the best because Bill says so.
All of these gimmicks tend to miss out on the fact that a simple linear system is much better for _people_ than the fancy gimmicks which developers think are cool. Voice interaction is a classic example of something that can be thought of as "cool" until you have an open plan office with 30 people talking at their computers.
3D is another dead end. IBM's Home project found that people would "lose" things in a 3D environment and in fact the visual cues of the 2D desktop were better suited to the task.
At the end of the day the mantra should be KISS. These break that mantra and add very little except cool graphics. It looks nice but doesn't function well. An everyday example of why simple is better are the icons used to denote things like "radiation", "poison" etc etc they don't actually represent the thing themselves but provide a simple shorthand for the thing. This simplification makes them much better at describing and classifying than attempting a "realistic" presentation.
Good examples of 2D simple interfaces are things like Google. Why would 3D make Google better ? It wouldn't.
I know exactly why the US system is like it is, and that is exactly the reason that this sort of thing is a problem, this isn't indicative of what is "good" or "bad" but of why somethings can be done in some places but not in others. The US for instance was a natural place for something like the internet as there is more of a culture of autonomous nodes.
Goverments where people were oppressed by distributed goverment : US during slavery, Italy, Germany etc etc etc. Its always possible no matter what the system as long as you convince the majority across the whole country.
The quote is from a US book "To kill a Mockingbird" the US was last successfully invaded IIRC in 1812. The UK in 1066, Iceland god knows when and Spain for about the same period as the US IIRC. The ability of an individual with a gun to stop an army isn't very great. Looks like most of Afghanistan had guns... didn't matter much as they were politically divided.
Social factors are the main governing factor in the success of most projects and operations. The hardware is for large parts of it irrelevant.
Java and next gen
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New Nokia Phone
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· Score: 3, Interesting
The 9210 communicator, runs the Symbian OS, Java and is generally absolutely brilliant. The only issue with it is size, which this phone addresses.
These next generation mobile devices are based around common standards and architectures, SymbianOS , Java & GSM. No Redmond anywhere to be found. Symbian is a solid proper RTOS unlike the PalmOS or WinCE. Consumer devices need to be reliable, robust and pre-emptible.
Err how would that be broken exactly by a move to base3. Guess what you can represent base 2 directly in base 3. In the same way as working in base 10 doesn't break on a base 2 machine. The definition of & etc are within the specification of the language, to take advantage of the base 3 processor you'd need base 3 operators and base 3 syntax for those operators (if x, else y, else). It would not break anything that currently exists.
I'd ask for a refund on that college education if I were you.
The US has the problem that there are many State and Federal agencies that would have to communicate and cooperate. They are about as likely to do this as Bill Gates is to write an SMP patch for the Linux kernel. European countries have a history of central management and of delination and communication between agencies. It is this infrastructure that enables these sorts of projects to be built.
The US is liable to get disparate information portals that provide for specific needs in a variety of ways. The odds however of someone who lives in CA and has a business in NY having a single portal for all of his needs is practically zero. One web company had this idea and failed miserably. The nature of the US goverment makes it hard to imagine this happening. Germany however with its Federal system and different history and social infrastructure is liable to do this.
The main reason for the US not getting there is the social infrastructure that actively encorages States to go their own way and buck the Washington line. This tends not to exist within the European countries as even beauracrats at the local level are considered under the same banner as those at the national level.
An EU wide portal is also a possibility as there is a history of inter-country cooperation on large scale projects (Concorde anyone) and there is that ethos of distributed and deliniated goverment in a manner that does not exist in the US.
To be honest I say "who cares" if I'm running on a base 2, base 3, base 98 or Analogue computer. The vast majority of applications are written in languages that are then compiled to the wire. So use the most efficient deployment machine but it doesn't effect your day to day job. There appears in general to be too much in computing about the next whiz bang feature from marketing rather than developing from the building blocks we already have.
Sure this sort of thing is "interesting", but what is the actual benefit of writing applications in HLL that are then compiled down to this instruction set or that ? If it runs faster and is more reliable then fair enough but most of this is redundant as in reality a slower processor that has had more development time in its compiler will probably function better than a faster processor with a poor compiler.
This obsession with the quirky and the new is indicative of marketing and the hacking culture of computing as it now stands, M$ are probably the worst proponents of this approach but no other really make a stand against it.
