In both cases you're uploading something you don't have distribution rights for, so I'm curious how you're making the distinction.
The person that originally seeds the torrent is clearly more guilty. If anyone in this story can be accused of distribution, it's the person that made it available. If it was not for them, it wouldn't be there.
Why was it neccessary for the NY Times to leave out the legal reason the White House sent the letter to The Onion?
For same reason that drives every news story from every news company, regardless of it's position in the political spectrum.
It sells more copy, driving more advertising revenue.
Is it ethical for the NY Times to mislead their readers on purpose by omitting relevant info?
Yes, it's unethical. But the news organisations ceased being ethical a very long time ago. I can't remember the last time I read a story that wasn't sensationalised in some way or other. In most of the newspapers here in the UK, you are lucky if the headline even vaguely represents the truth of the story!
My fav quote in this respect has got to be: (paraphrased, can't find the source)
"Everything you read in the papers is true. Except the one topic you have personal experience of; that one is all lies".
Having seen things I've been involved in completely misrepresented in the press, I gotta agree.
That's an interesting point. I'd be lying if I said that here in the UK there aren't campaigns to "stop smoking, drink less, eat healthy and exercise, and wear a condom". However, I define "freedom" as political and religious beliefs (even though I'm an athiest), as well as government accountability and openness (e.g. freedom of information act). There are no laws saying that should (or shouldn't) do any of these things. Smoking is going to be banned in public places soon though.
However, surely in more capitalistic countries, there are also movements to inprove health? New York banned smoking long before anyone else. Surely the war on drugs falls foul under this premise of personal freedom? If I want to shoot up H all day, surely I should be allowed to in the USA? I think the problem is that people are led to believe every issue is black or white, true or false. In reality, everything is a spectrum. So, by your definition of freedom, you may percieve others tp have less. It doesn't mean that they live in a non-free societly.
How does centralised healthcare mean that I cannot speak my mind about my government. Does the welfare state affect my religious beliefs?
Sorry, but I have to disagree. Americans are led via a constant barrage of propaganda stating that socialism is close to Stalin's nightmare. It's simply not the case. Just as there are free socialist states, there are totalitarian non-free capitalist states. Economic theory has little to do with personal freedom.
The crux of the matter is that all political theories are just the upper-class elites telling the downtrodden that their system is better. Some are more equal than others, that sort of thing. In either socialism or capitalism, those at the top will abuse the system to further their own goals. It's human nature; we are capitalistic at a base hunter-gatherer level.
Many argue that the Cold War was simply another instance of politicians using fear of a distant enemy to keep the population in check. The theory is that if the people are rallying for a common cause, they are less critical of their leaders. It gives the leaders power and in turn those who believe in the enemy rise to the top as their rhetoric is stronger. This theory was written about many many decades ago, but I cannot remember the name of it.
It's covered in the very interesting documentary The Power Of Nightmares, though most of the documentary covers the imaginary fear of terrorism that is being used today to move the public in whatever direction is desired. The cold war was a real threat, but it was blown out of proportion, especially in the Regan years. It's mentioned in the documentary as it is in fact Donald Rumsfeld who deliberately misinterpreted inteligence in order to justify extending the cold war.
On the question of whether America "saved" us in the cold war; I'm not convinced. We didn't get "duck and cover". We never got the fear of communism drilled into us at a basic level at home and in school. The question is; were the Soviets invading Europe a credible threat? I don't think so, but in all honesty I'm glad we never had to find out. Personally, I thank the likes of Kennedy, who was just about the only one who kept a straight head during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Objectively, neither of the two superpowers wanted war, and that was probably most likely due to the M.A.D. aspect of the nukes. So, yes, it could be argued that the US kept the peace during the cold war.
I would not say that Europe did nothing. You had nukes in the UK pointing at Russia. The whole NATO thing. That also includes your missles in Turkey, which were ironically the precursor to the Cuban Missle Crisis. You had allies in all of NATO, as well as facilites, standardised armaments and lot's of other co-operation. Many NATO soldiers were stationed in Berlin for decades. Of course, as in every country your leaders have downplayed other countries roles in your successes, so it's not surprising that you probably believe that the cold war as simply USSR vs. USA.
