I work at IBM so I am VERY familiar with what we have brought to the table, and it has been quite a bit. However as any IBM employee who was around during those times could tell you most of those inventions were spurred by other companies.
So intel gave us some great stuff, took over the market and stagnated it horribly for a few years. AMD (by no means a small company by this point) came out with opteron and athlon64. Then pow, we have woodcrest and merom. The Core architecture is the first time in almost a decade that Intel has done anything good regarding chip design.
A lot of the things IBM has done in the past were spurred by other companies like DEC, microsoft and apple. Technology driven companies. They were not "small" but they were relatively small when held to the standard of an IBM. My point being when I look at the industry I dont see very many companies that have the market share/capital to do interesting things taking risks. There are companies like Sun (Solaris 10, niagra and so on) and maybe you could throw in some other random tech companies. However most of the players are going the x86 wintel generic box from X vendor with a service contract from Big company X. I fail to see how that will drive innovation.
Not all sci-fi has to be uber-serious. Sure Dr Who and Trek might have been a bit goofy and cheesy, but they also had good plot lines and interesting points.
Dr Who has had some great episodes with the "new" series. "Bad Wolf/Parting of the ways", "Empty Child", "Dalek" and so on. Are they the best episodes of all time ? No, but they are good. I would say "Remembrance of the Daleks" IMHO was one of the best Dr Who episodes along with "The Five Doctors", and yes they are among the best sci-fi episodes in history. (IMHO, this entire discussion is all opinion of course)
True, but we could still use technology driven companies like DEC, Sun and yes even SGI.
When left to their own devices most of the large computer companies (IBM, HP, Dell, even Intel, AMD, Cisco etc etc) do very little revolutionary or insightful things. They usually tread water with minor "improvements" until someone comes along and kicks them in the pants (see: IBM vs Apple, IBM vs DEC, Intel vs AMD etc etc) with some better technology.
If all we have left are the "big guys" where is the next revolution going to come from ?
Sony has a 5 year cycle. In the last quarter their were 24 million HD sets sold, in two years almost half the market will be HD compatible. They will not have to spend more money on a redesign, the other console makers will. They are not going to include 4 different types of cables, NO company will.
I can get a T1 with an SLA for $400/mo. I can get RR premium for $84.95, bussiness for $350. 4GB per month worth of traffic is NOTHING. I have used up 10M in the past two hours just surfing the web.
$200/mo for 8M both ways ? I am there, where do I sign up ? I currently spend $70/mo for a hosted server and $65/mo for RR premium (discount for 6 months). So I see this as a great deal. Of course that is assuming that they would go to a tiered model, they wont. They want to charge a higher FLAT rate, they pay lip service to making it cheaper for "the average user" the reality is however that they cannot possibly break even on a tiered model. A per/M charge would be sane, if they are going to only count the traffic I actually request, not the bullshit network spam they allow, or the ads and crap flash/java/images that flood webpages these days.
The internet and indeed TCP/IP in general was not desiegned with greed mongering in mind.
The only problem anyone has with that angle is not the "improved" service. Its that they might monopolize the QoS in favor of themselves. For instance using the 19.99/mo plan I get great burst speeds to anything owned by Timewarner, and absolute crap speeds to google. Nobody has a problem with them saying "everyone is equal, if you pay more we will give you (the end user) faster access." Likewise everyone should have a problem with them double dipping and trying to extort every end user and company who travels over their particular lines as a middle ground. The only way to make that functional is to rebuild the entire net with that particular setup in mind.
Apply this same theory to phone service. If I had sprint long distance and I called somoene on a bellsouth line I wouldnt expect to get shitty voice quality just because they had a different carrier, or because we both dont have some spectacular "improved" plan. I also dont expect to get a bill from bellsouth. Or for bellsouth to try and double dip on sprint (which will cost me more) since they already have traffic sharing agreements.
Yeah, the difference is that IBM, Sun etc etc send people out to replace hardware on site. Random vendors MIGHT have a turn-around of a few weeks. Of course they also have standards compliant IPMI "LOM" stuff as well. Meaning that I usually wont have to pay someone to sit in a datacenter/noc just to reboot the system if there is an issue.
