... new music just sucks. What are people supposed to buy? Jessica Simpson? Ashley Simpson? Madonna's latest reinvention of herself?
The music industry just cannot find new and interesting and exciting music like they used to. Any musician they produce is so obviously controlled by marketers that they are just lame.
Even traditionally non-conformist ganres like punk and heavy metal have become lame creations of marketing executives. Example -- Pink.
So there is another thing the music industry could blame for their troubles -- the fact that their product sucks.
In fact modern music is so bad i am developing a growing appreciation for classical music.
I dont think it has as much to do with the way we learn. It is probably due to the fact that we just train our children to be obedient and follow adult's directions without any doubt or second guessing.
you know what... i know you are being sarcastic, but I bet he is very distraught about it. I mean the whole Silent bob and jay strike back movie was about Kevin Smith being pissed about people flaming his movies online. He could not handle it so made a whole movie about it.
So yeah, I would not be surprised if he is reading my comment and steaming about now. And thinking about getting his revenge by making a $50 million movie making me look bad.
It is called capitalism. Teenagers are the biggest consumers of movies and teenagers like to see people get their heads blown off. Thats pretty much it.
Well first of all teenagers are the most desirable demographic for the us theatres. Second of all most theatres are architectually designed to allow everyone inside and let them roam (so that they buy a lot of popcorn, drinks, etc). If they have to screen an NC-17 movie they will have to separate off a specific theatre, and check ids there, which will screw up their whole business model, and cost them more money and prevent them from getting the popcorn revenues (which is where their profits come from).
If they architecturally design their theatre to have an "over 18" area, then the place will be automatically labeled a porn theatre and nobody will want to bring a date, or their kids there.
Also, america is full of conservative groups that believe every other movie to be directed by satan in order to corrupt our youth. These groups have a lot of power in local politics in most medioum to small cities, so they can easily screw over any theatre that they deem to be pornographic. And for them NC-17 means porn... for them even many R movies are porn. And they are not very smart so they are completely imune to any artistic effect a movie may have.
So the effect is that there onle a few theatres in the biggest cities of america which show nc-17 movies... which are mostly foreign art films.
These fucking sickos want to expose young impressionable children to Kevin Smith. I was like 20 when i first saw chasing amy and i still have nightmares. Dont get me started on that bullshit filled 'religious' movie dogma. Specifically made so the biggest idiots on the planet would think that it is "sooo deep man" And really dont get me started on "so and so strike back" -- the movie where Kevin Smith spends millions of dollars and millions of hours of peoples time to complain about why nobody likes his other movies.
Oh yeah and there is the bennifer debacle, where Kevin Smith created the most overhyped actors in the history of civilization... worked 24/7 to feed the hype machine, then he made 2 movies at the same time starring both of them in order to cash in on the hype... and then when the whole world ran away from his movies in revulsion... he pretended to be an innocent victim of the media.
Kevin Smith did one good thing he made clerks. It wasnt a brilliant movie but it was a pretty honest one, and it was about teenagers who were pretty much invisible to popular culture otherwise. So I give him props for that.
But after that he became the worst most disgusting self promoting asshole. He would put anything on screen if he thought it would get people to talk about him (lesbians, catholicism, mark hammil, more lesbians) and would use any way to get his fat ass on TV (this mostly included humiliating himself on jay leno). The only amuzing thing about him is whatching everything blow up in his face. And also reading his forum, the one he specificaly made for his groupies where he actually complains that the forum members do not kiss his ass enough.
I mean this guy is so much into self promotion that the only person worse than him in that regard is Steve Jobs. But at least Jobs has the good sence not to leave his movie company to the proffessionals, and not insert himself into each movie.
I remember reading about some inventor that started a company that was about to make a huge breakthrough in energy. Apparently they found a way to bring hydrogen to a lower energy level. The company had sufficient financing and was about to release their products to the public in a mere couple of months.... that was five years ago.
From then on blacklighgt and their miracle have been in the scientific press sporadicaly always releasing some similar claims.
I will only believe them when they shopw me a box that makes electricity out of water.
I usually like the independent, but it is unfortunate that in this occasion they lost their better judgement and got swept up in the whole ridiculous Jobs worhip fest.