Of course, none of that matters right now. Dice have no memory, and neither do most people and that includes politicians. As I've said repeatively, previous good deeds do not excuse future bad ones. The America of the past 40 years has genuinely been the enemy of democracy in many countries. Anywhere that the democratic choice was not a US-friendly capitalist government. Socialism != lack of freedom.
Per-GDP doesn't mean shit on the battlefield. There is absolutely no need for America to spend more than the rest of us combined.
Besides, per-GDP calculations are designed to reflect relative wealth. You have way more cash available than most of these small nations that rank above you. OK, the per-GDP table shows that many countries spend a higher portion of their wealth on arms. But it's not really a relevant stat to use when discussion military spending, unless you are comparing it to other government expenditure within the same country. For comparing countries for their militaristic nature, the total spending is a much more relevant statistic, though per-capita is also useful as it accounts for the relative size of the nation.
All of the member states gave it power. Our cultural difference is we don't see "power" as having a big army.
As you said the rebuilding of after WWII was totally self interest.
No, I said anything after WW2 was self interest, really mostly from the 60s onwards. Just because you were the good-guy in WW2, it doesn't absolve you of all further actions.
The US had nothing to do with the building of the Berlin wall except that it kept at least part of Berlin free.
Wrong. Each for the territories in Germany had their own currency. The US and UK ones merged, which was not in the agreement. It completely changed the balance of power. This is one of the many factors that led to the wall. ALL sides were responsible for it.
The US felt that free and independent nations where more in the US's self interest than slave states.
Hollywood bullshit. The USA creates slave states. Look at the history. E.g. Cuba was a slave state until the revolution. You subvert democracies all over in order to install US-friendly governments. You are still at it right now. The history of South America is full of it.
Your world view of America is completely wrong. I suggest you get a history book.
The countries in the EU do not want to remember that they owe just about everything they now have to the power and honor of the US. It is upsetting so they change history. Play down the importance of post war aid, ignore the huge number of people that did nothing or helped the Nazis, and inflate the importance of their own "freedom" fighters.
Look, you did good in WW2. NO ONE IS SAYING OTHERWISE. However, if you check the scorecard since then, it's not all that rosy.
but like much of the world, your charicatures of U.S. behavior show a recently rising anti-American bias.
A side-effect of your actions, sorry.
But you dismiss Iraq as "unwise" and make allusions to oil, without even considering the fact that what we're doing there - toppling a brutal dictator in order to install a democratic system
No, if that were the case, I'd agree with the intention but not the method. Assuming democracy was the intent, you've still killed more Iraqi civilians than Saddam did. The country is now going to fall apart, and we get to watch it from our armchairs. Capturing Saddam was actually bad, it turns out. Many in Iraq were fearful that you'd pull out*, and Saddam would return to power. With him out of the way, the more agressive groups that he surpressed were free to start attacking collatition troops. Whatever happens, Saddam is gone. Removing him ironically is going to be the thing that destroyes the country.
* in the first Gulf War, we dropped leaflets that said rise up against Saddam and we'll support you. Many did, however we stopped once we restored the Kuwait dictators to power. Those who stood up were massacred. Many were fearful this would happen again.
The intent to attack Iraq predates 9-11. It has NOTHING to do with defending yourselfs in any way. Nor was it done for the Iraqi people. Iraq has the second largest oil reserves in the world. The USA economy is 100% reliant on this oil, changes to the price affect everything. Now, peak oil dictates that the "easy" oil is running out, and the price will rise as more adventurous oil reserves are tapped. This price rise would topple an already faltering economy.
With Saddam in power, Iraq's oil was off the map, unavailable to US markets. With him gone, it's flowing freely. Billions upon billions of dollars have been made. Companies with representation in The Project For a New American Century (official website) (e.g. Harliburton/Cheeny) have gotten wholely rich from this. The US is in a far stronger strategic position WRT to access to oil. Don't forget, much of the worlds oil belongs to Saudi (9-11) and Venesuala (socialist). Your "enemies". The US now has direct influnce on the price of oil, as well as having private access to vast quantities.
It WAS NOT done for the Iraqi people, and it saddens me that people believe that. It proves that propaganda and nationalistic tendencies are not a thing of the past.
What do you think of Afghanistan? Should we have left the Taliban in charge there?
Well, you were quite happy to deal with them for many years. For example, in 1997 a Taleban delegation visited Texas for talks on a huge deal to build a pipeline through the country. It was only after that deal went to an Argentinian group that we suddenly started hearing about the evil Taleban. We have always been at war with the Taleban.