This isn't "Stuff that matters" its "irrelevant stuff to pass sometime"
When was the last time anyone read an article _anywhere_ that talks about building on the current technology base rather than re-inventing the wheel. Linux has succeeded by building on the past. M$ have succeeded by continually re-inventing it. This is yet another example of the desire for "new or different" over getting hands dirty and improving what is there
Typical of the British establishment and their approach to science in general and computing in paticular. Babbage couldn't get funding for something that was decades ahead of his time. Come WWII, Alan Turing and Colossus the same is repeated again, the bloke who built Colossus was sent back to his day job and ordered not to do or say anything about what he'd built. Turing was persecuted for being gay. Transputers, ahead of their time, and failed to be funded by the goverment.
The tale of Babbage is a sad one, and even sadder is the abject failure of the British goverment to ever invest in high technology leading to the best ideas from Britain being developed abroad.
While the US does have the 1st amendment there is much to say for the claim that there is less free speech in the US than in many other countries.
US TV is phemonmenally bland, there is also a marked lack of decent media to really question goverment and business. What has been built up is a system where it is okay for someone to stand up on national TV and say "Evolution is rubbish" but someone who stands up and says "God doesn't exist" is liable to get lynched.
The US has one of the most terrible self-censorship mechanisms in place on planet earth. Examples of this are demonstrated above. Most people in the US have no clue about the laws of other countries, and don't attempt to find out. You can't "easily" go to prison for saying anything about Jews. For godsake if you knew anything about French politics you'd know they have a real problem with racism with the Front Nationale who polled 15% of the vote a few years ago.
Now as to the idea that the US would scream bloody murder if the same laws are applied... take scientific bigotry there are States in the US (esp Kansas) where Evolution isn't accepted. No one in Europe would have a _chance_ of getting that even close to being approved, they'd be laughed at so hard and then locked in the nut house.
The self-censorship applied by the US media and US citizens is quite stunning, opinions voiced about "Global Terrorism" from the country that supported Pinochet, the IRA, Contra rebels etc etc. The country of the McCarthy Witch Hunt. The country of DMCA.
In other countries people fight for freedom, the US clings to the 1st ammendment as if it solves the need to fight.
In the UK if a policeman pulls me over I do not have to be carrying my driving license, or any other identification, I do not have to give my identity. Sure he can then take me into custody on suspicion... but it is not a crime to not say who you are. Do you have the same freedom ?
In France if a company wishes to close down they must first discuss it with their employees, do you have such power over your life ?
In the Netherlands you can smoke cannabis for your own personal enjoyment, do you have such Freedom.
The last 3 prime ministers in the UK have been a middle class lad turned new Labour (Tony Blair), the son of a bloke who worked in a circus and who was an accountant and very working class who led the conservative party (John Major) and the daughter of a grocer who got a degree in Chemistry and led the Conservative party in 3 successive election victories. Working class, middle class, upper class, man or woman and no-one cares about religon... all have led the UK. Do you have such equality.
Freedom is education.
.END for people who don't exist
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.biz Open For Biz
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· Score: 3, Funny
Yes thats right, aiming at the secret services and terrorist organisations around the world, the TLD for them its...
.end
Yes the new "Emperors new Domain" domain has all of the advantages of traditional domain names and so much less.
No DNS... yes thats right register your.end and noone will be able to find the site. This provides the secrecy required by todays spy and terrorist rings.
No connection, yes this is the TLD for those organisations that don't connect to the internet. Got a closed loop controlling your nuclear deterent ? No worries now you can hang out with those cool (but sadly unemployed).com guys with you head held high with your.end address, safe in the knowledge that your so cool because they can't find it.
"I love the fact that I can't be found" - Mr Bin Ladle
"Not interested, we like our systems easy to hack" - Mr Cyril Ian Arthur
"My business was a total flop, it really is impossibly to find" - Mr Peter Orn head of sex.end
Well the Amazon Rain Forest had a lot of trees, Amazon.com sell a lot of books which means there are now less trees in the Amazon Rain Forest so I guess what they are saying is
"We transfer the Rain Forests to your bookshelf - Amazon because bio-diversity should be read and not seen"
PersonalJava is old hat and is a variant of the old 1.1 version of the language. The new J2ME platform has various profiles aimed at amoung other things PDAs and Mobiles, which is where the market will be at.