Just in order to preserve history I must repeat some things for the thousandth time:
Apple did not invent the windowing system Apple did not invent the mouse (the article was quite misleading in saying apple "introduced" those things giving the suggestion that they invented them, which is not true. Of course apple may take some credit for popularizing them, but then again Microsoft did a much better job at popularizing the mouse and the windowing environment)
Jobs was not a visionary... It is really nice that he gave an interview in 96 sayying that the internet was going to be huge, but then again by '96 every single college kid had an internet connection, and would have said the same thing. Even gates had amended his "road ahead" book to include a chapter about the internet by that time.
And the biggest reason why Jobs is not a visionary is that Apple had the opportunity to win the PC market... they could easily have been Microsoft+Dell+HP(personal computing) all rolled into one, but Jobs f***ed it all up. Sorry he is no visionary.
Jobs is just a guy that has a decent eye for design (according to many people) who also quite fortuitously happened to be rich. As a result he runs a company that pays a lot of attention to design (which is rare in the US, for some reason). This is all very nice, but do not expect the next new thing in technology to come from him.
Makes me think fondly of Bill Gates. I mean sure his practices have caused a lot of grief... but he has some good qualities... like, for example, he is not Steve Jobs.
"republicans (which, as a libertarian, are closer to your beliefs)"
Is that so? Now I am not a libertarian, but if I were, I would not think that the republicans were closer to my beliefs. Since the republicans took control of Congress and the presidency, we have had the largest government ever, and the largest government spending ever (even if you adjust for inflation). Clinton and Gore were planning to pay off the national debt, Bush is planning to double it.
Believe it or not, if you limit yourself to the two party system, Democrats turn out to be the party of smaller government. Even though thety love to spend on social programs, these social programs are downright cheap compared to the wars Bush gets into.
And considering that Democrats are more willing to keep the government out of your personal life, it is quite clear that as crazy as this sounds, the democrats are closer to the libertarian beliefs than the current republican leadership. But when you think about it, it does not sound crazy at all -- the current republicans, or the so called neo-cons, have been for the enlargment and empowerment of government all along.
The thing is, if you decide to ban encrypted traffic, you may as well say goodbye to internet commerce. All on-line purchases are done trough secure connections. I don't think any western country is going to ban encrypted traffic anytime soon. Online sellers are well established and they won't let it happen.
"That does not make sense. We are talking about a cash prize of 1 million dollars (last years). What does winning one mil do for a defense contractor?"
nobody really cares about the 1 million... they care about the contracts that will start flowing after a succesful vehicle has been made, and the army orders 50 000 autonomous trucks. It is obvious that the winner will be the one that is favoured to get the contract.
During last years challenge all contestants were complaining that the thing was rigged in order to get the red team to win. I.e. there were last minute rule changes for which the red team was prepared for, but nobody else was, and some contestants said they had an operational system ready yet they were not allowed to compete.
I am not at all surprised of this, since the red team is sponsored by the major military contractors and we all know how they basicaly control military procurement.
But I was wondering if similar shenanigans were happening this time around. Any of the competitors care to comment?
"Number-wise, the main conflict in Iraq is the foreign-led terrorists vs. Iraqis, with Coalition casualties coming up second."
HAHAHAHA dream on.
I do not know what the exact numbers are because the US military will not release the number of Iraqis they shoot. But the theory that the main battle in iraq is native iraqis (on the coalition side) v foreign led terrorists is a complete fantasy. Anybody that knows anything about guerilla warfare knows that any guerilla force needs support from the local population to exist and have any kind of success. That is true even more in a country like iraq where there is no place where guerillas can hide except amiong the population. And if the population is against the guerillas that means there is NOWHERE the guerillas can hide. Whenever they go somebody will always betray them to the americans.
Well guess what the guerillas are hiding quite well and they are generally evading the americans, which means they enjoy widespread support among the population, at least in the places where they operate.
That is true, but a Ferrari is truly unique... for example you cannot find anything like a Ferrari engine anywhere other than on a Ferrari. An Allienware comp is a bunch of available, if expensive, parts assembled in a standard manner.
Well, you have discovered the unholy alliance between Microsoft and the computer hardware vendors.