I want you to find me a vendor with even decent warranty support who can build a 1U opteron with the SAME specs as a sun, IBM or HP for half the price.
That was my point. As someone stated below, most religious types dont understand theory. They deal in absolutes. (unless of course it strikes there fancy)
Probably about the same time that you reject reality and substitute your own version (or one that comes forth from the pulpit).
Tell me with a straight face that evolution as a theory is wrong. I have had muslims, christians and various sects of the aforementioned tell me that. We might not understand everything about evolution, but we understand enough and have enough examples to say that it has most certainly taken place. In some cases in very condensed periods of time. (harsh conditions)
The problem of course is that most people cannot understand things that take generations to happen. It must be condensed into 30 minute blurbs with 12 minutes of garbage thrown in at random intervals. Weather I am talking about a religious service or a half hour TV show is an exercise I leave to the reader.
I will stop judging religious people when they stop trying to rule my life and take away my rights, and teach children concepts that have been outdated for decades. I do not have time to split hairs about what individual religious people do what, they lump me in with liberals and I am not one. Why should I grant them a courtesy they do not grant me ?
I also find it amusing how the same people make the statement that god allows people to live their lives and doesnt interfere, but all of a sudden he is changing the DNA of entire species ?? Sorry, pick a side and stick too it would ya ?
The problem is expectation. As you stated, new users dont have any expectations. There is no "norm". Most of us do not want a microsoft environment with a linux kernel and bash.
Speeding is only a contributing factor to the damage caused at an accident. It is very rarily the cause of an accident, that is usually driver error. Of course speed enhances that possibility by allowing less time to recover/react but there are many high speed roads that have low accident rates because they are properly enforced (ie pulling people over for 'cruising' in the passing lane, not signaling, excesive braking and so on).
Of course if we took every thing that anyone considered dangerous and made it highly illegal we would all either be in prison or be sitting on the couch staring at a white flat windowless wall.
Founding fatherS. My bad, I was unaware that neo-cons couldnt spot a typo. Just as a reference the people who designed this country started with Thomas Paine who wrote "Common Sense" the pamphlet/booklet that Benjamin Franklin later cited as his inspiration for the declaration of independance and of course the men who attended the continetal congress.
I have never done drugs. I travel for a living and I have several law enforcement personale in my family (Father= Corrections officer, 1 cousin = City cop, 1 Cousin = FBI agent.) but nice try with that. I forgot... anyone who doesnt support the bible thumping bullshit this administration is spouting must be a hippie anarchist. Riiiiight.
Benefit of the doubt ??? Are you fucking INSANE ???? That goes against the very principle of this country or any free society. You never give the people in power the benefit of the doubt or allow them to operate without some supervision and checks on that power. NEVER.
If they are only intercepting calls from known terrorists why are they fighting so hard to cover the program up ? The terrorists KNOW we are after them, we have fucking destroyed countries going after them for fucks sake. If they are so innocent they would have nothing to hide.
Clinton lied about sex. Bush has lied about war, violation of international treaties, violation of civil law, his awareness of illegalities taking place and many other things. The difference is that he has better lying bastards and more money on his side. Again if he has nothing to hide why has the justice department dropped so many cases that have been brought against the patriot act ? Why are they slapping the state secrets tag on the AT&T case ? Why are we refusing to allow US citizens to be questioned in international criminal courts ?
Yeah islam has issues. What religion doesnt ? More importantly... why is it people like you think it is our responsibility to sacrifice ourselves to help people who are unwiling to help themselves ? Fuck them.