From a Java perspective this isn't very interesting and isn't very cool. Hopefully they will be able to upgrade the libraries to support J2ME when the PDA profile is released. Then it will be an interesting device.
I mean some of the Katz stuff has been strange but this is just bizarre stuff.
Anti-Globalism is only these organised people in Seattle and Milan, or the "Social Elite" WTF does that mean ?
Globalism is the driving of companies cultures and values down the throats of people. It is the logging in Canada which is allowed under NAFTA if not under previous Canadian Law. It is the proliferation of McDonalds, the illegal practices of Microsoft and the abject failure of the US goverment to do anything about either. It is the US complaining that Europe helps 3rd world nations by taxing their imports less than those of Dole.
And above all it is this....
It is the worlds largest economy being the world's largest polluter, with drawing from the GLOBAL organisation that was dealing with pollution. It is the US vetoing the concept of an internation court. It is the banning of the anti-chemical and biological weapons treaty by the US.
Quite simply Globalism as it now stands is the US trying to enforce its opinion as "globalism" and refusing to count the cost of its policies.
Re:Its not just the US, its lots of others too..
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Globalization
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· Score: 2
I'm not saying JUST Pakistan, I'm saying lots of stakeholders looking for a way to get peace. Rather than the west dictating what is meant by peace, "success" etc etc.
Sure Pakistan want a regime that suits them, so do China, so do the US, so do Saudia Arabia etc etc. So why not take a novel approach and have them involved in supporting the process, along with the Afghan people. Have the UN run Afghanistan for 5, 10, 15 years or whatever until it is a stable country, and I mean _really_ run it. Not just have "peace keepers" or whatever. Send in beaurocrats (know any IRS men to send:), send in sports coaches, architects, fund Nike to build that poor person exploiting factory there... then enforce human rights.
Basically I'm suggesting this is a large problem, and previous attempts (Rwanda anyone, Somalia ?) have been appaulingly badly handled. Why not try _really_ getting involved, rather than just bombing the crap out of them when it goes wrong.
Re:Timothy McVeigh was a fundamentalist...
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Globalization
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· Score: 2
Errr this is definately semantics here.
Timothy McVeigh viewed federal goverment as "evil" and as a valid target. He viewed everything through a basic prism that appeared to be "The goverment is out to get me". Same with the Branch Davidians etc etc etc.
Do you seriously think that McVeigh "learnt from the outside world" or "approached the issue from other angles" ? The nutcase blew up a building.
Compare and contrast
Bin Laden says "US is evil, the US is a valid target, civilians are valid targets"
McVeigh attacks US civilians, US goverment and declares it a valid target.
Take McVeigh, dress him up like an Afghan tribesman, don't change his words, don't change his actions...
Spot any differences ? The only one I can see is that Bin Laden has denied being involved in the attacks in the US, whereas McVeigh eventually admitted his.
Its not just the US, its lots of others too..
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Globalization
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· Score: 2
The UK doesn't exactly look too good here, 300 years or so of buggering up the country makes the US' 30 years look pretty small cheese in comparison.
The point here is that it is important to do things now with a _clue_ about where it could end up.
Right now is a classic example, the "Northern Alliance" who China regard as supporting terrorism in China. Are a bunch of nutter thugs from whom the Taliban split because the Taliban are religious nutters not just straight nutters. Do we want those people in charge ? No thank you.
How about using a sensible concept in a country like that like "democracy" and "subsidy". Help to build a democratic goverment and build all those cheap Nike factories in Afghanistan. Make sure the oil revenues are evenly distributed rather than just to the rich elite.
In Kuwait the west defended a dictatorial regime with a poor human rights record, especially against immigrants from the 3rd world, and replaced it with... exactly the same regime.
How about replacing a bunch of nutters with a demoncratic goverment.... that _we might not always agree with_. But that has a vested interest in peace.
Option 4) Work _with_ the other countries in the region, have Pakistan involved in determining the make up and format for elections (I know miltary dictator setting up a democracy), have Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, Syria et al involved in this process.
Remember this was a war against _terrorism_ NOT against the Taliban, their crime is harbouring a terrorist... who they OFFERED to handover to a neutral country (ala Libya and the Lockerbie suspects).
Bombing the Red Cross is _not_ the sort of act that will increase stability in the region.
Re:Globalisation for Greed
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Globalization
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· Score: 3, Informative
also from CNN Last paragraph Lots of the Taliban are ex-members of "freedom fighters" including their leader.