Is toppling an oligarchy that made women wear sacks and prevented them from getting an education just another indicator of our aggression?
Only when it happens after big business says so. By the way, the people involved in that 1997 deal have moved on. They are in the Whitehouse now. The pipeline's coming along nicely.
Yea right the US is the most aggressive nation on Earth.
Global military spending. You also started an unwise war of agression on an oil rich country. And as the grand parent poster said, you have been undermining democracy in South America for decades. No one trusts you any more.
The US has a long history of setting up democratic free nation after they defeat them.
That "history" only exists in Hollywood. Go get a history book.
They look and see how much power the US has and know how they would abuse it in the US's place.
That was the UN, and a VERY long time ago. For example, Germany was split into several zones. Conflict between the US and Russia later led to the creation of the Berlin Wall. The UK and US regions merged and became West Germany, in fact it was the "closness" of these two zones that led to most of the conflict.
The USA that helped rebuild Japan and Germany is long gone. We miss her. Since the sixties, your country has behaved vastly differently. It still amazes me how the US population is still under the impression that your persuits abroad are part of some sort of idealistic crusade. The facts suggest that it's 100% self-interest. Seriously, put down the Brukheimer DVDs and pick up a book.
Just because your country was started on admirable beliefs, it doesn't mean that there is some sort of genetic safeguard ensuring that dishonest and greedy men cannot take control of the system.
Ah, cool, think I know where you are. I'm a little further down Dumbarton road, Partick. Small web...
I've yet to see how the white tracksuit brigade take to the new light. I reckon their feral instincts will push them to seek darker climbes, which should be good for the indigenous population!;-)
They've just started replacing all the orange streetlights with white ones here (not-wonderful part of Glasgow, in Scotland).
I have a sneaking suspicion that you live just round the corner from me. Mine got switched on just this week and I was finding it a little wierd that people were talking about this sort of thing here. Then you come along...;-)
Trying to charge several thousand dollars per hour is clear evidence that something is wrong with his story.
I don't think he represented 2,000 people personally. He would have needed to have had several staff in his practice dedicated on this case, and lawyer-types don't come cheap. Barristers get paid shit loads because it takes a long time to get there; they are pretty high up in British law. Some of the top ones earn £1,000,000 per year, say 1.6 million dollars?
All of the hacks are 100% plausible. It genuinely was security-by-obsurity in those days. Some of the systems were downright brain-dead.
If you have internet access on a Pocket PC anywhere with a decent web browser you should be able to access any information anywhere.
Exactly. Most of the newer ones have WiFi. When it's not costing you by the byte, you find that you use it a lot more.
I mean overall, I can't think of what I would really need a Pocket PC for since I have a smart phone (Nokia 3660).
Depends on your needs. Many web sites are 100% usable on the Pocket PC. I also use SSH and VNC a lot, again the WiFi is a killer app.
We should revist this topic in a years time. PDAs are just too niche, a little tricky to use for the novice and fairly expensive. That'll all change. They'd just better sort the battery life out, with heavy use & WiFi I can drain my battery in 4-8 hours.
Hell, you could say it about normal DVDs. I've got a number of 2 disk "special editions" that would have squeezed onto one disk easilly. However, the consumer feels as though they are getting more with two disks. The same will apply to any large format media.
Why sell one, when you can sell two at twice the price?
Imagine each house with several mini wind turbines on the roof
Pointless. A little known fact is that it takes more energy to manufacture a turbine than it will ever produce in it's working life. They are like a weird form of battery power if you are thinking along the renewable energy lines.
Here's hoping the manufacturing techniques actually get to the point where wind power isn't actually negatively impacting the enviornment more than the gain experienced!
I think they are treating the phone a little too much like a gun.
Ah, but phones don't call people; people do!!
It's not like it will be the end of the world if someone can access my personal phone information.
Depends what info you have on their. Some folks, like myself, have a PDA with ALL of my personal information on it. Schedule, family, phone banking, all of it. No passwords for sure, but more than enough info to commit idenity theft etc, or know when my house (address is listed) is going to be empty!
If it is possible to create this security without requiring large lagtimes (like entering a PIN) or fault-prone hardware (fingerprint scanners), security becomes easier and safer than before for the average user.