We are not the most tolerant country in the world. We just dont go to such extremes. Why ? Because people here have something to live for. When you have freedom you have a better life, you dont want to sacrifice it for some bullshit. You will notice that most places that are labeled as "hostile" towards other religions are also the places with no money, high unemployment and a growing non-native population. Wow, holland has had racial issues. There is a surprise, and make no mistake it is tied more to race than to religion. We never have that here. Hate crimes are non-existant in the US. How about you do some fucking research on the subject. Legally we are tolerant, because of the seperation of church and state and an isolationist nature that was constant for a long time, now we are starting to see an increase in religion, hate crimes and gov't openly acting against groups of US citizens for the first time in this countries history. Why ? Religion. Religious people of all ilk's are intolerant. PERIOD. over 2,000 years of history and there are no provable examples of large groups of religious people helping anyone with an ulterior motive.
I hate liberals. I hate neo-cons. I am a true conservative. I desire financial conservatism and a small government with the value being placed on individuals. Thats what the terrorists and all religious nuts fear. Thats what they really hate. Our individuality. Turn this country into a police state and not only did they win, but we no longer have anything to fight for. John Kerry would be president if he had one fucking original thought in his damned head. Bush won because neo-cons drove the issues. Gay marriage ? I GIVE A FUCK ???? Boys kissing really sends shivers down my fucking spine, makes me wake up at night in a cold sweat. Fuck the economy, the erosion of the middle class, increasing debt on both a national and personal level, personal rights or the erosion of civil lib
Have you ever been to another country ? Perhaps you should actually travel to places and talk to people and turn off fucking fox news. This country was designed by the founding father with individual freedoms in mind. Not safety or security. Brute force only rules through ignorance, sort of like what your preaching.
Explain to me why the government needs unsupervised special privledges ? We knew a large portion of what was going on prior to 9/11, these laws would not have prevented 9/11. These laws remove the checks and balances of our government. Something that is essential to a free society.
Your willing to trust bush and his puppet masters because you believe in them. Imagine the shoe ends up on the other foot with these laws still in place. Imagine an athiest liberal in the white house, who instead of using his power to fight liberals, bash the media, and judges he bashed christians, conservatives and the bible.
Lets go a step farther into the muck. Please enlighten me as to why none of these programs have any oversight ? Never in the history of a free society has the executive branch of government been given this much power and survived. Every time it has happened (Rome being the most notable example) the society has become undemocratic and eventually fallen into a full blown dictatorship and collapsed. That sounds like what the terrorists want. If they really hate us for our freedom then why are we taking away our own freedoms ?
They hate us because for the better part of 50 years we have been interfering with their lives in one way or another. You talk of brute force controlling the middle east ? Guess who gave those people their guns ? Their training and education ? Guess who put most of them in power ? Thats right the good ole US government. How ? They had no supervision. They were fighting the "red machine" so nobody questioned anything they did. What was the result ? We defeated an enemy that turned out to be surprisingly weak, and in turn created an enemy that is surprisingly strong.
You cannot fight terror with terror, religious zealotry with more of the same. It will never work and until we realize that we are going to be hated by people who are different that us. I dont recall any neutral countries being attacked by terrorists.
Freedom implies being free. If the government controls everything you do and can selectivly persecute based on random unknown criteria then you are not free by any english definition of the word that I or oxford am aware of.
Furthermore making the statement that only people with something to hide should fear the government ignores 2000 years of governments taking any chance they get to increase their power and violate citizens rights. Do you really think that the party in power would be able to resist the temptation to spy on citizens who would pose a threat to their political power and/or policies ? Not terrorism, just plain old politics. Hell the republicans have already been found guilty of spying once in the past generation, now they have gone hi-tech and tried covering all of the bases for anyone to find out whats actually going on. No, the democrats are no better, and thats a large part of the problem. With two ultra-corrupt all-powerful groups like this, how can anyone stand against them and fight for their rights.
The govenment doesnt need to know everything to investigate terrorism. Not to mention that even with the computers analyzing the calls and emails it doesnt change the fact that we knew a good deal about 9/11 before it happened. Having knowledge means NOTHING, the most important thing is what you do with that knowledge. The government is too damn big and full of know-nothings to be able to handle information correctly, especially large amounts of information. Just look at katrina, iraq, social security, global warming and countless other things they continually fuck up because they mishandle or misunderstand the simplest data sets and concepts.
We need a smaller government who handles our country and its needs first. Freedom is not free, but sacrificing freedom for security is a bad exchange and will make our entire society bankrupt.