On one hand the major comp hardware vendors ship only Windows preinstalled with their retail computers (with some small "guaranteed to be failures" exceptions, such as linspire), and do not ship OSless computers for significant savings. On the other hand Microsoft ensures that their software is so bloated that people will require a new computer every couple of years.
This is, by the way, why the antitrust case against Microsoft fizzled out. In the begining, the big vendors were applying political pressure agains Microsoft, becaus ethey were affraid they were getting too powerful. But then their sales fizzled, so they quickly went on Microsoft's side and started begging them to release some new bloated software.
"there was no monopoly; barbers and other people..."
Yeah and numerous people were killed in their dubious attempts at medicine. BTW medicine is not a monopoly... anybody can join if you (i) finish medschool (ii) pass an exam. If you are not smart enough to do these... there is no need to involve antitrust law in this.
Most of the things you said about the law are not exactly correct, contract law is much more complicated than that. Specifically, most take it or leave it licences are usually valid, the courts will invalidate only the most exessive examples.
But all of that being said I think open source software has a better argument for avoiding liability than closed sourced software, not only because it is free, but also because it is open. With open source you can fairly say "buyer (or user) beware" because the byuer has the source and if he is worried the software will break, he has the ability to check the source change thing he does not like, or pay for a consultant to do a validation.
With closed sources, it is quite unfair to say "buyer beware"... a buyer has no control of or knowledge about the code whatsoever.
First of all, let me dispell the "lack of engineers myth". There is no lack of engineers. If there were, engineers would be getting paid as much as, say doctors, or lawyers. Obviously, they aren't. What there is is a bunch of big companies that keep selling this "lack of engineers" idea in order to keep getting more people in the field so that they can keep salaries low and keep their existing emplooyees in fear.
As far as the sob story that guy wrote... well its nothing special. The same thing happens millions of times every school year. Some high school kid gets strait A's in high school and thinks he is hot shit. He gets into a good university where everybody is at least as smart as he is. Since he is aboput average in intelligence he rightfully gets average grades. But he assumes that he is still hot shit and expects straight As. He sees his average grades and panics and throws a little tantrum on the Internet.
I mean geezus, engineering is a hard major even if you are at an average school. He says that he is at a great school. Well what the hell does he expect. I mean he even takes a genius level clas and then complains about how hard it is. And I love the way he basicaly asks for grade inflation. And I love even more the way he acts as if engineering has suffered a loss because he switched to a liberal arts major. I have news to you buddy, your school has specifically chosen the begining curriculum so people like you will switch.
But please do not listen to him. Engineering is the only undergraduate major in America which can produce an able proffessional (with the exception of some computer science programs). For pretty much everything else -- science, law, medicine, business you need a graduate degree. Lets keep it like this.
If we listen to complaining like this, we will get easier classes, grade inflation, good teachers (which are not actually good engineers) and eventually the major will become as useful as all the other undergraduate majors... i.e. it will quickly turn out that you will need a graduate degree to do anything interesting after graduation. So you will have to spend another 4 years in school because you wanted undergrad life to be as easy as it was for your friends in social sciences.
yeah but the last Soyuz fatality was in 1971. Since then they have designed new versions and the ship has been the workhorse of the russian space program with no fatalities. I think that is a pretty good safety record.
But I agree labeling NASA as astronaut killers is irresponsible. Spaceflight is just dangerous.
"A Nuclear Iran will be a nightmare for Israel, Europe, and the US in that order. Trading for support to maintain the ISS is to high of a price."
And what about a nuclear Israel? Isnt that a nightmare for Iran and pretty much everybody else since Israel are not even a party to any of the treaties or negotiations meant to limit nuclear dangers? And how do you convince Iran to stop nuclear development when they have Israel right next to them with their nuclear weapons?
"Russia and China are doing this because they know that Iran will cause more trouble for the West.... "
Russia and China have absolutely no interest in causing trouble for the west. Russia has been trying to join the EU forever, while China's economy essentially relies on high consumer spending from the west. So does Russias. So neither of these countries is hoping for anything that may weaken consumer demand in the west.
The reason both Russia and China are helping Iran is because of the USs ever increasing aggressiveness in trying to assert control over the whole world. So while it is doubtfull they really want to hurt the US they do want to stop the US from asserting any control in or around their spheres of interst.