It isn't the same as supporting Poland as there you are supporting a country, integral in itself. Here we are talking about various nutters with guns who we happen to like. Lets not kid ourselves that the currently popular "Northern Alliance" are not a bunch of murdering thugs as well.
Fund murderous thugs and eventually you get your reward. Previously they had a common enemy (the USSR), then they had each other, then they had their previous paymasters. Same situation as Iraq.
Timothy McVeigh was a fundamentalist...
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Globalization
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· Score: 5, Insightful
You don't have to be a religious nut harbored by a goverment abroad to be a fundamentalist. In all this hype against Islamic terrorists there appears to have been a careful glossing over of the 2nd worst act of terrorism on US soil.
Why wasn't a war declared on the sort of organisations that McVeigh belonged to, and the sort of anti-goverment far right views that are regularly expressed on right wing talk shows ?
Right now I'd say the smart money is on the anthrax being produced in the US, not in another country. And on the US most wanted terrorists one of them was born in Indiana. If this is truly a war on terrorism then we can look forward to seeing the CIA, MI5, French Secret Service and several others all being labelled as such.
After all what would you call someone who bombed a Red Cross depot ?
Globalisation for Greed
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Globalization
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Iraq - supported against Iran during the Iran v Iraq war, seen as an ally of the west and an aid in getting cheaper oil and controlled oil prices... invade Kuwait (dictatorial regime) and the west turn against Iraq (with "democratically" elected president) because of the risks to oil revenues.
Afghanistan, supported Taliban and Mujahadin against the Soviet Union when they invaded, pushed as "freedom fighters" and "liberators". Soviets leave, so does all of the assistance from the west. Saudi Arabian national accused of leading a group on terrorists in which several (all non-Afghans) commit dreadful attrocities. West decide to invade Afghanistan and attack not the terrorist leader but the previously supported Taliban movement. This of course is unrelated to the desire to have access to the Caspian Sea oil without having to pay Russian pipeline charges.
It might sound a harsh judgement but these are still the facts. Both of these now supposedly "evil" regimes were previously funded and supported by the very people now set against them... the opinions and views of the Taliban and Sadam Hussien have not changed. It is just now politically and economically sensible to take these views.
Having a recession..... start a war, increased employment, increased public spending (defence), flag-waving support to gloss over your lack of leadership.
Microsoft's dictionary does not include the many and varied members of the animal kingdom whose names begin with "Nigger". They apply a proscriptive definition rather than descriptive (they tell you what you should think about a word, not what it means) in several cases.
If I put in words into a Thesaurus, yes I would expect to get words that could be considered offensive, hell have a "parent filter" on the thing if you want but don't start ruling out words you don't like. This is a terrible thing, many words that are offensive in the US might not be in the UK, and vice versa.
An example....
Fanny means "bottom" or "ass" in the US
Fanny means "Vagina" in the UK
Ban this because is _some_ countries it could be offensive, or to certain groups it might be ?
Well in that case I declare that in my version of English the words "Operating", "System", "Windows" and "Traffic light" are deeply offensive. My personal religious cult also are deeply offended by all synonmys of the word "food".
Censoring words is the first step in censoring sentences.
Slashdot Mirror
Might sound a tad tough but it is just pure bigotry. His definition of "pure" and his insistance that his way is right is down-right insulting. For me the whole point of Open Source is that I can do what I want with it, thats why I like the BSD license. Which basically trusts me to be a nice person and put stuff back, but also says "hell if you want to wrap it with summat else fine".
Open Source is about freedom of choice, if I choose to use proprietary stuff then so be it, that is my choice.
Anyone who mutters on about purity and ethos like this has me worried, I don't care how people use the Open Source stuff I've written, hell its nice that they have used it.
Freedom isn't about purity its about flexibility and choice.
STFU = Shut the Fuck Up. Kind of confrontational. isn't it ?
It is not abundantly clear from history that centralised goverment = loss of civil liberties. Germany has always had a distributed system of goverment. The UK has always had a centralised system. The Soviet Union had central and regional goverment in a similar way to the US.
One system of goverment is not always better than another by definition, it is the reaction of people within that system that determines the worth of it. Pure Communism by the book has more liberties than pure capitalism. Odds on Pure Communism happening with humans... zero. If you had studied history of various different countries and political systems then this would be apparent.