You still have not answered my question. Instead you keep stating its the status quo and that even if it allows people to take advantage of freedoms they do not have under other systems its not worth it because of a few people who are trying to "get over" on everyone else.
From what your saying apparently you think some ultra-protectionist society where the government has laws about everything and nobody is allowed to do anything unless everyone agrees with them.
I pay 11.5% of my income into a socialist system that was setup for retirment. I will never see a damn dime from it, in all liklihood I will never get to retire. I can't do marijuana or cocaine, but I can do paxil and viox. Here is the thing that is fucked about our current system. I cant ride without a helmet in most states in this country, regardless of weather I sign a waiver even though its a statistical FACT that helmets do not offer protection in high speed crashes. I can smoke around children, and outdoors in public places, but not in a restaurant. Just because a minority or even a majority wants something doesnt mean it has to happen. Thats what the government is SUPPOSED to be doing, making sure peoples rights are protected regardless of the popularity of things.
You also have not provided any form of government that doesnt suffer from these ails.
Okay. Find me a 4U 48 bay chasis. Make sure it has hot swap power supplies, 1500W each. You know why they kept using commodity parts ? Because Sun declined to build what they wanted.Google has over 1000 technicians, they hire large amounts of people just to handle hardware failures and expansion. They spend more on infrastructure than half the fortune five hundred.
It would be awesome if most companies would spend the money on the tech people, but they dont. They spend it on sales and marketing.
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.mc.com/cell/products/view/index.cfm?id= 96&type=Boards
Thats about the closest your going to get at this point.
It doesnt have to use power5, its got cell.
not really, but stupid international oversight and treaties got in the way.
Believe it or not, we are not ALL consultants at big blue. Some of us actually test, configure and ship it out for consultants to *polish* it.
And yes by *WE* I am including myself and the people I work with on this project. (and yes incase you didnt figure it out, I work at IBM)
I work at IBM so I am VERY familiar with what we have brought to the table, and it has been quite a bit. However as any IBM employee who was around during those times could tell you most of those inventions were spurred by other companies.
So intel gave us some great stuff, took over the market and stagnated it horribly for a few years. AMD (by no means a small company by this point) came out with opteron and athlon64. Then pow, we have woodcrest and merom. The Core architecture is the first time in almost a decade that Intel has done anything good regarding chip design.
A lot of the things IBM has done in the past were spurred by other companies like DEC, microsoft and apple. Technology driven companies. They were not "small" but they were relatively small when held to the standard of an IBM. My point being when I look at the industry I dont see very many companies that have the market share/capital to do interesting things taking risks. There are companies like Sun (Solaris 10, niagra and so on) and maybe you could throw in some other random tech companies. However most of the players are going the x86 wintel generic box from X vendor with a service contract from Big company X. I fail to see how that will drive innovation.
Maybe I'm just blind.
Why would they give you a CD when your buying a DVD ? ;-P
The episode with the tribbles was also great.
Not all sci-fi has to be uber-serious. Sure Dr Who and Trek might have been a bit goofy and cheesy, but they also had good plot lines and interesting points.
Dr Who has had some great episodes with the "new" series. "Bad Wolf/Parting of the ways", "Empty Child", "Dalek" and so on. Are they the best episodes of all time ? No, but they are good. I would say "Remembrance of the Daleks" IMHO was one of the best Dr Who episodes along with "The Five Doctors", and yes they are among the best sci-fi episodes in history. (IMHO, this entire discussion is all opinion of course)
True, but we could still use technology driven companies like DEC, Sun and yes even SGI.
When left to their own devices most of the large computer companies (IBM, HP, Dell, even Intel, AMD, Cisco etc etc) do very little revolutionary or insightful things. They usually tread water with minor "improvements" until someone comes along and kicks them in the pants (see: IBM vs Apple, IBM vs DEC, Intel vs AMD etc etc) with some better technology.
If all we have left are the "big guys" where is the next revolution going to come from ?