Thing is, I would say this technology fails that requirement. Sure, the software can parse the image in 200ms, but that's just bullshit marketing. On my device, it takes at least a second to initialize the camera. You need to line up the camera to take the picture, meaning that you either have to use the convex mirror many phones have, or use the display. Either way, it's going to be a lot slower, less reliable and more cumbersome than entering a 4-digit PIN on a keypad.
Pocket PC devices display the "Owner Information" data on the password screen. My last phone didn't do this however. My data is more important than the (replaceable) hardware. I'd rather not have it back & claim insurance than know that someone out there (who is a potential thief) has a complete copy of my schedule, including info on my home address and when I'll next be out of the country.
During Desert Storm v1.0, the Army discovered that the Patriot system would not operate correctly
Operate correctly? They didn't work full stop! Not one hit it's target. The patriot was supposed to intercept incomming missles and destroy them. Considering the speeds of the two objects heading towards each other, a minute error in timing would throw the interception way off. By not rebooting the device regularly, the internal clock got gradually out of sync. It's a classic IT screw-up and I would not be surprised if it was cited in a few software engineering textbooks now.
Testing should have caught this. It should have been tested under heavy load, continously for several days. However, I'm not so sure that a formal testing regime would catch this specific problem, the error was very small and would be difficult for a human to notice.
WRT the breathilizer, I'd be more interested in their quality proceedures than source code. As it's a government purchase, it's only fair to say that the customer acceptance test documentation would be available to the public. We are the customer after all! If I were to find myself trying to weasel out of a conviction, that's how I'd go. Find some holes in their test process and say the device is not fit for service until they are resolved. For example, you could suggest that each new software revision should undergo acceptance testing. This is common in most software contracts.
Hey may well have! We are misled about OBL's intentions as much as America is deliverately mislead about UN intentions. OBL doesn't want a global Islamic world. He doesn't want us to lose our freedoms. He doesn't want to destroy our democracies. He simply wants us to stop things like, you know, disposing of democratic governments and replacing them with puppet leaderships, who's sole intestest is furthering the strategic gains of the USA in order to line their own pockets. But no, he "hates freedom", let's keep it simple for everyone and keep them from asking the wrong (or right) questions.
Americans hate the UN for a reason. They are bombarded with near constant critism of it at any opertunity. They will be completely unaware of the factual things the UN does. The UN doesn't figure in The Project for A New American Century. The proponents of that policy (i.e. the upper echelons of US politics) want to see America in that role.
Wow.... its amazing isn't it how the organisation that is responsible for some of the most effective global treaties, charities and welfare organisations. The UN has certainly done more than any single country to promote peace and equality and you are comparing it to a terrorist organisation and the enforcement arm of the media industry....
Forgive him, it's not his fault. His leaders have subjected him to anti-UN propaganda since birth. Propaganda is an important cornerstone of "freedom" apparently.
because they NEVER HAD THOSE RIGHTS IN THE FIRST PLACE.
What freedoms do you have that we don't have here in Europe? Seriously, I'm curious as to what you think makes you unique. We have more rights than you, and have pretty much always had.
PS WW2 Nazi memorabilia is not a "freedom". eBay pulled all 9-11 related sales IIRC, so don't even go there.
Slashdot Mirror
The person that originally seeds the torrent is clearly more guilty. If anyone in this story can be accused of distribution, it's the person that made it available. If it was not for them, it wouldn't be there.
For same reason that drives every news story from every news company, regardless of it's position in the political spectrum.
It sells more copy, driving more advertising revenue.
Is it ethical for the NY Times to mislead their readers on purpose by omitting relevant info?
Yes, it's unethical. But the news organisations ceased being ethical a very long time ago. I can't remember the last time I read a story that wasn't sensationalised in some way or other. In most of the newspapers here in the UK, you are lucky if the headline even vaguely represents the truth of the story!
My fav quote in this respect has got to be: (paraphrased, can't find the source)
"Everything you read in the papers is true. Except the one topic you have personal experience of; that one is all lies".
Having seen things I've been involved in completely misrepresented in the press, I gotta agree.
It's nigh impossible to do the later without doing the former.