The attack on Iraq badicaly meant the US has decided to take over the gulf's oil resources. They already have control of saudi arabia, they attacked iraq which had the next highest ammount of oil... and the next highest is... Iran. Add to that that the US currently has troops in half a dozen of countries around central asia and the Caucases, you can see how russia and china feel that they are being slowly and surely surrounded by American troops.
Well Russia and China just do not want another US puppet government in Iran. I am sure they are not crazy about the Ayatollahs but at least they are quite confident that the Ayatollahs are not and will never be US puppets.
As far as nuclear dangers, the Bush government could have done several things that would have prevented a nuclear Iran. The first and most obvious thing was to get the nuclear test ban treaty which Clinton signed approved by the republican congress. Obviously they did not do that, and in fact did everything possible to encourage Congress to kill the treaty. The other thing was to stop all aid for Israel, until they admit that they have a nuclear arsenal and join the treaties which guarantee that countries with nuclear weapons will never sue them against countries that do not have nuclear weapons. Now this would derive Iran from any politically acceptable reason for developing nuclear weapons. Of we know that this will never happen. And finally Bush can just stop with their attempts to take over the world. Russia and China do not like the Ayatollahs and would not be helping them if there wasnt the american incursion in what they consider their spheres of interest.
Sun are still hoping that the network computer becomes popular before they have to file for bankruptcy.
To tell the truth, the day of the network computer may finally be near. Now at last we have net based email applications which are more or less as good as the PC based ones. And some net based games are decent as well although they are not even close in presentation to PC based games. But for games cleverness and network features may compensate for bad presentation.
But we still need a net based text editor (aka Word) in order to make any network computer feasable.
Then again, even if the network computer becomes popular, will Sun be able to reap the benefits? In order for the concept to work it has to be cheap and sun is not good at building anything cheap. And anything Sun can do, Linux and BSD can do for cheaper.
Slashdot Mirror
... new music just sucks. What are people supposed to buy? Jessica Simpson? Ashley Simpson? Madonna's latest reinvention of herself?
The music industry just cannot find new and interesting and exciting music like they used to. Any musician they produce is so obviously controlled by marketers that they are just lame.
Even traditionally non-conformist ganres like punk and heavy metal have become lame creations of marketing executives. Example -- Pink.
So there is another thing the music industry could blame for their troubles -- the fact that their product sucks.
In fact modern music is so bad i am developing a growing appreciation for classical music.
I dont think it has as much to do with the way we learn. It is probably due to the fact that we just train our children to be obedient and follow adult's directions without any doubt or second guessing.
you know what... i know you are being sarcastic, but I bet he is very distraught about it. I mean the whole Silent bob and jay strike back movie was about Kevin Smith being pissed about people flaming his movies online. He could not handle it so made a whole movie about it.
So yeah, I would not be surprised if he is reading my comment and steaming about now. And thinking about getting his revenge by making a $50 million movie making me look bad.
so i suppose you hope that if you keep repeating this everyone will think it is true.
It is called capitalism. Teenagers are the biggest consumers of movies and teenagers like to see people get their heads blown off. Thats pretty much it.
Well first of all teenagers are the most desirable demographic for the us theatres. Second of all most theatres are architectually designed to allow everyone inside and let them roam (so that they buy a lot of popcorn, drinks, etc). If they have to screen an NC-17 movie they will have to separate off a specific theatre, and check ids there, which will screw up their whole business model, and cost them more money and prevent them from getting the popcorn revenues (which is where their profits come from).
... for them even many R movies are porn. And they are not very smart so they are completely imune to any artistic effect a movie may have.
... which are mostly foreign art films.
If they architecturally design their theatre to have an "over 18" area, then the place will be automatically labeled a porn theatre and nobody will want to bring a date, or their kids there.