You mention no classic star trek, no Dr Who and you expect to be taken seriously ? I mean I LOVE BSG, but come on.
Ding Ding Ding.
Sony has a 5 year cycle. In the last quarter their were 24 million HD sets sold, in two years almost half the market will be HD compatible. They will not have to spend more money on a redesign, the other console makers will. They are not going to include 4 different types of cables, NO company will.
I can get a T1 with an SLA for $400/mo. I can get RR premium for $84.95, bussiness for $350. 4GB per month worth of traffic is NOTHING. I have used up 10M in the past two hours just surfing the web.
$200/mo for 8M both ways ? I am there, where do I sign up ? I currently spend $70/mo for a hosted server and $65/mo for RR premium (discount for 6 months). So I see this as a great deal. Of course that is assuming that they would go to a tiered model, they wont. They want to charge a higher FLAT rate, they pay lip service to making it cheaper for "the average user" the reality is however that they cannot possibly break even on a tiered model. A per/M charge would be sane, if they are going to only count the traffic I actually request, not the bullshit network spam they allow, or the ads and crap flash/java/images that flood webpages these days.
The internet and indeed TCP/IP in general was not desiegned with greed mongering in mind.
The only problem anyone has with that angle is not the "improved" service. Its that they might monopolize the QoS in favor of themselves. For instance using the 19.99/mo plan I get great burst speeds to anything owned by Timewarner, and absolute crap speeds to google. Nobody has a problem with them saying "everyone is equal, if you pay more we will give you (the end user) faster access." Likewise everyone should have a problem with them double dipping and trying to extort every end user and company who travels over their particular lines as a middle ground. The only way to make that functional is to rebuild the entire net with that particular setup in mind.
Apply this same theory to phone service. If I had sprint long distance and I called somoene on a bellsouth line I wouldnt expect to get shitty voice quality just because they had a different carrier, or because we both dont have some spectacular "improved" plan. I also dont expect to get a bill from bellsouth. Or for bellsouth to try and double dip on sprint (which will cost me more) since they already have traffic sharing agreements.
Solaris also runs on x86. OpenSolaris Matter of fact it might be the only commercial unix to do so.
I should have stuck a similar disclaimer out there. I work for IBM, used to Work for Sun and know a lot of people around the industry.
.... not so good. The 3455 is much much better.
The e32* were
x3455
Yeah, the difference is that IBM, Sun etc etc send people out to replace hardware on site. Random vendors MIGHT have a turn-around of a few weeks. Of course they also have standards compliant IPMI "LOM" stuff as well. Meaning that I usually wont have to pay someone to sit in a datacenter/noc just to reboot the system if there is an issue.
I want you to find me a vendor with even decent warranty support who can build a 1U opteron with the SAME specs as a sun, IBM or HP for half the price.
but sun also sells x86 hardware, its not an apple to apple comparison.
That was my point. As someone stated below, most religious types dont understand theory. They deal in absolutes. (unless of course it strikes there fancy)
Probably about the same time that you reject reality and substitute your own version (or one that comes forth from the pulpit).
Tell me with a straight face that evolution as a theory is wrong. I have had muslims, christians and various sects of the aforementioned tell me that. We might not understand everything about evolution, but we understand enough and have enough examples to say that it has most certainly taken place. In some cases in very condensed periods of time. (harsh conditions)
The problem of course is that most people cannot understand things that take generations to happen. It must be condensed into 30 minute blurbs with 12 minutes of garbage thrown in at random intervals. Weather I am talking about a religious service or a half hour TV show is an exercise I leave to the reader.
I will stop judging religious people when they stop trying to rule my life and take away my rights, and teach children concepts that have been outdated for decades. I do not have time to split hairs about what individual religious people do what, they lump me in with liberals and I am not one. Why should I grant them a courtesy they do not grant me ?
I also find it amusing how the same people make the statement that god allows people to live their lives and doesnt interfere, but all of a sudden he is changing the DNA of entire species ?? Sorry, pick a side and stick too it would ya ?
The problem is expectation. As you stated, new users dont have any expectations. There is no "norm". Most of us do not want a microsoft environment with a linux kernel and bash.