Yeah! Lets make the oscars once every four years and only allow two crap movies to enter!! ;-)
However, surely in more capitalistic countries, there are also movements to inprove health? New York banned smoking long before anyone else. Surely the war on drugs falls foul under this premise of personal freedom? If I want to shoot up H all day, surely I should be allowed to in the USA? I think the problem is that people are led to believe every issue is black or white, true or false. In reality, everything is a spectrum. So, by your definition of freedom, you may percieve others tp have less. It doesn't mean that they live in a non-free societly.
Sorry, but I have to disagree. Americans are led via a constant barrage of propaganda stating that socialism is close to Stalin's nightmare. It's simply not the case. Just as there are free socialist states, there are totalitarian non-free capitalist states. Economic theory has little to do with personal freedom.
The crux of the matter is that all political theories are just the upper-class elites telling the downtrodden that their system is better. Some are more equal than others, that sort of thing. In either socialism or capitalism, those at the top will abuse the system to further their own goals. It's human nature; we are capitalistic at a base hunter-gatherer level.
It's covered in the very interesting documentary The Power Of Nightmares, though most of the documentary covers the imaginary fear of terrorism that is being used today to move the public in whatever direction is desired. The cold war was a real threat, but it was blown out of proportion, especially in the Regan years. It's mentioned in the documentary as it is in fact Donald Rumsfeld who deliberately misinterpreted inteligence in order to justify extending the cold war.
On the question of whether America "saved" us in the cold war; I'm not convinced. We didn't get "duck and cover". We never got the fear of communism drilled into us at a basic level at home and in school. The question is; were the Soviets invading Europe a credible threat? I don't think so, but in all honesty I'm glad we never had to find out. Personally, I thank the likes of Kennedy, who was just about the only one who kept a straight head during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Objectively, neither of the two superpowers wanted war, and that was probably most likely due to the M.A.D. aspect of the nukes. So, yes, it could be argued that the US kept the peace during the cold war.
I would not say that Europe did nothing. You had nukes in the UK pointing at Russia. The whole NATO thing. That also includes your missles in Turkey, which were ironically the precursor to the Cuban Missle Crisis. You had allies in all of NATO, as well as facilites, standardised armaments and lot's of other co-operation. Many NATO soldiers were stationed in Berlin for decades. Of course, as in every country your leaders have downplayed other countries roles in your successes, so it's not surprising that you probably believe that the cold war as simply USSR vs. USA.
Of course, none of that matters right now. Dice have no memory, and neither do most people and that includes politicians. As I've said repeatively, previous good deeds do not excuse future bad ones. The America of the past 40 years has genuinely been the enemy of democracy in many countries. Anywhere that the democratic choice was not a US-friendly capitalist government. Socialism != lack of freedom.
Besides, per-GDP calculations are designed to reflect relative wealth. You have way more cash available than most of these small nations that rank above you. OK, the per-GDP table shows that many countries spend a higher portion of their wealth on arms. But it's not really a relevant stat to use when discussion military spending, unless you are comparing it to other government expenditure within the same country. For comparing countries for their militaristic nature, the total spending is a much more relevant statistic, though per-capita is also useful as it accounts for the relative size of the nation.
All of the member states gave it power. Our cultural difference is we don't see "power" as having a big army.
As you said the rebuilding of after WWII was totally self interest.
No, I said anything after WW2 was self interest, really mostly from the 60s onwards. Just because you were the good-guy in WW2, it doesn't absolve you of all further actions.
The US had nothing to do with the building of the Berlin wall except that it kept at least part of Berlin free.
Wrong. Each for the territories in Germany had their own currency. The US and UK ones merged, which was not in the agreement. It completely changed the balance of power. This is one of the many factors that led to the wall. ALL sides were responsible for it.
The US felt that free and independent nations where more in the US's self interest than slave states.
Hollywood bullshit. The USA creates slave states. Look at the history. E.g. Cuba was a slave state until the revolution. You subvert democracies all over in order to install US-friendly governments. You are still at it right now. The history of South America is full of it.
Your world view of America is completely wrong. I suggest you get a history book.
The countries in the EU do not want to remember that they owe just about everything they now have to the power and honor of the US. It is upsetting so they change history. Play down the importance of post war aid, ignore the huge number of people that did nothing or helped the Nazis, and inflate the importance of their own "freedom" fighters.
Look, you did good in WW2. NO ONE IS SAYING OTHERWISE. However, if you check the scorecard since then, it's not all that rosy.
but like much of the world, your charicatures of U.S. behavior show a recently rising anti-American bias.