By the way "do a bit of whining" is also being agressive.
For godsake this sounds like the most hockum hooey I've heard in a long time. "Independence Day" as a movie to rent. Lets get this straight
30miles outside of Kabul there is a video shop (lets pretend that one is reasonable) which saved its copies of "Independence Day" which it was renting to an audience which in the vast majority of cases doesn't speak english.
Hokum, baloney and rubbish. This sounds about as likely as a lead balloon circumnavigating the globe. I've read some vomit inducing stuff here from Katz but this takes the biscuit. Quite simply unadulterated rubbish. Movies on a commadore, what browser is our Afghan friend using and what player ?
You've been had Katz by one of the most transparent hoaxes I've ever seen.
I have bridges you might want to buy.
It going to revolutionise the way we work, I know its true. Bill said so. I don't need a command line, I need a telly tubby skin. I must have a voice controlled jukebox. And I don't want to interoperate with anyone. Bill is my friend, Bill invents
XP is the greatest invention of this or any time.
Its true I tell you. The wheel is nothing in comparison with XP. Fire is just a footnote to the chapters historians will dedicate to the wonder that is XP and how it changed the face of digital communication.
Oh yes all the voices agree, XP is the best because Bill says so.
All of these gimmicks tend to miss out on the fact that a simple linear system is much better for _people_ than the fancy gimmicks which developers think are cool. Voice interaction is a classic example of something that can be thought of as "cool" until you have an open plan office with 30 people talking at their computers.
3D is another dead end. IBM's Home project found that people would "lose" things in a 3D environment and in fact the visual cues of the 2D desktop were better suited to the task.
At the end of the day the mantra should be KISS. These break that mantra and add very little except cool graphics. It looks nice but doesn't function well. An everyday example of why simple is better are the icons used to denote things like "radiation", "poison" etc etc they don't actually represent the thing themselves but provide a simple shorthand for the thing. This simplification makes them much better at describing and classifying than attempting a "realistic" presentation.
Good examples of 2D simple interfaces are things like Google. Why would 3D make Google better ? It wouldn't.
Pretty != better. More Gimmicks != simpler
KISS
I know exactly why the US system is like it is, and that is exactly the reason that this sort of thing is a problem, this isn't indicative of what is "good" or "bad" but of why somethings can be done in some places but not in others. The US for instance was a natural place for something like the internet as there is more of a culture of autonomous nodes.
Goverments where people were oppressed by distributed goverment : US during slavery, Italy, Germany etc etc etc. Its always possible no matter what the system as long as you convince the majority across the whole country.
The quote is from a US book "To kill a Mockingbird" the US was last successfully invaded IIRC in 1812. The UK in 1066, Iceland god knows when and Spain for about the same period as the US IIRC. The ability of an individual with a gun to stop an army isn't very great. Looks like most of Afghanistan had guns... didn't matter much as they were politically divided.
Social factors are the main governing factor in the success of most projects and operations. The hardware is for large parts of it irrelevant.
The 9210 communicator, runs the Symbian OS, Java and is generally absolutely brilliant. The only issue with it is size, which this phone addresses.
These next generation mobile devices are based around common standards and architectures, SymbianOS , Java & GSM. No Redmond anywhere to be found. Symbian is a solid proper RTOS unlike the PalmOS or WinCE. Consumer devices need to be reliable, robust and pre-emptible.
Err how would that be broken exactly by a move to base3. Guess what you can represent base 2 directly in base 3. In the same way as working in base 10 doesn't break on a base 2 machine. The definition of & etc are within the specification of the language, to take advantage of the base 3 processor you'd need base 3 operators and base 3 syntax for those operators (if x, else y, else). It would not break anything that currently exists.
I'd ask for a refund on that college education if I were you.
The US has the problem that there are many State and Federal agencies that would have to communicate and cooperate. They are about as likely to do this as Bill Gates is to write an SMP patch for the Linux kernel. European countries have a history of central management and of delination and communication between agencies. It is this infrastructure that enables these sorts of projects to be built.
The US is liable to get disparate information portals that provide for specific needs in a variety of ways. The odds however of someone who lives in CA and has a business in NY having a single portal for all of his needs is practically zero. One web company had this idea and failed miserably. The nature of the US goverment makes it hard to imagine this happening. Germany however with its Federal system and different history and social infrastructure is liable to do this.