Also, america is full of conservative groups that believe every other movie to be directed by satan in order to corrupt our youth. These groups have a lot of power in local politics in most medioum to small cities, so they can easily screw over any theatre that they deem to be pornographic. And for them NC-17 means porn
So the effect is that there onle a few theatres in the biggest cities of america which show nc-17 movies
These fucking sickos want to expose young impressionable children to Kevin Smith. I was like 20 when i first saw chasing amy and i still have nightmares. Dont get me started on that bullshit filled 'religious' movie dogma. Specifically made so the biggest idiots on the planet would think that it is "sooo deep man" And really dont get me started on "so and so strike back" -- the movie where Kevin Smith spends millions of dollars and millions of hours of peoples time to complain about why nobody likes his other movies.
... worked 24/7 to feed the hype machine, then he made 2 movies at the same time starring both of them in order to cash in on the hype ... and then when the whole world ran away from his movies in revulsion ... he pretended to be an innocent victim of the media.
Oh yeah and there is the bennifer debacle, where Kevin Smith created the most overhyped actors in the history of civilization
Kevin Smith did one good thing he made clerks. It wasnt a brilliant movie but it was a pretty honest one, and it was about teenagers who were pretty much invisible to popular culture otherwise. So I give him props for that.
But after that he became the worst most disgusting self promoting asshole. He would put anything on screen if he thought it would get people to talk about him (lesbians, catholicism, mark hammil, more lesbians) and would use any way to get his fat ass on TV (this mostly included humiliating himself on jay leno). The only amuzing thing about him is whatching everything blow up in his face. And also reading his forum, the one he specificaly made for his groupies where he actually complains that the forum members do not kiss his ass enough.
I mean this guy is so much into self promotion that the only person worse than him in that regard is Steve Jobs. But at least Jobs has the good sence not to leave his movie company to the proffessionals, and not insert himself into each movie.
before someone else does it.
I remember reading about some inventor that started a company that was about to make a huge breakthrough in energy. Apparently they found a way to bring hydrogen to a lower energy level. The company had sufficient financing and was about to release their products to the public in a mere couple of months.... that was five years ago.
From then on blacklighgt and their miracle have been in the scientific press sporadicaly always releasing some similar claims.
I will only believe them when they shopw me a box that makes electricity out of water.
I usually like the independent, but it is unfortunate that in this occasion they lost their better judgement and got swept up in the whole ridiculous Jobs worhip fest.
... It is really nice that he gave an interview in 96 sayying that the internet was going to be huge, but then again by '96 every single college kid had an internet connection, and would have said the same thing. Even gates had amended his "road ahead" book to include a chapter about the internet by that time.
... they could easily have been Microsoft+Dell+HP(personal computing) all rolled into one, but Jobs f***ed it all up. Sorry he is no visionary.
Just in order to preserve history I must repeat some things for the thousandth time:
Apple did not invent the windowing system
Apple did not invent the mouse
(the article was quite misleading in saying apple "introduced" those things giving the suggestion that they invented them, which is not true. Of course apple may take some credit for popularizing them, but then again Microsoft did a much better job at popularizing the mouse and the windowing environment)
Jobs was not a visionary
And the biggest reason why Jobs is not a visionary is that Apple had the opportunity to win the PC market
Jobs is just a guy that has a decent eye for design (according to many people) who also quite fortuitously happened to be rich. As a result he runs a company that pays a lot of attention to design (which is rare in the US, for some reason). This is all very nice, but do not expect the next new thing in technology to come from him.
Makes me think fondly of Bill Gates. I mean sure his practices have caused a lot of grief ... but he has some good qualities ... like, for example, he is not Steve Jobs.
"republicans (which, as a libertarian, are closer to your beliefs)"
Is that so? Now I am not a libertarian, but if I were, I would not think that the republicans were closer to my beliefs. Since the republicans took control of Congress and the presidency, we have had the largest government ever, and the largest government spending ever (even if you adjust for inflation). Clinton and Gore were planning to pay off the national debt, Bush is planning to double it.
Believe it or not, if you limit yourself to the two party system, Democrats turn out to be the party of smaller government. Even though thety love to spend on social programs, these social programs are downright cheap compared to the wars Bush gets into.
And considering that Democrats are more willing to keep the government out of your personal life, it is quite clear that as crazy as this sounds, the democrats are closer to the libertarian beliefs than the current republican leadership. But when you think about it, it does not sound crazy at all -- the current republicans, or the so called neo-cons, have been for the enlargment and empowerment of government all along.