A side-effect of your actions, sorry.
But you dismiss Iraq as "unwise" and make allusions to oil, without even considering the fact that what we're doing there - toppling a brutal dictator in order to install a democratic system
No, if that were the case, I'd agree with the intention but not the method. Assuming democracy was the intent, you've still killed more Iraqi civilians than Saddam did. The country is now going to fall apart, and we get to watch it from our armchairs. Capturing Saddam was actually bad, it turns out. Many in Iraq were fearful that you'd pull out*, and Saddam would return to power. With him out of the way, the more agressive groups that he surpressed were free to start attacking collatition troops. Whatever happens, Saddam is gone. Removing him ironically is going to be the thing that destroyes the country.
* in the first Gulf War, we dropped leaflets that said rise up against Saddam and we'll support you. Many did, however we stopped once we restored the Kuwait dictators to power. Those who stood up were massacred. Many were fearful this would happen again.
The intent to attack Iraq predates 9-11. It has NOTHING to do with defending yourselfs in any way. Nor was it done for the Iraqi people. Iraq has the second largest oil reserves in the world. The USA economy is 100% reliant on this oil, changes to the price affect everything. Now, peak oil dictates that the "easy" oil is running out, and the price will rise as more adventurous oil reserves are tapped. This price rise would topple an already faltering economy.
With Saddam in power, Iraq's oil was off the map, unavailable to US markets. With him gone, it's flowing freely. Billions upon billions of dollars have been made. Companies with representation in The Project For a New American Century (official website) (e.g. Harliburton/Cheeny) have gotten wholely rich from this. The US is in a far stronger strategic position WRT to access to oil. Don't forget, much of the worlds oil belongs to Saudi (9-11) and Venesuala (socialist). Your "enemies". The US now has direct influnce on the price of oil, as well as having private access to vast quantities.
It WAS NOT done for the Iraqi people, and it saddens me that people believe that. It proves that propaganda and nationalistic tendencies are not a thing of the past.
What do you think of Afghanistan? Should we have left the Taliban in charge there?
Well, you were quite happy to deal with them for many years. For example, in 1997 a Taleban delegation visited Texas for talks on a huge deal to build a pipeline through the country. It was only after that deal went to an Argentinian group that we suddenly started hearing about the evil Taleban. We have always been at war with the Taleban.
Is toppling an oligarchy that made women wear sacks and prevented them from getting an education just another indicator of our aggression?
Only when it happens after big business says so. By the way, the people involved in that 1997 deal have moved on. They are in the Whitehouse now. The pipeline's coming along nicely.
That's neat. Nowadays it's the other way around, they are used to justify it! ;-)
Global military spending. You also started an unwise war of agression on an oil rich country. And as the grand parent poster said, you have been undermining democracy in South America for decades. No one trusts you any more.
The US has a long history of setting up democratic free nation after they defeat them.
That "history" only exists in Hollywood. Go get a history book.
They look and see how much power the US has and know how they would abuse it in the US's place.
That was the UN, and a VERY long time ago. For example, Germany was split into several zones. Conflict between the US and Russia later led to the creation of the Berlin Wall. The UK and US regions merged and became West Germany, in fact it was the "closness" of these two zones that led to most of the conflict.
The USA that helped rebuild Japan and Germany is long gone. We miss her. Since the sixties, your country has behaved vastly differently. It still amazes me how the US population is still under the impression that your persuits abroad are part of some sort of idealistic crusade. The facts suggest that it's 100% self-interest. Seriously, put down the Brukheimer DVDs and pick up a book.
Just because your country was started on admirable beliefs, it doesn't mean that there is some sort of genetic safeguard ensuring that dishonest and greedy men cannot take control of the system.
I've yet to see how the white tracksuit brigade take to the new light. I reckon their feral instincts will push them to seek darker climbes, which should be good for the indigenous population! ;-)
I have a sneaking suspicion that you live just round the corner from me. Mine got switched on just this week and I was finding it a little wierd that people were talking about this sort of thing here. Then you come along... ;-)
It's definitly a big improvement.
I don't think he represented 2,000 people personally. He would have needed to have had several staff in his practice dedicated on this case, and lawyer-types don't come cheap. Barristers get paid shit loads because it takes a long time to get there; they are pretty high up in British law. Some of the top ones earn £1,000,000 per year, say 1.6 million dollars?