The main reason for the US not getting there is the social infrastructure that actively encorages States to go their own way and buck the Washington line. This tends not to exist within the European countries as even beauracrats at the local level are considered under the same banner as those at the national level.
An EU wide portal is also a possibility as there is a history of inter-country cooperation on large scale projects (Concorde anyone) and there is that ethos of distributed and deliniated goverment in a manner that does not exist in the US.
Its more a social thing than a technology thing.
To be honest I say "who cares" if I'm running on a base 2, base 3, base 98 or Analogue computer. The vast majority of applications are written in languages that are then compiled to the wire. So use the most efficient deployment machine but it doesn't effect your day to day job. There appears in general to be too much in computing about the next whiz bang feature from marketing rather than developing from the building blocks we already have.
Sure this sort of thing is "interesting", but what is the actual benefit of writing applications in HLL that are then compiled down to this instruction set or that ? If it runs faster and is more reliable then fair enough but most of this is redundant as in reality a slower processor that has had more development time in its compiler will probably function better than a faster processor with a poor compiler.
This obsession with the quirky and the new is indicative of marketing and the hacking culture of computing as it now stands, M$ are probably the worst proponents of this approach but no other really make a stand against it.
This isn't "Stuff that matters" its "irrelevant stuff to pass sometime"
When was the last time anyone read an article _anywhere_ that talks about building on the current technology base rather than re-inventing the wheel. Linux has succeeded by building on the past. M$ have succeeded by continually re-inventing it. This is yet another example of the desire for "new or different" over getting hands dirty and improving what is there
Typical of the British establishment and their approach to science in general and computing in paticular. Babbage couldn't get funding for something that was decades ahead of his time. Come WWII, Alan Turing and Colossus the same is repeated again, the bloke who built Colossus was sent back to his day job and ordered not to do or say anything about what he'd built. Turing was persecuted for being gay. Transputers, ahead of their time, and failed to be funded by the goverment.
The tale of Babbage is a sad one, and even sadder is the abject failure of the British goverment to ever invest in high technology leading to the best ideas from Britain being developed abroad.
Bugger.
While the US does have the 1st amendment there is much to say for the claim that there is less free speech in the US than in many other countries.
US TV is phemonmenally bland, there is also a marked lack of decent media to really question goverment and business. What has been built up is a system where it is okay for someone to stand up on national TV and say "Evolution is rubbish" but someone who stands up and says "God doesn't exist" is liable to get lynched.
The US has one of the most terrible self-censorship mechanisms in place on planet earth. Examples of this are demonstrated above. Most people in the US have no clue about the laws of other countries, and don't attempt to find out. You can't "easily" go to prison for saying anything about Jews. For godsake if you knew anything about French politics you'd know they have a real problem with racism with the Front Nationale who polled 15% of the vote a few years ago.
Now as to the idea that the US would scream bloody murder if the same laws are applied... take scientific bigotry there are States in the US (esp Kansas) where Evolution isn't accepted. No one in Europe would have a _chance_ of getting that even close to being approved, they'd be laughed at so hard and then locked in the nut house.
The self-censorship applied by the US media and US citizens is quite stunning, opinions voiced about "Global Terrorism" from the country that supported Pinochet, the IRA, Contra rebels etc etc. The country of the McCarthy Witch Hunt. The country of DMCA.
In other countries people fight for freedom, the US clings to the 1st ammendment as if it solves the need to fight.
In the UK if a policeman pulls me over I do not have to be carrying my driving license, or any other identification, I do not have to give my identity. Sure he can then take me into custody on suspicion... but it is not a crime to not say who you are. Do you have the same freedom ?
In France if a company wishes to close down they must first discuss it with their employees, do you have such power over your life ?
In the Netherlands you can smoke cannabis for your own personal enjoyment, do you have such Freedom.
The last 3 prime ministers in the UK have been a middle class lad turned new Labour (Tony Blair), the son of a bloke who worked in a circus and who was an accountant and very working class who led the conservative party (John Major) and the daughter of a grocer who got a degree in Chemistry and led the Conservative party in 3 successive election victories. Working class, middle class, upper class, man or woman and no-one cares about religon... all have led the UK. Do you have such equality.
Freedom is education.
Yes thats right, aiming at the secret services and terrorist organisations around the world, the TLD for them its...
.end
Yes the new "Emperors new Domain" domain has all of the advantages of traditional domain names and so much less.