The thing is, if you decide to ban encrypted traffic, you may as well say goodbye to internet commerce. All on-line purchases are done trough secure connections. I don't think any western country is going to ban encrypted traffic anytime soon. Online sellers are well established and they won't let it happen.
"That does not make sense. We are talking about a cash prize of 1 million dollars (last years). What does winning one mil do for a defense contractor?"
... they care about the contracts that will start flowing after a succesful vehicle has been made, and the army orders 50 000 autonomous trucks. It is obvious that the winner will be the one that is favoured to get the contract.
nobody really cares about the 1 million
During last years challenge all contestants were complaining that the thing was rigged in order to get the red team to win. I.e. there were last minute rule changes for which the red team was prepared for, but nobody else was, and some contestants said they had an operational system ready yet they were not allowed to compete.
I am not at all surprised of this, since the red team is sponsored by the major military contractors and we all know how they basicaly control military procurement.
But I was wondering if similar shenanigans were happening this time around. Any of the competitors care to comment?
"Number-wise, the main conflict in Iraq is the foreign-led terrorists vs. Iraqis, with Coalition casualties coming up second."
HAHAHAHA dream on.
I do not know what the exact numbers are because the US military will not release the number of Iraqis they shoot. But the theory that the main battle in iraq is native iraqis (on the coalition side) v foreign led terrorists is a complete fantasy. Anybody that knows anything about guerilla warfare knows that any guerilla force needs support from the local population to exist and have any kind of success. That is true even more in a country like iraq where there is no place where guerillas can hide except amiong the population. And if the population is against the guerillas that means there is NOWHERE the guerillas can hide. Whenever they go somebody will always betray them to the americans.
Well guess what the guerillas are hiding quite well and they are generally evading the americans, which means they enjoy widespread support among the population, at least in the places where they operate.
That is true, but a Ferrari is truly unique ... for example you cannot find anything like a Ferrari engine anywhere other than on a Ferrari. An Allienware comp is a bunch of available, if expensive, parts assembled in a standard manner.
Well, you have discovered the unholy alliance between Microsoft and the computer hardware vendors.
On one hand the major comp hardware vendors ship only Windows preinstalled with their retail computers (with some small "guaranteed to be failures" exceptions, such as linspire), and do not ship OSless computers for significant savings. On the other hand Microsoft ensures that their software is so bloated that people will require a new computer every couple of years.
This is, by the way, why the antitrust case against Microsoft fizzled out. In the begining, the big vendors were applying political pressure agains Microsoft, becaus ethey were affraid they were getting too powerful. But then their sales fizzled, so they quickly went on Microsoft's side and started begging them to release some new bloated software.
See this: http://www.mises.org/etexts/mises/anticap.asp Wow, a pro-capitalist book that was actually panned by the economist. It must be REALLY bad.
"there was no monopoly; barbers and other people ..."
Yeah and numerous people were killed in their dubious attempts at medicine. BTW medicine is not a monopoly ... anybody can join if you (i) finish medschool (ii) pass an exam. If you are not smart enough to do these ... there is no need to involve antitrust law in this.
Most of the things you said about the law are not exactly correct, contract law is much more complicated than that. Specifically, most take it or leave it licences are usually valid, the courts will invalidate only the most exessive examples.
... a buyer has no control of or knowledge about the code whatsoever.
But all of that being said I think open source software has a better argument for avoiding liability than closed sourced software, not only because it is free, but also because it is open. With open source you can fairly say "buyer (or user) beware" because the byuer has the source and if he is worried the software will break, he has the ability to check the source change thing he does not like, or pay for a consultant to do a validation.
With closed sources, it is quite unfair to say "buyer beware"
First of all, let me dispell the "lack of engineers myth". There is no lack of engineers. If there were, engineers would be getting paid as much as, say doctors, or lawyers. Obviously, they aren't. What there is is a bunch of big companies that keep selling this "lack of engineers" idea in order to keep getting more people in the field so that they can keep salaries low and keep their existing emplooyees in fear.
... well its nothing special. The same thing happens millions of times every school year. Some high school kid gets strait A's in high school and thinks he is hot shit. He gets into a good university where everybody is at least as smart as he is. Since he is aboput average in intelligence he rightfully gets average grades. But he assumes that he is still hot shit and expects straight As. He sees his average grades and panics and throws a little tantrum on the Internet.