All of the hacks are 100% plausible. It genuinely was security-by-obsurity in those days. Some of the systems were downright brain-dead.
Exactly. Most of the newer ones have WiFi. When it's not costing you by the byte, you find that you use it a lot more.
I mean overall, I can't think of what I would really need a Pocket PC for since I have a smart phone (Nokia 3660).
Depends on your needs. Many web sites are 100% usable on the Pocket PC. I also use SSH and VNC a lot, again the WiFi is a killer app.
We should revist this topic in a years time. PDAs are just too niche, a little tricky to use for the novice and fairly expensive. That'll all change. They'd just better sort the battery life out, with heavy use & WiFi I can drain my battery in 4-8 hours.
Why sell one, when you can sell two at twice the price?
Pointless. A little known fact is that it takes more energy to manufacture a turbine than it will ever produce in it's working life. They are like a weird form of battery power if you are thinking along the renewable energy lines.
Here's hoping the manufacturing techniques actually get to the point where wind power isn't actually negatively impacting the enviornment more than the gain experienced!
Ah, but phones don't call people; people do!!
It's not like it will be the end of the world if someone can access my personal phone information.
Depends what info you have on their. Some folks, like myself, have a PDA with ALL of my personal information on it. Schedule, family, phone banking, all of it. No passwords for sure, but more than enough info to commit idenity theft etc, or know when my house (address is listed) is going to be empty!
Thing is, I would say this technology fails that requirement. Sure, the software can parse the image in 200ms, but that's just bullshit marketing. On my device, it takes at least a second to initialize the camera. You need to line up the camera to take the picture, meaning that you either have to use the convex mirror many phones have, or use the display. Either way, it's going to be a lot slower, less reliable and more cumbersome than entering a 4-digit PIN on a keypad.
Pocket PC devices display the "Owner Information" data on the password screen. My last phone didn't do this however. My data is more important than the (replaceable) hardware. I'd rather not have it back & claim insurance than know that someone out there (who is a potential thief) has a complete copy of my schedule, including info on my home address and when I'll next be out of the country.
Operate correctly? They didn't work full stop! Not one hit it's target. The patriot was supposed to intercept incomming missles and destroy them. Considering the speeds of the two objects heading towards each other, a minute error in timing would throw the interception way off. By not rebooting the device regularly, the internal clock got gradually out of sync. It's a classic IT screw-up and I would not be surprised if it was cited in a few software engineering textbooks now.
Testing should have caught this. It should have been tested under heavy load, continously for several days. However, I'm not so sure that a formal testing regime would catch this specific problem, the error was very small and would be difficult for a human to notice.
WRT the breathilizer, I'd be more interested in their quality proceedures than source code. As it's a government purchase, it's only fair to say that the customer acceptance test documentation would be available to the public. We are the customer after all! If I were to find myself trying to weasel out of a conviction, that's how I'd go. Find some holes in their test process and say the device is not fit for service until they are resolved. For example, you could suggest that each new software revision should undergo acceptance testing. This is common in most software contracts.
Hey may well have! We are misled about OBL's intentions as much as America is deliverately mislead about UN intentions. OBL doesn't want a global Islamic world. He doesn't want us to lose our freedoms. He doesn't want to destroy our democracies. He simply wants us to stop things like, you know, disposing of democratic governments and replacing them with puppet leaderships, who's sole intestest is furthering the strategic gains of the USA in order to line their own pockets. But no, he "hates freedom", let's keep it simple for everyone and keep them from asking the wrong (or right) questions.
Americans hate the UN for a reason. They are bombarded with near constant critism of it at any opertunity. They will be completely unaware of the factual things the UN does. The UN doesn't figure in The Project for A New American Century. The proponents of that policy (i.e. the upper echelons of US politics) want to see America in that role.
Forgive him, it's not his fault. His leaders have subjected him to anti-UN propaganda since birth. Propaganda is an important cornerstone of "freedom" apparently.
What freedoms do you have that we don't have here in Europe? Seriously, I'm curious as to what you think makes you unique. We have more rights than you, and have pretty much always had.
PS WW2 Nazi memorabilia is not a "freedom". eBay pulled all 9-11 related sales IIRC, so don't even go there.