No DNS... yes thats right register your
No connection, yes this is the TLD for those organisations that don't connect to the internet. Got a closed loop controlling your nuclear deterent ? No worries now you can hang out with those cool (but sadly unemployed)
"I love the fact that I can't be found" - Mr Bin Ladle
"Not interested, we like our systems easy to hack" - Mr Cyril Ian Arthur
"My business was a total flop, it really is impossibly to find" - Mr Peter Orn head of sex.end
Well the Amazon Rain Forest had a lot of trees, Amazon.com sell a lot of books which means there are now less trees in the Amazon Rain Forest so I guess what they are saying is
"We transfer the Rain Forests to your bookshelf - Amazon because bio-diversity should be read and not seen"
:)
Transmeta: Code morphing, low power
ARM: low power, very low power, high performance
Transmeta "We can beat Intel"
ARM: "Intel pay us money to use our stuff"
Wonder why ARM are still around and Transmeta are going down ? Not too hard to figure is it.
PersonalJava is old hat and is a variant of the old 1.1 version of the language. The new J2ME platform has various profiles aimed at amoung other things PDAs and Mobiles, which is where the market will be at.
From a Java perspective this isn't very interesting and isn't very cool. Hopefully they will be able to upgrade the libraries to support J2ME when the PDA profile is released. Then it will be an interesting device.
I mean some of the Katz stuff has been strange but this is just bizarre stuff.
Anti-Globalism is only these organised people in Seattle and Milan, or the "Social Elite" WTF does that mean ?
Globalism is the driving of companies cultures and values down the throats of people. It is the logging in Canada which is allowed under NAFTA if not under previous Canadian Law. It is the proliferation of McDonalds, the illegal practices of Microsoft and the abject failure of the US goverment to do anything about either. It is the US complaining that Europe helps 3rd world nations by taxing their imports less than those of Dole.
And above all it is this....
It is the worlds largest economy being the world's largest polluter, with drawing from the GLOBAL organisation that was dealing with pollution. It is the US vetoing the concept of an internation court. It is the banning of the anti-chemical and biological weapons treaty by the US.
Quite simply Globalism as it now stands is the US trying to enforce its opinion as "globalism" and refusing to count the cost of its policies.
I'm not saying JUST Pakistan, I'm saying lots of stakeholders looking for a way to get peace. Rather than the west dictating what is meant by peace, "success" etc etc.
:), send in sports coaches, architects, fund Nike to build that poor person exploiting factory there... then enforce human rights.
Sure Pakistan want a regime that suits them, so do China, so do the US, so do Saudia Arabia etc etc. So why not take a novel approach and have them involved in supporting the process, along with the Afghan people. Have the UN run Afghanistan for 5, 10, 15 years or whatever until it is a stable country, and I mean _really_ run it. Not just have "peace keepers" or whatever. Send in beaurocrats (know any IRS men to send
Basically I'm suggesting this is a large problem, and previous attempts (Rwanda anyone, Somalia ?) have been appaulingly badly handled. Why not try _really_ getting involved, rather than just bombing the crap out of them when it goes wrong.
Errr this is definately semantics here.
Timothy McVeigh viewed federal goverment as "evil" and as a valid target. He viewed everything through a basic prism that appeared to be "The goverment is out to get me". Same with the Branch Davidians etc etc etc.
Do you seriously think that McVeigh "learnt from the outside world" or "approached the issue from other angles" ? The nutcase blew up a building.
Compare and contrast
Bin Laden says "US is evil, the US is a valid target, civilians are valid targets"
McVeigh attacks US civilians, US goverment and declares it a valid target.
Take McVeigh, dress him up like an Afghan tribesman, don't change his words, don't change his actions...
Spot any differences ? The only one I can see is that Bin Laden has denied being involved in the attacks in the US, whereas McVeigh eventually admitted his.
The UK doesn't exactly look too good here, 300 years or so of buggering up the country makes the US' 30 years look pretty small cheese in comparison.
The point here is that it is important to do things now with a _clue_ about where it could end up.
Right now is a classic example, the "Northern Alliance" who China regard as supporting terrorism in China. Are a bunch of nutter thugs from whom the Taliban split because the Taliban are religious nutters not just straight nutters. Do we want those people in charge ? No thank you.
How about using a sensible concept in a country like that like "democracy" and "subsidy". Help to build a democratic goverment and build all those cheap Nike factories in Afghanistan. Make sure the oil revenues are evenly distributed rather than just to the rich elite.