As far as the sob story that guy wrote
I mean geezus, engineering is a hard major even if you are at an average school. He says that he is at a great school. Well what the hell does he expect. I mean he even takes a genius level clas and then complains about how hard it is. And I love the way he basicaly asks for grade inflation. And I love even more the way he acts as if engineering has suffered a loss because he switched to a liberal arts major. I have news to you buddy, your school has specifically chosen the begining curriculum so people like you will switch.
But please do not listen to him. Engineering is the only undergraduate major in America which can produce an able proffessional (with the exception of some computer science programs). For pretty much everything else -- science, law, medicine, business you need a graduate degree. Lets keep it like this.
If we listen to complaining like this, we will get easier classes, grade inflation, good teachers (which are not actually good engineers) and eventually the major will become as useful as all the other undergraduate majors... i.e. it will quickly turn out that you will need a graduate degree to do anything interesting after graduation. So you will have to spend another 4 years in school because you wanted undergrad life to be as easy as it was for your friends in social sciences.
yeah but the last Soyuz fatality was in 1971. Since then they have designed new versions and the ship has been the workhorse of the russian space program with no fatalities. I think that is a pretty good safety record.
But I agree labeling NASA as astronaut killers is irresponsible. Spaceflight is just dangerous.
"A Nuclear Iran will be a nightmare for Israel, Europe, and the US in that order. Trading for support to maintain the ISS is to high of a price."
.... "
... and the next highest is ... Iran. Add to that that the US currently has troops in half a dozen of countries around central asia and the Caucases, you can see how russia and china feel that they are being slowly and surely surrounded by American troops.
And what about a nuclear Israel? Isnt that a nightmare for Iran and pretty much everybody else since Israel are not even a party to any of the treaties or negotiations meant to limit nuclear dangers? And how do you convince Iran to stop nuclear development when they have Israel right next to them with their nuclear weapons?
"Russia and China are doing this because they know that Iran will cause more trouble for the West
Russia and China have absolutely no interest in causing trouble for the west. Russia has been trying to join the EU forever, while China's economy essentially relies on high consumer spending from the west. So does Russias. So neither of these countries is hoping for anything that may weaken consumer demand in the west.
The reason both Russia and China are helping Iran is because of the USs ever increasing aggressiveness in trying to assert control over the whole world. So while it is doubtfull they really want to hurt the US they do want to stop the US from asserting any control in or around their spheres of interst.
The attack on Iraq badicaly meant the US has decided to take over the gulf's oil resources. They already have control of saudi arabia, they attacked iraq which had the next highest ammount of oil
Well Russia and China just do not want another US puppet government in Iran. I am sure they are not crazy about the Ayatollahs but at least they are quite confident that the Ayatollahs are not and will never be US puppets.
As far as nuclear dangers, the Bush government could have done several things that would have prevented a nuclear Iran. The first and most obvious thing was to get the nuclear test ban treaty which Clinton signed approved by the republican congress. Obviously they did not do that, and in fact did everything possible to encourage Congress to kill the treaty. The other thing was to stop all aid for Israel, until they admit that they have a nuclear arsenal and join the treaties which guarantee that countries with nuclear weapons will never sue them against countries that do not have nuclear weapons. Now this would derive Iran from any politically acceptable reason for developing nuclear weapons. Of we know that this will never happen. And finally Bush can just stop with their attempts to take over the world. Russia and China do not like the Ayatollahs and would not be helping them if there wasnt the american incursion in what they consider their spheres of interest.
Sun are still hoping that the network computer becomes popular before they have to file for bankruptcy.
To tell the truth, the day of the network computer may finally be near. Now at last we have net based email applications which are more or less as good as the PC based ones. And some net based games are decent as well although they are not even close in presentation to PC based games. But for games cleverness and network features may compensate for bad presentation.
But we still need a net based text editor (aka Word) in order to make any network computer feasable.
Then again, even if the network computer becomes popular, will Sun be able to reap the benefits? In order for the concept to work it has to be cheap and sun is not good at building anything cheap. And anything Sun can do, Linux and BSD can do for cheaper.