Speeding is only a contributing factor to the damage caused at an accident. It is very rarily the cause of an accident, that is usually driver error. Of course speed enhances that possibility by allowing less time to recover/react but there are many high speed roads that have low accident rates because they are properly enforced (ie pulling people over for 'cruising' in the passing lane, not signaling, excesive braking and so on).
Of course if we took every thing that anyone considered dangerous and made it highly illegal we would all either be in prison or be sitting on the couch staring at a white flat windowless wall.
First. Learn to format.
... anyone who doesnt support the bible thumping bullshit this administration is spouting must be a hippie anarchist. Riiiiight.
... why is it people like you think it is our responsibility to sacrifice ourselves to help people who are unwiling to help themselves ? Fuck them.
Founding fatherS. My bad, I was unaware that neo-cons couldnt spot a typo. Just as a reference the people who designed this country started with Thomas Paine who wrote "Common Sense" the pamphlet/booklet that Benjamin Franklin later cited as his inspiration for the declaration of independance and of course the men who attended the continetal congress.
I have never done drugs. I travel for a living and I have several law enforcement personale in my family (Father= Corrections officer, 1 cousin = City cop, 1 Cousin = FBI agent.) but nice try with that. I forgot
Benefit of the doubt ??? Are you fucking INSANE ???? That goes against the very principle of this country or any free society. You never give the people in power the benefit of the doubt or allow them to operate without some supervision and checks on that power. NEVER.
If they are only intercepting calls from known terrorists why are they fighting so hard to cover the program up ? The terrorists KNOW we are after them, we have fucking destroyed countries going after them for fucks sake. If they are so innocent they would have nothing to hide.
Clinton lied about sex. Bush has lied about war, violation of international treaties, violation of civil law, his awareness of illegalities taking place and many other things. The difference is that he has better lying bastards and more money on his side. Again if he has nothing to hide why has the justice department dropped so many cases that have been brought against the patriot act ? Why are they slapping the state secrets tag on the AT&T case ? Why are we refusing to allow US citizens to be questioned in international criminal courts ?
Yeah islam has issues. What religion doesnt ? More importantly
We are not the most tolerant country in the world. We just dont go to such extremes. Why ? Because people here have something to live for. When you have freedom you have a better life, you dont want to sacrifice it for some bullshit. You will notice that most places that are labeled as "hostile" towards other religions are also the places with no money, high unemployment and a growing non-native population. Wow, holland has had racial issues. There is a surprise, and make no mistake it is tied more to race than to religion. We never have that here. Hate crimes are non-existant in the US. How about you do some fucking research on the subject. Legally we are tolerant, because of the seperation of church and state and an isolationist nature that was constant for a long time, now we are starting to see an increase in religion, hate crimes and gov't openly acting against groups of US citizens for the first time in this countries history. Why ? Religion. Religious people of all ilk's are intolerant. PERIOD. over 2,000 years of history and there are no provable examples of large groups of religious people helping anyone with an ulterior motive.
I hate liberals. I hate neo-cons. I am a true conservative. I desire financial conservatism and a small government with the value being placed on individuals. Thats what the terrorists and all religious nuts fear. Thats what they really hate. Our individuality. Turn this country into a police state and not only did they win, but we no longer have anything to fight for. John Kerry would be president if he had one fucking original thought in his damned head. Bush won because neo-cons drove the issues. Gay marriage ? I GIVE A FUCK ???? Boys kissing really sends shivers down my fucking spine, makes me wake up at night in a cold sweat. Fuck the economy, the erosion of the middle class, increasing debt on both a national and personal level, personal rights or the erosion of civil lib
Have you ever been to another country ? Perhaps you should actually travel to places and talk to people and turn off fucking fox news. This country was designed by the founding father with individual freedoms in mind. Not safety or security. Brute force only rules through ignorance, sort of like what your preaching.
Explain to me why the government needs unsupervised special privledges ? We knew a large portion of what was going on prior to 9/11, these laws would not have prevented 9/11. These laws remove the checks and balances of our government. Something that is essential to a free society.