In Kuwait the west defended a dictatorial regime with a poor human rights record, especially against immigrants from the 3rd world, and replaced it with... exactly the same regime.
How about replacing a bunch of nutters with a demoncratic goverment.... that _we might not always agree with_. But that has a vested interest in peace.
Option 4) Work _with_ the other countries in the region, have Pakistan involved in determining the make up and format for elections (I know miltary dictator setting up a democracy), have Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, Syria et al involved in this process.
Remember this was a war against _terrorism_ NOT against the Taliban, their crime is harbouring a terrorist... who they OFFERED to handover to a neutral country (ala Libya and the Lockerbie suspects).
Bombing the Red Cross is _not_ the sort of act that will increase stability in the region.
Errr no it isn't. This is exactly what happend
Last year $43m was sent...
also from CNN Last paragraph Lots of the Taliban are ex-members of "freedom fighters" including their leader.
It isn't the same as supporting Poland as there you are supporting a country, integral in itself. Here we are talking about various nutters with guns who we happen to like. Lets not kid ourselves that the currently popular "Northern Alliance" are not a bunch of murdering thugs as well.
Fund murderous thugs and eventually you get your reward. Previously they had a common enemy (the USSR), then they had each other, then they had their previous paymasters. Same situation as Iraq.
You don't have to be a religious nut harbored by a goverment abroad to be a fundamentalist. In all this hype against Islamic terrorists there appears to have been a careful glossing over of the 2nd worst act of terrorism on US soil.
Why wasn't a war declared on the sort of organisations that McVeigh belonged to, and the sort of anti-goverment far right views that are regularly expressed on right wing talk shows ?
Right now I'd say the smart money is on the anthrax being produced in the US, not in another country. And on the US most wanted terrorists one of them was born in Indiana. If this is truly a war on terrorism then we can look forward to seeing the CIA, MI5, French Secret Service and several others all being labelled as such.
After all what would you call someone who bombed a Red Cross depot ?
Iraq - supported against Iran during the Iran v Iraq war, seen as an ally of the west and an aid in getting cheaper oil and controlled oil prices... invade Kuwait (dictatorial regime) and the west turn against Iraq (with "democratically" elected president) because of the risks to oil revenues.
Afghanistan, supported Taliban and Mujahadin against the Soviet Union when they invaded, pushed as "freedom fighters" and "liberators". Soviets leave, so does all of the assistance from the west. Saudi Arabian national accused of leading a group on terrorists in which several (all non-Afghans) commit dreadful attrocities. West decide to invade Afghanistan and attack not the terrorist leader but the previously supported Taliban movement. This of course is unrelated to the desire to have access to the Caspian Sea oil without having to pay Russian pipeline charges.
It might sound a harsh judgement but these are still the facts. Both of these now supposedly "evil" regimes were previously funded and supported by the very people now set against them... the opinions and views of the Taliban and Sadam Hussien have not changed. It is just now politically and economically sensible to take these views.
Having a recession..... start a war, increased employment, increased public spending (defence), flag-waving support to gloss over your lack of leadership.
Lots of top developments have been made by these sorts of projects while large funded defence projects fail miserably.
Look at how long the Russian's could keep people in space. And of course the ultimate
US: We spent millions of dollars developing this pen which will work in Space or underwater, what did you do
USSR: We used pencils and crayons.
Millions of dollars on one side, 5 cents on the other.
Defence is stupidity with a budget.
Microsoft's dictionary does not include the many and varied members of the animal kingdom whose names begin with "Nigger". They apply a proscriptive definition rather than descriptive (they tell you what you should think about a word, not what it means) in several cases.
If I put in words into a Thesaurus, yes I would expect to get words that could be considered offensive, hell have a "parent filter" on the thing if you want but don't start ruling out words you don't like. This is a terrible thing, many words that are offensive in the US might not be in the UK, and vice versa.
An example....
Fanny means "bottom" or "ass" in the US
Fanny means "Vagina" in the UK
Ban this because is _some_ countries it could be offensive, or to certain groups it might be ?
Well in that case I declare that in my version of English the words "Operating", "System", "Windows" and "Traffic light" are deeply offensive. My personal religious cult also are deeply offended by all synonmys of the word "food".
Censoring words is the first step in censoring sentences.