Your willing to trust bush and his puppet masters because you believe in them. Imagine the shoe ends up on the other foot with these laws still in place. Imagine an athiest liberal in the white house, who instead of using his power to fight liberals, bash the media, and judges he bashed christians, conservatives and the bible.
Lets go a step farther into the muck. Please enlighten me as to why none of these programs have any oversight ? Never in the history of a free society has the executive branch of government been given this much power and survived. Every time it has happened (Rome being the most notable example) the society has become undemocratic and eventually fallen into a full blown dictatorship and collapsed. That sounds like what the terrorists want. If they really hate us for our freedom then why are we taking away our own freedoms ?
They hate us because for the better part of 50 years we have been interfering with their lives in one way or another. You talk of brute force controlling the middle east ? Guess who gave those people their guns ? Their training and education ? Guess who put most of them in power ? Thats right the good ole US government. How ? They had no supervision. They were fighting the "red machine" so nobody questioned anything they did. What was the result ? We defeated an enemy that turned out to be surprisingly weak, and in turn created an enemy that is surprisingly strong.
You cannot fight terror with terror, religious zealotry with more of the same. It will never work and until we realize that we are going to be hated by people who are different that us. I dont recall any neutral countries being attacked by terrorists.
Freedom implies being free. If the government controls everything you do and can selectivly persecute based on random unknown criteria then you are not free by any english definition of the word that I or oxford am aware of.
Furthermore making the statement that only people with something to hide should fear the government ignores 2000 years of governments taking any chance they get to increase their power and violate citizens rights. Do you really think that the party in power would be able to resist the temptation to spy on citizens who would pose a threat to their political power and/or policies ? Not terrorism, just plain old politics. Hell the republicans have already been found guilty of spying once in the past generation, now they have gone hi-tech and tried covering all of the bases for anyone to find out whats actually going on. No, the democrats are no better, and thats a large part of the problem. With two ultra-corrupt all-powerful groups like this, how can anyone stand against them and fight for their rights.
The govenment doesnt need to know everything to investigate terrorism. Not to mention that even with the computers analyzing the calls and emails it doesnt change the fact that we knew a good deal about 9/11 before it happened. Having knowledge means NOTHING, the most important thing is what you do with that knowledge. The government is too damn big and full of know-nothings to be able to handle information correctly, especially large amounts of information. Just look at katrina, iraq, social security, global warming and countless other things they continually fuck up because they mishandle or misunderstand the simplest data sets and concepts.
We need a smaller government who handles our country and its needs first. Freedom is not free, but sacrificing freedom for security is a bad exchange and will make our entire society bankrupt.
You still have not answered my question. Instead you keep stating its the status quo and that even if it allows people to take advantage of freedoms they do not have under other systems its not worth it because of a few people who are trying to "get over" on everyone else.
From what your saying apparently you think some ultra-protectionist society where the government has laws about everything and nobody is allowed to do anything unless everyone agrees with them.
I pay 11.5% of my income into a socialist system that was setup for retirment. I will never see a damn dime from it, in all liklihood I will never get to retire. I can't do marijuana or cocaine, but I can do paxil and viox. Here is the thing that is fucked about our current system. I cant ride without a helmet in most states in this country, regardless of weather I sign a waiver even though its a statistical FACT that helmets do not offer protection in high speed crashes. I can smoke around children, and outdoors in public places, but not in a restaurant. Just because a minority or even a majority wants something doesnt mean it has to happen. Thats what the government is SUPPOSED to be doing, making sure peoples rights are protected regardless of the popularity of things.
You also have not provided any form of government that doesnt suffer from these ails.
Okay. Find me a 4U 48 bay chasis. Make sure it has hot swap power supplies, 1500W each. You know why they kept using commodity parts ? Because Sun declined to build what they wanted.Google has over 1000 technicians, they hire large amounts of people just to handle hardware failures and expansion. They spend more on infrastructure than half the fortune five hundred.
It would be awesome if most companies would spend the money on the tech people, but they dont. They spend it on sales and marketing.